I read enough zen and life management blogs to know it really should be easy - do what you love and what is important to you.
Doing it all?
But what if you're a greedy Gen Y who wants it all?
Perhaps, just perhaps, having
- a stimulating, challenging career;
- health (including a healthy weight) and fitness without gyms, sacrifice or monotony;
- quality and quantity time with food, wine and the people I love;
- a conscious, sustainable, environmentally friendly lifestyle;
- being a domestic goddess (or something remotely resembling that); and
- contributing to society in a positive way;
all at once, really is impossible?
Life balance in 140 characters or less
I asked some of my friends on twitter to tell me how they created and maintained life balance. I'd like to share some of those ideas and comments with you.
sunili, who is what you could conservatively call a crazy brilliant high-achieving Gen Y (read all about it at de minimis ago curat blog) told me:
I don't but I try...
Oddly, it is rather reassuring to see that I'm not the only one struggling with this. Personally I think she's doing a pretty good job of managing her career and living in accordance with her ideals and convictions.
photo credit: justice is blind
I also got some practical advice from frank_in_oz:
I work my butt off 10 months of the year and have 2 months off for short breaks - hiking, travel, camping. Goal - work 6 mths
Frank is the consummate active traveller and outdoor lover and has hiked in some absolutely breathtaking places, including some of my favourite parts of the world.
This is great advice if you can swing it. My heart leaps at the thought of that much travel. But. What if the 10-month work cram is just too hard, or just not possible? My husband and I are in the stage of our careers where taking this sort of time off work each year is all but impossible.
photo credit: dove lake
Balance is the level of compromise you can live with.
Sage advice from hazelblackberry who proves you can do anything after a Bex and a Good Lie Down. I really think this is key.
photo credit: fruit balance
Via a tweet from tessgiles who blogs at Anchors and Masts I discovered Magpie Girl's Do Less Campaign. Magpie Girl reminds us that sometimes, it just isn't possible to do it all and we just have to do less. The campaign officially starts tomorrow, Friday 15 May and will be a step-by-step approach to doing less and feel better.
So if you're feeling like the balance just isn't happening, you might want to head over to Magpie Girl's blog to take a look.
Alternatively you could try what has been my strategy to date - try to do everything, over-commit, collapse in a heap and then fail at everything.
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photo credit: I love chocolate pudding
I do have to admit, I'm not usually fond of microwave recipes.
The microwave bewilders me; it places a plastic barrier between the food and my senses, blocking out changing smells and textures and rendering me useless. I can only gaze at the steady spinning, whirring and hoping that the 'ding' will come at the right time.
My grandmother was always equally hopeless with the microwave. I recall her wrapping butter in aluminium foil and putting it in the microwave because someone had told her she could do that to soften it. I also recall the zapping noises and the sparks.
This recipe is however so enticingly easy and delicious that even I and my microwave manage to call the truce long enough to make this one.
I'd be surprised if you didn't have all of the ingredients in your fridge and pantry right now and you'll be delighted to know that this pudding is prepared, cooked and served in just one dish!
Photo credt: 365:339 Microwaved
You will need to consider your own microwave's power rating and adjust the time accordingly; the time is set based on the older 800 watt microwaves. It is probably wise to drop the power down to medium-high if your microwave isn't similarly ancient.
Ingredients
- 60g butter
- 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
- 220g caster sugar (about 1 cup)
- 25g cocoa (1/4 cup)
- 180ml milk (I use low-fat milk and it works fine)
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
- 35g (1/3 cup) cocoa, extra
- 2 cups boiling water
Method
Place butter in a large microwave-proof dish and heat on high for 60 seconds to melt. (Note: I still can't bring myself to do this and melt the butter in a pan on the stove then add to the dish)
Stir in sifted flour, caster sugar, and cocoa. Add the milk and vanilla and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.
Sprinkle with combined brown sugar and extra cocoa.
Carefully pour the boiling water slowly over the back of a large metal spoon and over the pudding mixture.
Cook on high for 12 minutes (Note: Eep! Try 8 minutes on medium-high in a modern microwave and see how you go) until springy-soft and just cooked in the centre.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes if you can, then serve with ice-cream or cream.
photo credit: the last bit of pudding
I promise it will be magic.
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]]>Cinnamon-Fig Jam by Eating Out Loud
Photo by Eating Out Loud
The recipe and beautiful accompanying pictures are giving me tingles. What an amazing use for figs! If you're in Australia grab them quick before they go out of season and make this divine looking jam. I'm sure this will be fabulous added to an autumn cheese platter.
Blood-Orange Yogurt Cake from Picky Cook
Photo by Picky Cook
It is no secret that I love the lightness and texture of yogurt cake and this one looks fabulous. Moist, light and an amazing colour - what more could you want? STOP PRESS: You could also want a great grapefruit version!
Especially for easter:
Iron Chef Shellie's Hot Cross Buns
A classic looking recipe, adapted from Donna Hay's but with extra fruit, just the way I like it. Shellie's photography is always gorgeous and these buns look soft and glazed-shiny.
Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Buns by Not Quite Nigella
Photo by Not Quite Nigella
Oh oh .. cimmamon, chocolate and the soft butteriness of a hot cross bun? Diet? What diet? Not Quite Nigella's take on the standard looks fabulous and I can almost taste them already.
What are you cooking this Easter? Share your recipe ideas or links in the comments below!
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]]>However, when it comes down to it - these are the best. The favourites with sauce spatters, smears of chocolate and well turned pages. These are the classics that will endure and will be passed on.
My favourite cookbooks
1. The Cook's Companion: The Complete Book of Ingredients and Recipes for the Australian Kitchen
My younger sister was horrified to see that there aren't any recipe pictures but this book focuses squarely on the basics, fundamentals and classic recipes with little time for frou frou. It is an excellent resource on almost every food one can imagine, a seasonal guide, buying guide and more all in one.
This is the one I always recommend as a starter book for those moving out of home for the first time. This is the solid foundation to build a lifetime of cooking upon.
2. David Thompson's Thai Food
Fabulous, inspiring, challenging, aromatic. David starts with the basics and hammers you with them - stressing freshness and a thorough understanding of Thai food. This is another fabulous resource book with detailed explanations of thai ingredients and methods. If you're looking for pretty cupcake pictures you won't find them here. The text and sheer volume of information is the star.
3. Gourmet Traveller magazines and website
Besides the useful news and events (even though they are solidly eastern-states focussed) they share a great collection of recipes from the very basic to the challenging.
Different to the more pedestrian and commercial offerings from some other cooking magazines, Gourmet Traveller offers an inspired menu and reviews of great places to eat out.
4. My grandmother's index card recipe collection
A family heirloom, childhood memory and guide to a dizzying array of mostly sweet treats all in one.
I've previously written about cooking and eating as a child and I can't stress enough how amazing the gift of cooking and enjoying food is. My grandmother's recipe collection includes jewelled jam drop biscuits, home-made chutneys, casseroles, puddings and more.
While these are the most used sources of recipe ideas in my house, I don't restrict myself. I also happily browse the web and my bookshelves for inspiration and recipes.
I tend to particularly seek out recipes from Claudia Roden, Georgio Locatelli, Bill Granger, Maggie Beer and the venerable Stephanie Alexander.
While I have serious respect for the work he's done to encourage kids (and adults) to eat "real food" I'm not Jamie Oliver's biggest fan and I can usually happily ignore Nigella Lawson's (particularly savoury) options.
For more great suggestions on how to build your cookbook library, you can also check out the wonderful tips from Cake and Commerce.
I'd love to hear which cookbooks are your favourites - share them in the comments below or catch me on twitter.
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photo credit: Bucket of Lemons
This cake is made from very basic fridge/pantry items so you won't be trekking all over for exotic ingredients.
It also has the advantage of being light and indulgent without being high in fat. If you make it to serve 8 people, one slice is less than 4.5g fat, which means you could safely enjoy seconds.
The taste is reminiscent of a baked cheesecake and it is very popular in our house!
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs, separated
- 100g caster sugar
- 3 TB plain flour
- 400g strained Greek yoghurt
- Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
Method
Preheat oven to 180C.
Beat egg yolks with sugar to a thick, pale cream.
Beat in flour, then yoghurt, lemon zest and juice, until thoroughly combined.
Whisk egg whites until stiff and fold into yoghurt mixture.
Pour into a round, non-stick 23cm baking tin greased with butter.
Bake 50-55 minutes until the top is brown. The cake will puff up like a souffle and then subside.
We tend to serve this with fresh berries but you could certainly eat it plain or drizzle with a little citrus/sugar syrup.
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]]>In the good old days, life was better. Men worked and women stayed home, kept the house, looked after the kids and wore frilly aprons over pretty dresses.
Everyone knew their place and life was simple and modern issues of career vs career and whose turn it is to race from work early to pick the kids up from day care were non-existent. Something like that anyway.
Oh no! Here comes feminism!
Along came feminism and we fought to get away from the sink and into the classroom and boardroom. We did such an awesome job at proving women can and should do anything (more like everything) you could say the choice has almost disappeared in the opposite direction.
If we accept the reality that for many modern relationships, two incomes are required and desired, life becomes a bit tricky. Particularly when you consider there is often little or no functional difference between partners in income and the level of commitment to career (and education).
- So who picks up the kids from day-care when you're both slaving in the office at 7pm in the pursuit for a corner office with a view?
- Who takes the bin out before going to the gym before work?
- Who washes the floor while muttering into a dictaphone on a Sunday afternoon?
The division of labour is all messed up - and with that comes serious risk of conflict of a relationship-killing kind.
People have been harping on about equality for quite a while now. If large corporates and the government can't get it right in the boardroom, what chance have we got in the home, where relationships are under even more pressure?
The Seesaw theory
Now this may well be unpopular, but my view of equality in the home does not involve an equal division of labour.
You can waste a lot of time thinking (often out loud, usually brought up at a completely unrelated moment) that cooking dinner is harder than putting the dishes away. It doesn't matter. It may well be. Arguing about equality achieves absolutely stuff all.
The reality is that in a successful partnership, sometimes one partner will do more. Sometimes the other partner does more. It balances out.
photo credit: bug138
Think of it like a seesaw, if you each push up and down, you're both on the seesaw and sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down. It takes a damn lot of effort to hold the seesaw at even height without one or both falling off.
Could it work?
The way it works in my relationship, and, I suggest might work in yours. Start by working out expectations:
- What does clean mean to each of you?
- What constitutes a weeknight dinner?
Sort out a friendly middle ground. Then each do what you're good at/don't hate too much and outsource whatever is left over.
If you approach it with an open mind it is not that hard to manage. I promise. Be flexible and pick up the slack when the other person has a crazy deadline or is sick or is just sick of it.
If you've got a good partner they'll do the same for you and keep you both on the seesaw.
For more tips for a great relationship, take a look at The Secret Ingredient for a Better Marriage at Zen Habits. It is written by Corey Allen of Simple Marriage.
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]]>The power and beauty in a healthy understanding of where food comes from and how it sustains our bodies and hearts cannot be underestimated.
My childhood memories seem to almost invariably revolve around food.
Photo credit: Delicacies by Marcus Vegas
In one of the first that comes to mind I'm lying on my belly in my grandparents' backyard, the scent of mint and lemons and grass swirling on the gentle wind.
I'm about 7, tanned brown and skinny, the sun warming my face and the grass tickles my legs.
One hand holds a book, the other is reaching for strawberries just picked from the garden, sweet, ruby red, all different shapes and textures, some firmer and some almost jammy from the sun, dribbling their juices.
Time stands still until the strawberries are gone and the spell is broken.
My grandfather has hidden some berries from my ever-reaching grasp and he sneaks them into the house with some herbs and lemons.
A row of sterilised jars, saved from peanut butter and tomato paste, are lined up on the kitchen bench. My grandmother works magic and the jars are filled with spoonfuls of deliciously lumpy, sweet yet tart, rich jam. I could eat it straight from the spoon and I do.
Photo credit: Erdbeermarmelade- Strawberry jam
Later, my grandmother and I make doughnuts, all hands in as we talk as if we are old friends with 50 years between visits, instead of grandmother and granddaughter who talk to each other every day.
There's an index card with my grandmother's handwriting, not perfectly formed slightly forced letters as in my grandfather's hand, written with a ruler underneath to keep it neat, but letters tumbling over each other in their rush to hit the page. Rough quantities and shorthand instructions. It is there in front of us but we work from memory and our senses.
The dough rests and rises, rests and rises, rests and rises.
We chat, slower now, my grandmother has tea in a pretty china cup and I have a tall glass of cadbury drinking chocolate, way too much chocolate powder for the milk, thick bumpy chocolate floats on top. My mother would be horrified to see the amount of chocolate, my grandmother doesn't agree with the instructions on the back of the box, adding more and more and when she turns I add another spoonful still. My grandfather comes in from the garden and laughs at the chocolate on the end of my nose. He gently teases my grandmother and tells her that I'm going to be spoiled rotten.
The jam is injected into the doughnuts and they land in the hot oil, sizzling and turning golden. I have to stand back for this part. My grandmother is scared I will be spattered by the oil and she is wearing a flowered apron. She scoops them out and drains the doughnuts on thick paper towel, dusts them generously in cinnamon and sugar and they're left to cool.
The air smells warm and sweet and we can barely wait. My grandfather tells us to be careful. He suggests that we wait until after dinner to eat them. My grandmother and I wait till he goes back outside and we bite into the golden fluffy softness, bubbly hot jam squirting out, running like lava down our chins. The rest are arranged with pride onto delicately patterned china and are shared, warm with the rest of the family and friends. They taste wonderful but none so perfect as the very first one, stolen and hot with anticipation.
My grandparents' backyard is not huge but the bounty that comes from it, changing with the seasons, is massive. My grandfather tends to it with pride, long ears of corn in green silk, cherry tomatoes heavy with sweetness on vines running up plastic ladders, peas that are popped into the mouth straight from their shells, purple garlic, lemons, chillis, the fragrant green of parsley, chives, mint, basil and coriander, strawberries and more besides.
I taste everything, fresh and light. I love the zing of the chilli and the sweetness of the peas. At my grandparents' house it is my job to shell the peas and they are popped straight into my mouth, they never make it into the bowl.
I'm reminded not to be greedy and to save some for everybody else.
Photo credit: stevendepolo
The peas I'm served at my friends' houses come to the plate from boxes in the freezer, via the microwave and they are hard and wrinkled and almost grey.
The flavour is muddy, I can't tell the difference between the taste of the peas and the overcooked limp broccoli that must have been picked before I was born.
I follow my friend's lead and move the vegetables around on the plate and drop peas off my fork onto the floor.
Her mother sighs and implores us to eat at least 10 peas each or there's no icecream.
I wonder how these peas relate to the ones I eat with joy.
It is now 20 years later and my husband and I fight over who gets the last spoonful of the jam my grandmother still makes with love for the whole family. It is spread thickly on the bread we make at home and split to share with my grandparents.
My grandfather has Alzheimer's disease now and time is slipping away, but he never forgets to give me little red netted bags of fragrant fresh purple garlic and handfuls of tomatoes from the garden.
The memories and lessons I learned in my grandmother's kitchen will stay with me for ever. We use our sense of smell and touch and taste to cook and tell when something is done. Our hands are soiled with flour or cocoa or egg wash and the timer has no place here. I learn how the texture changes as food cooks and how a change in the food's fragrance will signal that it is ready. I learn how to cook and eat with my heart and all of my senses, not for sustenance alone but for pleasure.
To my grandparents I owe everything - my love of food and pleasure and the extra few kilos on my hips. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and the pit of my stomach.
my grandmother and I, 1981
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]]>The book is a monument to truly awful eating.
This particular recipe was supplied by George Bush (snr).
Mexican Mound
Ingredients:
2 lbs ground hamburger meat
Lawry's taco seasonings mix
1 pkg Doritos
1 cup grated yellow cheese
1 or 2 small chopped onions
10 chopped black olives (ed: 11 is obviously way too many)
1 chopped tomato
1 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded lettuce
1 can frozen avocado dip (ed: this should be illegal)
Method:
Easy to make, loved by all who love Mexican food. Ingredients easy to keep in the house. Children or guests can all help with chopping or grating. It's fun!! Follow instructions on taco seasonings mix for browning meat. I serve this meal in my kitchen, a big pot of meat simmering on the stove. A wooden salad bowl of Doritos and 7 bowls of the remaining ingredients around the table. Start with a mound of Doritos, a spoon of piping hot meat, cheese etc. Makes 8 servings.
Mmm yummy, Bush brain food.
This one came from Mrs Alan Simpson.
Party Vegetable Casserole
Ingredients:
2 pkgs frozen peas
2 pkgs frozen lima beans
2 pkgs frozen Fresh green beans
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (use Kraft in can) ed: or you could use some dried skin shavings instead
Method:
Parboil vegetables until tender. Layer in buttered casserole dish. Whip cream, add mayonnaise and parmesan cheese. Pour over vegetables. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 325F. Makes 12 servings. Can be prepared ahead and refrigerated.
Enjoy!
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