Sarah Wilson

some Christmas food gifts (and how to pickle daikon)

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I’ve been cooking a little lately. Experimenting. And I’ve found a few things that I reckon will make very nice Christmas gifts. I’ve got some friends coming around over the weekend to whip up some of the below to hand to Good People Who’ve Done Good Things By Me in 2011. And boy have there have been a few. Got some ideas yourself…share below!

05recipehealth articleLarge some Christmas food gifts (and how to pickle daikon)
photo via Andrew Scrivani

I love this idea, which I’m modifying from Martha Rose Shulman.

 marinated goat cheese

For a 1-cup jar:

  • 1 teaspoon mixed red, black and white peppercorns, lightly crushed
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled
  • 2 bay leaves, broken into pieces
  • A 3 ounce log of goat cheese (I buy mine from the local markets here. Martha used a round log, but you could do squares from a block…I did)
  • 2 sprigs thyme
  • 2 sprigs rosemary
  • Extra virgin olive oil as needed

Whack peppercorns, garlic cloves and bay leaves in a clean, sterilized wide-mouthed jar. Pour in a film of olive oil.

Cut the goat cheese into rounds 1/2 inch thick (Martha uses unflavored dental floss to cut through the cheese!! Clever!!). Place one round in the jar and drizzle on some olive oil. Stack the remaining rounds, drizzling oil

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my Sunday Life column comes to an end…to make way for…

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…Well, a few things.

Straight up, I’ll be filing my final Sunday Life column this week.

Almost 130 experiments in how to make life better…you’d hope I’d have found an answer, hey?? I kinda have, but that’s for another time.

A publisher once said to me, “Never do a column for more than two years. The first year you find your feet, the second you find your voice and after that you repeat what you said in the first two years.” I tend to agree.

And as many of you who read this blog know, I’m not one to hang on to things. I like to move where my voice keeps fresh.

elizaveta porodina photos my Sunday Life column comes to an end...to make way for...
Photo by Elizaveta Porodina

So, from the New Year, I’ll be working on a bunch of new projects (TV and print), as well as ebooks.

Yes, ebooks.

I’ve been really rather thrilled with how rewarding ebook publishing is.

[For those new here, my ebook I Quit Sugar ebook went on sale about 8 weeks ago and has been hitting good spots around traps.]

Ebooks are a direct conversation. They help directly. They share authentically. They deliver what I want to share straight to where I want to connect.

Ebooks are new – according to Darren at Problogger, who is something of an international expert in this kind of thing, there are only about 20 or so bloggers making a living from ebooks here. So no one really knows where it will wind up. I’m the first “traditional” journalist to enter into it…I’ve been told.

Some general thoughts:

Media – and life in general – is moving faster than ever. Everything is speeding up. Flux is our permanent state now. I find this exciting.

They call my generation the bridging generation. We Gen Xers…we’ve had to bend and straddle and dance back and forth as we adjust from the ways of yore to, well, this new multifaceted, layered, messy, instant, constant, technology-based way.

I hand wrote my law essays at uni, but was the Tech Head in my office when the internet arrived while I was doing my newspaper cadetship at News Ltd.

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why the paleo diet works

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This week in Sunday Life I eat like a caveman

glycemic pasta woman why the paleo diet works

Of all the self-imposed guinea pig antics I’ve subjected myself to for this column, this week’s might be regarded as my bravest. For it entailed eating, oh-glory-be-yes, fat.

In a fat-fearful world, my no holds barred consumption of chicken skin, the crackling and the 3cm of subcutaneous tissue on my pork belly, several teaspoons of butter on my veggies, whole cups of full cream milk, chunks of ghee and avocado each day has freaked the innards out of most in my culinary orbit. And yet (boldly! fearlessly!) I’ve persevered with this particular experiment for three whole months.

Turn to the person to your left, and the one to your right. I’m betting one of you is making friends with your egg yolks right now, having picked up on what’s been dubbed the “paleo” or “caveman” diet. Images of loin clothes and bone gnawing aside, the diet boils down to something pretty innocuous: not eating anything fiddled with.

So, no grains, no additives, no sugar, no grain-fed meat, no mucked-around-with fat-reduced dairy.

And instead the unadulterated foods of our ice-age forebears. The subsequent claim is that doing so makes us healthier, thinner and live longer, a claim I had to test for myself.

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friday giveaway: a papillionaire bike worth $700

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Another generous Friday giveaway…and what a cracker it is this week. Yes, we’re giving away a Papillionaire old-school treadlie. Just in time for summer!   Not only is she very pretty, this Papillionaire bike is: a fully customised Sommer bicycle valued at almost $700  powered with a 3- speed internal hub (yes, gears!) an upgraded … Read more

a christmas gift guide #2 (plus some super reader offers)

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Since last week’s guide went down like brandy with Grandma after Christmas lunch, I thought I’d do another.

photo1 a christmas gift guide #2 (plus some super reader offers)
photo via Shannon Martin

Again, not a definitive list. Just some stuff I thought you’d like and that supports supporters of this blog and/or have a snappy, ethical slant. Enjoy!

merfins by Oceanika

MG 7456 a christmas gift guide #2 (plus some super reader offers)

For your mer-obsessed daughter, from $115. Kazzie’s a Byron chick who dreamt up this idea – eco mermaid fins for kids – a number of years ago. They’re made from recycled rubber, in a factory that uses environmentally sensitive practises and machines. I’ve seen kids swim in these things – they actually swim like dolphins. Check it out in this YouTube clip

The MerFin Package, which includes MerFins, swim tights and bikini, is priced from $174.00, or the MerFin alone starting from $115.00. Get em here.

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the art of actively doing less (+ a Women’s Weekly shoot)

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Shall I share some sweet irony with you? Or perhaps you’ll call it muddled, unfocused hypocrisy? Recently I flew to Sydney to appear in this Australian Women’s Weekly Christmas shoot below. Myself and a bunch of other (too?) oft-photographed ladies were asked “what’s the perfect gift that money can’t buy”. I said: “rest”.

ww1112 ww1211p058 the art of actively doing less (+ a Women's Weekly shoot)As usual, the trip was frenetic and involved air-conditioned hotel rooms and flights and running late and chemical-ly makeup (although the team decided to go with a “natural look” for me, which is always a bit of a narcissistic conundrum when you’re the oldest and biggest on the shoot!). By the time I got to the studios I was, well, very unrested. And unanchored.

That night I lay awake in my hotel room unable to sleep. I hadn’t slept for weeks (months?). And in that moment I realised I had to put my book project on hold, which I shared with you here.

I needed rest. I had to really commit to getting it. I had to get real.

Irony…hypocrisy…whatever…truth comes and finds you.

Since all this I’ve had to have a good think about rest.

Resting is not just putting our feet up on the couch when we collapse in a heap, exhausted. Resting is a responsible way of living.

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wheat free! sugar free! Take-to-Christmas treats

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A few months back I connected with Lee Holmes who told me she was writing a cookbook. She asked if I’d “endorse it”. For some niggly, gut-based reason I had a very sound feeling about what she was doing…Lee has an autoimmune disease and has healed herself through diet. She sent me some recipes from her book…and I thought, This Is The Book We All Need.

p.161 butternut cookies wheat free! sugar free! Take-to-Christmas treats

Cut to today. Supercharged Food – 90 recipes that don’t contain gluten, wheat, sugar, yeast or dairy – is out now. It’s rare that I’d want to cook every recipe in a book (I’ve already played with several, including lavender tea with almond milk!!), so choosing a few to share with you here was an indecisive’s conundrum. But I thought it might be nice to share two that are perfectly geared for toting on the annual schlepp to the stodge-fest that is family Christmas…so you don’t have to be tempted by bloody mince pies.

butternut cookies

  • 150g coconut flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons stevia powder, plus extra to dust
  • a pinch of sea salt
  • 200g cashew butter
  • 4 organic eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil
  • 2 tablespoons coconut milk (try Lee’s homemade version, recipe in her book)

Preheat the oven to 175 C and grease a baking tray.

In a bowl, mix together the coconut flour, baking powder, stevia and salt.

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a *very* cute bike fashion find

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To be honest, being safe on a bike is mostly about being visible. I ride to be seen. Which is to say, I ride obviously. I ride so cars know I’m there. I take off at traffic lights from up front, I ride on the road (not on footpaths where reversing cars can’t see me) and I ride brightly. And so it is that I just love this little creation from Melbourne label Culture Cycle:

Crocheted. Glow-in-the-dark. Bike fashion.

CultureCycleweb a *very* cute bike fashion find

Culture Cycle is a seriously kooky range of handmade crocheted bits and pieces, intertwined with reflective yarns that light up at night.

Cool, light and safe.

Angelina is the chick behind the brand and is a keen rider who runs cycle tours in Sydney and Melbourne where, at the end, you sit down and…very cute…crochet. Crochet and cycling and coffee. Seriously.

She tells me she uses yarns that she sews into her products, for high visibility day and night.  One is as thin as the cotton that you use in a sewing machine and its made from glass beads. It’s highly reflective and when it’s crocheted into products it’s difficult to see in daylight.  The other is a double sided flat ribbon which is equally as reflective and is quite visible in daylight so it offers great opportunities to make textured products.

I have a set of lime green cuffs and this wrap vest (below), which is fine enough to scrunch up in my bag, pretty enough to wear over my t-back singlet or a dress and versatile enough to wear as a scarf, a vest or a wrap.

sleeveless reflective vest back 4 a *very* cute bike fashion find

But check out these wrist cuffs

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my interview with Nicholas Sparks on what makes love work

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This week in Sunday Life I discuss The Notebook

2004 the notebook 003 my interview with Nicholas Sparks on what makes love work

If you ever find yourself in the laundry at a party skewered against the tub of stubbies by some eye-glazing, go-nowhere conversation, try this tactic. Ask everyone’s thoughts on The Notebook. In my experience everyone has a take on this 1996 novel, turned into a film in 2006. And it’s always pleasantly diverting.

I mean, most of us admit to only having half-watched the movie, and only to witness Ryan Gosling work his magic. Right? Blokes will say their wife made them do it. But in the next breath they’ll confess it made them cry. I know an ex-world number one light heavyweight boxer who’s watched it 14 times and a burly fireman who’s seen it nine. Both cried every time. Which is a phenomenon in itself.

But what I find interesting when I spike party small talk with such a conver-bomb is that invariably women say they love the film because the female protagonist Allie – who’s faced with choosing between first love Noah and her posh, sweater-n-chinos fiancé – eventually goes with her heart. Chicks love this.

Blokes, however, say they get all prickly-eyed because the dude who sticks to his belief that he’d found his girl (and built a house in readiness for her return) wins the day. The nobleness entailed in this and the fact he stands by Allie through all kinds of calamities hits a waterworks nerve for men. Chicks also love this.

Choosing to go with your heart, and determined, stoic nobleness – it’s fundamental Venus vs Mars stuff. But at the core of both takes is the same principle, I think. A “good” decision was made. And committed to. Simple! Phew!

Since seeing the film myself, I’ve always wanted to know author Nicholas Sparks’ take on love. Is he a romantic? A cynic? This week I got my opportunity during his visit promoting his seventeenth novel The Best of Me.

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