cruisin' the hood

First of all I hope everyone had a happy Christmas. I know we certainly did, I do love the whole Christmas palaver (and yes I have been reading Jamie Oliver cookbooks today). What other day can you eat Wagyu beef and Parma ham for brunch and pop French Champagne at 11.30am? Oh it was a lot of fun. We all did well in the gift department as well, Pia has a whole new wardrobe thanks to Fiona Scanlan and Luca has the cutest new bike in the world (too bad his feet dont even touch the ground). We have a new webcam and now we just need to find some friends to talk to!

Moving on to pressing issues, our trip to Eumundi on Wednesday looks like coinciding with a friggin CYCLONE. Can you believe it?

And thank you to everyone who recommended I buy a bias binding folding thing. I was able to make this dress in half the time. From now on all patterns must have bias binding or quite frankly I'm not interested!!

Happy New Year everyone! May 2008 be full of love and happiness for you.

X Jo

I cannot believe it has come around so quickly but Pia had her last day of kinder today. She's been going to the most amazing community run kinder and I am so sad that she has to move on. But excited for the move to school as well. I will miss her teachers so much. They had so many little rituals with the kids like in winter they would make hot chocolate early in the morning and then sit around the open fireplace.

School will be so different. I cant wait for her to learn to write. At the moment I have to call out the letters to every word of her story which can be quite tedious. Tonight she has written about 'Charlie and Danny Gumboil (?????!!!)'. The story began ... Charlie has been smoking in the bicycle shed...' Oh my gosh - Pia I cannot partake in this story. Why is my child obsessed with people who smoke?

Last Friday was the kids trapeze concert which was gorgeous. Here is Pia doing her thing.



This kinder was in our old neighborhood which is round the corner from my work so it was convenient to keep sending Pia there (even though we’ve moved 10kms south). The downside to this is that she only knows one person going to her school next year. And man has she given me a hard time about it. I think she'll get over it as soon as school starts, but right now she is making me feel so guilty.
So anyway kinder is over and I have to entertain Pia for the next 6 weeks AARRGGGHHH!!!! Here is our first activity….stitching. Check out the look of concentration.






I must go and hear more about the adventures of Charlie and Danny Gumboil.

apron dress

I finally found some motivation to start sewing again, and I don’t know why I didn’t do it months ago. It is such a great feeling making something beautiful from scratch. Pia picked out the fabric for this dress. I thought it might be a bit full on but it worked. I have another project in the pipeline that involves the most beautiful chocolate brown linen – I can’t wait to start on that one. It wasn’t all smooth sailing however, I nearly lost my mind making the binding last night as it was so fiddly. I almost threw the iron at Heidi Klum and Seal on the TV. I think I will just buy some binding next time, or buy one of those little devices that folds it for you.

the perfect summer salad

This salad is so good I just have to share the recipe with you. It is the perfect dish for summer and is great to take to bbq's. It is really simple to prepare also.

So you need:
kipfler potatoes
smoked trout (whole)
avocado
rocket
mayonaisse (a good brand like thomy)
spring onions
cashews (unsalted)
EV olive oil
balsamic

Boil the kipflers with their skin on until they're tender. Remove the bones and skin from the trout and break it up into pieces. Cut the avocado into little chunks and mix with cooked potatoes, mayo, cashews, salt and pepper. Make sure its not too wet with mayo but not too dry – no what I mean? Spread this onto a platter and drizzle with olive oil then place trout on top. Dress some rocket leaves with balsamic and tiny bit of olive oil and place on top of trout. Garnish with some diced spring onions.

You will love this – I promise!