The Festival - or Folly - of Fancy Mashed Potatoes...

 Or mere tales of squishy potato bake?

Hot Lactose-free Vichyssoise, even?

(Apologies - i fought the technology but the technology won in the below order of photos - imagine them in reverse.)

For visual description in the right order- 

• a very wet end to a very wet week;
• wet-weather organ-warming soul-massaging goodness-in-a-bowl;
• Super-Crunchy Garlic-Flavoured SourDough Croutons from the air fryer: 
• a piece I call "still-life with wine receptacle, fresh ginger and a grey tin of McKenzies coarse-ground black-pepper"; and 
• a white bowl with an artsy-fartsy arrangement of croutons, black pepper and greenish yellow potato-and-leek soup.

***

****

Not deconstructed-reconstructed extrusions in a tin that tastes like someone lied to make money, but good-to-honest from scratch.

Well, I didn't grow the potatoes or get the recipe from a bookseller. But as close to the shore of nature as a modern day working woman intending to solve hunger sails.

I went to the supermarket. A leek I did buy. Also some chips to go with my Friday night glass of wine.

I found a guide to follow for the something whipped up on a very wet end to a very wet week. *

With super-crunchy garlic-flavoured sourdough croutons from the air fryer.

It hit the spot on this child free evening.

Practical wet-weather organ-warming soul-massaging goodness-in-a-bowl. What is not to love?

So - tell me yours.

-----

* If you haven't discovered RecipeTinEats yet, to paraphrase an Aussie icon, do yourself a favour!

No paid content here - just very yummy.

Also I made this one lactose-free by omitting the cream altogether- already rich enough.  Whilst part of me remembers the CONCEPT of cream was curious-ly appealing, too much of my muscle memory is tied up in post warmed lactose hell.

Don't even MENTION melted cheese!

** How did I go? Placeholder for Words for Wednesday by way of River.

1.bookseller 2. solve 3. shore 4. lied 5. buy  

and: 

1. folly 2. tales 3. love 4. curious 5. practical

*** I should point out that the ginger was just for effect.  (I can be a bit pretentious that way) 

**** oh, and the licorice? My kryptonite.

From a creature of habit

 One thing that I have discovered about myself (whenever I find it an interesting enough subject to contemplate) is that I do have a bit of a tendency to form patterns.

Some I have no control over - like the full time rhythms of the work that I do, and the cyclical nature of its demands. The moon and planet alignments *. Or the ordained dates of children's schooling.

Some I am growing into. ** 

And some just happen because.

For example, the Mexican Tuesday that is a ritual in our household was the solution to the need to be fed quickly and easily in order to get to Guides when 'Salina was quite young and we were newly moved to Paradise.

Guides was a short-lived experiment thet neither she nor I derived any joy from, unfortunately - but it did give us reward in food form.

Here we are about 17 years later and still Tuesday night is reserved for our version of Mexican.

It's Sunday tonight.

And it is all out of whack - because

I accidentally thawed mince yesterday thinking it was cubed something for my Saturday curry 

So instead we had Friday Fish and Chips 

as the night before I had poetry ***

As a result I had thawed mince to cook and Tuesday is too far away. I certainly don't want it to age in the fridge (Paris is studying Food and Technology as an elective this year. She keeps threatening my fridge) (which I would be a hypocrite to resist!)

So today I 

• Made sourdough focaccia,
• Went to Qi Flow * (who knows, every new ritual has to have a first time)
• Had my monthly book club meeting,
• And came home to make 3 curries, a taco brew and rice.

Interspersed with that was several loads of washing, building another branch in the family tree, read blogs, edited swathes of waffle ** and blogged.

* I learned this morning that today is a very auspicious day because some planet moving into another astrological zone - I remember the star sign but I don't remember the planet. Which is weird as there are more astrological signs than there are planets in the solar system. Aries.

** Yea it's true. This is the pared down version.

*** The teacher from - * - who was NOT the one who gave the astrological news - was at poetry on Friday and she did an absolutely amazing poem. I did an edited version of the post I did here a few nights ago. I also did a very old poem from my Melbourne days  called "Out of the Woodwork".

As I said in my intro Friday night, from a life before I had children.

Tonight I remembered that Tuesday night was an awesome open mike in Carleton back then!

And a bit about him- part 2

(part 1 yesterday)

When we were kids, we knew that we were a family unlike any other we knew.

Our Mum had a super power and our Dad was the smartest bloke in the world to have pursued her.

The three of us were indeed blessed. There were many mantras we lived by.

• Always hop back on your horse.
• A cold wash cures nearly everything, and is a requirement every morning.
• Shoulders back, chin up, look your own height in front of you.
• Get your hair out of your eyes.
• Don't let them know that you're scared.
• Take a deep breath.
• Nil desperandum carborundum illegitimos.
• If you don't throw the first, make the second count. (Actually, that one might have been from a movie)
• Don't rely on others unless you're in a team.
• To be deemed "good in a team" was highest praise indeed.
• Make sure you have something to fall back on.

We knew how lucky we were to have the parents and life we had.

Dad was enthusiastic about everything, a driven polocrosse number 3 and then a campdrafter of note. Nothing was done at half-pace and 98% of the world's problems can be fixed with a bulldozer. 

The other 2% sometimes kick back. 

We always used to say Dad wasn't accident prone, he just launched himself into accident zones more regularly and with more gusto than most.

Having such a gung ho Dad had its moments of exhilaration, the occasional terror (learning to drive on paddock tracks with him telling you to "use reduction" as you imagine plummeting sideways into a gully sometimes recurs in dreams) and large dose of the sheer frustration of knowing that he wouldn't give up until he got you to do what he wanted. And then get you to agree it was the right thing to do and and to thank him.

Mum was his perfect foil. She was one of the few rare people that had a handle on Bruiser. It was a constant challenge, but while she was generally acquiescent, she shaped his force to her plans and when required, showed an obstinance that he was forced to respect.

This was the forge that we were raised in.

And people wonder why I don't actually know what to do on holidays!

(You never know, it might get continued)

The Mum Files - Part 1

I recall watching the early tides of our mother.

She was not a natural housewife when she married Dad. It was frankly like she had entered a different culture...

His line was of strong widows and strong wives and strong mothers holding together tradition and agricultural labourer bloodlines of deep maroon.

Whereas hers was of half-trained mothers trying to grasp the wind and harness music and woodwork, and of aunts who sang hymns and spun nieces and grand-nieces and great-great-nieces as legacy lace.

Mum built her own little family, holding together her facade whilst dusting off her career threads to become a wife and mother.

It was what every woman was meant to be trained to do, but she waa trained in the college of The Aunts,  where the motto was "Never Rely on a Man. Always Have a Career to fall back on."

Only now doing the family tree do I realise that those words were their mother's regards a father (known more for roaring at the family than for doting and delighting in them)'s abandonment of her and four teenage children; for her earlier abandonment through widowhood when pregnant with an older aunt; for war's abandonment of a great-granddaughter and the farewell gift from a soldier; for the parcels passed to another great-granddaughter; for the unforseen future; and for me.

Dad's Mum showed her the office system in use. There was the clip and - there was the spike.

Mum's career was as a locum Chemist. Throughout the state she would travel and relieve rural chemists and allow them not just the luxury of a holiday, but the delightful service of a job well done, a shop tidied and cleaned and organised with a completed stocktake and accounts all up to date. She was booked years in advance.

I don't really wonder at any diagnoses of new-fangled alphabets  in any related to me.  These people were my example.

Mum converted the clip and spike into triple-journals and general ledgers. She calculated interest rates and diversified investment and streamlined the payments process.

She couldn't cook a thing. Her mother-in-law was a third-generation CWA devotee steeped in full Queensland History of Hospitality. Grandma could cook a roast with the best gravy, her scones were singular and her lemon butter spoken about in show pavilions, 

Dad was one of the originating Brangus studs in Australia. He was very enthusiastic about the potential.

Mum became a studmaster, training herself on husbandry and genetics and the science of fertility and artificial fertility temp-testing techniques and traits and handling and developing systems to best keep these records.

She became adept at marketing and networking and held committee roles with industry and women's groups and early internet exchanges.

So sometimes her house wasn't perfectly tidy and the benches were never quite clear.

It was her humanity showing.

(To Be Continued...)

(Maybe)

Wednesdays Words on Friday (oops - Saturday)

 I am not sure of the rules really, so please put me to rights if I am doing this wrong.

This is for Wednesday's word - I did write it yesterday but held off on posting.

 Here is River's post

 Without further ado:

I junked my first stab - oh my, nobody needs that.  The second attempt is not much more joyous, I am afraid.  Must work on that - perhaps better at night than a morning after lack of sleep.

Let me instead poeticise this prompt:

I was invited to wonder, wander in

And delight myself with words.

I instead plodded, my pessimistic soul not encouraging the curious

The delights of gallivanting.

Instead, it enfolded me in greens dulled by forest shadow 

Phrases shrouded to disappoint.

My unburdened self lies beyond some old gate

I am sure it hides there with the reminders of bacon

Yes, bad for you in so many ways, 

But the delight and crisp wafting through my could have beens.