Veronika Wild

Let them eat thistles. Speaking of Food, my undercover spy in Canberra tells me that weeds and wild greens are all the rage there in upmarket restaurants now. This is terrible news. Soon I won’t be able to find a dandelion or a bit of sheep’s sorrel to graze upon.  What we need is for restaurateurs to offer elegant dishes with things like Cape Weed, Marrum Grass and Ragwort. Thistles wouldn’t be a bad place to start. They are related to globe artichokes and the Scots used to use them on bread.  I have quite a bit of Oxalis I’d like to get rid of too- it even grows on pure gravel, and it has quite a nice tart flavour. The art of a true chef lies in making the unappetising palatable. Otherwise France would be overrun with snails and sparrows. No one would eat oysters, much less mountain oysters and hats off to whoever thought of marketing things like Chocolate coated ants, locusts and Bogong Moths as delicacies. Not only are these abundant – enough for all and t...

Apple and Cream Croissantes* It's Sunday morning. I have just had apple and cream croissantes for breakfast. Not that I planned on it. I just forgot to buy bread yesterday. It rained all day and I was too busy reading my book. Either way they were delicious. My sons have often asked me how it is that I can just invent recipes.  There are two ways really. This just illustrates the first. There were two lonely croissantes left in the freezer from when my son was here and I already had the stewed apple and the cream. I am convinced that my great reputation in the Food Lovers' Guide rested not so much on my ability cook - I just get bewildered when I have an unlimited range of ingredients, but upon my ability to produce something edible out of whatever is left around the house. This was an indispensible skill in a place where the bus only came two days a week, the roads were often closed by snow and you never knew whether there was going to be a stampede of Morris Minor Owne...

Gentle Charm -Nigel and Seb (Sorry it has taken so long to add this!) Anonymous, Lower Sandy Bay Do people really look like their dogs? I have been testing this theory between master/mistress and four footed companion animal for some time and there do seem to be some similarities. The question is who takes after whom? Do people with a certain style choose a dog which resembles them in some way? Or is it the other way around? What do you think? When I say look like, I don't necessarily mean appearance, though that is sometimes true too and certainly, neurotic people seem have frantic neurotic dogs and placid people have placid dogs, but more often I am talking about a symbiotic relationship where there are similar mannerisms, character traits or body language -a set of the head or the way they walk. Stan with Skinny and Sooty at Boomer Bay Stan's dogs are neat, busy and curious and I imagine he might be too. He did come and ask me what I was doing...

While many Australians are gearing up for the Melbourne Cup,* the horse race that makes the nation stand still and the dreariest workplace run a sweep, I’ m gearing up for World Kindness Week which runs from November 7 th to November 13th this year culminating with  World Kindness Day on November 13. th   *  How dare they call racing a sport and spend so much of our taxes on it, while closing hospital beds! The idea is to do unexpected things for strangers - nice things. Things like paying for someone’s coffee in a café or someone’s groceries at the supermarket, putting money in someone’s parking meter before it runs out or mowing someone else’s lawn. Some of the more original ideas are to make up packs of toiletries for the homeless or driving an elderly person to the shops. They don’t always have to cost money. Just reading to someone or helping out at an animal shelter will also make the world a nicer place. For lots of ideas check out http://www.rando...

Seen near the paper mill on the Derwent This remnant of Eucalyptus Regnans weighs 30 tonnes.   The Bluegum or Swamp Gum which also grows in Victoria, is the world's tallest flowering plant and the second tallest tree in the world. (The Coastal Redwood is the tallest, but some Tasmanians dispute this). Centurion , recently found near the Airwalk in Geeveston clocks in at 99.6 metres and 4.5 metres in diameter and is still alive. The sign on this log says that when this tree was a sapling, Elizabeth I was still on the throne and Tasmania had not yet been 'discovered.' I was pleased to see this small shoot. Nature fights back. Unfortunately, unlike other native plants and especially most other eucalypts, they do not regenerate well after a fire. What fire does do is cause much seed to set, admit more light, and provide soil nutrients. This little shoot has probably grown from a seed dropped by a bird, but it was nice to see anyway. While some of the known trees...

Mystery Cave shall have to remain a bit of a Mystery *Not sure if that refers to the sound your hard hat makes when your head hits an overhang or the sound you make when you fall in the water.  Spelunking is about exploring caves. While Tasmania has many beautiful public caves which you can visit in perfect safety, we have gone to a wild cave in the World Heritage Area just south of Ida Bay. Mystery Cave as it is called, will have to stay a bit of a mystery because my flash didn’t work inside the cave and the cave creatures that live in it  don’t like too much light and noise. It was rather exciting in that way where you are really nervous the whole time and quite relieved when it’s over, but afterwards it feels as if you have had a fantastic adventure. It does really make the adrenalin flow. People have perished on this trip too–  most recently a party of  High School girls and their teacher when the waters rose unexpectedly, so it’s another one of th...

More retail therapy. I know it's buy nothing new month, but that's my usual mode and as several of my offspring are having birthdays (funny about that - must be something to do with the onset of the cooler weather), I have been looking for small affordable things to surprise and delight. This place is a franchise of a UK company, however, all its products are handmade here and do not involve cruelty to animals. The smell in this shop is simply divine and the products aren't bad either, having been given some last Christmas and trying lots of free samples in the shop today. Being a word packrat as friend Wynn (see his lovely fractals http://www.fractalschlaraffenland.net/ ) describes himself, I was very taken with some of the names : Catastrophe Cosmetic, Breath of God, Mask of Magnaminty, The Smell of Freedom, The Sacred Truth, Cosmetic Warrior, Dragon's Egg, Snake Oil - to mention but a few.Then there are all those that sound delicious. Love the names! Go...

There's snow on the mountain again. While my friends in northern climes have been sweltering, we have had one of the longest, coldest winters on record. The wild weather has played havoc with my 'garden.' The lettuces and most of the strawberries have expired, the avocado looks like it's trying to climb inside and the only thing that's really flowering are the Chinese greens, which aren't supposed to. I did have a win with the crocuses, three purple and three white, until the wind blew them away. croaked crocuses RIP lettuces and strawberries  This weather does seem to be good for other people's gardens. The scent is heavenly!   Meanwhile I found some lovely flowers in the market when I should have been buying vegetables. There was hardly anyone about and it seemed such a shame to leave them there with no one to admire them. It was a hard choice too - there were three deep magneta lilies, bright iceland poppies, fragrant freezias and e...

I was supposed to meet a friend at the market today but it was raining and hailing so I tried to phone to call it off. No answer. No signal. The wind turned my umbrella inside out as I trudged down anyway thinking they would be really cranky if they had gone out in this weather and I didn't show up. After being rained on at the fountain for a while, I suddenly got a text message on my phone. "Not coming, too wet." The rain eased up a bit after that, so I took a few photos in St. David's Park where the rhododrendrons were blooming their little hearts out. I probably wouldn't have seen them if I hadn't gone out. Their season is very short. St. David's Park was built on one of Hobart's first cemetries. Obviously excellent compost there and an excellent use for old cemeteries. In the background on the left though, you can see some of the tombstones that used to be on this site. They tell many interesting stories.