30.8°C

We hosted our first BBQ of the summer this weekend. BEST. I love my backyard!

a minor place

Walking from my gaff to the little cafe just down the road (for coffee and french toast w/ rhubarb & pistachio mascarpone om nom nom nom!) and then back again. All "ugly" 1970's brick houses besides victorian terraces besides big old wooden things. Thats why I like it here. Oh, and for all the fruit trees in yards waiting around for me to come and (sneakily) harvest!

Melbournians, did you know you can find (and help others find) nearby fruit trees by using this map? Or this one?

Everyone else- I bet a similar thing exists for your city too (and if not you should start one)!

when in rome

  

I met up with my homies Kelly & Ian while in Rome. It was hot, things were excellent - we got our tourist on, ate some delicious food, made endless bad jokes, stayed in a nice apartment and drank copious amounts of cheap wine (a bottle of red with breakfast? dont mind if I do!). 

We also spent crazy amounts of time obsessing over the tobacco gelato David Lebovitz had written about a few weeks earlier. We finally made it out to the store on our last day only to find that the freezer containing that flavour had conked out earlier in the day. No tobacco gelato for us, so sad! 

the peel sessions

I am sure to rant at some later stage about the sorrowful state of dutch eats but for now I'll just say this: I MISS HAVING AN OVEN. With this in mind allow me to present to you... The life cycle of an Orange.

Now for my highly technical chocolate dipped orange peel 'recipe':

Wash and slice up some orange/s (but make sure its organic -even if you wouldn't normally buy organic - because youre eating the peel, duh). Get rid of the flesh (my years of rigorous testing have found this be a fairly effective method) and off as much of the pith as possible. Slice up the peel then boil in water for a few minutes. Change the water, boil again quickly, then drain (this removes bitterness). Again, in the pot, cover with equal parts sugar and water. Stir over low heat to combine then cover and let simmer for about 45 minutes. Drain and dry - I did this on low heat in the cursed "grill-oven" with the door open (as you can see, the back ones got a bit crispy, SO GOOD), but if you have any patience (I don't) you could also leave them out to dry on a cooling rack for a few hours. Then, melt some chocolate (I used a little block of dark green and blacks but you cold use milk chocolate too), dip the peels half in the chocolate, then lay them out on some wax or baking paper to set. Then, eat 'em! Yum.

Oh, and the sugary syrup smelt delicious & orangey so I added a few knobs of butter, some more orange zest then boiled the shit out of that sucker to make some toffee. School fete as...! (& hows that all for food waste reduction!? ) Next time I want to try this with whole candied slices or maybe that chocolate covered bacon I keep reading about everywhere. Only half joking.