To Market - with Florist Michelle Collison of Shady Fig

It’s a new year. New days, new goals, new hopes. One new year hope is to spend more time surrounded by flowers. Perhaps this has something to do with the current balmy season and all things beautiful seeming to be in bloom, or because I am tired, for now, of photographing food (a passing phase I’m sure). Or maybe it’s because flowers in all their glorious, perfect, natural beauty simply make me happy. I appreciate them.
I did sit on the fence for quite some time just a few years back deciding if I wanted to choose floristry or photography as my next profession. I don’t regret my choice. But I am wondering if I should pull a slasher and do both... Honestly? I am obsessed with flowers. Learning names and seasons, foraging natives, gardening and floristry. I simply can’t get enough.

As far as the art of floristry goes, I have always had such continued adoration for Berry’s local florist, Michelle Collison of Shady Fig. Her work is undeniably beautiful. Michelle’s arrangements and instillations go beyond the predictable, always bursting with a certain unique and verdant flair. The type of arrangement you can’t just walk by. The type of arrangement you dream of being delivered to your front door every other week. Visiting/browsing through/smelling her Berry or Nowra stores is a weekly must for me (if you’re in town, do go!). You can tell every flower and ware is handpicked and radiates Michelle’s unmistakable talent and style – always impressive and ambrosial.

Equally impressive is Michelle’s weekly work schedule and dedication to her craft. Twice a week on Monday’s and Friday’s, Michelle wakes at 2.00am and makes the two hour long journey from her home on the South Coast, NSW to the Sydney Flower Markets in Flemington. There she personally selects flowers and plants to bring back with her to her two Shady Fig stores, where she will continue to work all day until 5pm to then go home in the evening to her young family. Clearly her market runs are an important part of the floristry process for Michelle, something she still finds joy and purpose in. She must. Crazy early mornings and 15 hour days twice a week aren’t for everyone.
 

I recently had the opportunity to join Michelle on a Monday morning market run. I can’t tell you how excited I was when Michelle agreed to let me follow along -- you simply wouldn’t believe me. Getting up at 2.00am, falling in complete love with the early morning bustle, scent and sight of everything at the market, watching Michelle as she hand picked bunches and chatted like old friends with the store holders, meeting Michelle’s good friend and fellow florist Saskia Havekes of the famed Grandiflora and joining in on the market morning ritual breakfast omelet before making it back home, half asleep but still buzzing with market adrenaline by 9.30am – I now understand completely why Michelle does it. Utter rapture. It was the most wondrous morning and such an honor and treat to join in on and to photograph.

Michelle, thank you for allowing me to grasp a glimpse into the pre-dawn magic of your floristry world. My obsession was nothing but fed and I adore even more now all that you do. This New Year, if I am able to not only spend more time surrounded by flowers but also emulate but a small amount of your inspired work ethic and style, then I can only imagine 2016 to be a very productive, heady and bountiful year. Here’s to that.

December Wild Flowers

I had forgotten how much of a paradise playground the New South Wales South Coast is for foragers during early summer. Or perhaps my eyes have never been quite as open and glued to the car window as they are now. But it seems that everywhere, from the heathlands to the seashore, wild flowers are abundant and full of native splendor. There are creamy paperbark flowers and even creamier ironbark blossoms. There is a lighter, brighter summer blooming wattle and plenty of native tea tree myrtle in crisp white and bright pink. There were Geraldton wax flowers that also came and went, although I didn’t get to photograph them. I just sat them in little vases around the house and marveled at their teeny tiny five petal perfection and sweet honey smell, instead. There have been plenty of non natives too. Queen Anne ’s lace, wild fennel and Scotch thistles are road side and ready, bursting with their own sort of weed like beauty. And all these florals, Australian and not so Australian, have graciously arrived just in time for the festive season - to deck the halls with plenty a bloom filled swag, wreath and garland.

It seems that once a forager, an obsession sets in and you can’t seem to stop the search. You’ll always find your eyes out the window, looking for a burst of colour or brightness that wasn’t there before. The hunt is always on, to fill the car and then the house with natures complimentary and honeyed gifts - a reward always so great. The foraging seasons are fleeting and before you know it, it’s December and the eucalyptus blossoms are out. Time is fleeting too. What happened to October and November, I’ll never know. But I sure am glad it’s December and that I'm surrounded by plenty a creamy bloom. Time now to forage into the new year.

Happy holidays everyone. 

photo 1 + 2 - tea tree / native myrtle (leptospermum)
photo 3 + 4 - ironbark
photo 5 - wattle + argyle apple (eucalyptus cineria) 
photo 6 + 7  - paperbark
photo 8 - ironbark

All photos taken at the beautiful South Coast country retreat - THE COTTAGE kangaroo valley

Back to Spring - Baked Eggs

There’s been a little radio silence here these past few weeks… I hope you’ll forgive me for that! I have been gallivanting - back to the States. I travelled back ‘home’ to Florida to see our two dear friends marry, to finish off the photography for a book project and to visit all my most missed southern spots and people in between. So many great cities and towns and long drives to get there, so much seafood and grits and long sticky summer days…

I will write more, I promise that. But although I am home to NSW on the South Coast again, my gallivanting hasn’t stopped yet! There is just too much to write and too little time, so I am just going to leave you with this: An early spring morning of baked eggs, blossoms, cozy jac + jack cashmere jumpers and sweet, sweet September rain. OH! Spring! It’s so nice to see you again!

This baked egg recipe is the very best in-between gallivanting, last minute whip up kind of dish. For brunch, with coffee or for dinner with wine. Full of spring time fuel. The last of last season’s beetroot leaves (feel free to substitute any greens you like here) and the first of this seasons Ewes milk cheese from Pecora Dairy, just over the hill (keep an eye here for a visit later this month!).

I’m off now to re-pack again ready for a drive north with Taj the dog - for a very exciting workshop, a birthday, a Slovenian aunt and a visit to see mum. Eating these baked eggs for dinner. Ignoring the jet lag. Opening a bottle of wine. Oh, yes. 

Baked Eggs with Beetroot Leaves and Sheep Cheese

Serves: 2
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15-20 minutes

6 free range eggs
1 cup loosely packed beetroot leaves (or other dark leaf greens such as kale or swiss chard)
100g soft sheep cheese (I used Pecora Dairy’s Bloomy White in Ash) 
2tbs extra virgin olive oil
100ml pouring cream
flaked sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 180°C / 350° F and grease two ramekins or small oven safe bowls with a little of the olive oil.
In a small bowl, mix together oil, cream and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Evenly pour the cream mixture into the two baking dishes. Divide the leaves into the two dishes and gently toss in the cream mixture. Dot around small pieces of the sheep cheese. Finish by gently cracking three eggs into each dish.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes for a soft baked egg or 20 minutes for a hard baked egg, or until eggs are cooked to your liking.

Enjoy with buttered sourdough toast. 

All photos were taken at THE COTTAGE Kangaroo Valley. Pink cashmere jumper by Jac + Jack. 

On the Cusp - Bircher Muesli

I don’t know what the opposite of Indian Summer is. But I know that it is here.  It is September, just. Spring looms, yet winter loiters a little. We are on the cusp.

The crispness is drifting out. You can hear it in the birds and the mower that hums in the distance and the blow fly stuck in the cobweb. The sun sits higher, things are drying faster and the rain is back. A new liveliness fills the air. You can still buy seasonal oranges, and apples continue on strong. However freshness begins to fill the market stands. The greens are greener. Lighter. We snack as we tend the garden and it becomes empty as the last of the root veggies are pulled. Windows are being opened during the day, and staying open longer too. We are braver, stepping outside with more playful toes and sometimes without shoes. Golden wattle is out, in its fullest strength. Natures true invitation to spring. In the evenings, the air is still cool. A fire is lit, despite the dwindling wood pile.
The mornings are getting easier too. We wake with the sun instead of before it. Our start feels natural. Brighter.

A little extra help to get out of bed is knowing that breakfast has been half prepared the evening before. Food fit for this cusp. Overnight oats with oranges, apples and local dairy. The sweetest of sweet morning comforts and my current daily favourite - Bircher muesli.

My recent visit to The Pines dairy farm made me ever so keen to find the perfect recipe for their creamy non homogenized milk and natural set yogurt. I believe this is it. Oats soaked in kind, well loved cows milk and fresh orange juice. Fittingly livened up the next morning with creamy natural set, cultured yogurt, grated granny smith apple, some nuts and seeds and some pure maple sweetness. It feels like eating pudding for breakfast. But better. Well suited to these mornings where winter playfully clashes with spring.

Bircher Muesli

Serves: 2
Prep time: Overnight (min 4 hours)
Cook time: 5 minutes

1 cup thick rolled oats
100 ml non homogenized milk
100 ml fresh orange juice (approx. 1- ½ oranges)
8 tbs plain, unsweetened natural set yogurt
1 granny smith apple, grated
1 tbs flaked almonds
1 tbs pepita seeds
1 tbs maple syrup

The night before, soak the oats, milk and orange juice together in a bowl (minimum 4 hours).
The next morning, stir in the yogurt, apple, almonds, pepitas and maple syrup. Stir well until combined. Divide between two bowls. Serve in bed (or wherever) with a pot of breakfast tea. 

All photos taken at THE COTTAGE Kangaroo Valley.