Gamla Stan, Stockholm.

Sweden has my heart. It always will. I may call Australia home, but Sweden is my soul country. When I am there, I feel more like me. When I am not, I miss it terribly.
Stockholm is a place that I like to visit often - all be it only in my mind.  It's a holder of some insanely wild memories. Good memories. Some difficult ones too. 
Gamla Stan in particular is a dear friend of mine, despite the occasional touristy hum. I can't wait to be back to hang out with it's corroded copper steeples, it's bold facades, those narrow, cobblestone old town streets and windows full of flickering candles and fika invites, soon. My next visit this June can't come quickly enough. I'll be there to spend a few summer days either side of a very special trip to Gotland, where I am so thrilled to be teaching at and co-hosting a slow living retreat along side my other dear friend - and the brilliantly illustrious - Beth Kirby. The snow will have made way for lush green summer and the archipelago will be all sorts of alive. To be back will be silly exciting. As will the chance to once again properly nourish the soul. 
Stockholm - vi ses snart. 

Daily Plenty Workshop

It’s difficult to summarise four rather spectacular days into one blog post. Perhaps that’s why it’s taken me the best part of five months to share photos from the Daily Plenty workshop from last September. Pulling up each image brings with it such vivid, joyful memories. But that’s why we take photos most of the time, isn’t it? So we can look back, no matter how many months have passed and allow the photographs to take us back for a bit and make us feel like we were there just yesterday.

As you scroll through these photos you will have to imagine all that was going on in the background during the rest of the four days here at Moorabinda Station. All that couldn’t simply be compressed into photographs or into this post. Imagine Annabelle Hickson and her children showing us through their garden, where a broody hen took care of little baby chicks and golden afternoon light strew across groves of budding pecan trees. Imagine Caitlin Melling in all her spring time glory, on the old wooden and corrugated iron veranda, arranging cream cans, rusted tin chests and buckets full of cascading purple wisteria, dancing heads of dusty pink hellebores and budding stone fruit blossoms. Imagine Luisa Brimble putting down her camera and picking up the tongs, calling out ‘next!’ as she heated pita bread to over the evening camp fire and handed them to a line of hungry people to make an ice-cream coned shape souvlaki of slow cooked lamb and salad. Imagine Megan Trousdale arriving with boxes of enamelware and aprons, brewing pots of coffee while standing in hushed window light and soaking up honest and heartfelt words to write down later. Imagine Sarah Glover, waking at dawn to pre-heat the wood fired oven in the original shearers quarters kitchen, where she would go on to make the likes of eucalyptus infused biscuits, duck egg meringue, breakfast cinnamon buns, upside down plum and sage cake and wallaby raggu. Imagine the long tables and picnic blankets full of people and chatter and roaring with thigh slapping laughter. Imagine the quiet moments too. Sunsets beaming through mountain gaps of the Dumaresq Valley, morning light filtering into rustic, wood paneled bedrooms and momentary midday naps, snuggling into pure linen sheets. All the generous, full and appreciated moments that come from being on a rural property miles from nowhere, without phone reception and with very little connection to the outside world.

Another exciting thought to imagine is that in three short months, we will be back here – the whole team – creating similar moments all over again. A second workshop. A KITCHEN STORIES + COOKBOOK CREATION workshop.  Sarah will create and make a mind blowing menu for us, recipes inspired by the local area and country scene. Caitlin Melling will be styling up a storm and sharing her tips and tricks. Luisa and I will be teaching photography and offering guidance behind the lense.  Megan will be there with props from her Nundle store and shedding light on the written word and getting published in the editorial world. And of course Annie will be opening and sharing her beautiful haven with us – flowers, photography, country life and light. 

If you would like to join us - and we would very much like to have you – then tickets are now on sale for this workshop – KITCHEN STORIES + COOKBOOK CREATION. As this post goes live, only a few tickets remain, so please jump in quick if all this imagining has made you want to come with. 

For more information, head on over here.  

Cherry Almond and Olive Oil Cake

There is a story here. About my ever thoughtful friend, Sarah from Switzerland, sending me a surprise gift of a traditional, second-hand kouglof cake tin (or kougelhopf as it’s called on her side of the Rhine) and its arrival inspiring me to bake again. About a sweet summer memory I have of my first time ever picking real cherries from real cherry trees at Sarah’s parents’ house in a Swiss German village called Möhlin, some twelve years ago. About being ever so pleased by a country scene of cherry trees, cherry pickers and the abundance of cherries themselves, and all the possible ways to make use of them. About the current season and overflow of local cherries here in Australia, and men with their trucks and boxes full of this lush summer stone fruit, lining the side of roads all the way from the farm lands of Young, through to Canberra and over here to the South Coast. About simply knowing that despite the call for a traditional kouglof/kougelhopf recipe, I just had to make a cake, and cherries were the absolute fruit to put inside this cake tin. 

The story would continue, about other bountiful summer produce currently growing within local bounds to us. Particularly the furry, mint coloured almonds, ever so photogenic and remarkable to watch as they slowly dry and split and offer their tough, stippled shell and their well-known edible insides. About my adoration for olive trees and branches in the summer time. Or any time. About adoring the taste of olive oil in sweets (reminiscing about the genius flavour that is olive oil ice-cream) and of knowing what olive oil does to the texture of cake.  About the immediate need to combine all of these flavours and produce - cherries, almonds and olive oil - into a recipe to be baked in Sarah’s darling cake tin. And about my immediate need to share it.

There is certainly a story here, a much longer story. There always is. But sometimes you don’t need the whole story. You just need cake.

I can’t call this a traditional kouglof/kougelhopf recipe - because it isn’t. That would involve something about Marie Antoinette and the inclusion of yeast and raisins - and some almonds, too (that part is at least in there). Instead, this recipe is the non yeasted, fruit filled version, but still baked and in the shape of the kouglof tin. And it's delicious. Bursting with the seasons plumpest cherries, crumbly almond meal and robust and grassy olive oil (the more robust the better I say, especially for cake) all wrapped up in one of the most moist cake textures and flavourful combinations I have ever tasted. Especially when paired with a simple home made quick cherry jam to dollop on top. When you stumble onto making a cake this good, you simply have to skip the story and just share it. To pass it on, for or others to enjoy. The way that Sarah passed on this kougelhopf cake tin to me.
I hope that you can enjoy and share it too.
Here it is. 

Cherry, Almond and Olive Oil Cake

prep time: 10 minutes
cook time: 1hr 15 minutes
total time: 1hr 25 minutes

250g / 2 cups all-purpose flour
100g / 1 cup almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
200g / 1 cup sugar
½ cup pure maple syrup
240ml / 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
240ml / 1 cup buttermilk
3 eggs, lightly beaten
500g fresh cherries, pitted and halved

1.   Heat oven to 180°C / 350°f. Thoroughly grease your cake tin – if you are using a cake mold or bundt tin, generously grease with olive oil then lightly coat with flour.
2.   Mix together the flour, almond meal, baking powder, maple syrup, olive oil, buttermilk and eggs in a large bowl until just combined and smooth. Do not over mix.
3.   Gently fold in the cherries.
4.   Pour the batter into the pre-greased cake tin, until about 2/3 of the way up the side. Bake in a moderate oven at 180°C / 350°f for 1hr 15 mins or until deep golden brown or until a cake skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
5.   Let the cake cool in the tin for no longer than 10 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely.

Quick Cherry Jam

prep time: 10 minutes
cook time: 20 minutes
total time: 30 minutes

500g cherries, pitted and halved
2tbs lemon juice
350g / 1 ¾ cups sugar

1.    Combine the cherries and the lemon juice in a medium saucepan and cook, stirring once in a while, over medium heat for about 15 minutes or until cherries are wilted and completely soft.
2.    Add the sugar and continue to cook and stir over medium heat until all the sugar has dissolved. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for another 5 minutes.
3.    Transfer the jam to a serving bowl to dollop onto the cake, or store in a sterilised jar.

All photos taken at the THE COTTAGE Kangaroo Valley, a stunning country cottage retreat / boutique accommodation. 
Hand modeling by the one and only Vicki. x 

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.