Heatwave. Sort of.

The weather here has been record-breakingly warm for early August.  22 degrees, 17 degrees overnight.  The sun has been shining, blue skies, and that intoxicating smell of early Spring - an aroma of flowers, warmth and a nice breeze.

Tabitha and I met a friend yesterday and walked around South Yarra in the sunshine.  We visited a gorgeous little new cake shop, sorry "Sweet Studio", called Burch and Purchese (B&P) on Chapel Street, near the corner of Toorak Road.  I believe that B&P has appeared on Masterchef at some point?

It is a fabulous little shop - the kitchens are open, allowing you to watch the chefs creating absolute masterpieces, and you can buy all sorts of divine things - fluffy meringues, hand-made ice creams, packets and jars of sweets and chocolates, and lots of petite cakes.

Here is the 'ingredient wall', shelves groaning with hundreds of jars of obscure ingredients:

The female staff wear very sweet little pink frilly aprons:

The miniature cakes are incredible - really interesting, lots of unusual ingredients and techniques:

The open kitchen:

We bought ice creams - coated in caramelised white chocolate, with loads of macadamia praline on the outside.  They were really, really good - although we both felt that $8 was a big ask for an ice cream on a stick...

Back home, Tabitha and I spent the afternoon in the back yard - I hung out washing and read a magazine, while she pottered around and played with soil and leaves.  And practiced her walking!  Yes, that's right, she can walk.  Although - the operative word here is 'can'.  She generally chooses not to, preferring to crawl (faster!) or walk while holding onto my fingers (also faster!).

She can comfortably take eight or maybe a dozen steps, but rarely does so.  However I did manage to take a few sneaky photos of her in action...

Here she is with one hand still on the retaining wall.  Considering walking.  How cute are those chubby thighs poking out of her nappy (ivory Itti Bitti d'Lish All-In-One)?

Okay, standing up, testing out my balance...

Oh but mumma, why don't you just come to me?!

Fine, I'll walk to you - if I must!

More walking - how funny is she, lifting up her little feet so high, more marching than walking:

Back to pottering around - scrunching leaves in the garden bed.  You will notice she is up on her tip-toes.  Awwwww:

Hey, what was that noise behind me?!

SMILE - it was my cats!

The silly, jumpy one:

And the clever, dozing one:

We don't really use the outdoor area during winter, so it falls into a state of semi-wildness.  Here is a capsicum plant that has sprouted up out of capsicum seeds from the worm farm compost!

The chili plants are very hardy, and keep on producing right through winter:

Despite the warm weather, I made slow-roasted lamb shoulder with parsley potatoes and delicious caper gravy for dinner last night.  Even though it is seemingly a cold-weather dish, it has a few things going for it in warmer weather:  

a)  It's a good lazy dish - minimal prep, then put it in the oven at 2pm, and it will be ready at 6pm without any further effort on your part, leaving you free to go for a walk in the sun, or spend the afternoon in the park.  All you need to do is boil the potatoes and quickly do the gravy at the end!   

b) You get mountains of leftover cold lamb and potatoes - so dinner tonight, while the weather is still warm, will be cold roast lamb, cold buttered parsley potatoes, great white bread, some sharp cheese, and plenty of green tomato pickles.

I want to point out, too - even if you are not particularly fond of capers (I am not), still give this gravy a shot.  The capers and red wine vinegar (and mint if you use it - sometimes I do, sometimes I don't) really cut through the fattiness of the lamb shoulder.  The capers are finely chopped, so all they do is add a great salty, tart and slightly astringent note to the gravy.  It works.