A little food update - Tabitha is now 7 months and 2 weeks old.  She has been eating solids for a little over 6 weeks.  According to some 'baby weaning' books, which advocate only introducing one new food every 7 - 10 days (yep, even seemingly innocuous foods like carrot!), Tabitha should have tried MAYBE six foods.  If we were following these old fashioned books, she probably would have tried Rice Cereal; carrot; pumpkin; pear; apple; banana and maybe something exotic like pureed apricot.  Tee hee!  It really makes me laugh out loud to think about that!

With baby led weaning / baby led solids (BLW / BLS), the baby simply eats regular family food, and feeds herself, instead of being spoon-fed.  I don't want to bore everyone to tears by explaining the concept every time I mention it, so I will say "read the book" if you are interested in more information - it is available at most libraries, or online for around $15.  There is also loads of decent information on the internet.  I will, of course, still be posting loads about BLW, but I don't want to keep explaining the basics over and over.

Thanks to BLW, Tabitha has had the pleasure of trying a lot of foods in her short time as a food-eater.  We've given her all sorts of things, including egg, peanut butter and nut products, dairy, wheat and berries.  So far, the only things she seems to be intolerant of (or mildly allergic to) are eggs that is not fully cooked (as found in Carbonara and mayonnaise), and tomato and eggplant (part of the same family).  The egg, tomato and eggplant have each given her a mild contact rash around her mouth, though she has not seemed at all bothered by this.

I have updated the list of foods that Tabitha has eaten so far, over the past 6 or so weeks.  I have probably left lots out - but even so, you can get an idea of the wide range of tastes and textures that a BLW baby is exposed to when they are first discovering food, over a traditionally puree-fed baby.  Of course, BLW means that the babies get to touch and feel their food, examining it up close in its whole form, rather than having a puree popped straight into their mouth.

1. Bread - pita, sourdough, rye, bagel
2. Bread dipped in all sorts of sauces from our plates
3. Rice cakes
4. Vegimite
5. Peanut Butter
6. Taramasalata
7. Cheese - Onetik Ossau-Iraty, Comte, Cheddar.
8. Peach
9. Spicy marinated chicken rib
10. Apricot
11. Banana
12. Green beans
13. Tuna sashimi
14. Avocado
15. Steak
16. Lamb cutlets
17. White fish
18. Capsicum
19. Gingerbread
20. Nectarine
21. Roast pumpkin
22. Brocolli
23. Brocollini
24. Raspberry
25. Cucumber
26. Cauliflower 
27. Steamed carrot
28. Edamame (soy bean pods)
29. Roast potatoes in duck fat
30. Asparagus
31. Spinach and feta golzeme
32. Carbonara
33. Baba Ganoush dip
34. Veggie burger
35. Strawberry
36. Zucchini
37. Eggplant
38. Snowpeas
39. Tomatoes (in a sauce from a bowl of mussels, with onions, garlic etc.)
40. Some homemade cakes, like date loaf, carrot cake, banana cake.
41. Chocolate ice cream (a taste)
42. Frozen blended pure fruit (strawberry and banana)
43. Teriyaki salmon
44. Rice
45. Sushi - little nori rolls with prawn, tuna and avocado
46. Some new sauces, such as a saffron butter sauce on some steamed veggies
47. Plain organic full cream yoghurt
48. Porridge (with dates, banana, cocoanut and a little organic cows' milk)
49. Sardines
50. Crayfish
51. Prawns
52. Chicken in various guises
53. Challah toast
54. Stewed apple
55. Jam
56. Almond spread and ABC nut spread
57. Watermellon
58. Cantaloupe
59. Almond croissant
60. Salt and Pepper Squid with Vietnamese lime and chili dressing
61. Rabbit and Porcini terrine
62. Tempura vegetables
63. Gyoza
64. Har Gow dumplings
65. Falafel
66. Satay chicken
67. Pasta with pesto

Her fine motor coordination has improved immensely, and she can now manipulate fairly small pieces of food into her mouth.  She will often pick up a piece of toast or rice cake, examine it carefully, and then turn it around so that it is 'topping side down', meaning she gets maximum flavour!  Clever baby.  

Tabitha's favourite foods so far seem to be:  avocado; sardines; capsicum; brocollini; and, unsurprisingly, sweet things like ice cream and cake (which she's only had the odd taste of, but never knocks back!)

We haven't avoided offering her spicy or strongly flavoured foods - because she is feeding herself, she can easily decide not to eat something.  She hasn't shown a preference for the classic 'bland flavours' recommended for babies (she completely turns her nose up at things like steamed carrot, boiled potatoes, steamed pumpkin) and seems to really enjoy stronger flavours like mild spices, sardines in oil, gyoza, pesto and natural yoghurt.

Experts point out that breastfed babies are exposed to lots of new tastes every day through their milk, so are generally more adventurous eaters in the early days.  But all babies, regardless, are exposed to some variety of tastes via the amniotic fluid in their days as a fetus.

Perfect day for the Farmers' Market!

Woke up to a stunning day - clear blue skies, warm sunshine and a cheerful baby.  The Daddy is at work, so Tabitha and I went down to the Boroondara Farmers' Market with my friend Amy, and my parents and sister.

Look how nice it was down there this morning!  Aside from whatever fruit/veg/meat I happen to need, things that I routinely get at the Market are:

• Rhubarb for Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie, and for rhubarb muffins
• Berries - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries when in season.  I never liked blueberries until I tasted the incredible organic ones at the market one day!
• VBK Veggieburgers - they are SO good, full of grated veggies with no 'filler', and they cook beautifully, with a crispy outside, on a panini press.  They also have gluten free for those gf people (like Amy).
• Eggs from Green Eggs
• A spinach and feta golzeme, and a decaf coffee, for breakfast.  Always.
• A fresh squeezed orange juice - on hot days, you can buy them semi-frozen into a delicious slurry.
• Walnuts from the friendly walnut man (this turned into the World's Most Awkward Conversation this morning - dad, making small-talk with the vendor, commented "and I hear walnuts are excellent for preventing prostate cancer!" to which the 50-something male vendor replied, "they didn't stop me from getting prostate cancer".  Cue awkward silence.  Dad bought loads of walnuts then - I think he felt bad!
• Bacon, chorizo and sausages from Fernleigh Farms

Today, I also got a few kilograms of beautiful ripe peaches (some for eating, some for a peach and custard pie).  I didn't need to get any tomatoes or zucchini, because our plants are going CRAZY in the backyard.

Here is Tabitha eating some spinach and feta Golzeme in the shade of her pram:

We bumped into my former boss, her husband, and her lovely little daughter.  They also had their beautiful and exhuberant standard poodle, Jet - I was there when Jet first came home as a puppy, and used to see her everyday, so it was really nice to see her.  I'm sure she remembered me - she jumped up onto her back legs and pawed at me furiously!  Very cute.

Tabby wore a Rock Your Baby romper, which Amy bought her as a gift last year.  It always elicits loads of comments from people - she looks just like Minnie Mouse!

Tabitha really likes our trips to the Farmers' Market - lots of puppies, smiling faces, new foods to try and other children and babies.  Here we are having a play with a bag of walnuts:

My sister (9) discovered a fantastic stall selling blended frozen fruit - you choose your fruit (she chose strawberries, banana and mango), they feed it into the freezeing-and-blending-machine, and it comes out as an incredible sorbet-type dessert!  Nothing else in it but pure fruit!  I am very impressed.  I would like one of these machines at home.  Tabitha tried some of the frozen fruit, and seemed to quite like it too.

Oh - speaking of markets, I don't think I've mentioned that last weekend, The Daddy and I took Tabitha to the Queen Victoria Market to check out the sights and sounds, and ended up buying a baby Diamond Python at the fantastic Upmarket Aquarium!  We had been looking for a new python for quite a while (we used to have a Spotted Python, Noodle, and I have a Bearded Dragon called Atticus), and when we handled this beautiful baby, her temperament was just incredible - calm, confident, not at all snappy for a baby!  So we brought her home, and she is settling in nicely.  She is only a few months old, around 50cm long and as thick as my index finger.  She will get to somewhere between 4 - 10 feet, but probably around 6 feet.

The Daddy suggested calling her Marilyn ("Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend") and I agreed that it is a good name - if she turns out to be a boy (no way to know until over a year old) she can be named for Marilyn Manson haha...

Here is a quick photo - I don't want to disturb her too much in her initial weeks, while she settles in, so I will get some better photos next week.

Sleep School - home now

So this morning we came home, after being at the O'Connell Family Centre in Canterbury for four nights, working on Tabitha's sleeping.

Tabby has been waking up 1-3 hourly overnight, and only sleeping 30-60 minutes at a time during the day.  She has also found it difficult to get to sleep - it distracts her if we pat or rock her, but she was getting a little upset if we left her alone to get to sleep.

So, the big question - how did it go?!  In short - fantastic!  No stress, no tears, great results, quite relaxing.

With regard to the settling and sleeping - at the start of the week, I wrote that I would like to be feeding her at 6pm, 10pm, 2am and when she wakes at 6am.  Well, that is exactly what we're now doing!  Her bedtime is between 7 - 7:30pm, and on the first night, she woke at 9:30.  I went and stood outside her door with the nurse, instead of going in to feed her, and she cried out a few times, grizzled for a minute, then went straight back to sleep.  I then did a 'dreamfeed' (feeding her while she is still half asleep) at 10pm.  She woke at around 2am, and I lay quietly and let her grizzle - she went back to sleep, and slept through until 3am.  I fed her, then she slept through until 6:30am.  From then on, I was feeding her half an hour before bed, at around 10pm, and once in the middle of the night (between 2 - 4am), and then when she wakes in the morning.  Sometimes, she does wake up, but instead of feeding her, she grizzles and goes back to sleep on her own!  She seems much more rested in the mornings.

After re-settling her only twice for daytime sleeps, she now sleeps for between 1 - 2 hours, three times a day.  Our vague 'routine' is loosely like this:

- 6:30am wake up.  Breastfeed at 7am, breakfast toast at 7:30am, play for an hour with toys and books.

- 8:30am nap time.

- 10:30am wake up.  Breastfeed at 11am, activity out of the house (Gymbaroo, swimming, shopping etc.)

- 12:30pm nap time.

- 2:00pm wake up.  Breastfeed at 2:30pm.  Lunch.  Play out of doors - backyard, park, out for a walk.

- 4:00pm nap time.

- 5:00pm wake up.  Dinner.  Quiet play at home - blocks, stories, songs etc.

- 6:30pm breastfeed and pre-bed routine (clean teeth - all 6 of them! - pajamas on, read a story etc.)

- 7:00pm bedtime.

- 10:30pm dreamfeed

- 3:30am night feed

There you go.  We follow that now, very roughly.  She is thriving, really seems to enjoy the routine.  Go figure!  I'm not really a 'routine' person, and when she was a little baby it was much better for us to be loose and cruisey, but this timetable works nicely now.  I will do things pretty much the same way with the next baby, only I think I'll start working to this sort of routine a little earlier, maybe 5 or 6 months.

The O'Connell Centre nurses were all brilliant, really kind and compassionate and knowledgeable, and always happy to play with the babies (blowing bubbles, reading stories etc.) while I had a shower, got breakfast or tidied up.  It was incredibly relaxing having all of our meals prepared, as well - the babies were given steamed vegetables and meat, as well as cereal, toast etc., and the lunches and dinners for the parents were really decent - lots of veggies, healthy, large servings.  We had stir-fry, roast lamb, sticky date pudding, couscous salad, apple strudel - and twice a day, homemade treats like pikelets, brownies and spinach muffins came out on a big plate!  I definitely got used to that, and am already missing Snack O'Clock!

We also had some planned activities, such as painted 'footprints' for the babies, which the nurses laminated for us; a talk on reading to babies, and choosing good books; a few walks around the neighbourhood; a session on ways to relax and nurture ourselves (!); and there was also an evening for the dads to chat about any issues they had, with each other, run by a male staffer.

Were there any downsides?  Absolutely.  Communal living is lovely in some ways - there is always someone to chat to, and a baby to play with - however sharing a bathroom is never fun, and at night, the babies' crying and waking did keep me awake a fair amount, particularly on the first night (although Tabitha didn't wake).  Overall, though, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, in particularly because of how gentle the whole process was.  We learnt a lot - much more than I can jot down here - and I have lots of confidence going forward, even if things 'regress' for a week, which apparently is quite common when the baby is back home in their usual surroundings.

The Yoghurt Experience - with photos.

Today I tried Tabitha with yoghurt for the first time.  If they are having dairy, babies are supposed to eat whole milk, unsweetened natural yoghurt - it's full of great things like active cultures, protein and calcium, and it's best to get them used to the taste of healthy natural yoghurt, rather than those scary 'baby yoghurts' with cartoons all over them and loads of sugar inside them.

Natural yoghurt is definitely an acquired taste - I am thankful that my mother fed me lots of it as a baby and child, because even though I still find it quite sour, I do enjoy the taste.  For myself, I mix it with some mashed banana and honey, or some fresh berries and a sprinkle of muesli.  For Tabitha, I gave it to her plain to start with, just to see what she thinks!  She found it a little sour, pulling some funny faces ("Erm, Mumma, are you sure about this?  Am I supposed to eat it?  It is so sour!"), but she had the same reaction with ripe nectarines and peaches.  Even though she made a few faces, she kept pulling the spoon back to her mouth for more.

She had some rice cake with almond butter to eat, feeding herself, and I offered spoonfuls of yoghurt as she was eating her rice cake.  The baby led weaning approach says that spoon feeding is okay, as long as it isn't the main part of their diet, and as long as you carefully watch the baby for cues - while they are opening their mouth and seeming keen, keep offering, but as soon as they stop or turn away, stop with the spooning.  She probably had around 6 small teaspoonfuls of yoghurt - I was pretty impressed!

Typical Tabitha - needs a bit of food in both hands!

Mouth full, bottom lip out with a Thinking Face:

Whatchu lookin' at?!

Oooh!  This is strange but I LIKE it!

Chewing on a mouthful of yoghurt AND rice cake:

Yay!  Yoghurt!

Craming a bit too much in her mouth...

Hahahaha, old man face...

Sour face :)  But she did like it!

The yoghurt we eat is Elgaar Farm organic full cream yoghurt - it is EXCELLENT!  We get out milk from Elgaar Farm too, because it tastes amazing, is not homogenised, and most importantly, the cows are looked after so beautifully - they keep the calves with their mothers until they are old enough to wean, and when the cows are too old to produce milk, they retire them to a lovely herd of senior cows, on the same verdant Tasmanian farm, to live out their days eating grass and just being a cow.

Sleep School

This week, we are at the O'Connell Family Centre in Canterbury, which is the Mercy hospital's early childhood / sleep centre.  We are working on Tabitha's sleeping, since she is still waking 1 - 3 hourly all night.  She doesn't even want to be fed every time she wakes up - rather, she is just having trouble getting back to sleep when she rouses.

The O'Connell FC is wonderful - they do not do controlled crying (most 'sleep schools' do), rather they work on reading the baby's cues and responding accordingly.  The philosphy here is pretty much what we have been doing at home - i.e. if Tabitha is 'grizzling' in her cot, we leave her, but if she becomes distressed, we go in and comfort her until she is completely calm.  We use the techniques from Safe Sleep Space (we had this woman come to our home for a half day late last year, which was great).  This has been working brilliantly with her daytime sleeps, and putting her to bed at night - I can now just put her in her sleeping bag, give her her special 'lamby' soft toy, walk out, and she will grizzle for a minute or two and then go to sleep, normally.

However, overnight, she is waking a LOT, and can't get back to sleep without being put to the breast - sometimes she feeds, but often she just latches on and goes instantly back to sleep.  So, I would like her to be able to get back to sleep on her own, or even better, to not be waking all night at all!  I think she is tired from all her night waking - she yawns a lot and rubs her eyes in the mornings - so hopefully if she sleeps for longer, she will be better rested.  So will I!

We arrived this afternoon, and we will be staying until Friday morning.  The nurses are GREAT, really kind and responsive to the babies, and do not advocate any sort of controlled crying.  Another wonderful part of our stay is that, for the week, I am solely focussed on Tabitha and her sleeps - no rushing around, no cleaning, not even cooking, because all of our meals are prepared for us!  For dinner tonight, we had a nice vegetable pasta, with passionfruit cheesecake for dessert, and Tabitha had steamed veggies and cooked apple.  She made MUCH more mess than the other babies here, because of the baby led weaning, but all the nurses commented on how happy she is at mealtime, and how much she enjoys her food.

The main downside of our stay here is that there are lots of other babies, all with sleep issues, so there is a fair amount of crying.  I imagine it will be difficult overnight - just as she is getting back to sleep, she may be woken by another crying baby.  Frustrating!

Overall, I am optimistic about her learning to sleep for longer stretches, but I am not under any illusions that she will start 'sleeping through the night'.  I am still perfectly happy to be feeding her once overnight (e.g. feeds at 6pm, 10pm, 2am and 6am when she wakes), but at the moment it's closer to 6, 7:30, 9, 10:30, 12, 2, 3:30, 5:30 and 6:30.

Baby Led Weaning tips

I want to share some tips and ideas for baby led weaning (BLW a.k.a. BLS / baby led solids).  I'll do some more posts like this, as ideas come to me - and as experience teaches me!

• When I make my own porridge for breakfast (I love Carmen's oats, they are fabulously thick), I add delicious things like sliced banana, chopped dates, shredded coconut and chopped pecans.  I then pour some of the porridge into a square container (I use this one) to about 1.5cm thick, and leave it in the fridge to set into a sort of cake.  This can then be cut into squares or fingers, and eaten by hand much more easily than actual porridge!  This works best if the porridge is on the dry side (very thick) - you can pour out the baby's serve and then add milk to cook yours a little more.  NOTE:  You can add breastmilk, soy milk or cows' milk to the porridge, but when cooking it for Tabitha, I do as the Scots do and make it with just water, adding a little milk at the end.  It is still incredibly creamy, as long as you use good quality (not instant) oats.

• When eating something messy at home (porridge, banana, sardines on toast, rice), I pop Tabitha on the floor, sitting up on a towel, and give her the food in just her nappy.  I sit and eat on the floor with her, and when she's done, I simply whip off the nappy and give her a 'hose off' under a stream of warm water in the bathtub - no need to bother running an actual bath!  She really loves these 'messy floor picnics', enjoying the feeling of squishing the food between her fingers and all over her legs and belly.

Here is Tabitha eating her porridge fingers this morning (with banana, dates and coconut):

Avert your eyes if you are afraid of mess!

• When eating in a restaurant, I try and give Tabitha foods that aren't too messy, but inevitably a mess is made, even with plain bread.  A waitress friend told me not to stress about it at all, and just to leave a good tip!  So I clean up as much as I can with a napkin or two, and leave a tip and a big 'thank you'.

• When eating out, I tend to order a serve of steamed vegetables for Tabitha - normally there are lots of great things like snowpeas, beans, carrot fingers, broccoli stalks and zucchini.  I fish out any steamed Asian greens like bok choi, because, like lettuce and rocket, they seem to be a bit of a choking hazard.  Asking for steamed vegetables without oil or butter can be a good idea, as oily veggies are slippery and seem to make a lot more mess!

• Sadly, most children's menus are complete rubbish, but some good restaurants will happily prepare a 'child's portion' of fish, chicken or steak.  It's worth asking, and generally doesn't cost any more than an over-priced side of steamed vegetables anyway.

• Make your own meatballs with high quality mince (you can ask the butcher to mince a couple of steaks if you prefer), and add grated vegetables such as carrot, capsicum, zucchini, squash and even apple.  Add some chopped herbs to introduce new flavours, or even spices like cumin or allspice, and some fresh breadcrumbs for a nice texture.  Shape the meatball mixture into 'fingers' or logs for ease of eating, and freeze.  These can then easily be defrosted and baked or fried for lunch or dinner.

• Pasta spirals with sauce (pesto, bolognaise, chunky vegetable sauce etc.) are easy for baby to eat with her hands.

• Rice can be a messy finger food.  Try making risotto for dinner, and using the leftovers to make little arancini - just roll the cold risotto into balls (or logs, for ease of eating) and then crumb and fry them in some olive oil.

Tasmania Part One

Oh goodness.  I have so, so many photos from Tasmania.  It is quite overwhelming, trying to organise them and work out which ones to keep and delete - the curse of the digital camera, ending up with 48 photos of the exact same thing, trying to 'get a good one'.  We were never that wasteful when using film!

I'm going to break up the Tassie trip into a few posts over the next week, to preserve my sanity.  For now, here is Launceston...

The boat trip over was pretty shocking.  Apparently it was one of the rougher days, with even the most experienced staff lurching and tripping all over the place, and waves crashing at the windows and decks.  We went to eat lunch in the restaurant, but The Daddy was so ill that he had to go straight back to the cabin before the main course was served.  I was left to eat a steak and a chocolate fondant pudding with a wriggly Tabitha, all on a madly rocking boat!  I must say, the Leatherwood Restaurant on the Spirit of Tasmania served really decent food, with most of its ingredients sourced from Tasmanian producers.  My steak, cooked beautifully rare, was Cape Grim, and I finished the meal with a small plate of Ashgrove cheeses.

Despite the rough passage, Tabitha seemed to have a good time on the boat, with both of her parents a captive audience in the cabin for 11 hours!  Our brilliant Phil&Teds portacot fitted neatly in the limited space of the cabin for her naps, and I managed to put it together, with the lurching room and no floor space, in just a few minutes.  I really am thrilled that we chose the P&T.

Here is Tabby having fun in our cabin:

When we arrived, we stayed the night in Devonport, and left for Launceston first thing the next morning.  We had lunch at Stillwater, a fabulous restaurant / winebar / providore, housed within a beautiful 1830s mill building, right on the water.  I had a really incredible squid salad with crunchy toasted rice powder, and Tabitha had some of my capsicum with the spicy lime dressing:

From lunch, we went to visit the incredible Cataract Gorge, home to the world's longest single-span chairlift, a large flock of peacocks, and surely one of the most picturesque swimming pools in Australia.

It's funny to see such majestic birds just wandering around drinking out of puddles and stealing chips off the outdoor tables, like boring old seagulls...

Look at the pretty backdrop for the swimming pool!

The Daddy convinced me that it was safe to take Tabitha on the chairlift, since she was snuggly secure in her Ergo - however I somehow forgot, until we were out there a million miles up, that I am a little nervy about heights myself!  So I started to freak out just a bit, and had to be convinced of the merits of catching the chairlift back (as opposed to walking for over an hour back to the car).

Tabby was completely nonplussed about being so high up in the sky:

I am really fond of hydrangeas, and Tasmania seems to be the Hydrangea Capitol!  Everywhere we went, there were enormous bushes of really colourful hydrangeas.  They made my little bush at home seem quite pathetic:

At the Gorge, we saw this cute little guy wandering around.  He was quite friendly and wasn't shy about having his photo taken:

In Launceston, we stayed at a marvelous apartment called The Terrace at TWOFOURTWO, located on Charles Street in a beautiful quiet little neighbourhood, flanked by a French patisserie Tant Pour Tant, a homemade pasta shop, a gourmet greengrocer and a few great restaurants.  There are a few apartments as part of the TWOFOURTWO building, each quite different in what they offer.  

I cannot recommend TWOFOURTWO enough - to list a few of the great features:

• A picnic basket with a handwritten guide to all the good local picnic spots
• Little touches like a hot water bottle with a knitted cover, real art on the walls, top-quality shampoo and conditioner, a cheerful red umbrella, childrens' toys, a great DVD library including Ratatouille, Strictly Ballroom and Amelie, two years' worth of Gourmet Traveller, Donna Hay, Jamie Oliver and a few architecture magazines, a CD player with a range of CDs and an iPod dock, a range of different pillows in the wardrobe, a large, clean BBQ in our private courtyard, and even potted fresh herbs!
• The laundry was fully stocked with washing powder, fabric softener, two types of Napisan and clothes baskets.
• The kitchen was excellent, with a Gaggia espresso machine, a bowl of apples and lemons, loads of muselis, breakfast provisions, fresh juice, free-range eggs, freshly ground coffee, local yoghurt, home-baked biscuits, little details like a citrus reamer, measuring spoons, baking tins, alfoil and clingfilm, as well as an incredible selection of Tasmanian wines (the owners also run a wine store) and a few good recipe books with a focus on local produce.

The apartment from the courtyard:

The BBQ area:

The fabulous kitchen, complete with sharp knives!

Tabby and The Daddy playing in the living room:

The upstairs bedroom, which meant we could put Tabitha to bed, then go downstairs and not be tiptoeing around her:

My beloved Phil&Teds Traveller:

It makes me laugh that I still care about HER clothes, making sure they are nicely hung up, when I personally look like a complete bag lady on holidays...

Tabitha has learnt to really love shoulder rides:

The view from the upstairs balcony:

While in Launceston, we had lunch at Josef Chromy winery, which I really recommend - it is a pretty historic building set on the edge of a manicured garden, large dam and overlooking the vines.

While in Tasmania, we drove a fair bit, so we timed all of our activities and car trips so that Tabitha had her naps in the car (most drives were 1 - 2 hours).  For example, a typical day was:  Wake up at 7am, have breakfast and play for 2 hours, nap in the apartment from 9-10am, go do a local activity, nap in the car from 12-2pm, visit some wineries and walk around a town, nap in the car from 4-5pm, then have dinner and play until bedtime at 7pm.

Still to post from our Tassie trip - photos of our catchup with Melissa and her four beautiful boys, our time on the East Coast around Freycinet, and our time in Hobart including visiting my aunt's lovely little farm.

Peanut Butter and the Chipmunk.

Tabitha has started doing something quite cute.  Whenever she is eating something crunchy, like a ricecake, she keeps taking a bite, then looking at the main piece, then taking another bite, and so on until her mouth is completely full, like a little chipmunk.

She then chews and chews, letting some fall OUT of her mouth, so that she can continue to bite off and cram more in.  She looks Very Serious while she is doing this.  It really is hilarious to watch.

On the kitchen floor, keeping cool, with bed hair, munching on a peanut butter on a ricecake.  Notice her sitting up, on her own!  This is new, just the last couple of weeks:

Hey mumma!  Look how much I can fit in my mouth!

Hehehe!  Aren't I cute!  Giggle!

Awwwww that cheeky little smile.  Makes me melt even when it is full of chewed up food!

Favourite Food Books

There are dozens and dozens of 'favourite' recipe books that I have on my bookshelf which I would consider well-known, owned by most of the food-obsessed.  For example, to list a few:

• Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion and The Garden Companion - the first, I read cover-to-cover when I was first given it, 7 years ago, and I now open it at least weekly, looking for reassurance of a basic muffin recipe, guidance on choosing a suitable fish for a curry, or simply to curl up and read about offal.
  
• Japanese Cooking A Simple Art* - an incredibly comprehensive, beautifully written and straightforward guide to Japanese cuisine, including tools and ingredients, theory behind meal composition and hundreds of recipes.
  
• Martha Stewart's Baking Companion - such pretty photographs!  An inspiring read whenever I feel like baking something ambitious, and a useful checkpoint for classic recipes.
  
• Nigella Lawson's How To Eat - I literally taught myself to cook using this book!  I was given it when I was around 20, and read it cover-to-cover at least three times during the first year I owned it.  It is probably the most battered, food-splattered and 'loved' book I own.  I learnt to cook brilliant roast chicken, pastry, custard, roasts, soups, stocks, as well as loads of great lunch and dinner menus.
  
• David Thompson's Thai Food (try and find the original pink fabric cover, so lovely) - David Thompson's knowledge of Thai food, from ingredients to recipes to history to customs, is legendary, and whenever I feel like cooking Thai, this is the first place I check.  It is also (in its original edition) one of the prettiest books on my shelves.
  
• Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook  - I was given this by my Godfather, whom I adore.  I have eaten at the Les Halles restaurant in New York, and the meal was extraordinarily good.  Nothing fancy - a rustic terrine, steak Bearnaise with frites, and a creme brulee - but one of the most memorable food experiences I've had.  The book reads like Bourdain speaks - that is, rough, direct and incredibly funny.  Worth reading even if you don't want to cook any of the recipes!
  
• Secrets of the Red Lantern - such a beautiful and haunting book.  The enticing and authentic Vietnamese recipes and interspersed with the bittersweet true story of the authors' family's journey from communist Vietnam to Australia, via refugee camps, leaking boats and a number of small business ventures.

The above are standards on any 'top cookbooks' list.  But now I hope to share some less well-known books, and maybe someone will discover a new favourite...

• Soul Food and Brown Sugar - the venerable Joyce White is arguably the Queen of Soul Food.  Her two hardcover books comprise of recipes collected from black churchgoers around North America, each with a little story about the contributor and their home church.  The recipes are well-tested, and are, on the whole, not shy of fat or butter.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Joyce for my thesis on American food and its relationship with community - she is so passionate, witty and warm, and listening to her talk would make even the most disciplined dieter yearn for chicken'n'dumplings, smothered chicken-fried steaks, spicy simmered greens and sky-high layer cakes covered in ethereal sugary frostings.
  
• Hungry Monkey- written by the laugh-out-loud funny Matthew Amster-Burton (restaurant critic and former rock journalist), Hungry Monkey comes with a ringing endorsement from Anthony Bourdain.  Subtitled 'a food-loving father's quest to raise an adventurous eater', this book (part recipe book, part memoir) chronicles Amster-Burton's life as a stay-at-home dad to little daughter Iris.  Their main common interest is food and cooking, and through the ages 0 - 4, Hungry Monkey shares hilarious anecdotes, tips and recipes for parents - and anyone else who enjoys food, really!  I initially stumbled across this book at the library, and devoured it in two days before running to purchase it online in hardcover.  I have since read it twice more.
  
• Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer - This is another book that I discovered by chance at the library, and instantly fell in love with.  For anyone who enjoyed losing themselves in books like Famous Five, Milly Molly Mandy and Paddington, this book is an absolute treasure.  Author Jane Brocket has created and refined recipes for so many literary favourites, from sticky marmalade buns to dense and fruity cherry cake to homemade lemonade for a picnic to treacle-laden rice pudding.  Each recipe begins with an introduction, describing the book and context from which it is taken.  The entire book is a joyously nostalgic journey - and best of all, the recipes are brilliant, I have yet to try one that isn't fabulous.
  
• Ladies, A Plate - given to me as a wedding present by two of my mother's lovely friends, both from New Zealand, this is a compilation of home recipes from women around New Zealand (recipes dating from between 1920 - 1970 on the whole).  The title comes from days of yore, when invitations to social events would conclude with the phrase, "ladies, a plate" meaning that women were expected to bring a plate of something homemade, sweet or savoury, to share.  My most frequently used recipes from this book are the date loaf, the Afghan biscuits and the chocolate Highlanders.
  
• Laura Calder's French Food at Home - this is 'home cooking', French-style.  Healthy, fresh ingredients, not too many of them, simple cooking instructions and lots of small dishes.  Canapes, entrees, salads, mains, light desserts - few are even vaguely demanding, most are perfect for after-work dinners or relaxed weekend lunches.  Some of the recipes I love from this book include salmon poached gently in olive oil;  'Housewife Chicken', a one-pan meal; chicken cooked in carrot juice (brilliant!); flounder cooked in parsley; and the most treasured recipe I have found, her instructions for scrambling eggs over low, low heat for close to 20 minutes - words cannot describe how good this is! There are no pictures whatsoever, which normally disapoints me in cookbooks, however Calder's writing is so evocative that I don't miss the photos, and still feel great motivation to try new dishes.  As a bonus, there are plenty of little notes and tips, for example on boning a bird or 'nice and useful things to know about souffles'.
  
• The Moosewood Cookbook - my parents were vegetarian when I was born (close to vegan, really), and my father even worked part-time at Soul Foods, which is something of an institution in Melbourne and was one of the first Vegetarian cafes.  The Moosewood Cookbook I own was their copy, and is well-loved.  A true celebration of all things hippy, the recipes are all hand-written, the pages covered in beautiful illustrations and swirls.  First published in 1977, it has since been revised, and I'm sure the new version is lovely too.  Even if you never cook 'vegetarian food', there are so many wonderful dips, salads, sides and vegetable dishes in the Moosewood.  The recipes cover a range of styles including recipes either taken from or inspired by the cuisines of Japan, Mexico, Brazil, France, Italy, Russia, America, Switzerland, Hungary, the Ukraine, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Balkans, Macedonia and others.  There are loads of really interesting (yet still simple) recipes, FAB desserts, and honestly, the pages are so beautiful that it's worth buying the book to read and admire.
  
• The Oxford Companion to Food - this is a reference book, not a recipe book, but for anyone who enjoys food, it's great to have on the bookshelf.  I often grab it to check something simple (for example, where Carob comes from) and find myself curled up with the oversized book, an hour later, immersed in a world of obscure mushrooms, the origins of bread, traditional cereal grains, or the history of African cooking.  It's also wonderful to have on hand to settle disputes, if you are nerdy enough to get into arguments over such things as to what dish the word 'Kugel' originally described.
  
• Bubby's Homemade Pies -I have a lot of pie books, and while I consider Ken Haedrich to be the expert on pies, Ron Silver ('Bubby') opened one of my favourite places to eat in New York, Bubby's, and this book, with its gorgeous cover, heavy-weight pages and elegant illustrations, is a real treasure.  Bubby's uses mostly organic, local ingredients, and makes everything from scratch, and this slow-food ethos is reflected in the book.  Recipes include, for example, a pear pie with caramel sauce and creme fraiche, a ginger-honey apple pie, home-made 'pop tarts', a goat-cheese pie with pomegranate molasses, as well as indulgent classics such as blueberry-peach pie, Southern-style fruit cobblers, sour-cherry lattice pie, pecan pie and chicken pot-pies with homemade stock, as well as recipes for things like marshmallows, candied pecans, ice creams and curds.  PS - go to the Bubby's website and check out the menus.  If you're anything like me, they will make you want to get on a plane right now to go eat some breakfast in NYC!
  
• James Lileks Gastroanomalies and The Gallery of Regrettable Food - Lileks collects hilarious, disturbing photographs of 'cuisine' from the 1950s and 1960s, annotating them with his own witty remarks.  The sort of books that leave you howling with laughter, tears rolling down your face...  for example, he laments the travesty of black-and-white newspaper food photography, with one image captioned 'meat or ice-cream?  Can you tell?'.  Take a sneak peak here, 

One last word - Booko.  I know everyone raves about Book Depository ('cheep cheep' prices and free delivery worldwide!) but you must use Booko.  It is an Australian site which scans the whole internet, in real time, and gives you a foolproof summary, in Australian dollars, of the total price (including shipping) of any book, collected from dozens of websites including Book Depository, Amazon, Readings etc.

*A funny story about my copy of Japanese Cooking - A Simple Art.  Years ago, in roughly 1985, I was a little girl and my father was studying psychology at university.  A classmate of his by the name of Roza Pakin lent him her copy of this book - she wrote her name and home phone number in the front cover.  It was a new book, and being such a large hardcover, would have been very expensive.  Anyway, Roza stopped turning up to lectures, and at the end of the semester, dad called her number (no answer) and even tried going to her house (she'd since moved).  So dad kept the book - but he was always so tortured about not being able to return it (and with the name glaring at him every time it was opened) that he could never bring himself to use it!  Dad is the sort of guy who drives 30 minutes out of his way to return money if a shop accidentally gives him $20 extra change, you see.  So a couple of years ago, he passed it on to me.  I adore it, and use it loads.  But if anyone knows the whereabouts of Roza Pakin, I will happily return it.  Maybe ;)