Maternity Clothes

Becoming pregnant can be sartorially daunting - maternity clothes tend to be unflattering, overpriced, and made of nasty fabrics.  My entire maternity wardrobe consisted of:

• A very flattering white shirtdress that tied at the back (I still wear this, it is good for breastfeeding, and people are always surprised when I reveal it is 'maternity wear').
  
• An identical shirtdress in a navy pinstripe.
  
• A 100 per cent silk long-line top in a beautiful blue and white swirly print, which tied at the back to add some shape and definition (wore this with leggings, jeans, and a tight black pencil skirt).  Here is a photo in the top - although it is not the top at its best, worn with jeans, rubber thongs and messy hair at the beach:
  
  
  

• A really brilliant Isabella Oliver wrap top.  I bought this in black AND purple, and wore them both to death - with jeans, and the black one worn with a fitted black skirt and heels was an excellent substitute for a Little Black Dress.  I wore the black one with lots of colourful Hermes, Pucci and Missoni scarves, and always felt well put-together.  These tops were also brilliant in the first couple of months post-partum - they wrap to fit the body, so will fit perfectly no matter what state your midsection is in, and they are just so easy to breastfeed in.  Here I am in the black wrap top, with a non-maternity stretchy tight skirt, at my godfather's 50th birthday:

• Maternity jeans - I bought two pairs (one straight leg, one skinny), both by Maternal America.  These fitted so brilliantly, and were dead comfy.  So many people commented, "wow I can't believe you're still in jeans!!" not realising that they were maternity jeans.  Little comments like this are lovely to hear when you've gained 20kg!
  
• A loose, oversized t-shirt style jersey dress in blue and white stripes.  It wasn't the most flattering piece in the wardrobe, but was so comfortable and fitted well from week 8 to the very end.  I wore it with leggings.
  
• Speaking of which - I bought three pairs of good quality maternity leggings.  Great decision, I don't think you can truly understand how bloody uncomfortable most clothes are until you are actually pregnant!
  
• I bought a lovely blue slinky jersey dress from Isabella Oliver for my baby shower.  It made me feel pretty and toned and curvy and was worth every cent - I also wore it to a couple of weddings at the end of the pregnancy.  Here I am with a friend at my baby shower.  Sorry, you can only see the top of the dress, but trust me that it is lovely.  I am 38 weeks pregnant here:

• I also bought a fairly unattractive red print dress.  I don't know why - I was getting desperate for clothes I could wear to meetings (my clients were surely getting sick of seeing me in the same two shirtdresses!), and it seemed okay in the store.  In reality, it made me feel fat and my arms look like giant sausages.  I didn't wear it much!

I also picked up a couple of non-maternity pieces:  some denim shorts, a nautical jersey t-shirt, a pretty crepe kaftan, a Ted Baker empire-line dress that I managed to squeeze into for the first few months.  These items were useful, but I cannot overemphasise how important comfort becomes towards the end, and if nothing else, maternity clothing tends to be designed for comfort.

I didn't discover Isabella Oliver until more than half way through the pregnancy, which is a dreadful shame -  I probably would have bought almost all of my maternity wardrobe from them if I had come across it earlier.  If you know any pregnant women, please direct them to the their website!

Because I am tallish, clothes that fitted fairly close to the body were generally most flattering during pregnancy - anything vaguely voluminous made me look like a circus tent.  More petite girls seem to get away with loose shift dresses and trapeze dresses over leggings.

I also bought lots of nice maternity underwear - mostly from Cake and Hot Milk.  This is useful in avoiding feeling like a frumpy beached whale.

One of my most beloved maternity buys was, in fact, a non-maternity nightgown from Country Road.  Over summer, it was all I wore around the house, and felt perfectly comfortable no matter how enormous I became.  Here it is - I'm around 34 weeks here.  You can see our decking, half-built, in the background.  We had renovations (decking and wardrobes) going on almost until D Day.  I do not recommend this.  Doesn't it look like I have a full sized beach ball in there?!  Tabitha was a regular sized baby, around 3.5kg.  Which means I put on roughly 16.5kg of non-baby weight!

Sigh.  Looking through these photos, I am looking forward to being pregnant again.  Despite feeling mighty uncomfortable for most of the time, and dreadfully ill for the first few months, it was still, overall, a wonderful time.  I was in complete awe over just what the female body is capable of.

Pinky McKay

Do you know about Pinky McKay?  She is the author of some of my favourite parenting books - if you know someone who is expecting, or has a newborn, a Pinky book is such a beautiful, loving gift.  HERE is a list of Pinky's top tips for helping babies to sleep, well worth a gander.

Tabitha and I went along to the launch of Pinky's latest book, Parenting by Heart.  Pinky spoke for a bit about how important it is for mothers to always listen to their own instincts, and to their babies.  I read three of Pinky's books while I was pregnant, and I felt so prepared for the baby, knowing that as long as I always made decisions out of love, I would never make the 'wrong' parenting decision.

100 Ways to Calm the Crying is a brilliant book - particularly when pregnant, it is such a reassuring read.  It is highly empowering to feel that, no matter what, you will be able to soothe and calm your newborn.  Loads of the tips and techniques from this book are part of our everyday routine, and were particularly useful in the early weeks (newborns do tend to have spells in the evening of Just Crying, no matter what - my midwife constantly reassured me that this was perfectly normal, and at least by utalising some of Pinky's techniques, I felt vaguely useful!)

Sleeping Like a Baby is another winner.  This book helped us learn to 'read' Tabitha's cues, and learn to respond to her.   HERE is an excerpt from this book.

Parenting by Heart, the latest of her books, is a re-release of a previous version.  It has been updated and extended, and is now pretty much a 'how to' manual for the first year of a baby's life.  Parenting by Heart, along with a subscription to the Australian Breastfeeding Association, are my baby shower presents of choice!

I cannot recommend Pinky's books highly enough - everyone I know who has read any of her work raves about her.

Here is a photo of Tabitha and I with Pinky McKay.  'Scuse the cheesy smile:

Miss Kitty-Cat does a Giveaway...

My gorgeous, talented, amusing and fashionable friend, Miss Kitty-Cat, is doing a fabulous giveaway over at her blog Miss Kitty-Cat Goes To Town.  Do drop over and have a look - but no more people asking for the scarf please!

While you are there, look at her top ten clothing staples post, it is most useful.

First Rule of Baby

Do you know the First Rule of Baby?

It is:  A baby will ONLY sleep for a glorious, extra-long, refreshing nap when its mother is DESPERATE to leave the house on time for an appointment.  The chance of this long sleep occurring increases exponentially directly related to the 'me time' nature of the appointment - e.g. a long sleep is far more likely to occur when mumma is planning to catch up with a friend or have a manicure.

A baby will NEVER sleep for more than the usual minimum when its mumma is exhausted and just wants to curl up with a book and a cup of tea.  As soon as the baby hears the kettle boil or a book page turn, it will wake immediately.

The Second Rule of Baby is:

No matter how agonisingly clingy and grizzly the baby has been during the day (involving going to the toilet while holding baby, making and eating lunch with baby under one arm, and sitting on the floor while poor baby gouges mumma's eyes just to keep it happy) - as SOON as Dada walks in the door, baby is a bundle of radiant sunshine!  Laughing, clapping, batting eyelashes, and perfectly content to sit by herself and play with blocks on the floor.

The Third Rule of Baby is:

No matter what baby does (biting mumma's cheek, pulling hair for hours, refusing to nap, vomiting all over mumma for no apparent reason), the mumma always, always, always COMPLETELY adores baby.  Only a lovesick mumma can smile adoringly at rabid baby while it tries to climb up her hair.  Thankfully, this Third Rule of Baby overrides all the other Rules.

Awwww look at those pudgy arms!  I want to nibble them!

Behold the delight of baby Tabitha learning about the feeling of grass between her toes - kept her giggling with joy for a good ten minutes...

Today we had a busy day!  Nap from 8:30am - 10am, then off to swimming lessons ("you put your right arm in, you put your right arm in, you put your right arm in and you splash it all around..."), then chiropractor (for Tabitha AND Mumma), then off to Chadstone to meet up with some gorgeous mums and babies.  Tabitha loves other babies, but tends to kill them with kindness - she crawls up to them, then ON to them, then grabs great big handfulls of clothes/hair/face to squeeze and cuddle.  So I have to keep a hand at the ready at all times!

One of the other babies got a good handful of Tabitha's hair, which has never happened before, and boy did she cry!  "SQUEEEEEAAAAAAAAWAAWAAAWAAA" she called, until I scooped her up for cuddles.  Ahhh, babies...

Then we came home for her last nap, read a Jemima Puddleduck book, then off to bed.

Here are two cute photos of Tabitha eating lunch from yesterday.  You will note that I "double bib" her.  This is a good tip for Baby-Led Weaning - the long sleeve bib stops her arms getting covered in grease/sauce/mush, while the plastic 'pelican bib' catches any solid bits that fall straight down, for easy retrieval.  The long-sleeve bibs go in the washing machine with the cloth nappies, and the pelican bibs go in the dishwasher.  We have around five of each.

The best long-sleeve bibs I have found for Baby-Led Weaning are the Silly Billyz brand - because they come in a 'Small' size, which is nearly tiny enough for a 6 - 10 month old baby (with the sleeves rolled up once).  Because babies fed on purees don't start really feeding themselves until around a year of age, most 'sleeve bibs' are just massive.  The Silly Billyz bibs are available online, and I've also purchased them from Parenthood in Malvern (which is a fabulous baby store).

As I was taking her photo, she bit her finger by mistake.  Ouch!  It is so sad seeing her cry, but it is also oh-so-cute...  poor little baby:

Because she eats such little amounts for lunch and dinner, I buy or cook a large serving or batch, then individually wrap up each serving (each serve is enough for Tabitha, plus a little for me to nibble on too - this is important, because it is best to sit and eat with the baby, so that they learn to eat by mimicking.  They also, of course, enjoy the company).

I keep a whole stash of these little portions in the freezer.  All sorts of meals, for plenty of variety.  Below, you can see:  organic beef schnitzel pieces; lovely spinach and ricotta filled pasta from Yarra Valley Dairy (to serve with fresh basil pesto, a favourite); a veggieburger (75 per cent vegetables with whole wheat flour); and two homemade date scones.  Often she eats what we have for dinner, and if I am out for lunch, I order something for her off the menu.  But having a really decent freezer stash of healthy portioned meals comes in handy - otherwise it's easy to end up feeding her toast all day!

Here is her beef schnitzel lunch - those pieces are each about the size of my palm.  One gets cut into a few strips for Tabitha, and the other goes in a sandwich for my own lunch:

 

The Daddy often doesn't get home until well after 7pm, even 8pm, so on some nights I eat dinner with Tabitha, and on other nights I eat dinner with him.

Photos from the weekend.

I mentioned that one of my closest friends came over on the weekend and took some photos.  She is doing a part-time photography course - her mother is an artist, and I think some of her artistic eye has rubbed off on Ruby.

We will certainly be having a couple of these ones framed for the living room.  I think they are very cute, but I know I am biased...

Here are a couple of Tabitha hanging out in her cot.  By the way, something terribly cute happened this morning - after she woke up from her morning nap, I could hear her awake in her cot, but she sounded perfectly happy.  About 15 or so minutes later, she was still chatting to herself, so I thought I had better go check on her - she was sitting up in her cot, practicing her newest skill, clapping!  She had been sitting there clapping and smiling to herself for 15 minutes.  Awww.

How funny is her hair?!  It is like that naturally - she has a double crown at the back, so her hair grows into a little mohawk.  I call it her 'cocky crest':

Tabitha has loved to be hung upside down ever since we first tried it at Gymbaroo when she was a few months old.  She grins and squeals with laughter - and tries to bite my nose!

Tabby is making a funny face - "oh mumma stop it with these endless kisses!"

Here is The Daddy taking her outside through her nursery doors:

 I have no idea what sort of lens this is but it's a fun photo - The Daddy, Tabitha, myself, and Ruby's lovely legs and impressive biker boots:

More cot cuteness:

Another funny face - grrrrrrrrrr!

Here is a nice photo of The Daddy and Tabitha in the backyard:

 Tabitha playing with her tongue:

Trying to snatch the camera!

Drool.  This is gross, I think, unless it's your own baby.  Then it is Super Cute:

What is this face?!

Peering down at everyone - she looks like a funny little baby space creature.  I like it!

And one of my favourite photos of her and I so far:

Thanks Ruby for taking some really, really beautiful photos!  You can check out Ruby's Tumblr photo blog here - there are some photos of Tabitha a couple of pages in.

What do green tomato pickles and chinkiang vinegar have in common?

I'm sure you know of David Thompson.  He's the legendary author of Thai Food, that stunning pink fabric-bound encyclopedic Thai cookbook, as well as a frequent guest on Poh's Kitchen, an exceptional Thai chef, Head Chef of the first ever Michelin-starred Thai restaurant in London (Nahm) and a famously dry wit.

If David Thompson says something about Thai cooking, recipes or ingredients, I pay attention.  When I heard him chatting about oyster sauce once, my ears really pricked up - every time I use oyster sauce from the supermarket (that nasty congealed pale goop) it tastes of nothing, which is not surprising when you check out the ingredients; water, thickeners, preservatives, vegetable gums, and a little oyster extract.

David Thompson says the absolute best brand of oyster sauce (and fish sauce) is Megachef, a Thai company.  Containing 45 per cent pure oysters, Megachef sauce is so thick that when you turn the bottle upside down (even for a looooong time), nothing comes out!  You need to use a knife.  The flavour is just beautiful - perfect on some stir-fried greens.

The Megachef fish sauce (nuoc mam in Vietnamese, nam pla in Thai) is also excellent - mellow yet rich and flavourful.  The sauces are both surprisingly reasonably priced (the regular sized bottle of fish sauce was $3.30 and the massive bottle of oyster sauce was $5.55).

I often do an embarrassingly inauthentic 'Asian' stir-fried bok choi dish as a side with dinner - it is really nice poured over rice, with plenty of the sauce, with a small amount of grilled fish or chicken.

All I do is stir-fry some sliced bok choi (white thick pieces first, green leafy pieces at the end) in a little hot oil.  As soon as the white parts begin to soften slightly, I pour in:  a good glug of mirin, the same of soy sauce, a dash of fish sauce, a glug of oyster sauce, a good dash of chinkiang black vinegar, a drizzle of sesame oil, and a decent glug of good Thai sweet chili sauce.  I then reduce this over heat until it is thick and delicious, adding the green parts for a minute to soften, then pouring over rice.

I just mentioned, above, one of my all-time favourite ingredients:  chinkiang rice vinegar.  It is a black, intense, almost smoky vinegar, made from glutenous rice.  I use it instead of soy sauce for dipping when I have yum cha or dumplings at home.  Just thinking about it makes my mouth water!  I first discovered chinkiang at David's, one of my favourite Chinese restaurants.  I always order Mock Crab, an unusual and delicious dish made by gently cooking a rich, fluffy yet creamy egg-white omlette, with pieces of scallop and white fish tossed throughout.  It is served with chinkiang to pour over it.  It is probably one of my most favourite restaurant dishes.

Below, you can see what chinkiang vinegar looks like - you can get it at any Asian grocery.  Next to this, you can see a jar of Beerenberg Green Tomato Pickle.  Can you guess what these two items have in common??

Well, they are both sour...  There's a clue...

They were the two items that I completely craved during my pregnancy!  Barely a day would go past without eating one or the other - and I confess to sometimes pouring a little bowl of chinkiang vinegar and just dipping my fingers in to lick them.  I promise, at the time it didn't seem strange at all!

The Nursery

Tabitha had a very basic nursery - she did not, in fact, sleep in her 'nursery' even once for the first seven months, now she flitters between her nursery and our bed.

These photos were taken when I was first setting it up.  It looks much the same now, however there are more 'grown-up' clothes in the wardrobe, and there is a very large and gorgeous (if a little creepy) white rabbit lamp - this one.

We painted her room pale pink - we trooped down to the paint store, stocked up on swatches, bought little test pots and painted numerous patches of pink all over the walls.  Ultimately, we settled on Nursery Pink (half strength).  Isn't that terribly anticlimactic?  But it was truly the nicest pink - not too salmon, not too sickly.  We kept the ceiling and wooden trims white (White Watsonia), and to avoid the whole room looking like a bag of marshmallows, I chose very dark Walnut wood furniture, and accent accessories in shades of grey.

Here is Tabitha's cot - the Boori Paddington, in Walnut.  I loved some of the more modern ones, such as the Stokke, but I felt that a more classic style worked for our home.  I also think the Boori will fit a much longer toddler than the Stokke - and we are tall-ish people.

Here is Tabitha's mobile - sorry, the lighting is really low!  There are a number of heavy canvas butterflies, in pink, grey floral ballerina print, and 1950s newsprint:

We got a large bookshelf / room divider from Ikea - this is brilliant in a nursery because it holds so much, and so many different types of things - there are books, tubs at the bottom (with puzzles, toys, breastpump and equipment, bibs and hats, and nappies), plus shelves for displaying objects, and there is a small pink case on one of the shelves with her first-aid kit, and a nice big blue Japanese bowl with all of her little rolled-up socks.  There is also a small stereo on one of the shelves, with some great baby music such as Music for Dreaming.  Below, there are close-ups of two of the shelves - one with a pretty little Tiffany 'bunny bank' which my dad brought her back from New York, with two rattles, and one shelf full of little toys:

The change-table is also Boori, walnut to match the cot.  I decided to get a style which is basically a regular chest of drawers, with a change-mat on top.  Most change-tables are quite open underneath, which I feel limits their usefulness - once the baby is moving around a bit (Tabby was well and truly rolling by 4 months), change-tables are pretty useless, and it's easier to change them on a bed or the ground.  Whereas a chest of drawers will remain necessary for years to come.

Actually, we never once used this change-table for changing a nappy.  That's right, never.  Because she slept in our room, we just changed her on our bed!  We kept - and still keep - all of her nappy equipment in a shelf by the bed.  So I sure am glad we didn't shell out for a dedicated change-table...

Everyone kept telling me how important it was to have a good feeding chair.  I hauled my enormous pregnant self around countless furniture stores, climbing in and out of chairs.  Ultimately, the most comfortable, roomy (for a wriggling older baby) and easy to clean chair was from Ikea - the Ektorp.  It truly is an exceptionally comfy chair - in the final weeks of the pregnancy, I would sit in it and never want to get out!

Also on the chair, below, you will see my Milkbar breastfeeding pillow.  This was a total blessing during the early couple of months - I didn't feed without it.  Just the right height, firmness, and removable cover for frequent washing (Tabby was quite the spewer in those early weeks!)

While the Milkbar got a real workout, the chair - like the changetable - got absolutely NO use until recently.  Because Tabitha was either in our bed, or in her little Moses basket next to the bed, overnight I always fed her sitting up in bed.  During the day, I preferred to feed her in the living room on the sofa, rather than tucked away in the nursery.  Lately, I have started to use it - the perfect size for cuddling up with Tabitha and reading stories, and when she sleeps in the nursery, I feed her overnight sitting in the chair.  It is very comfortable - in fact, last night, I went to feed her at around 1:30am, and fell asleep holding her curled up in the chair for nearly an hour!  When I woke up, she was still latched on and gently sucking in her sleep, too cute...

Because we got a plain white chair, I bought a throw rug and some attractive pink, silver and beige cushions.  Below, you can see that the cats certainly like the chair:

We got the wardrobes redone in both bedrooms - we cut it very fine, with the final touches finished just a week before Tabitha was due (though she didn't arrive for a further three weeks).  All of the wardrobes in the nursery are split horizontally, so that I can hang little baby things on the top and bottom.  Below you can see all of her tiny newborn nightgowns, onesies and coats, from 0000 size on the left, to 0 size on the right.  She wore the 0000 sizes for about 3-4 weeks, then the 000 size until she was about 4 months old, the 00 size until around 6 months old, and now she is 0 and 1 sizes.

Even now, I find sitting in Tabitha's nursery to be incredibly calming and serene.  The colours are muted, there is plenty of filtered daylight, and the floor-to-ceiling glass French doors look out to the garden.  It is my favourite room of the house to just sit and read in!  I have seen some really gorgeous nurseries filled with bright colours, but I personally think that muted tones are conducive to relaxing and sleeping.

Here are the doors - the glass panel off to the side overlooks the garden.  You can see baby Possum peering out to the decking:

Tabitha Update

Exciting news from the baby T front:

- I gave Tabby some fried egg this morning, and she ate it (gutsed it, really) with no red rash or reaction this time!  The egg was completely cooked, I will try again with some soft-cooked egg again this week.

- Tabitha can do all sorts of grown-up things now that she is a Big Girl of more than 7 1/2 months!  She can sit up and clap her hands, bang two blocks together, she can also pull herself up to stand against the sofa/walls/doorframes/human legs.  Once up, she can get down again (often even without bonking her noggin!), and she can slooooowly creep along, getting about a metre by shuffling along holding onto the sofa/wall etc.

- When I leave the room, she can generally crawl and come find me.  This is a grand improvement - it used to be that if I left the room for just a second (to get a glass of water, say) she would burst into tears and sit crying until I returned to scoop her up.

My favourite new development?  She loves to crawl across the room and then, panting and grunting with excitement and exertion, clamber into my lap and stand up so that she can wrap her little arms tightly around my neck, and burrow her face deeply into my hair/neck/jumper.  She will stay like that for minutes, just breathing in her 'mummy smell'.  Makes my day every time!

Here is a photo of my baby on the day she was born.  Note - my little sister added the stuffed mouse just for the photo while she slept.  It's not the done thing to leave a stuffed toy in with a sleeping baby, generally!

Around 8 hours after Tabitha was born, The Daddy and I were completely exhausted (my active labour was nearly 45 hours long!), so my mother sent us off to bed for a nap and she sat with Tabitha in the living room (new babies pretty much just sleep for the first day or so) - this is when the above photo was taken.

Sunday Paella

Lazy Sunday - went to the Prahran Market in the morning with The Daddy and Tabitha, then had a couple of friends come over, then had my parents, sister, godfather and godson over for dinner.  I made seafood paella for dinner - my godfather gave me a whopping bit paella pan for Christmas a few years back, and it's always a great meal to make when there's a bit of a crowd.

Here is how I make paella:

9 cups of water

500g clams (vongole) purged of sand (soak in cold water with 2 big pinches of salt for at least 30 minutes)

500g mussels, scrubbed and debearded

2 fillets of firm-fleshed white fish (I used Rockling today) cut into 2 inch pieces

A few tablespoons of flour with a good amount of salt and pepper mixed through

Extra virgin olive oil

1 green capsicum, cored, de-seeded, and cut into 1 inch pieces

500g cuttlefish or squid, cleaned and cut into 1 inch pieces

20 raw head-on large prawns in their shells

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

5 ripe tomatoes, peeled, de-seeded and finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika

20 - 30 saffron threads, lightly toasted in a dry pan for a couple of minutes, then ground to a powder (rub in a piece of baking paper)

3 cups paella rice (or short-grain rice)

In a medium saucepan, boil 5 cups of water, add clams and a teaspoon of salt.  Reduce heat and simmer, half-covered, for half an hour.  Set aside with clams WITH their water (throw out any that don't open).

Put the mussels in a medium saucepan with a cup of water, bring to boil, simmer, uncovered, until the mussels have opened (about 3-5 minutes).  Throw out any that don't open.  Set aside the mussels with their water.

In a large paella pan (mine is about 60cm or so across), coat the bottom with around 8 tablespoons of oil, and heat.  Dredge the pieces of fish in the seasoned flour, then pan-fry in the oil, turning once, until lightly browned.  Set aside.

Remove any solids in the paella pan, then, in the same oil, add the capsicum and cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes, stirring, until it starts to brown and becomes fragrant.  Add the cuttlefish and cook, about 5 minutes, stirring, and scraping anything that sticks to the pan.  Add the prawns and cook on both sides until pink.

Lower the heat to medium, and add the garlic, tomatoes and 2 pinches of salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the tomatoes have darkened and the mixture is a nice sludgy 'sofrito' paste (abour 10 - 15 minutes).

While this is cooking, strain the broth from the mussels and clams into a jug, adding enough plain water to make up around 8 cups of liquid in total.  

Pull off and discard one side of each clam shell (the side not attached to the clam).  When the sofrito is ready, sprinkle in the paprika and saffron powder, stirring over heat for a minute while the flavours penetrate and meld.  Remove the prawns, set aside with the fish, clams and mussels.

Add the clam water/plain water (8 cups), bring to the boil, and taste for seasoning, adding more salt as needed.  Sprinkle the 3 cups of rice evenly over the paella pan.  With a wooden spoon, check to see that the rice is evenly distributed across the pan.  Do NOT stir again!

Lay the pieces of fish, prawns, mussels and clams over the top (you can do this in a pretty pattern, or just keep it rustic, depending on your mood).  Cook, uncovered, for 8 minutes over high heat, then a further 10 - 15 minutes over medium heat, or until the rice is cooked (still having a fair amount of 'bite', you don't want it too soft).

The paella rice will be fairly dry at the end, and there will be an almost-burnt, crispy dry layer of rice on the bottom - this is the best part!  Remove from the heat, then cover with some paper towels and let rest for 5 minutes.  Squeeze some fresh lemon juice over the top before serving.  When serving, make sure you scrape some of the bottom crispy part into each serving.  

I cannot possibly tell you how good this smells (and tastes) - I had to shoo out a crowd of people from my kitchen, all trying to steal a taste out of the pan while it was cooking.  The smokey, intense paprika and salty seafood smell permeates the whole house.  It is intoxicating.

Here is Tabitha eating a prawn from the paella - it was delicious and spiced and smokey and she ate the whole thing!

My Tips:

• Prepare the mis en plas well before starting cooking - preparing the clams, cutting everything up, cleaning the squid, toasting the saffron etc., can easily take over an hour if you do it at a leisurely pace.  Once everything is prepared and in the bowls ready to go, cooking is dead easy and very straightforward:

 

• My paella pan is far too big for a single burner, so I straddle it across my fish burner and two of the regular burners, turning every now and then to ensure the heat is even.
• Sometimes you need to add a little extra water, if the rice is not yet cooked and there is no liquid left - but just a cup or less of boiling water, sprinkled over, should do it.  And remember paella is dry, not wet like risotto.
• You can mix up the seafoods if you want - just use what looks good at the market.  Sometimes yabbies, bugs, you can even add some browned chicken thigh or rabbit (cook in the same way as the fish).
• You can buy excellent smoked sweet paprika and saffron from Casa Iberica in Collingwood (25 Johnston Street) - and, for that matter, paella pans.  For some reason, people often give me Spanish ingredients as a hostess gift (seriously - it's happened too often to be a coincidence!), so I have a bit of a stash.  This Bomba rice is the shiz:

We had some baklava and assorted similar sweets for dessert:

My friend Ruby came over this afternoon too - she is studying photography part time, and came to take some photos of Tabitha.  Here is one she took - she will send through more in the next few days hopefully:

And here is Ruby holding Marilyn - she went from being very nervous to completely in love, in the space of about a minute!  Now she wants a diamond python too - see, diamonds are a girl's best friend: