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APRIL 2009 JACKIE FRENCH NEWS

In this month's news:

• Intro… or why our PM is a lamington…
• Wombat News
• Award News
• New Books
• Schedule for 2009
• The April Garden
• A Few Recipes:
  • Berry Slice
  • Nutty Floozies
  • Autumn Puddings

Intro... or why our PM is a lamington...

Last Saturday afternoon, while mixing an apple cake and listening to the radio, I suddenly realised I was seeing all the politicians mentioned in terms of biscuits or, in a few cases, cakes.

Which isn’t as silly as it sounds. If we call someone a pig, a savage beast, a peacock or a noble lion it says a lot about the way we see their character. So why not think about politicians in terms of cakes and biscuits?

The first one is obvious. Kevin Rudd is a sure-fire lamington. Sort of warm and fuzzy and just a bit dry in the middle. Both come from Queensland too. A good lamington is delicious … but sometimes both the world and your appetite need something just a bit less traditional.

Julia Gillard has to be a gingernut biscuit. Not that either of them are the least nutty, just crisp and a bit spicy and with a good helping of ginger.

Malcolm Turnbull? I’d go for rocky road, heavy on the marshmallow. Julie Bishop is a 9-grain cracker with cheese, tomato and black pepper. John Howard was vegemite toast. (I think of him every time I do my GST.) Bob Brown is a wholemeal apricot slice, and Anna Bligh a Nice biscuit dunked in a cuppa tea … a bit soggy, but she survived. 

And Peter Costello? Well, how about a passionfruit sponge finger, nice on the top but softish in the middle …

Wombat News

Bruiser Wombat arrived last month. I know ‘Bruiser’ sounds like the name for a nightclub bouncer, but Bruiser is sweet and timid and smallish … the only thing he really shares with a nightclub bouncer is a thick neck. He was called Bruiser because he arrived bruised when he was taken into care.

He’s been released into the bush before, and both times came back injured, by other wombats, dogs or maybe human rubbish he’d tried to scratch against.

The first night here he scratched himself incessantly. Mange, we thought, but it wasn’t. Just nerves. By the second night he’d stopped scratching and moved into Mothball’s hole under the bedroom … which meant wombat yells in the night as she pushed him out.

For the next few nights he tried to graze in Mothball’s territory … and hid his droppings under leaves and bushes, maybe so she wouldn’t notice he was there. Then suddenly he grew confident and left droppings on rocks and steps. Just carefully away from Mothball’s favourite grazing places.

Now Mothball feeds to the right of the house, and Bruiser to the left, a territory shared with Rosie the wallaby and her joey Emily, plus Rosie’s latest joey, so far unseen and unnamed, just a bulge in her pouch. Both wombats ignore us, and each other. And both of them leave more droppings than I’ve seen around here for years, each carefully positioned on the highest rock or step or bit of firewood in their territory – a wombat’s way of saying, ‘This is mine.’

Award News

A Rose for the Anzac Boys, How High can a Kangaroo Hop?, and The Camel Who Crossed Australia have all been declared  Notable Books in the latest Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards. A Rose for the Anzac Boys has been shortlisted, too, for the Book of the Year in the Older Readers category.

New Books

The Donkey Who carried the Wounded
This came out on April 1, and was launched at the Australian War Memorial on April 8th.
Simpson is famous for his heroic transport of the wounded to safety at Gallipoli  but few people know the story of the donkey.  Where did he come from?  What happened to him after Gallipoli?

The Donkey Who Carried the Wounded is the story of that small, unassuming animal but also the story of the infamous battle of Gallipoli, of Jack Simpson and of the New Zealander stretcher-bearer, Richard Henderson, who literally took up the reins after Simpson was killed. 

Other Recent Books
How High can a Kangaroo Hop? All you never realised you didn’t know about our best known marsupial.
A Rose for the Anzac Boys: World War I seen through the eyes of three courageous young women.
Emily and the Big Bad Bunyip: another hilarious Shaggy Gully picture book with the magic Bruce Whatley.
The Camel who Crossed Australia: The Burke and Wills expedition seen through the eyes of Bell Sing, otherwise known as He who Spits Further Than the Storm’, the young cameleer Dost Mahomet and Englishman John King.

Later this year:
 
The Night They Stormed Eureka: Set against one of the most turbulent events in Victoria’s history.
Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior: School for Heroes, Book 1: How do you learn to become a Hero when you’re only half-human?
Baby Wombat’s Week: Meet Mothball’s baby – twice as stroppy, twice the fun.

Schedule for 2009

I’m afraid I won’t be able to manage much more than the list below. I usually receive at least one invitation to give talks, workshops, visit an inspiring project, meet kids with a problem or a request to tour the garden each day, often several. Much as I’d love to, I just can’t do them all – I only have two hands and 24 crammed hours in a day.

The April Garden

If I honestly had to nominate a hobby, which I admit I never have done in any survey – it would be ‘growing food’. But maybe it’s not just a hobby. I do, after all, make part of our living writing about the things in our garden.

When I look out my study window I always see food.

When guests arrive at the moment we have to warn them to ‘watch out for the kiwi fruit’ – not the vines, which are easy to avoid if you duck your head going through the front door, but the fruit, which are hard to see at night when dinner guests arrive and the furry bits get stuck in their hair. I’d hate a guest to think they’ve suddenly developed prickly dandruff.

Our garden doesn’t look like most passionate gardeners’ plots though – no neat rows of vegies, or well pruned trees. It’s a jungle. But it’s a jungle with endless flowers and fruit and veg.  Think of it as a different way of growing crops that needs much less work, far less water – rain will do it – and is much more welcoming to birds, wombats ,wallabies and other wildlife.

One of the problem with Australian gardens is that they are still pretty much European in nature ... they've evolved in places where lots of that strange wet stuff falls from the sky. So here’s what to do if you want a garden that feeds you and delights you but doesn't need any watering:

1. Forget about summer planting. The plants shrivel and so do you. Plant in autumn instead – many plants traditionally planted in spring actually do better planted in April, so they can get themselves settled before the worst of summer.
2. Go for perennials (including vegies) that develop big roots so they can live on their equivalent of a camel’s hump.
3. Add a few annuals that grow fast and give you a heck of a lot in return. These are usually vegies from places that have stinking hot summers and freeze your toes off in winter.  Most Asian greens fall into this category.
4. Find out which fruit trees survive in your area – around here you’ll find ancient pears, apples, plums, persimmons, quinces and loquat trees where once a farmhouse stood, long gone to bushfire, time and termites. But the ‘great survivors’ are still fruiting.

Great Survivors – Our Top Ten (plus two for luck)
1.    Italian red-stemmed chicory
2.    Jerusalem artichokes
3.    Chives and garlic chives
4.    Agapanthus
5.    Any of the salvias
6.    Big flagrant rambling roses up the fruit trees to disguise them from birds and possums
7.    Perennial leeks
8.    Warrigal spinach
9.    A plum tree
10   Any nut tree... try a self-fertile almond
11   Pomegranate
12. Lady Williams apple

And if these aren’t sufficient, try figs, pears, crab apples, BIG grevilleas, medlars, olives, grapes, wild kiwi fruit, asparagus, artichoke, chilacayote…

A Few Recipes

Berry Fruit Slice
Note: This is a classic slice, extraordinarily good – but a lot depends on how well it's made. If you overcook it, you'll have leaden slice, dry and crumbly. Follow the directions exactly and you'll have something superb.
It's a classic, almost fudgy fruit slice filled with whatever fruit you have on hand. I've been using dried blueberries and cranberries lately, but others can be substituted. It is incredibly good – great for lunch boxes or you can even serve it slightly warmed, with yoghurt or ice cream.

Ease of making:   Medium.
Time taken:         10 minutes to mix, 20 minutes to cook.
Serves:                About 25 smallish slices.

Ingredients:
125g butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 tsps vanilla paste or essence (the paste has a better flavour)
1 egg
1 ¼ cups (150 gm) self-raising flour
3 cups dried fruit and nuts: try this combination:
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup dried blueberries
½ half cup chopped walnuts
½ cup sultanas

Other options include equal quantities of chopped dates and sultanas, or mixed dried fruit, or candied cherries and sultanas and almonds. It's also good with fresh stewed apple, chopped fresh peaches, any nuts in your garden, hunks of plums ... if it's sweet and fruity or nutty, it'll be good.

Method:
Turn the oven on to 200ºC before you start.
Melt butter in a saucepan over a very low heat with the dried fruit, stirring well. Add the brown sugar and mix till the sugar is dissolved. Take off the heat, stir in the egg quickly, then mix in the flour.
Scoop into a baking tray lined with baking paper, or rubbed with butter then dusted with flour so the mixture doesn't stick.
Bake for 20 minutes, then remove.

Nutty Floozies (or One Two Three Biscuits)
I think these may have originally been known as 'Nutty Oozies', as they do spread a bit, then become gold and crisp. But they've been floozies in my kitchen for decades. They were the first biscuit I ever made and are so good that one friend's boyfriend got up and left when he discovered there weren't any in the biscuit jar when they visited. Okay, she soon got rid of him … but they are a good biscuit.

Ease of making:    Very, very easy.
Time taken:          Two minutes to mix, 15 minutes in the oven.
Serves:                 Makes about 40 biscuits.

Ingredients:
125 g butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 tbsps golden syrup
2 tsps ground ginger
1½ cups plain flour
½ cup chopped nuts: peanuts, walnuts, almonds, macadamia nuts ...
½ cup self-raising flour, or two cups plain flour (the biscuits will be a bit tougher)
1 egg

Put everything except the egg in a saucepan on a low heat. Mix when butter is melted.
Take off the heat and beat in the egg.
Put flattened teaspoons full on a greased tray (or covered with baking paper) and bake at about 150ºC for 15 minutes, or till light gold (not dark brown).

Take out to cool. The biscuits will become crisp as they cool. To test if they are done, press your finger into the centre. If it seems liquid put them back in the oven for five minutes but it is important NOT to over cook.

Store in a sealed container for up to a month.

Autumn Puddings
Suddenly it's autumn – autumn leaves, doonas and hot puddings.
This one only takes five minutes to whip up, and it cooks while you're eating the first course. They're also great made in advance and warmed up over the next week.

Ease of making: Simple.
Time taken:        Five minutes to make, 30 minutes to cook.
Serves:               Four (double or triple the recipe so you can have a week's supply).

You will need:
4 coffee mugs
1 baking dish

Ingredients:
100 g butter, softened
¾ cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste or essence
2 eggs
1½ cups self-raising flour
1 cup mashed fruit. Some suggestions: banana, cooked peaches, cooked dried apricots, cooked pumpkin, grated carrot, peeled seeded grapes, finely chopped ripe figs.
4-8 tbsps jam, or stewed fruit, or honey

Method:
Place jam, stewed fruit or honey in mugs.
Turn oven on to 200ºC.
Place pan in oven and half fill with water.

Mix all of the rest of the ingredients together with an electric beater. If you are mixing by hand, cream butter and sugar first well, then add eggs, then the other stuff. Don't worry if it's a bit lumpy, as long as there are no big lumps of flour.
Pour into mugs.
Place mugs in tray oven.
Bake for 30 minutes.

Serving suggestions:
1. Serve hot with cream or ice cream or both. You can either scoop out the puddings – use a knife to loosen them – and eat from bottom to top, or pour the cream and ice cream into the mug and eat from top to bottom.
2. Cover and keep in the fridge for up to a week, and serve hot at a later date. Reheat in the oven or microwave – about five minutes in a moderate oven.
3. Serve at room temperature.

For more information from Jackie, please go to her website: www.jackiefrench.com

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