Monday, December 3, 2012

Grams of my life, part 2


Another week in Instagram. I take so many photos these days with my iphone, I'm not sure anything much would get recorded if I didn't have it. Especially my beautiful babies. The little one is getting big so quickly. At 7 months she is crawling all around our house, pulling herself up on things and bouncing whenever she can. I've been told more than a few times that she has the makings of an early walker, serious eeeekkkkk!

The buckets and buckets of roses above formed the aisle for a wedding we went to last weekend. In the Botanic Gardens in the middle of Sydney, they had their ceremony within the Rose Garden. The last week of November may be the perfect time to have a wedding, the Rose Garden itself is so beautiful and they had thousands of roses looking absolutely perfect just in the beds around the wedding venue. This was an utterly stunning wedding, and as a guest it was perfect. After the ceremony we were served Bollinger and canapes whilst looking across the Botanic Gardens and down to Sydney Harbour. The break between ceremony and celebration was almost 2 hours, I didn't mind a bit as we caught up with friends and took in Sydney. We then ambled down into the heart of the gardens to the Botanic restaurant. They did a fantastic job and we were totally spoilt. Matching food & wines, macaron towers, photo books for guests to take home, Polaroid walls. Best barramundi I've had in absolutely years!


Back to reality, and I'm eternally on the search for the best yogurt. It feels like Australia is just starting to get to the point of premium, local, healthy yogurts that England was producing when I left 10 years ago. I still find myself thinking back to how beautiful the Yeo Valley products were and think how silly I am to be missing yogurt. Still, it's true.

Roaming Cow is very special find, the natural yogurt is so silky and mild. I chose it for my 7month old. It's so tricky to find yogurts that are suitable for babies, full fat but with no added sugars and flavours, gelatines etc etc. Gippsland is the only other one that is widely available but it is much more tart. So Roaming Cow gets a huge thumbs up in our family. I may or may not be consuming more Roaming Cow than the little one.


Coffee at Outpost espresso. Favourite spot.


This is London by M. Sasek. These books are absolute retro classics. The prints are just adorable, I think they would be stunning in frames in kids' rooms too. We gave this to a friend of Miss 3 who had a birthday last week. Many of the major cities have their own books, apart from Sydney, but there is a This is Australia version available.

Our first Gardenia this year. They always make me so happy when they appear, and yet so sad that they only last a matter of days. Sensational perfume.



First cherries of the season. Apparently they have had a fabulous year in Young, NSW. So bring on the cherries. My telly watching snack of choice at this time of year!



Digestive biscuits. Blast from the past. I picked these up at Coles for the base in my Chocolate Key Lime pie recipe, and nibbled on a few during cooking. So comforting to have biscuits from childhood.

A trip into the city on Friday morning, lovely to Sydney all decked out for Christmas. I headed to Laduree to pick up some macarons for my sister's 30th birthday. The shop is situated in the middle of the Westfield and has a little cafe too. They are much more of a classic macaron than the Zumbarons. And very special if you are into macarons.



Little one travelling on the bus in the heat. She was the perfect shopping buddy.

First stop in the city was Becasse bakery. They make superb french pastries, probably the best I've had in Australia. I'm still sad that Justin North had to close the rest of his little corner on level 5 of the Westfield. I loved what they were doing and had a wonderful birthday meal there too.


We had 6 close friends over for lunch yesterday. The theme of the day was lime, I think I went through 15 limes in the preparation of all the dishes. 8 or so for Nigella's Chocolate Key lime pie (do it, do it!) 1 on the grilled sweetcorn, 1 in the guacamole, 2 on the barbeque chicken with lime and garlic, another in the beetroot dip.... Might have been a good idea to work out that they are not in season in Sydney right now....

A gift from T2 from one of our guests. Take me to Morocco teas. I had such a lovely weekend.

Have a great week everyone xxx