Forage 2015

I can't believe that Forage has been and gone for another year already. 2015 is the fifth Forage, a highlight of FOOD Week in Orange. It's a totally great event, and we've had 4 years of fabulous, dry autumnal weather. 2011. 2012. 2013. 2014. Forage is bigger and better every year. 2015 was something special.

Much rain was predicted this year.
90% chance of 10-20 mm.

And it started raining just as the first buses arrived!
But it was only a shower, and didn't last that long. 

The ladies were mostly kitted out in dress wellies anyway

Highland Heritage's
5 Spice Pork with Crispy Salad

Foragers are an intrepid lot and don't let a little shower
dampen their enthusiasm.

The day was atmospheric and glorious. 

It's always wonderful walking between the vines

With so many delicious pit stops along the way. 

Lolli Redini's
Chicken Rillette with Orchard Fruit Compote

Stepping Stone's Minnestrone
with Trunkey Creek Spec

The Forage ahead. 

Crowds of enthusiastic Foragers build with every bus arrival.

I certainly did. 

Agrestic Grocer's
Wild Mushroom Pie
warming and perfect for the day

Sadly I wasn't drinking but did have the
occasional sip. 

Bite Riot Cherry Juice is good!

Beautiful new vistas with every step. 

Edwena Mitchell's
Beef Shin Braised in Coconut Cream
was sensational.

As was
Vindevie's
Hand Pressed Shiraz Sorbet

The rain had held off for long enough
and was soon bucketing down.
Most people had had enough wine that they didn't
really care.

But now I long for a Gustav Klimt brolly too...

It was a wet end to a great day. 

But Kate Brack's
Chocolate and Red Wine Cake
with Roasted Pear and Cinnamon Cream
was Exceptional.
 I didn't care that it was raining. 

Second Mouse cheese to finish

And then a wet and soggy dash to the bus home. I can't wait to see what Forage 2016 will bring...

Edwena Mitchell published her marvellous beef shin recipe on Facebook and is happy for me to share it with you here. I think I need to try this at home. It would be easy to make a half recipe, although so delicious you'll probably want the full one. 

The Braised Shin Beef was quite well received so herewith the recipe, adapted from a Gourmet Traveller Fare Exchange recipe:

2 kg shin beef, don't remove the casings, just cut it up into largish chunks
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 tab pepper
1/2 tab dark brown sugar
1 tab Herbies Chinese 5 Spice mix
1 or 2 green chillis
2" piece ginger grated
6 big fat cloves garlic
2 tabs sesame oil
800ml coconut cream

Make a paste with the pepper, sugar, spice mix, ginger, garlic, chilli & sesame oil, mix the paste with meat and soy sauce & marinate for as long as you can (at least 2 days).

Put the meat into good heavy casserole pot with coconut cream & cook at 140 degrees for 4 or 5 hours till very tender.

Serve with rice and:

2 green capsicum
1 Lebanese Cucumber
1/2 bunch radish
1 bunch shallots or 1 Spanish Onion
1/2 bunch coriander
1/2 cup sushi dressing 

Slice capsicum, shallots & radish very finely, pour over sushi dressing 1/2 hr before serving & use Coriander for garnish at serving.

Serves 8 with a bit left over!!

For Forage, the meat was marinating in the soy & spice paste for one month, cryovac'ed, thanks to, Michael Borg from M & J Meats in Orange, my wonderful butcher.

Marinating for a month! No wonder it tasted so amazing. I might need a trip to see Michael this week too. It's been raining ever since Forage ended, and has turned quite wintery.

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Brock

Wow. Brock sure packs an emotional punch. A grim, unusual tale of badger baiting at one level- books for children really can deal with almost anything, and also a tale of a family struggling to get by. 

Our narrator Nicky lives in a small village in England with his Dad and his older brother Kenny, who is a bit simple. 

People say he's simple, and he is. I know you're not meant to say 'simple-minded' any more, but it seems to me that it's the exact right word for Kenny. He hasn't got all the stuff going on that messes up other people's heads. He isn't always trying to work out the angles, or how to stitch you up. He thinks other people are as kind as he is, and he only has one idea at a time. 

Their Dad hasn't been the same either since their Mum left. He's not working, he's got into some trouble with the law and he drinks too much. One morning Kenny wakes Nicky early to go out to meet some of the boys from town, nasty boys who are up to no good. 

Rob wasn't mean. He was something else. He was a psycho. He'd seem all friendly and normal, and then something would set him off and he'd smash stuff up. 'Stuff' could mean you, if you were around. He once bit a kid and the kid had to go to hospital to get a shot for tetanus and probably rabies as well. Rob was on Ritalin but it didn't make any difference. 

There are some unspeakable acts of cruelty in this book, it is not a sweet, cosy tale of British village life by any means. But Nicky is a good kid and ultimately it is about being true to yourself, knowing what is right and the redemptive power of kindness. 

I've never seen a badger but they do sound to be extraordinary animals. Certainly many English stories feature them. Badgers seemed to be everywhere for me a few reading weeks ago. Constance the badger was a major character in Redwall which I read recently (see my review), and there was even a recent Guardian list of the Top 10 Fictional Badgers- the old male from Brock rightly being one of them. 

The old male shifted in his sleep. He was fighting again those long-ago battles, back in the days when his teeth were still sharp. Those teeth were worn down to brown stumps now, but once every living creature feared them. 

Fictional badgers are so popular that they are thought to have influenced the UK's conflicted attitudes to badger culling. 

I'm so glad that I ordered Brock online after I found it in this list of Top 10 Books for Reluctant and Dyslexic Readers. I'd never read a story about badger baiting. Indeed I didn't know that badger baiting was a thing or what it was, and I was immediately transfixed. Published by Barrington Stoke Teen it is Dyslexia Friendly. I didn't know that books could in fact be dyslexia friendly but they use special thick creamy yellow paper and printing techniques, each page is beautifully illustrated.

Anthony McGowan was an author that was totally new to me. I'll certainly be interested in reading more of his work. I'll be searching it out, and I'm looking forward to reading more from Barrington Stoke- they're doing interesting things with books. 

CBCA Book of the Year Awards Shortlist 2015

The Children's Book Council of Australia do so much to champion the vast number of great children's books that are produced in Australia every year. The annual Book of the Year Awards are so important to highlight the best of these books every year. The Shortlists were announced yesterday.

Some of these books are very much on my radar already, others are completely new to me, and indeed I'm rather thrilled that I've even managed to read some of them so far. I've already bought others and have them lurking in the TBR so now I will move them up towards the top.

Book of the Year: Older Readers Shortlist

Nona & Me - Clare Atkins
Intruder - Christine Bongers
Are You Seeing Me? - Darren Groth
The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl - Melissa Keil
The Minnow - Diana Sweeney
The Protected - Claire Zorn (see my review)

Older Readers Notable Books

Wrath - Anne Davies
Masquerade - Kylie Fornasier
I am Juliet - Jackie French (see my review)
Loyal Creatures - Morris Gleitzman (see my review)
Razorhurst - Justine Larbalestier
The Astrologer's Daughter - Rebecca Lim
Tigers on the Beach - Doug MacLeod
The Crystal Heart - Sophie Masson
Tigerfish - David Metzenthen
The Cracks in the Kingdom - Jaclyn Moriarty
The Year it all Ended - Kristy Murray
As Stars Fall - Christie Nieman
Laurinda - Alice Pung
The Ratcatcher's Daughter - Pamela Rushby
Alexander Altmann A10567 - Suzy Zail


Books of the Year: Younger Readers Shortlist

Two Wolves - Tristan Bancks (see my review)
The Simple Things - Beth Condon, Beth Norling (illustrator) (see my review)
The Cleo Stories: The Necklace and the Present - Libby Gleeson, Freya Blackwood (illustrator)
Bleakboy and Hunter Stand Out in the Rain - Steven Herrick
Figgy in the World - Tamsin Janu
Withering-by-Sea: A Stella Montgomery Intrigue - Judith Rossell (see my review)

Younger Readers Notable Books

The Adventures of Stunt Boy and his Amazing Wonder Dog Blindfold - Lollie Barr
Violet Mackerel's Helpful Suggestion - Anna Branford, Sarah Davis (illustrator)
Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy - Karen Foxlee
Kelsey and the Quest of the Porcelain Doll - Rosanne Hawke
Through My Eyes: Malini - Robert Hillman
A Very Singular Guild Book 3 City of Orphans - Catherine Jinks
Tea and Sugar Christmas - Jane Jolly, Robert Ingpen (illustrator)
Going Bush with Grandpa - Sally Morgan and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, Craig Smith (illustrator)
Roses are Blue - Sally Murphy, Gabriel Evans (illustrator)
Crossing - Catherine Norton
The Firebird Mystery: a Jack Mason Adventure - Darrell Pitt
The Ratcatcher's Daughter - Pamela Rushby
Truly Tan Freaked - Jen Storer, Claire Robertson (illustrator)
The Mapmaker Chronicles: Race to the End of the World - A.L. Tait
Paper Planes - Allayne L Webster

Book of the Year: Early Childhood Shortlist

Pig the Pug - Aaron Blabey (see my review)
Scary Night - Lesley Gibbes, Stephen Michael King (illustrator)
Go To Sleep, Jessie! - Libby Gleeson, Freya Blackwood (illustrator)
A House of Her Own - Jenny Hughes, Jonathan Bentley (illustrator)
Snail and Turtle are Friends - Stephen Michael King
Noni the Pony Goes to the Beach - Alison Lester

Early Childhood Notable Books

Baby Beats - Karen Blair
Monster Chef - Nick Bland
My Dad is a Bear - Nicola Connelly, Annie White (illustrator)
Bridie's Boots - Phil Cummings, Sara Acton (illustrator)
Tim and Ed - Ursula Dubosarsky, Andrew Joyner (illustrator)
B is for Bedtime - Margaret Hamilton, Anna Pignataro (illustrator)
Our Island - Alison Lester, Elizabeth Honey (illustrator)
Max - Marc Martin
One Night - Penny Matthews, Stephen Michael King (illustrator)
Kick with My Left Foot - Paul Seden, Karen Briggs (illustrator)
Big Pet Day - Lisa Shanahan, Gus Gordon (illustrator)
Whale in the Bath - Kylie Westaway, Tom Jellett (illustrator)

Picture Book of the Year Shortlist

Rivertime - Trace Bella (see my review)
My Two Blankets - Freya Blackwood (illustrator), Irena Kobald (text) (see my review)
One Minute's Silence - Michael Camilleri (illustrator), David Metzenthen (text) (see my review)
The Duck and the Darklings - Stephen Michael King (illustrator), Glenda Millard (text)
The Stone Lion - Ritva Voutila (illustrator), Margaret Wild (text) (see my review)
Fire - Bruce Whatley (illustrator), Jackie French (text) (see my review)

Picture Books Notable Books

The Amazing A to Z Thing - Bronwyn Bancroft (illustrator), Sally Morgan (text)
A House of Her Own - Jonathan Bentley (illustrator), Jenny Hughes (text)
The Brothers Quibble - Aaron Blabey (see my review)
Hello from Nowhere - Karen Blair (illustrator), Raewyn Caisley (text)
Top Dog - Rod Clement
Vanilla Ice Cream - Bob Graham
Tea and Sugar Christmas - Robert Ingpen (illustrator), Jane Jolly (text)
Once a Shepherd - Phil Lesnie (illustrator), Glenda Millard (text)
Along the Road to Gundagai - Andrew McLean (illustrator), Jack O'Hagan (dec) (text)
The Wild One - Lucia Masciullo (illustrator), Sonya Hartnett (text)
I Was Only Nineteen - Craig Smith (illustrator), John Schumann (text)
Outside - Ritva Voutila (illustrator), Libby Hathorn (text)

Eve Pownall Award for Information Books Shortlist

A-Z of Convicts in Van Diemen's Land - Simon Barnard
Coming of Age: Growing Up Muslim in Australia - Demet Divaroren and Amra Pajalic (editors)
Mary's Australia: How Mary Mackillop Changed Australia - Pamela Freeman
Tea and Sugar Christmas - Jane Jolly, Robert Ingpen (illustrator)
Emu - Claire Saxby, Graham Byrne (illustrator)
Audacity: Stories of Heroic Australians in Wartime - Carlie Walker, Brett Fatherly (illustrator)

Eve Pownall Award Notable Books

Australian Federation: One People, One Destiny - Net Brennan
Meet Douglas Mawson - Mike Dumbleton, Snip Green (illustrator)
Australia's Greatest Landmarks & Locations - Virginia Grant
Midnight: The Story of a Light Horse - Mark Greenwood, Frané Lessac (illustrator)
Our Island - The Children of Gununa with Alison Lester, Elizabeth Honey (illustrator)
One Minute's Silence - David Metzenthen (text), Michael Camilleri (illustrator) (see my review)
The Soldier's Gift - Tony Palmer, Jane Tanner (illustrator)
The Poppy - Andrew Plant
Emily Eases Her Wheezes - Katrina Roe, Leigh Hedstrom (illustrator)
The Afghanistan Pup - Mark Wilson

Crichton Award for New Illustrators Shortlist

Rivertime - Trace Balla (see my review)
Kick with My Left Foot -  Karen Briggs (illustrator), Paul Seden (text)
One Minute's Silence - Michael Camilleri (illustrator), David Metzenthen (text) (see my review)
Little Dog and the Christmas Wish - Corinne Fenton (illustrator), Robin Cowcher (text) (see my review)
Meet Douglas Mawson - Snip Green (illustrator), Mike Dumbleton (text)
The Lost Girl - Leanne Tobin (illustrator), Ambelin Kwaymullina (text)

I've somewhat randomly picked my winners before reading all the books, by cover alone, or if I've read one book in the category. Last year I picked 50% this way...

The winners will be announced at Noon on Friday August 21 at the start of Children's Book Week (August 22-28). The theme this year is Books Light Up Our World.

I will be trying to read as many as I can before August.

See my post with CBCA Book of the Year Winners 2015.

Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens

I drive past Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens reasonably often but hadn't had time to stop in many years. And boys in the car are always impatient. But travelling back solo from Newcastle Writers Festival recently was the perfect time for a quick stop. I'm so glad I did. 

It was a beautiful day

I only had time for a quick walk about the gardens before lunch. 

The hydrangeas were pretty much done. 

 I was hoping for lots of birdlife, but midday is never a great time. 

The skinks were cool though.

Possibly Yellow-bellied Water Skinks

Pitcher plants

Sadly the only parrot I saw

 The proteas were lovely. 

King Protea. Protea cyanoroides.

 And the dahlias spectacular this day.  

Basalt columns. 

Mount Tomah is a botanic gardens in the lower Blue Mountains west of Sydney. It's at 1000 metres, and sits atop a basalt peak. They have a great restaurant, Tomah Gardens Restaurant, run by Sean Moran from Sean's Panorama at Bondi, it's worth the stop alone.  

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Bilgewater

Bilgewater is a very unusual book. I'm not quite sure what to make of it really. I did quite like it on some levels, and at other times it drove me to distraction. The story of Marigold Green, a 17 year old girl living with her father, who is a Classics teacher at a British boys boarding school. Marigold's mother died when she was born, and she is called Bilgewater by the boys, a mondegreen of Bill's daughter.

My mother died when I was born which makes me sound princess-like and rather quaint.

Bilgewater has perhaps the worst self-esteem of any character I've ever read. She is always referring to herself as "orange-haired, short-sighted, frog-bodied".

Ugly, quaint and square lay I, happy and at home where I belonged.

And yet after she gets some new jeans she sees a "tall thin girl with rather good legs" in the mirror. Marigold (I find it hard to call her Bilgewater) has a good relationship with her somewhat distant and aloof father, and a warmer relationship with the matron Paula. Still she is a somewhat lonely, eccentric teenage girl who really does want friends. She is also preparing for Cambridge entrance exams. The story that develops is rather odd, and becomes gothic and farcical towards the end. I suspect that early on I was put off by the description of one of the other masters and was uncertain of what was to come, but perhaps that's my 21st century reader view, having seen too many Royal Commissions into Child Sexual Abuse.

Puffy Coleman keeps falling in love with the very little boys ("Well it's not as if he does anything")

Jane Gardam was a completely new author to me. Heretofore unknown. Which is sad really as she has written many books for adults and children since she began writing the very morning that her third child went to school. Her first book, a children's book - A Long Way from Verona was published in 1971, and she has since published more than 30 novels for adults, children and also short stories.

"I couldn't write until my youngest child went to school, and then I began- the first morning- and I've never stopped. For years there was no man in the house when my husband was off on law cases in the Far East. Without writing I would have been bored and unfaithful, maybe both, and the children would have been hideously over-protected."

Jane Gardam is clearly very intelligent and I certainly didn't get all of her allusions and references. 

I still couldn't use the toothpaste because of James Joyce but I washed all over. 

She has been nominated for the Booker and Orange Prizes. There was enough of interest in Bilgewater for me that I'm definitely interested in reading more of Gardam's work- both her writing for adults and children. Although it seems that Bilgewater straddles both categories, or perhaps defies them. The British Council tells us that Bilgewater was originally written for children, but now redefined as adult fiction . I did settle into her style in the second half of the book, and enjoyed her intelligence, wit and humour very much. 

I began to notice the beginnings of the prosperous terraces all now in darkness with the curtains pulled back for morning- last job of the middle-class day, all the televsision plugs pulled out.

262/1001

Garth Nix at Newcastle Writers Festival 2015

I had a fantastic weekend at Newcastle Writers Festival recently. There were many fascinating sessions. I kicked off my Saturday with an hour listening to Garth Nix and Magdalena Ball. I'd seen Garth Nix at another event a couple of years ago, but he wasn't really on my radar at that time and I don't remember all that much about it really. Which is all a bit surprising really as Garth has sold more than 5 million books, and been translated into more than 40 languages. But I'm not really much of a fantasy reader. I went through a sic-fi stage when I was a youngster, but never moved on to fantasy.

This session was primarily themed about Garth's most recent book, Clariel, a prequel to his Old Kingdom series, but published 10 years after the last book in the series. I haven't read any of those books, but the discussion about them was still fascinating. However the spark for Clariel came at the start of writing Lirael all those years ago, when he wondered how a particular character had come to be, how she have been as a young woman.

He mainly spoke to Clairel, but a lot of it applied to writing more generally.

Garth said that he doesn't map out the whole background of his books in great detail. He doesn't work anything out before he needs it for the story, although sometimes he might have worked it out in a previous book, perhaps even in what seemed a throwaway line. Which seems incredible having listened to Mister Monday recently- the first of seven books in the Keys to the Kingdom series. There are references to characters in the other six books of the series, it really seemed like he must have had an overarching plan before writing the first one. But perhaps he didn't?

Garth likes cliffhangers, which is obvious if you've ever read any of his writing, and he also likes monsters- again very obvious. He has a particular skill with both. Garth wasn't able to pick a favourite monster, and again he thinks up a monster when he needs one for the story.

Garth repeatedly said "It all comes back to story for me." A fact that really shows in his writing. It's very exciting.

There was a fascinating discussion on character names. Garth doesn't like ridiculous, unpronounceable names for his characters. Hallelujah! Ridiculous, unpronounceable names are one of the things that puts me off fantasy as a genre. Garth reads his work aloud as he is writing which he says shows the flaws in the prose, and also the flaws in the names. I've heard a number of authors say they do that now. It makes sense.

Garth actually spends a lot of time on his character names. Often he makes them up from fragments of words- names like Clariel and Sabriel. The suffix -iel is a hebrew name for angels. He wanted Sabriel to be evocative of dark night and power and so he wrote 40 or 50 different combinations before he finally chose Sabriel. And he admitted to stealing from Shakespeare as many authors do- Abhorson is the executioner in Measure for Measure, and so it is genius to use Abhorsen as those tasked to keep the dead down.

Then there was a general discussion about the life of a writer.  Garth's first book took five years to write and he earned a princely $3-4, 000.

"Hardly ever does a first novel change anything."

Then he couldn't get his second book published, but he kept writing otherwise he'd be a guy who wrote a book a long time ago. After his second US book deal Garth left full-time work. But then he didn't write anything at all for the year of 1999. He hadn't prepared himself for being a full-time writer, and rather astonishingly he went back to work to give his life some structure and get back to writing. Garth Nix then wrote his next dozen or so books while working a busy day job, so he wrote two nights a week and on Sundays.

"Being a full-time writer is a luxury. You can write a novel every year even when working full-time."

Garth Nix has now written over 30 books, he told us that every book is a new chance, and he quoted someone who said that the difference between amateur and professional writers is that professional writers finish things.

There was another very interesting discussion about categorisation in publishing. Garth Nix has an interesting perspective on this as he has worked in publishing in various roles, and found success as an author of course. He said that categories are to connect a book with it's primary first audience, but that word of mouth is still important for success. Categorisation is a blunt tool but publishers have to use it. Garth has always just written the books he's wanted to write. He advises writers to write the story they want to tell which will always work better than the story you think people want to hear.

It was such a great session. I'm so keen to read more of Garth Nix's work now, I know I have an interesting journey ahead. Maggie Ball did an amazing job leading the discussion. You can read her thoughts about chatting with Garth Nix here.

Horseshoe Beach

Recently I had a great weekend in Newcastle at the Newcastle Writers Festival. It was a wonderful festival but after being cooped up inside all weekend I was keen to get some sea air so went for a walk out along the breakwall at Nobby's. It was a perfect way to end my weekend.

On the way out you walk past Horseshoe Beach, Newcastle's only leash free beach for dogs.

They just love it.

It was fun to watch the dogs gambolling in the late afternoon sun. Although the beach did smell rather strongly of dog poo at times. A couple of times I thought some of the dogs were getting a bit out of control, but there was no aggression, just dogs having fun. 

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