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The holidays were special as we were graced by our beautiful Sonoma who, at just three weeks, slept, ate, cooed, pooed and lay about looking beautiful. Everybody loved her and visitors beat a path to the door to simply stare in wonder at this sleeping gem in her pink and white Moses basket. All agree she looks so wise. Bunya, the Silky was not so impressed at being usurped as queen of the household.
My interest in vintage cookbooks has been re-kindled and I’ve been dipping into Elizabeth David and Patience Gray and spending time cooking dishes with ingredients like cream, juniper berries and chevrette. Culinery austerity is setting into the kitchen activities now, however. Neighbours had their 91 year old mum visiting and when talk turned to food, she sighed. ‘I hated cooking. With a large family I did it because I had to.’ She recalled how one festive season she cooked for days and put a massive spread on the dining room table and retired to her bed for two days with a book and left them to it.
Over the past year Boris has befriended a family of five boys whose mum struggles and their various fathers rarely put in an appearance. They terrorized their neighbourhood on their mountain bikes, fighting and shouting despite repeated complaints from locals and the police. Boris started hiring them to do odd jobs as they don’t work or go to school regularly. He discovered they rarely had breakfast, table manners were unknown and their main diet was take-away chook and burgers. Boris started feeding them decent meals, seated at a table gently explaining basic etiquette. He tried to inculcate a few principles about respecting their mother, not yelling at her and what do they plan to do with their lives. When their dog Dora suffered a broken hip we paid the large vet bill and the boys worked on half pay to help defray some of the cost of the operation. When their pet billy goat was too big and had to move out of the house, the boys got another dog and now poor Dora is pregnant. There are endless little dramas in their household and they saw Boris as a cross between Santa, a good Samaritan and a soft touch. With the new year Boris has told the boys they now have to push out into the world on their own and hope they remember some of his wise words, though he’ll help in a crisis. However Boris is sending treats over to Dora, worrying about her impending motherhood. I have a strange feeling our household might increase in the next month. Bunya won’t like that at all!
Cheers
Di’s latest book The Islands, published by Pan Macmillan, is now on sale.
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