About a year ago my daughter decided to take a photo every day and create a photo blog. I looked forward to seeing what she would find worthy enough to include. Was both delighted and amused to discover this was no ordinary photo blog about the amazing touristy encounters in the city where she lives (Melbourne) but rather a photo blog about the ordinary things we discover in our everyday lives that touch us as individuals and impact us in small or sometimes rather large or even funny ways. So throughout the past year appeared many many photos that intrigued, amused and even fascinated me. I was amazed at the things that caught the eye of my delightful daughter enough to be included in her blog. I laughed at the bunny suit being ridden through traffic, the demonic chocolate Easter bunny and the plate of food I had in fact cooked for her earlier in the year on a visit home. It was a fascinating snapshot into her life and I felt very privileged to be allowed in, via the blog. In fact seeing the things that she encounted and included made me see the things in the world as a possible snapshot to include in my mind’s blog. What I hadn’t counted on during the year long blog was how much I would miss the commentary that came with the photo when each shot was published. The whimsical thoughts she included with each one, sometimes just a jot or two in explanation and sometimes quite the essay but each one added with thought and an expression of who she is. She still adds photos and they are still sometimes something that has amused or inspired but they have no commentary and I miss that.

I have always been a reader. As a child I read books that were given to me or books that were lying around our home. (I never went to a library till I was an adult). So I often read books more suited to adults. Titles by DH Lawrence; an amazing book about the artist Paul Gauguin which I read and reread, and an assortment of other books kept in a high shelf in our linen cupboard. But I also grew up with Mary Grant Bruce and the Billabong stories, Ethel Turner, Colin Theile (one of my favourite stories is still Sun on the Stubble) and the Biggles series by  WE Johns as well as every one’s favourite, Enid Blyton. These writers all influenced me by making it possible for me to enter their world but more importantly to leave mine. I only had to read to be transported to “Billabong” with Norah, become part of the Woolcot family (Seven Little Australians) and the Gunther family (from Sun on the Stubble) and fly with Biggles on his adventures. These books had power. They transformed me, not in any big life changing way but rather made me want to write and although I never did write anything more than compositions in school, I paid attention and tried my best to learn to write. I longed to create a “Billabong” or “Biggles” or even a “Faraway Tree” of my own. I wanted to have the power to transport others to magical places (I think stored somewhere I still have a folder with story ideas that I started as a child) and that helped me want to learn.

Because I get regular holidays, courtesy of being in the education industry, I have a habit of making lists. I have never been a list-maker much preferring to do what has to be done as necessary and not really concerned with what did or didn’t get done. Now (maybe age has something to do with this change of habit), I always list jobs I want and need to get done in the current holiday time. It just occurred to me that the list is about crossing things off. Achievement. Occasionally and infrequently, my list is about ‘me’ time….just doing things that are about me and serve no value to the state of my garden or house and things I wouldn’t call ‘jobs’ but are more value to my inner being. I attack this type of list with the same fervour as the other lists. I am anxious to get all the things on this list, done, completed and over with so I can say “it is done” just the same as I would my ‘job’ list. This holiday I have a long list…..it is a long holiday, seven weeks! It is mostly about lots of cleaning in one area of the house or another and it is urgently needed. It is not a nice list. It is a screw up your nose list, a long sigh list and a frowny pouty list…..so there is absolutely no fun in this list at all. Imagine my delight to find absent daughter coming home for the festive season with her own list! A fun list, full of adventure and excitement reminiscent of the magic of childhood. It was a list to be attacked with all the fervour and delight a trip to Disney-world might conjure. So after crossing things off that list one by one and finally saying goodbye once again to the list creator, I am now facing my list of the cleaning kind. I will enjoy crossing things off my list though not with the same smiles and laughter that appeared as we crossed things off the other list.

Although I love a percolated black coffee, there are times that I really enjoy a coffee that is not black, from a cafe. This morning was one such time. I was on my way to work and as usual had not had a coffee before leaving home. (We have a little coffee machine in the library where I work and making coffee is the first thing I do upon my arrival.) I found myself in the wrong lane leading up to the turn I need to take to get me to work expediently. Split moment decision - I could get a cappuccino from the  servo. It is pretty good coffee and would solve the turning dilemma. That’s what I did. Bought a large coffee and got a good break in the traffic to change into the right lane to make the turn. And how I enjoyed that coffee. Already feeling like not going to work after a poor night of sleep the coffee turned my mind set. It was excellent and tasty. A well brewed cappuccino. Sometimes I deserve to be spoilt, even if it is by myself!

No I am not turning this into a “Julia/Julie” thing.  I do though want to talk about making Dahl in the slow cooker. My doctor had told me ages ago to try lentils (I think they must be good for me!) but I have never been interested much. The thought of trying something new and liking/disliking was too much to think about and so I have put it off. She (my doctor) had mentioned it again recently and did say the easiest way to cook lentils was in a slow cooker. So unadventurous me decided I could do this. I had already had success with my first slow cooked meal and surely this couldn’t be hard. It wasn’t. Washed the lentils and threw them in the slow cooker with piles of vegetables that I enjoy. At the last minute I decided to add a can of chopped tomatoes along with various herbs. I did worry all day that I hadn’t put enough water in the pot and it would burn or become really dry. I needn’t have! Again (as in my last blog) I opened the door and the sweet smell of curry assaulted my nostrils. And again, a perfect dish of dahl which I ate with poppadoms and couscous. I think the best thing about the whole experience is the smell from the driveway upon returning home, and the knowledge that I didn’t sweat over a hot stove to achieve that smell. Sweet!!

This week I tried slow cooking. I know it should probably be a winter thing. Seems to lend itself to big beefy stewie recipes, tasty and hot for cold winter nights. I guess I am running a bit late for winter dishes but I have wanted to try one for a while and finally due to an early Christmas present (thanks Ma) I have one. So like I mentioned despite it not being winter I tried it out. Made a lamb curry while at home so I could nurse the new purchase through its first attempt (and use up a dish of rice left over from something else). Everything got chucked in at the outset and then I let the little lady work her magic. It was bloody brilliant! Old stewing chops turned into tender succulent edible curry in about five and a half hours. I was so amazed I decided to try something while I was at work, but best to do it on a “short” day. (Some days I just have my regular job at the library, others, I tutor students after school, and yet others I do a shift at Out of School Hours Care. So I arrive home either seven and a half, eight and a half or ten and a half hours after I have left home.) Anyway decided to try something not too difficult; a beef goulash my youngest son used to love when he was growing up. Chopped up piles of veges and some gravy beef before I left for work. Chucked it all in the pot with tomato paste and a few herbs and spices etc.  Thought about it all day: would it burn, how bad, would it boil over, how much mess. Opened the door at three thirty and the smell of a beautiful goulash assaulted my nostrils. It smelt amazing and looked as good as a stew could. It tasted exactly as it should. I’m never looking back. I can do this at least once a week and have several meals done for me while I work!!

I’d like to think that my personal blog would be difinitive, that is define me. So why coffee-black? It’s simply my favourite beverage and since this is my blog the name simply defines me. But thats where simple ends.  Coffee, black sounds easy, quick and uncomplicated but a good tasty black is pretty illusive. I’m not talking about a quick instant. Its about a good brew, perked or dripped at home or purchased from a favourite coffee house. Not all baristas can get it right: the right amount of ground coffee, roasted just right, to the right amount of hot, hot water.  It isn’t rocket science, nor is it computer science. Maybe its culinary science, don’t know; I’m not sure where brewing coffee sits in the scale of science but it is an art. There is a certain skill involved in getting it just right, for me anyway, and not all cafes do it right. So back to defining me. I am pretty simple and easy to get to know, on the surface, but I’d like to think there is some kind of skill in getting to know the real me. Maybe there is, maybe not. This is a blog about a percolator or dripper not just instant.