My Monthly Chronicles: April 2024

 

 

April has been a busy month with birthdays, beautiful meals and the Boot Factory.  I used to go the the Boot Factory for a cuppa every month but it is a while since I have been three times in a month.  My regular cafe these days is Wild Timor which does not rate a mention because I have sparkling water or mint tea there with a good friend on a weekly basis.  Otherwise there has been fancy food, group meals, pierogis and bike rides.

Torquay beach:

 

One favourite place to visit that I don't manage enough is Torquay.  I squeezed in a quick walk on the beach before a family dinner.  It was so beautiful I wished I could stay longer.  I was at Whites Beach which is where dogs can run off the lead.  At one point I turned to see a small wet dog standing behind me holding a tennis ball expectantly.  I hesitated and then threw the ball for him and exchanged smiles with the owner when he caught up.  That was one cute dog.

 

 

 Eat Pierogi Make Love, Brunswick East

 

We visited Eat Pierogi Make Love (161 Lygon St, Brunswick East) because Sylvia had a yen for pierogis and Polish food after an excellent meal in Zurich.  We had an amazing tomato soup (Pomidorowka) which is served with egg and flour squiggles of pasta-like dumplings.  Then we had a Leniwe or "lazy dumplings": sweet potato dumplings with rich mushroom sauce and crispy ricotta.  It was excellent and served with a wonderfully refreshing cucumber and sour cream side dish.  We also had the Ruskie Pierogi (cheese and potato dumplings) and the Sernik (baked cheesecake with red currant).  Such interesting and delicious food!

 

 

Robinson Reserve, Coburg

 

I shared a photo of the Robinson Reserve Neighbourhood House mural 10 years ago.  It was great to see how it had changed recently.  The house is now call the Reynard Street Neighbourhood House but the mural is still there.  The grass lawn in Robinson Reserve outside the fence is now a vibrant community garden with more welcoming artwork. 

On the telly: A Friend in the Family.  A compelling miniseries about child abuse and grooming the whole family.  It was even creepier to read about it being based on a true story.

 

 

Chookas cafe, Brunswick

 

Chookas cafe continues to be a favourite of Sylvia's.  I don't go there as much as her but have the occasional visit.  This visit a few weekends back had us in line for over half an hour.  When we finally got a seat we were disappointed that the weekend vegetarian udon salad seems to be no longer on the menu.  Fortunately the omusubi never disappoints.  I am now very partial to the grilled kimchi, cheese and edamame omusubi.  The other omusubi we ordered were (left to right on the plate) on the plate are nori, wakame and yukari (Japanese mint with an umeboshi in the middle).  I had plum soda.  Sylvia was delighted with iced berry oreo latte with a cute cat biscuit sitting in it, and that she saw the neighbouring cat Juniper after we finished.

 

 

Luthers Scoops, Brunswick

 

Sylvia is quite a fan of Luthers Scoops on Blyth Street in Brunswick, a few doors up from Sydney Road.  They do amazing ice creams but that's not all.  Some days they have choc chip cookies and now it is getting cooler, they are selling fruit pies.   I finally had a cookie recently when we discovered that the pies are not available until 5pm.  That cookie was warm with a crisp edge and gooey chewy middle.  It was huge but we shared it as well as some ice cream.  Sylvia got her favourite watermelon and strawberry sorbet.  I had a boysenberry cheesecake ice cream that was really good.

Lost keys: I used to lose my purse about once a year but have got better at keeping it in a safe place.  My keys are also kept in a safe place so it is really frustrating me that I remember taking them from the front door and the next time I set out of the house I could not find them.  Either they are still in the house somewhere or they have gone out in a bin.  I hope they reappear but meanwhile have had a new spare set of house keys cut and am still looking into getting spare bike keys cut.

 

 

Boot Factory, Coburg

 

We were at Pentridge recently and stopped at the Boot Factory for a light snack.  We shared the beautiful and delicious Babaganoush with pomegranate and pine nuts served with charred pita breads.   I loved the crunch of nuts and arils.  I had a excellent 70% hot chocolate and Sylvia had a minty mango iced cream tea that was refreshing with subtle flavours.

At the movies: The Fall Guy.  Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are great.  The film is entertaining, fun, silly and a bit too much heavy metal music for me.

 

 

Santuccis, Camberwell

 

The most beautiful lunch of the month was at Santuccis (1392 Toorak Rd, Camberwell).  The Dark Teddy French Toast was served with dark chocolate teddy ice cream, seasonal fruit, coffee mascarpone cheese, orange, lemon citrus syrup & custard.  Yes that is a chocolate teddy bear with his cute little feet melting.  I had the Wild mushroom mix: Portobello, oyster mushrooms w basil pesto, smashed pumpkin, crispy enoki mushroom, crispy kale and polenta chips.  The deep fried enoki was the highlight and I loved the polenta slab.  It was a fun afternoon driving around the unfamilar streets in the east of Melbourne, admiring the autumnal trees and Street Art in Camberwell and Canterbury.

 

 

 

Federal Mills 1915

 

I went to Geelong for a birthday dinner for my brother-in-law at Federal Mills 1915 (PH2 / 33 Mackey Street, North Geelong).  It is a grand old warehouse with lots of weathered bricks, exposed beams and high ceilings.  The building was the boiler house of the sprawling woollen mills that made everything from military uniforms to Qantas fashions.  I enjoyed seeing more of the building behind the industrial chimney stack, a landmark I often pass when visiting my parents.

 

I shared with a few dishes with my mum and brother.  We had Saganaki with peppered figs, honey and lemon, Mac and cheese croquettes, Cauliflower empanadas and the Gnocchi in tomato sauce.  It was all lovely, though fairly standard vegetarian dishes, with the exception of the excellent cauliflower empanadas. 

 

Drinks at 1915 were more impressive.  I loved my lime and yuzu soda but was wowed by the Yuzu Bloom mocktail my sister Fran had.  It was a refreshing mix of elderflower, agave, grapefruit, yuzu soda, and lime.  I was also interested that they had a Pomegranate Sour mocktail with aquafaba.  The dessert menu had a tempting Halloumi loukoumades w’ salted caramel & chocolate ice cream.  I might have been tempted if my mum hadn't brought along birthday cake.  Actually she baked two sponge cakes: one filled with whipped cream and one with lemon filling.  My family has always been split between the two options.  I am team cream because I really dislike lemon filling even though cream is not my thing either.  I admire how my mum whips up fluffy high sponge cakes so easily.

And a quick mention of two conversations I enjoyed.  My niece's bestie made me laugh when she told me that fork refers to four prongs, thrork for three prongs and twork for two prong.  A fun moment of whimsy from am 11 year old.  It was a novel experience to hear my sister's friend talk about their ethical beef farm, and fun to see my sister's surprise that I would be so interested.

 

 

Borscht, Vodka and Tears, Windsor

 

We had a birthday meal for E at Borscht, Vodka and Tears (173 Chapel St, Windsor).  It had old world charm with fading sage green walls, distressed mirrors, farmhouse curios such as a cream separator, native leaves in vases and vintage patterned crockery.  My mum and I had a refreshing Virgin Passion Mule (lime, passionfruit, mint, ginger ale) while E and my dad had Polish beers.  We shared lots of dishes: amazing battered cauliflower, gnocchi in a spinach puree, a cup of borscht broth, cheese and potato pierogi, sweet potato cheddar and jalapeno pierogi, porcini and sauerkraut pierogi, and Dzialka salad.  The salad was a substantial green platter of grilled broccolini, fried kipflers, romesco sauce, salted almonds, chickpeas, leaves, seeds, chilli, pomegranate.  Not cheap but so so good.

 

 

Serendipity: one morning this month we had plumbers fixing the pipes in the front garden so I was called early in the morning to move my car.  I was rewarded for my early morning drive from the car port to the street parking in my pyjamas when it rained later.  My car got the wash it needed that it would not have had in the car port.

 

 

This is my little craft corner from when I made the square with "Green Gourmet Giraffe" on my new header.  The letters were cut out of the picture of limes from an old calendar. 

 

 

Bluey the Sign

 

Bluey fever hit when the new 28 minutes special, The Sign, was finally aired.  It was true to form.  An amusing and insightful episode about our favourite Aussie cartoon dog.  My favourite bits were the flower girl practice and the car trip.  Oh and I saw a Bluey picture by a playground in Brunswick off Tinning Street.  Was it street art or was it a sign?

Podcasts: I was interested to listen to the Freakonomics podcast on how to pave the road to hell.  It was fascinating and a bit depressing to hear about research into the unintended consequences of policies and culture change that aims to improve equity and inclusion.

 

 

Boot Factory on ANZAC Day

 

On ANZAC Day we got up early (for us) and were at the Boot Factory just after 8am for the special ANZAC biscuit and hot drink deal.  Sylvia had a latte and I had a mint tea.  The biscuits were huge and delicious with that pleasingly chewy bend when we broke them in half.

 

Boot Factory and peeking into Indulgence

I went to the Boot Factory twice of ANZAC Day because I had already arranged to have lunch there with my lovely former manager, Sarah.  I had the poke bowl and she had the gnocchi but we were more interested in catching up on work and life.  We had a walk around the Pentridge compound including, a look in the Adina Apartment Hotel.  We tried to peek in the windows around this door to see the Interlude luxury hotel with suites in old bluestone jail cells but you can't see much.  There are better images on the website.

Calle Bakery, North Carlton

At the end of April we finally got to Calle Bakery where Sylvia had been determined to try the month's special Matcha Strawberry Croissant Wheel.  I had the Crookie, a croissant baked with cookie dough on top and lots of melty chocolate and possibly a bit more dough in the centre.  It was exceedingly decadent. Everything was delicious delicious though Sylvia has decided she should not get a match latte to accompany a matcha cream filled croissant wheel again.

We had decided to share a savoury baguette with tomato and burrata and struggled to cut it.  Last time we visited there was a 60 minute wait.  This time we got there early enough not to have to wait but the queue of people waiting for seats and orders quickly grew.  The queue made me feel very self conscious as we took turns at sawing through the super crusty baguette crust with a bread knife, occasionally pushing back in the tomato and burrata that oozed out.  Next time I will ask them to slice the baguette in half at the counter.

Shadow on the lead

Yes we have tried to take Shadow for a walk on a lead.  It has taken quite some time of letting him mooch about the house in his harness and have some walks on the lead in the yard.  This photo is of him on the day we went beyond our front garden.  As you can see, he is most displeased.  He refused to walk.  He much prefers sleeping on a pile of pizza boxes and if he wants a challenge he throws himself at the toilet door until he has opened it with the handle.  We might try again but cats on a lead is a challenge.

In the news: there is outrage!  Outrage over rape in our Parliament House, over immigrants and refugees, over Palestinian deaths in Gaza, over the Cass report on transgender support in the UK, over violence towards women in Australia. Some great insightful and compassionate articles.

• "Forget ideology, it's a battle between politicians and lawyers that is shaping immigration policies" in ABC News by Annabel Crabb.
• "No relief: Why aren’t all innocent deaths in Gaza ‘completely unacceptable’ to the Australian government?" in The Politics by Rachel Withers.
  
• "In Bruce Lehrmann's 'omnishambles' of a trial, Justice Michael Lee delivered a powerful lesson in shades of grey" on ABC News by Annabel Crabb.
• "What is the Cass review and what does it say about healthcare for trans youth?" Explainer in The GayTimes.
  
• "Anthony Albanese was determined to show solidarity with women. Instead he became the story" in the Guardian by Karen Middleton
  
• "The national crisis of violence against women is the culmination of many issues — and some of them the government can fix" in ABC News by Laura Tingle.
• "Locks, chains, diversions: How Columbia students seized Hamilton Hall" in The New York Times by Sharon Otterman and Chelsia Rose Marcius, accessed in The Age.
  

My Monthly Chronicles 2024 is a companion post to In My Kitchen April 2024.  These two posts aim to catch up on meals, food and random notes both in my kitchen and outside it each month.  I do not have the time to post as much I would like on everything.  Where time permits I will write up some of these meals that deserve more attention than I can give them here.

In My Kitchen: April 2024

 

April has been a busy month for my blog. It was good to finish the European holiday post, get a new email subscription service, refresh my recipe index and put together a new header before my 17th blog anniversary.  Now I have lots of drafts to catch up on.  As usual!  Only worse than usual because life has gone on while I been blog busy.  I wont go into detail now that I have My Monthly Chronicles April post (coming soon) as a catch up on what is going on outside my kitchen.  I will just huddle down under my warm blanket as it gets colder and darker each evening!

The above photo is a very pleasing lunch from Zaatar.  We love the Zaatar pizzas that folded in half over the wonderful seedy spicy mixture.  They were $1 when the cafe first opened 12 years ago.  Now they are $2.80.  Which is still a bargain when you look at how other prices have risen.  We also shared a cheese and vegemite pie.  They are always good but often a bit weepy.  I tried a new treat - the halva biscuit sandwiches.  They were excellent with a slab of halva between crisp tea biscuits.  And some seasonal grapes that I have been enjoying at home.

Sylvia made amazing Zucchini stuffed shells recently.  They had thin fried zucchini slices mixed with ricotta, stuffed into large pasta shells, covered in tomato sauce and cheese and baked into deliciousness.  We ended up making two lots of this dish because there were only so many stuffed shells we could fit on a single layer into the rectangular baking dish.  It seemed so easy to assemble the second lot compared to all the work on the first night.  I would have liked more vegetables with the sauce but Sylvia wanted to try a seasoned passata.

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I revisited an old favourite: Spinach rice gratin.  It was actually more carrot than spinach on this occasion but it was a great way to use up half a slab of tofu.  As well as crumbled tofu, it was a good way to use up some scraps of vegies from the fridge.  Sylvia was not interested in it so I enjoyed loading it with seeds on top of the cheese.

We tried a batch of maple mustard tofu.  It looked amazing on the video with some simple ingredients.  I pressed the tofu and left it overnight with the marinade.  It ended up quite dry and chewy rather than soft and saucy as in the video.  Plus the sweet flavours overwhelmed the savoury and weren't quite right for us.

This No boil baked vegan mushroom straganoff was excellent.  It was what the In My Bowl blog, where it was originally posted, calls dump and bake.  Sylvia only noticed she had accidentally dumped a 750g family pack of pasta rather than specified 500g once it was too late.  That made a lot of pasta bake!  This also meant it wasn't very creamy but I loved the flavour and texture.  In fact I loved it more than the stovetop mushroom stroganoff that she made last year.  On both occasions she has used cream cheese rather than cashew butter.  I would love to try the oven bake again with the right amount of pasta and cashew butter rather than cream cheese.

Sylvia loves making the Smashing Potato Salad from Enid Blyton Jolly Good Food by Allegra McEvedy.  She always adapts it but it is a favourite side dish.  We had it with sausages and greens.

We also did a From My Bowl dump and bake Cheesy Broccoli Casserole.  It was excellent.  I halved the nutritional yeast flakes and added some cheese and some extra beans.  This is the comfort food I wish to eat all winter!

When I posted my Dumpling Okonomiyaki recipe last year, I noted that the okonomiyaki mixture is slightly too big for mu cast iron frypan and so sometimes I set some aside to fry separately the next day.  This photo is some leftover okonomiyaki fried up and served with a variation of Crimson coleslaw, with some spinach added to the plate. It was a great quick lunch.

Another excellent recipe from In My Bowl that we made recently is a Creamy Mushroom Udon Soup.  This vegan recipe was made creamy by coconut cream.  Sylvia was not keen on the taste of the coconut cream and would prefer to try it with dairy cream.  I think maybe we needed to tweak the seasoning but am far more amenable to coconut cream than dairy cream. It was quick to make and delicious with fried tofu puffs, fried onion, fried cabbage and raw spinach as well as the spring onion garnish.

When we made the Creamy mushroom udon soup, we bought this Exotic Mushroom Blend packet from the supermarket.  It had fresh shitake, oyster and king oyster mushroom.  We also used some Swiss browns and button mushrooms.  Sylvia loved trying different mushrooms in a recipe.  I am less into mushrooms than her and was interested but a bit wary of paying $25 a kilo for the exotics as opposed to $12 a kilo for the button mushrooms.

Sylvia is really into matcha so it was no surprise when she made a batch of Matcha and raspberry muffins based on this matcha muffin recipe.  They were really good with a soft and vibrant crumb.  Sylvia hasn't use much of her matcha  latte powder from the Borough Market in London.  It was a great way to use some of it, especially as it has some vanilla and spices added to the powder.  The pleasant warm matcha flavour was offset nicely by the tang of the raspberries.

This edible Happy Shawn sheep cake was brought home from Linger Patisserie Cafe in Camberwell.  It was a heavenly combination of yuzu mousse, raspberry jelly, strawberry compote, matcha biscuit and white chocolate coating.  I usually am neither a mousse or a white chocolate person but this combination was really delicious.  When I read that it had white chocolate coating, I thought it meant a hard shell of white chocolate but it was more like a delicate mousse.  We just shared one sheep because they weren't cheap at $12.50 and we just wanted a small taste after a big lunch.

These Vegemite mini wraps were nice.  They had a touch of that intense umami Vegemite flavour.  I liked them with cream cheese but am not sure they were amazing enough to buy regularly.

I took this picture just after Easter.  The Lindt bees and ladybugs were better chocolate but just as enjoyable as the Cadbury Caramello mini easter eggs.  Even better than the Easter eggs were the Whittaker chocolate bars.  The Restore pear and manuka honey was our favourite but the Reflect sea salt and caramel brittle was also very good.  Best of all was the packaging and I could not resist a green polka-a-dot handkerchief for Easter!

When I was a kid, breakfast cereal meant either Corn Flakes or rice bubbles.  I don't eat cornflakes for breakfast any more but Sylvia loves them as a snack.  Best of all, they are excellent in the crumb coating on our favourite tofu nuggets. I loved this nostalgic packaging to celebrate 100 years of Corn Flakes in Australia.

I stumbled upon these Siafa chocolate dates on the specials shelves in the supermarket.  I had never seen them before but really loved the dates, although I was not so keen on all the packaging.  The dates had a creamy biscoff spread and were coated in milk chocolate.  They are neither vegan nor gluten free, even though they seem like they could be.

I was tempted to try these Kettle Native Honey and Orange Crisps with Black Pepper.  The flavouring was quite subtle but pleasing.  I had some with some excellent grilled Turkish bread with pizza sauce, mushrooms, spinach, olives and cheese.  Sylvia took the rest of the packet to her dad's place to snack on while they waiting for their pizza to be delivered.
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This photo is from an outing last weekend when we had an indulgent lunch at Calle Bakery.  It is such as wonderful bakery that I bought this beautiful loaf of fig and walnut bread.  We got a free Bonne Maman chocolate hazelnut spread at the bakery because it was a giveaway when spending over $20.  I also brought home my leftover kombucha.  After lunch we went to Bunnings where we found a white pansy plant, a cute ceramic plant pot, and some paint colour samples but no dill plants.  The colour samples are ideas for if and when we get our walls painted.

Finally here are some of Sylvia's little potted plants which are starting to take over the garden.  They interest our Shadow but not as much as he loves his catnip which is also trying to colonise the garden.  You can see the catnip growing at some rate in the concrete between the large pots with my lemon and lime trees.  I am still battling the citrus leaf miner but pleased to see some lemons getting ready to ripen.  The lime tree is struggling more but has a few hopeful signs of fruit.

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her gorgeous hand drawn header.

Apple crumble cheesecake for 17th blog anniversary

It is the anniversary of my first blog post 17 years ago.  This year I celebrate with Sylvia's excellent choice of apple crumble cheesecake that she chose for her dad's birthday.  The cheesecake comprises a Biscoff crust, a creamy filling, caramelised spiced apples and an oaty crumble.  It was quite a challenge for us while we both felt so tired after a few busy days but a delight to eat with E the next day.

This cheesecake is perfect for anyone who loves both cheesecake and apple crumble.  The warmly spices in the Biscoff biscuit crust are the link between the cheesecake and the crumble.  The apples smelled amazing as they cooked with brown sugar and cinnamon.  I could have just eaten the apples warm off the stove. 

Once the four components are together, it seems simple to assemble.  Even while there is not much to do, there is still lots of waiting for baking, cooling and chilling.  But you have time to clean and blog and head out for a birthday meal at Borscht Vodka and Tears (which I will write more about).

It took so much longer to bake the cheesecake than the Teak and Thyme recipe directed.  My oven is slow so I assume that had an impact.  I also had quite a bit of thickened apple and cinnamon juices leftover once we put the apple slices on the cheesecake.  I just drizzled it over the apples.  Did it make the cheesecake take longer to cook?  I noticed that the cheesecake rose and fell as it baked.  My mum said this could happen if we beat the cheesecake mixture too much.  I really needed the electric beaters because no amount of hand mixing would have got those cream cheese lumps out.  That is the cream cheese we took out of the fridge in the morning.  But I have been told that the firmer blocks of cream cheese are preferred than the spreadable type in a tub if I want a firm cheesecake.  The cheesecake sliced up nicely once chilled.  The only thing in the way was the apple slices being a bit awkward to slice.  Perhaps they were not cooked enough but I would do chunks of apple next time.  Both Sylvia and my mum said they would like more apples.

The cheesecake was a delicious dessert after our pierogi lunch.  The crunchy crust, smooth cheesecake filling, juicy apples and crunchy crumble all worked to make a decadent cheesecake.

E came over for a slice.  My parents went straight home after the lunch.  Sylvia was very thoughtful and organised to take some slices of cheesecake for them to take home.

As I always say on my blog anniversary, I am amazed to have got this far and hope to continue.  Life just keep changing and I always think the next change might make blogging hard.  The reality is that the blog is so much a part of what I do that it might well be the technological changes that stop it, if that is to happen.  However I have done a bit of work lately on refreshing my blog.  I have written a post about my blog housekeeping: headers, indexes and subscriptions.  If you are looking for reflections on my blog, this is a good start.  For now it is enough to have cheesecake and be happy to still be on my blog and that you are reading this!  Onwards and upwards!

More cheesecake recipes on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Baked lemon cheesecake (gf)
Caramel chocolate cheesecakes 
Cherry chocolate cheesecake
Chocolate cheesecake with Easter nest
Lime and white chocolate cheesecake (gf) 
Vegan peach cheesecake (gf, v)

Apple Crumble Cheesecake

Slightly adapted from Teak and Thyme
Serves 10 or more

Biscoff Crust:

350 g Lotus biscoff biscuits (aka cookies)
150 g butter, melted

Crumble Topping:

55 g butter, melted
50 g plain white flour
50 g brown sugar
20 g rolled oats

Apple Topping:

3 tart apples, peeled, cored, and diced
50 g brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons cornflour

Cheesecake Mixture: 

690 g cream cheese, room temperature
75 g castor sugar
100 g Greek yogurt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
3 large eggs, room temperature

Biscoff Crust:

Finely crush the biscuits.  We did this in a food processor but it can also be done by placing in a ziplock plastic bag or paper bag and bashing with a rolling pin.  Mix with melted butter so it will clump together when pressed between your thumb and fingers.  

Grease and line a 22cm round springform cake tin.  Press biscuit crust mix into the cake tin around the base and sides.  Use a straight edged glass to smooth and flatten the crust, taking care to make sure that the edge between the base and sides is not too thick. Chill in fridge while you prepare the remaining components.

Crumble:

Stir all ingredients together in a small mixing bowl.  Ours was quite soft but once chilled it was quite easy to crumble.  Place in fridge to chill.

Apple Topping:

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan.  Mix over low heat until the sugar melts and then increase to medium heat.  Cook, stirring regularly, until the apples are fork tender and the juices thicken to coat the apples.Set aside to cool.

Cheesecake mixture:

Before making this mixture, preheat oven to 150 C.  

Place the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and spices into a large mixing bowl.  Mix until smooth.  If you can use a spatula to do this, that is good.  I found no matter how much we mixed our room temperature cream cheese so we used electric beaters.  Add eggs and mix further just until smooth.

Assemble:

It is now time to assemble the cheesecake.  Pour the creamy Cheesecake Mixture into the Biscoff Crust.  Arrange pieces of the Apple Topping on top.  (I had spicy apple juices left in the saucepan so I drizzled it over my apple.)  Now break up the crumble into small chunks to scatter on the apples.

Bake and chill:

Bake cheesecake until the edge is not too wobbly but the middle wobbles a little.  The cheesecake cooks approximately 70 minutes but in our slow oven it took 1 hour and 40 minutes.  Once it is baked.  Turn off the oven, leave the door slightly open and leave until the cheesecake is room temperature.  Then chill in the fridge for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight, before slicing.

On the Stereo:
Marlinchen in the Snow: Charm of Finches

Blog Housekeeping 2024: header, indexes, subscriptions etc

As I approach 17 years of blogging, I have given my blog header and indexes a refresh and tinkered with a few other elements such as adding a subscription form on the right hand column of the web view.  Today I will reflect on these updates and how I am considering my blog might develop.

First, let me emphasise that I am not working towards a stylish, monetised blog.  I am quite happy to be an amateur blog without advertising that is a great source of recipes, reflections and reviews that are as eclectic and meandering as I desire.  My blog has always been run without much in the way of costs and technical know-how.  I would love to overhaul the whole blog and fix old embarrassingly bad photos but I don't have time to check the 2,489 posts to date.  It feels like being King Canute to be constantly challenged by the ever changing tide of technology.  But I will tinker when I can. 

Header

My old blog header was created 10 years ago and looked a bit tired.  I have wanted to refresh the photos for a while.  These things take time.  When I am looking for green photos, there are plenty of great photos with lots of green but also other colours.  Likewise there are plenty of not-so-great photos with all green.  Finding the perfect photo is tricky.  I am glad I have finally got this new photo even though it is still not perfect.  It is much lighter but is it too light?  When I look back at the photos I used for the previous header, it took a while to get it right.  I have a feeling there might be some tweaking ahead.  For now at least it is updated!

My new header in 2024: 

My old header from 2014:

Indexes

The distance between 'blog' and 'website' has narrowed over the last decade or two.  Many websites have more dynamic pages including blogs.  Many blogs have more static pages and more sophisticated navigation since I started blogging.  Some days I wonder whether to just call my blog a website.  One thing the web does well is navigation.  For me that means the search bar and indexes.

My recipe index introductory collage 2024:

My recipe index introductory collage 2014

I was really pleased to finally give some attention to the Recipe Index.  I added photos about 10 years ago.  Like my header they were looking tired.  The index is just one page.  It is really really long!  Almost 2000 recipes.  (After two years of blogging in 2009 I recorded over 400 recipes.)  I use my indexes a lot.  It would be great to have a photo for every recipe but not realistic the way I use it.  I like to be able to run my eye down a list without lots of clicks to new pages, and I want to be able to search for a word on that index.  Probably not best practice these days.  It works for me. 

Working out the new recipe index categories was challenging.  For example, did I divide soups up by ingredient, colours, textures, nationality, seasons or add-ins such as grains and nuts?  Then where did I put a wintery chunky creamy white cauliflower and potato soup?  Lots of hard decisions.  Occasionally I allocated recipes to more than one category.  Generally I try to avoid doing this because the index is so long.  The difficulty of trying to allocate recipes to just one category is a great argument for many pages of a recipe index which makes it easier to have recipes in lots of categories.  It would be nice for such moment.

Here is a list of new elements I have added on my indexes lately:

• The top photo collages in my Recipe Index have been updated (see above now and then comparison  photos).
  
• I have updated the photos at the start of each section in the Recipe Index 
• I have added more categories within each section because the lists are getting too long making it harder to peruse.
  
• The top photo collage in my Favourites index has been updated.  This is an index that I update regularly as favourites come and go.
  
• Added a list of sections at the top of Reflections and Reviews index.

In doing all this work, I have been doing the more of work my blog needs: updating links, headings and typos to make it more user-friendly.  It has also helped me to review the development of my blog.  Here are a few things I noticed:

• Many of my recipes have been posted in the first 7 years of my blogging.  This is not surprising given that of the 2489 posts, 1366 (54%) of posts were written up to 2013 and I am estimating that I have written less recipes since 2013.  See above graph of Numbers of blog posts by year.
  
• The phases my blog has been through (including gluten free food, vegan food, doughnuts, history of food, Indian curries, Mexican food, healthy baking) many of which were given an intense focus followed by a more lowkey interest.  
• A change in bread baking.  All but one of my yeasted breads were made before I started sourdough baking in 2014
• I am making a lot less desserts, jams and sweet baking these days. 
• My photography improved from 2014.  Prior to this it was darker, less sharp and less colour.  I attribute this to my cameras being more sophisticated since then but also that I made more of an effort to get photos in Foodgawker after finally getting my first photo accepted in September 2013.
• I want to revisit so many of the amazing recipes on my blog!  So much to cook and so little time!
  

Subscriptions

When blogger stopped the default subscriptions in May 2021 had 1506 on list, including some that were pending verification.  It has taken me until this month to set up a new subscription service through Follow.it.  Subscription will mean emails of each new blog post.  It is my way of amending for my aversion to regularly updating social media accounts.  I have pondered sending an email to the previous 1506 subscribers to invite them to use the new service but it is hard to wade through all the followers who want to sell me commercial opportunities to find those who just enjoyed reading my blog post!

If you would like to sign up to receiving new blog posts by email, you can subscribe by either adding your email to the subscription form in the right hand column of the blog or in the form at https://follow.it/green-gourmet-giraffe.  See form on my blog in the bottom right hand corner of the above screenshot.

I am sure I have had requests for subscriptions but can't find the emails.  Apologies to anyone whose email I lost in one of life's maelstroms.  Thanks to K for finally prompting me at a time when I have the space to do it.

New: My Monthly Chronicles posts

I started this blog with the intention of just focusing on posting recipes.  Before long I was also writing posts that rambled on about other foodie stuff and then just any old stuff that took my fancy.  I have written monthly posts about cooking, eating and food purchases in my kitchen since May 2012.  These posts are great for catching up on stuff I don't have the time or the interest in writing up in more detail.  

It has become more and more obvious that I don't have time to write in detail about the rest of my life outside the kitchen, mostly cafe meals and travel, but also including other random interests.  I have been inspired by Sammie's monthly Taking Stock posts at The Annoyed Thyroid.  So in April I did my first My Monthly Chronicles post.  Of course, I will still write longer posts when I can, just as I do with the In My Kitchen content.

Coming up with a name was difficult.  Here are a few of the ideas I considered:

• Eating out, excursions, eclectic thoughts and everything else I have not had time to post in more detail
• Outside my kitchen
• Out and about
• My month in a nutshell
• Teacup chronicles
• Monthly digest
• Eclectic detritus

Comments

I continue to have difficulties with commenting on Blogger when comments are embedded in the post (see below screenshot).  This has been frustrating because I enjoy connecting with other bloggers.  I used to be able to comment with my blog account so my comments had my avatar and a link to my blog.  Now I have to comment as anonymous.  I try to add my name and url so people know who it is.  It has even got to the stage where when I comment on my own blog it makes me do this as anonymous.  This is so frustrating.

More to do

There is always more to do.  I wish I had more time for cross-linking posts, updating broken links, proof reading and updating photos in some favourite posts.  I do what I can when I can.  I churned out a lot of travel posts in February and March this year and I know they would benefit from more proof reading.  But whenever I read old posts I see needs for updating.  There are formatting issues in some of my older posts.  Some formatting is due to my inexperience and some is due to blogger changing the formatting that had worked when I originally posted.  It would be great to fix them but it is a big job.

I would like to spent more time reviewing and updating the Reflections and Reviews Index.  It has had a lot less attention than the Recipe Index.  Originally I intended to only post recipes and this was just a little sideline to the core of the blog.  It has grown unwieldy.  Many categories and lists have been created organically and could do with some strategic thinking.  

Some of the projects I have in mind are to collate Christmas menus over the years and to have a full list of all the craft projects I have done.  My drafts folder is always full of good intentions.   I would also love to be able to access more information from my statistics.  It used to be easier to extract information from statistics packages to look at user search terms and what sites send users to my blog.   These statistics packages keep changing and it is hard to keep up.  Speaking of constant change, sometimes I wonder how long Blogger will continue.  I hope it is used enough to continue to be of value to Google.

Meanwhile although blogging has changed a lot in 17 years, my blog continues to be of great value to me.  It is a great record of my years, mainly the food and travel, that I am able to refer to today.  I often look up recipes I have made or places I have visited.  Hence my interest in keeping the indexes updated.  I make recipes from my blog regularly and Sylvia also uses it for her favourite recipes.  My notes can be quite helpful too.  Occasionally I look it up to show Sylvia that I have been to a cafe or that she has been involved in some activity.  I wish I had more time for the blog, commenting with other bloggers and replying to comments.  It has to be enough to be grateful for what I have managed to do and that I am still blogging after all these years.  Amazingly I am still here and hope to continue to be for a while yet.

More posts on Green Gourmet Giraffe changes to blog design:

• Anchors: a tutorial from a novice
• Blogging: reflections and ch-ch-ch-changes 
• Design Dilemmas - archive of blog headeres 
  
• Drop Down Menus and Blog Changes 
• Google Reader is closing... and I am not sure I am upset  
• The relentless tide of technology
  

Street Art in Melbourne: Camberwell and Canterbury

We had a trip to a cafe in Camberwell in Melbourne's East recently.  Here are some photos of the street art while we were driving through the area.  

The above and directly below are from the Canterbury Road rail bridge near Canterbury Station.  The blue "Hope is not cancelled" was painted in 2022 by artist Nicole van Dijk and students from Strathcona Girls Grammar to reflect on the Covid pandemic. 

The above part of the Hope is not cancelled mural has such small details that it is for pedestrians rather than cars on the road.

Nearby is more artworks on the walls of the walkway through to Mailing Road and the Canterbury train station.  Jasper and Jinx is a fairy tale about a boy's adventure when his train arrives driven by a pixie.  It was painted in 2015 by Hayden Dewar and seems to be about a runaway train carriage that takes a boy to a pixie.  These pictures are only 3 of the 11.

My eye was taken by the text "If not now, when?" on this mural by Eric Sesto that I saw off Glen Iris Road beside The Old Garage cafe in Camberwell.  This is followed by "If not me, who?"  It refers to a quote by Jewish Rabbi Hillel over 2000 years ago.  This is still relevant today and in this mural seems to refer to animal rights.

Not quite street art, but I really liked this artwork on the wall of forecourt of Linger cafe in Camberwell.

This mural at the railway bridge at 1176 Toorak Rd, Glen Iris is on the border of Camberwll.  It has some lovely native flora and fauna, some old style businesses and the steam train in this above picture.

More street art in Melbourne on Green Gourmet Giraffe:

• Street Art in Melbourne: Brunswick - Manallack and Saxon Streets 
• Street Art in Melbourne: Caulfield, Hawthorn, Richmond 2023
• Street Art in Melbourne #10 Coburg Street Art and MoreArt 2014
  
• Street Art in Melbourne: Hosier Lane 2021
• Street Art in Melbourne: Northcote 2023