Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I’ve had the most marvelous Festival of Fifty!

Rather than throwing a large party, I celebrated the occasion with a fortnight of lunches and dinners with my family and closest friends. Each gathering was small and intimate, with just one or two couples plus Pete and I.

With the exception of Twitter, I took myself offline for the month. My apologies for not visiting any of your blogs or IMK posts in March, but I was partying with determination. Over the course of fifteen days, we had seven dinners, five lunches, drank our way through a dozen bottles of my best wine (plus an obscene number of cocktails) and laughed until we were doubled over in pain and gasping for breath. It was glorious.

Here is a random assortment of photos taken mostly on my iPhone. I didn’t manage a shot at every meal – often the lighting (and alcohol consumption) didn’t allow for it. Five of the seven dinners were at home, with Pete and I cooking. Because that’s what we love to do.

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We confitted a rolled suckling pig belly roast in a sea of lard for five hours…

…then rubbed it with fennel and bay and finished it off in a cazuela. It was an auspicious start to the celebrations…

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I received the most beautiful flowers – Big Boy’s darling girlfriend put this arrangement together for me…

My mad, demented friends Lynda and Karen (their words, not mine) sent me this glowing box of colour…

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Gorgeous Terri and her hubby Tony gave me this stunning Tiffany pendant and chain. It’s a tricky thing to buy jewellery for me, but Tezza clearly knows me better than I know myself, because I adored this…

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Nic and Pete, who know full well my current obsession with Sidecar cocktails, presented me with bottles of VSOP Cognac and Cointreau, gracefully wrapped in pretty tea towels…

And on the subject of booze, here are just a few of the dead soldiers from our dinners at home. Vintage Taittinger 2000, 1993 Howard Park Cab Merlot, 1977 Taylor’s vintage port…

More champagne, 1991 Leo Buring Leonay Riesling, 1990 Leoville Las Cases and 1970 Niepoort vintage port…

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At one of our dinners, I served up a 70s style fondue cheese log and a rabbit and quail terrine on homemade melba toasts. Recipes for both the cheese and bread to follow in later posts…

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For our family dinner, I roasted a goose. It’s Small Man’s favourite…

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On my actual birthday, Stephen and Marcela took us to lunch at Sugar Cane in Surry Hills. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s rare for me to be excited by restaurant food, but the dishes here were sublime…

A couple more dishes that impressed me – a perfectly constructed gnocchi with wild mushrooms and Jerusalem artichokes at lunch with my darling friend Carol at La Grande Bouffe…

…and a stunning 18 hour slow roasted lamb shoulder at One Penny Red in Summer Hill, where Will and Bethany took us for dinner…

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After lunch in town with Allison and Lisa, we walked under the Forgotten Songs art installation between George and Pitt Streets. It’s been there since 2012, but this was the first time I’d seen it…

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I baked canelés for dinner with  my folks, as my mum adores them…

…and crawled out of bed early one Saturday morning to bake myself a birthday cake…

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On the night of my actual birthday, my lovely young friends Roars and Zanzibar baked me a St Honoré Gateau. Gotta love it when a fifteen year old and a seventeen year old make spun sugar for you (we opened three bottles of champagne that night!)…

The neighbours joined in the festivities – Liz brought me an amazing bottle of 50 year old port and June gave me a gorgeous bone-handled cheese knife…

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On Andrew’s suggestion, we dined at Sushi Studio in Neutral Bay with Maude and Yuj. The sushi was superb, but drinking Sidecars after the sake shots wasn’t a brilliant idea…

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The amazing Jason from Don’t Boil The Sauce! secretly organised my twitter friends and Priscilla bakers from all over the world to send me a surprise birthday video message. He made me teary – I was overwhelmed by how kind everyone was, and how much effort J had gone to…

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In amongst the revelry, during the quieter moments, I read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It seemed a grown up thing to do for my 50th birthday. I savoured every word of it…

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All up, it was the best Festival of Fifty I could have hoped for. Thank you to my beloved family and friends who partied with me! You guys are the best!

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Folks, I’m celebrating my 50th birthday this month, so I’ll be taking a break from blogging for the rest of March to party with family and friends.

♥ See you all in April! ♥

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Happy Chinese New Year!

Wishing you good health and every happiness this Year of the Goat!

PS. If you’d like to make an easy paper lantern to celebrate the fifteen days of Chinese New Year, we have an easy tutorial here, and an even easier one here. Have fun! ♥

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I’ll spare you all from yet another bread post, but I really haven’t been baking much else lately. So here’s a slightly bizarre collection of miscellaneous photos from January – it’s been a fun month!

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My very first coffee of 2015 had a koala on it. I was hopeful that it meant I’d be able to spend most of the year up a tree, slightly stoned (hasn’t happened)…

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Do you read xkcd comics? They’re offbeat, geeky and quirky, and they make my hubby laugh very loudly…

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Pete said I wasn’t allowed to write…”In my kitchen there’s a chicken’s arse”… so the photos are in this post instead. Charlie asked me recently about prepping a goose for roasting. My Chinese mother insists that with any poultry, the oil gland of the bird should be removed before cooking.

It’s located on the “bishop’s nose”, and it’s the gland that secretes oil which the bird uses to waterproof its feathers. I trim it off and discard it…

I’m sure you’re all delighted to know that…(Pete reckons I’ve grossed you out)…

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On Polyxeni’s advice, we popped into Aquadisiac in Surry Hills to check out their fish. As well as saucer sized freshwater stingrays (at $800 each), they also have a giant Arowana on display.

He and I got into a staring contest…

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Happily, the garden continues to thrive. We normally can’t grow broccoli raab in summer – the seedlings usually flower straight away – but this year we have a bumper crop…

And for the first time ever, our Finger Lime tree is producing fruit! The dozen or so ripening limes make enduring the needle-like thorns worthwhile…

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Our friend Lucinda married handsome Dan last weekend. We’ve known Luce since she was born, so it was a very exciting occasion. I bought a silk kaftan to wear (the ideal choice for spanx-free dining) and then decided I needed new jewellery to go with it.

Luckily I had a string of 60 year old Swarovski starlight crystals in my stash…

Always one to leave things to the last minute, I finished this set on the day of the wedding…

As you can tell, I was pretty excited by the idea of a party…

I’m not sure either of them could have looked any happier…

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Finally, Oliver the Orange has come home! He was Big Boy’s favourite toy when he was two, and he’s been through five other toddlers since then. Twenty years is a pretty good innings for a stuffed toy, and I think he’s held up very well…

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How was your January? I hope you all had a great month too!

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