So I bought a bag...

Ah, my shiny gift to self for Mother's Day. An extravagance I know (though I got it off ebay new with tags for much less that the retail price), but one also intended for symbolic use. Yesterday I made a rare city trip with a girlfriend who is two years younger than me but has two babies under the age of two. She is stunningly beautiful, stylish, educated, intelligent and well-spoken. But living in suburbs in the lower socio-economic demographic, seeing a young girl with young children leads people to instantly think knocked-up-teen. What happened to the world such that young women can't have children without being scrutinised and judged? We're far from teenagers really, being in our early twenties. But it's hard to convey specific age, and even harder to show that you are an educated young woman whose pregnancy and resulting children are the highlight of her life rather than an accident with some life-long casualties.

My friend used the example of a circle of very young mothers on a train platform, blatantly smoking around the strollers and ignoring the bored pleas of their children. We're trying not to judge, but we also don't want anyone to associate us with them. How do we do it? Walk down the other end of the platform. Somehow try to ooze sophistication and class? Not the easiest thing to do with a wriggly, whiny baby, no matter your age. Sometimes I feel hesitant in admonishing Wolf for throwing things or hitting and biting when I walk him around in public. Will I come off as one of those careless young mothers yelling at their kids all the time? I'm terrified that some old lady will tut tut me and shake her head, much the way my grandmother used to when she saw young mothers around town.

It was much easier to look like happy young mothers when we arrived in the city and had a messy but enjoyable lunch at a cafe in Federation Square. The kids were free to play and make noise, and we managed a rare non-home cooked lunch in architecturally beautiful surrounds (a debatable opinion for some). The waitresses were attentive and friendly. We had a lovely walk to Birrarung Marr along the Yarra river path, enjoying the sunny weather and talked baby poo and mother-in-laws. We smiled at other parents and they responded in kind.

The demographic of your location can have a massive affect on how you are interpreted. In a poorer area, you're a silly girl who got herself into trouble, in a richer area, you are a lucky young woman with a beautiful child and a lot of wonderful life experiences to come. I know I shouldn't care, but I admit my confidence as a mother is affected when I think I'm being judged poorly.

So back to the bag. It probably sounds ridiculous, but it is part of a mother-hood style makeover. I've been progressively emptying my wardrobe of my more bizarre fashion choices (and there have been many. I love weird things.) and replacing them with basics, multiple pairs of properly fitting jeans (no more mummy-bum crack, save that for work) and everything easy to wash. Sensible choices for a sensible person, or least someone trying to become sensible.

My first baby bag was one of those insane Gwen Stefani Harajuku Lovers creations. Pink, blue and yellow shell printed bag with lots of zips and charms and keychains. Very...colourful. Pockets stuffed with tissues and crumbs. It's been nearly a year since Wolf was born, so I'm graduating to my new black Il Tutto Nico bag. It's a little shiny; I wasn't going to get something that wasn't at least pretty. It's the first time I've ever spent proper money on a bag actually made of leather. Most of my bags are machine-washable things, not that they've ever water that wasn't rain or a leaking water-bottle.

Call the bag a talisman. A symbol. A glaring neon sign that says 'LOOK! I like being a mum! I even got a proper bag and everything!' 

I suppose my tattoos don't help much do they. I'll think about how to work on that one later.

Elevating the side dish

Sometimes I used to roast off a side of meat or fry up some fish just so I had the excuse of making Potato au Gratin as a side dish. But now with our need to make more economical, baby-friendly, quick-to-prepare dining choices, large portions of meat and fish have been relegated from being central to our nightly meal, to an a few times a week occasion. Couple that with increasing guilt over the ecological cost of meat production - though let's face it, inherit blood thirstiness means we're never going to go vegetarian - and you have yourself a fine argument for elevating the humble side-dish to the main event. Evade the middle-class-wealth proscribed idea of meaty/fishy dinners and have a gratin for dinner! There's enough fat in this to keep you all going. Serves four people, or two adults, a baby and leftovers enough for a very greedy person's lunch the next day.

Potato au Gratin
8 medium sized potatoes 
1 onion
2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup cream

2 handfuls gruyere

1 handful tasty cheese

knob of butter

bunch of thyme

milk
salt and pepper


1. Peel potatoes and slice into reasonably even 1/2 cm slices. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. Halve and thinly slice onions. Peel one clove of garlic.
3. Add potatoes, onion and garlic clove to large pot, cover with a mix of half milk and half cold water. Add a couple of pinches of salt. Place on medium heat and bring to boil. Cook until potatoes are just tender but not falling apart.
4. Meanwhile chop second garlic clove finely and place in the bottom of a deep baking dish with a knob of butter. Place in warming over to lightly caramelise garlic and melt butter.
5. When potatoes are cooked, drain off liquid and add the potatoes to the prepared baking dish.
6. Pour over cream, sprinkle over cheese and finish with thyme leaves.
7. Bake in oven for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and golden.


This yields a totally non-watery gratin with nicely cooked potatoes that still retain their shape. This is perfect for Wolf as he refuses to eat from a spoon most of the time and prefers to use his hands. He loves potatoes! His eating habits are turning out to be a lot like mine as a child. This would be really good with some caramelised leek through it, or some shaved ham if you're desperate for meat. And yeah, it does go really well with a roast chicken or some panfried fish. But tell yourself you don't need it.
It's my new mission to have at least one or two dinners based around just one vegetable. The other night it was orechiette with a broccoli sauce. And Wolf ate it all. I got my baby to eat broccoli! This is an achievement I will use to justify my next shopping spree.

Reasons to go raid the Korean Grocery Store

Last week I wandered into the Korean Grocery Store that's opposite Queen Victoria Market (The one on the opposite side of Victoria Parade, not the one on the other side of Elizabeth Street). Fantastic baby goods find!

They're clips you use with your stroller to keep a blanket over your baby's lap. I've needed something like this so badly, because on our second stroller it doesn't have a foot muff or anything, but it's the one I run Wolf around in the most. Wolf loves kicking blankets off and then watching as I roll over it. They were $10.50 in the random household goods section of the grocery store. Awesome!

I love Korean grocery stores and I love IGAs! Maybe I should like quit being a cook and open some random corner store? 'Cept I wouldn't be able to help myself adding like a coffee machine and a zillion in-dining options. Someday someday.

Big Boy

Look at him! He's huge! Over 11 months now and he's big enough to muck around in the playground.

It's been a beautiful day today. Sometimes things like this just show how mature he's becoming, and

how quickly!

Then there are other moments that show he's still really just a baby with a lot of things to learn.
Particularly about table manners.
How did that piece of apple get up there? And why isn't it falling off?

Bath Toys

Thank you to Bebe Online for giving us these Boon Designer Bath Toys and Scrubbies to road test.
They are crazy fun! Wolf adores them. Yes I'm aware that that brown coloured shape in the bath looks
like a poop at first glance. But baby mums know that a baby poo in the bath wouldn't look like that anyway. It's still a fun picture.
I love these toys because they can be chewed on, they stick to the walls and little bodies and they repel mould and mildew. Wolf thinks they're brilliant. Except now he expects things to just stick on walls all the time so he spends a lot of time picking things up and pressing them against the wall then watching as they fall on the floor. Sigh. Learning. It's all learning.
He's getting a bit big for the little bath tub though. Time to get the big bath tub re-finished!

Food nerds and lemons

OK. So I'm a huge Masterchef fan. But anticipation for Julie Goodwin's cookbook waned pretty quickly when she kept appearing in those Glad ads. They're really weird. A not-quite-right attempt at facsimile of Australian family life. Wouldn't she get really mad if they started tossing her food around like a soccer ball? Where's the bickering? Where are the disasters and accidents? Too many rictus grins. Anyway I don't know. I probably spend too much time puzzling over advertisements. 

Still I can't believe that upon it's release it appeared in one of those random product bins they have in post offices where you line up. And it was only $30. Pretty cheap for a full-colour photo cook-book with nice binding and all that. Still it's supposed to be peddled to the masses. It's surprisingly good, full of pretty easy and obvious family recipes. Even Josh might be able to learn to cook from it. The section on cooking when camping is particularly good, because I can't remember a single school camping trip we ever did that had good food. Camp-fire roast pork! Nice. If I ever get over my hatred for waking up outside without the option of a shower or an actual toilet seat, I might let Josh drag Wolf and I out camping.

I tried out her lemon butter recipe and it's actually quite good. 

After making litres and litres of lemon curd every week at the patisserie, a curd recipe that has only four ingredients and only takes 25 minutes to make is pretty refreshing. I remember the time I put twice as much gelatine as my master's recipe required and it came out like rubber. The flavour of Julie's lemon butter is nice and tart with a smooth finish; not too egg, sugary or grainy like so many other recipes out there. It contains only lemon juice, eggs, sugar and butter but still has a firm but spreadable texture. 

I made some butter cookies sandwiched with curd for my mum! Something nice for her to have while she babysits Wolf for me. Thanks mum!

Tomorrow will be my first mother's day too. However I will be working and am anticipating a day full of sniping remarks and general ill feeling from my bosses. I've been pretty run-down the last month and have suffered illness after illness, meaning that I've had to duck out of my two days of work a few times. Not very good for my overall record. I do feel really incredibly bad about it. Through my entire time there I've rarely asked for time off for social occasions, unlike my colleagues, I like to keep days because sometimes we get sick. I'd rather that be the only reason that I don't work. In any case they've been quite angry with me so I suggested that they let me go without any ill-feeling from my end. That seems to have been more trouble than anything else. I just wanted them to do the right thing for themselves without having to feel guilty. It's troublesome when you begin to have an emotional attachment to your employers and begin to do things to help them or protect them that are out of the norm. Really it should be a direct relationship with specific protocols, but when you work close quarters it's quite hard to maintain.

In any case I'm hoping desperately that tomorrow will still be a good day and that we make a few mums happy with a Sunday breakfast she doesn't have to cook!

Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers for tomorrow!

Things that happen when you're not watching baby

Usually these things are bad. Very bad. Like finding Wolf had made it into our bedroom and fallen into a box full of scarves and hats. Or Wolf trying to pry open the nappy bin to see what the smell was all about.

However after he performed his miraculous Speedy Gonzales act disappearing from underneath my feet, I could hear this strange plastic rattling and rolling coming from his room. I freaked out and ran in, thinking he might be trying to attack the air conditioner again only to find that he had re-discovered his Christmas present from his paternal Grandparents.

You put the plastic balls through the circular openings at the top and they roll down the tail or neck or through the 'stomach'. 4 months of putting the balls through the chutes to show him how it was done. Usually he got bored or watching that and tried to climb the dinosaur and eat the birds on top. It's not very stable, so it was put away in a corner in his room. He actually had to shove a bouncing donkey (we have weird toys I know) out of the way and pull the dino out of the corner and turn it around. He even found the matching balls and began to play all on his own. When I came in he just looked at me,  smiled and kept playing!

Amazing. These milestones are so amazing. He does it all himself. 

I love being a mum! It's better than anything else in this entire World. 

This has really made all the stresses of the week seem like nothing. Feeling like I can't live up to my previous standard of work anymore. Trying to make things easier for people in the long run but still feeling as though I'm constantly the source of all problems. Trying to make time to see specialists. Having simultaneous epiphanies about future plans and crises over money and relationships. 

These things still have to be dealt with, but who wants to feel depressed when you have an awesome baby doing brilliant things all by himself! We made him from scratch. But he deserves all the credit.

Auction Rooms Again

We really love the Auction Rooms! We might end up going there every week. Wolf had a huge

serving of toast with strawberry jam. Hardly jam really, it was more like a compote full of whole

cooked strawberries; tart and not too sweet. You can see he loved it. 

This is just such an awesome destination for parents. It's our favourite new place!

Mysterious

It's very strange but my boobs appear to have gone back to pre-pregnancy size. Is that normal? I still breast feed Wolf three times a day, and yet they don't look terribly big anymore. It's quite sudden. My bras did used to fit. Weird.

On a funnier note the other day I was walking past Footscray City High School with Wolf in the stroller after a lovely mothers group picnic. It was end of school and I walked past a large group of teenage girls sitting in the shade of an outbuilding. It was a very hot day. One girl turned around and said 'Do you have any water?', I said no (I drank it all) and kept walking. I was a few metres down the street when she called out 'How about milk? Do you have any milk?'.

Cheeky girl. I cracked up so much and was laughing all the way back to our building.

They sure make teenagers very cheeky these days. I was impressed with her guts.

Grigons and Orr

More dining out success! On Friday we attempted it with our new Totseat from Bebe Online, which arrived just in time the day before (note to self: attempt to stop spending money here. At least try a little. Please). But as you can see from the picture way down below, Wolfgang was not enamoured of the idea of sitting around all day.

Grigons and Orr had to be one of the loveliest breakfast destinations in Melbourne. Situated on a quiet corner away from the noise of Errol street, locals must feel very lucky to call this one their own. Inside there are just three small tables nestled together amongst shelves and cabinets of interesting goods. There you have a great view of the towering shelves behind the counter, made from wooden shipping pallets and stocked with a random assortment of goods you would expect to find in a milk bar. A beautiful old fashioned glass counter houses lollies but also cakes and filled baguettes. You can even buy organic milk in glass bottles.

Outside the generous corrugated iron awning provides shade from all angles over the many large formica tables large enough to fit many people and prams. Cute factor was heightened by water served in vintage milk bottles with strawberries and their leaves inside.

For once we ventured out with no back-up lunch for Wolf, just hoping we'd find something on the menu that he'd like (trying to treat him like a proper little person). He had house-made crumpets with butter, half the toast from my Shakshuka (eggs baked in a spicy tomato sauce pictured above) and bits of bacon, capsicum and cornbread from his dad's breakfast.

Despite there being only two service staff manning the counter and indoor and outdoor tables, service was efficient, attentive and very generous (considering the kind of mess and noise Wolf tends to make).

If you live in North Melbourne, you are very lucky! This place is a gem.

Grigons and Orr

Corner Queensberry Street and Chetwynd Street

North Melbourne

9663 5192

Wontons

I feel as though...if one makes too many wontons, one might go blind. Or at least get some sort of repetitive stress injury. That was how I felt then anyway. This is only half the the wontons I made.

Then at work on Monday I had to make 45 filled baguettes. Sandwich making seems like no big deal, until you spend so many hours cracking crusty baguettes open and stuffing things inside. Baguette crust in sharp! I'm covered with cuts from BREAD! Gah. I won't show you photos of my hands. They're not for delicate eyes.

Auction Rooms, North Melbourne

Finally! Josh, Wolf and I made the effort to actually eat somewhere new. We were getting very bored always having our market day lunch at Coffea, nice as it is. The wonderful Errol Street strip is not terribly far from Queen Victoria Market, and on recommendation from Little Eats, Hey Bambini and my always in-the-know bosses, we visited the Auction Rooms. 

Really lovely, airy space making the most of the existing architectural features. Clever layout divides the large room into smaller areas that still feel cosy and lessen the noise. We sat at a communal table with two other families with babies. Crowds of business people came in afterwards and I reckon they were hoping for that large table. Probably get it all the time though, the Auction Rooms having a pretty great reputation amongst parents. Ample stroller parking! You won't get any staff glaring you off here. 

In fact the staff were pretty amazing. When the food arrived I was holding Wolf on my lap, feeding him grapes. But the very handsome, swarthy waitperson offered us a high chair, which I didn't even know they had. It was just the cheap IKEA one, but that's the one we have anyway. 

Here's Wolf enjoying titbits from out plate without being stifled in our arms or stuffed under the table in his stroller. Very happy! Though very busy, staff were generally helpful and attentive, refilling water bottles before we even noticed they were empty, and even apologising for how hectic it was, though we didn't mind in the slightest.

According to Josh, family coffee expert, the brew was mild but flavoursome and not too hot (hot coffee is for geriatrics). The breakfast menu is more interesting than average, with offerings like Nasi Goreng, bubble-and-squeak and a delicious sort of stew made from pork belly, cannellini beans and carrot with toast and poached eggs. I ordered the 'opening bid', a basic sort of big breakfast spread with perfectly poached eggs, sauteed spinach, mushrooms, tomato, bacon and toast. Wolf actually chewed on a bit of bacon and accepted many pieces of carrot and pork from his dad's breakfast. 

I love watching other open kitchens where you can see the chef on the pass staring out into the front-of-house, trying to will waitstaff towards him with Jedi mind powers. Of course it never works. Muttering rude insults about various servers doesn't work either, which has always been my preferred method. I see why customers like staring into the kitchen at that moment though (it's usually something that pisses me off a lot because I could not be more stressed), as it gives you a good chance to observe the other dishes on the menu while they slowly congeal on the pass.

There is a very decent sized disabled toilet/baby change room, quite surprisingly. We didn't need to use it but we certainly appreciated its existence. How many cool new cafes do you know that have change rooms AND high chairs? Impressive. I wish my own workplace had such facilities. I'd even volunteer to wipe down the high chairs and replenish supplies in the change room. But I know that's not going to happen. 

Go to the Auction Rooms parents. It will make you feel human again and like you might have your mojo back. 

Auction Rooms

103-107 Errol Street

North Melbourne 3051

Phone: 9326 7749

Maternity Fashion! Too Late

I so wish I had found this site when I was pregnant. Especially with the Aussie dollar totally murdering Asian currencies, cute Asian maternity fashion would be too good to pass up. Yes Style stock various Asian fashion brands, but also have a pretty great maternity section. They're a division of Yes Asia, where you can buy Asian music and dvds. Look at this dress. It's gorgeous! Locally you'd pay about $200 for something as nice. It's only $72!

They do free express shipping to Australia. Seriously check this out if you are with child. Almost worth having another one now. Should I stock up now?

Clearly I am very retail therapy starved if I am considering that. My most recent fashion achievement was being able to purchase a pair of skinny jeans that fit and I look all right in them.  I think I'll just console myself with a stockpile of beanies. I can't believe how many beanies they have in stock. It's kind of creepy.

With Easter came some good things...

An indoor picnic of mussels in cider and bacon on Saturday. Despite cooking off all the alcohol from the cider, I still manage to feel drunk after eating a serve. My alcohol tolerance has gone from 1 to about

minus 10.

An outdoor picnic at Carlton Gardens with friends we rarely get to see on Sunday. Beautiful park, great food, lovely company.

Later Sunday night Wolf deigns to put pieces of marinated chicken in his mouth, swallows them and enjoys them. Miracle! First meat I've managed to get in that belly for weeks.

However Easter Monday has brought some other interesting complications. Wolf has some incredibly bad naps. Stupid neighbours still putting plastic bags in rubbish bin despite letters being sent out and council distributing pamphlet on correct disposal of rubbish and recycling. Josh breaks a bone in his hand. Wolf is the only one to eat lunch. I discover yet another mouse nibbling noisily on something under the fridge.

Happy Easter?

No it was. I concede, even with the bad things it was pretty good. Happy Easter!