This is the creative home of Natalija Brunovs.
A blog is a reason to create.
A creation is a reason to blog.
To force oneself to create can force inspiration to occur.
These thoughts and images are from wanderings and workings as an artist, photographer, designer, community artsworker and lover.

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Entries in food (19)

Monday
01Mar2010

Birthday Dessert Club

For the occasion of 'me', I took dessert club out of the fancy restaurant and into the park.

It was BYO gourmet dessert (and plate to eat off).

I now have had a taste of what it may be like to organise your own wedding. Decorations, tables, trailers and the correct number of chairs.

I had the flags sewn up after being inspired by the Festival of Perth's decoration. I picked up chairs from verge side collections. I scored $2 per piece odd glassware and I managed to move a picnicing family from my perfect chosen spot - pronto! The highlight would be the battery operated lanterns (which inspired a song by me with the lyrics "China China, China China, how you make many wonderful things").

Jo's perfect Almond and Polenta cake

 

Dave & Melissa's fancypants platter

 

Steen's Dazzling panna cotta

 

She brought origami paper and we all practiced making paper cranes by candlelight while he played his battery operated keyboard and we sang along to Tears For Fears & other great 80's hits high on sugar and certainly with no time for photography. SO you get no shots after 6pm, sorry.

 

I do hate not having images to share but I'm getting better at just enjoying it, not needing to grasp it.
Someone else shot my hair though, which I'm glad about.

 

And the next day I had paper cranes to remember it by...

[current mood] David Deida (Way of the Superior Man) & Crab Linguini

Thursday
04Feb2010

Bartering for Bartlett's Bread

Use Your Loaf (The Miss behind Les' Breads)

I love barter. The exchange of service and products. I learnt that in year 9 commerce. Back then I thought it was just a ye olde term for those egyptians that bartered a bag of grain for 36 pineapples.
We also spent a week learning to write a cheque. Man, year 9 commerce was excellent and so so useful.

So I learnt that I can barter my photography of a baker for bread.

Les Bartlett is an artisan baker based at Crystal Waters village near Maleny, Queensland. Les taught himself (later in life - around age 40) to bake! And is passionate about the bakery being the centre of a vibrant community. The warm beating heart of Crystal Waters! Every Friday he spends an entire day from dawn til dark baking a range of scrumptious sourdough loaves for the locals. I photographed all the beautiful doughy moments in exchange for as much bread as I could eat (which is about one loaf it turns out).

Dough!

And for extra fun, having seen a photo attached to the bakery door, I suggested we do an 'ode' to Les's favourite shot of a french baker.

This is the original shot:

And this is ours...

Complete with framing, caption and credit.

(Besides the loaf, Les also gave me some chocolate, so it worked out as a good barter exchange in the end.)

Go barter something people! It's the economy of the future (and of those folk in egypt back in roman numerally something, didn't study history sorry).

[current mood] Relentless Waves & Stealing Some Kid's Fries

Monday
25Jan2010

One Absolutely Incredible Afternoon 

Arrive 12pm. Crystal Waters.

I'm here for a week of 'wwoofing' (working on organic farms). I take the wrong route and end up on more of a category 5 four-wheel drive track going up hill. Van tyres gets wedged in... well, a wedge. I suddenly get that all over body shiver of 'what the f have I just done??' I manage to manevour the van out of wedge but brakes fail and it careers down the hill. Somehow I manage to not roll the van or die.

I also didn't cry which is a huge improvement. I head back to the correct location and finally arrive at my host's house. (Peter).

Pete's in his underwear and I'm just about to bolt (coming from a series of seedy old man scenarios) but like usual me, I give him the benefit of the doubt and discover pretty much everyone enjoys time in their undies, if not naked, here at Crystal Waters. It's like, that's totally fine with me if it's not a sleezy kind of naked. Do you know the difference?

Quite quickly I warm to Pete. A generous and cheery 71 year old. He's sharing an acreage with Les and Les (a couple). Chooks, veges, fruit trees, organic everything, overlooking huge dam, birdlife central... this is a paradise.

Afternoon begins with a visit to Les's little bakery where we pack up some loaves, mmm fresh bread smell.

Then we go for a swim in the dam. I have never slid into a lilly topped dam with water birds and squishy mud. It was bath temperature with shafts of cool. I wish I could photograph this from the water.

On the way back we collect some huge Bunya 'pine nuts' and I crack them open to find the big nuts which are cooked up and taste like chestnuts. I LOVE them.

And there, on the porch is a friend of Pete's. A mango farmer. He's brought samples for us to try and can't wait to hear our response. I describe it as 'an adult's mango. Both sweet and tangy. A touch challenging'. (It's absolutely delicious).

He shows us how to propagate the mango by gently prying the shell open and taking out the inner seed. I'm floored because I never knew and I want a mango orchard one day.

Then Tim turns up! A native bee guru (to the extreme). He is entirely generous with his knowledge, barely blinks, just talks with a huge smile and wide eyes. He reminds me of an incredibly likeable tv host.

He splits a hive and we taste the medicinal honey.

We learn all about how the bees operate and debate their level of consciousness.

The neighbours all just turn up and ask questions of Tim. It's freaking beautiful. Community at its best.

I grab my Brazilian Cherry jam from the van and share it - spread on Les's freshly baked bread and the experts enjoy. I am chuffed!

My first 'job' is to go pick Jaboticaba fruit for jam making. I'm a tad nervous about repeating my Braz Cherry success so I will have to do some hefty research. Much harder with an audience!

In the evening I head to a gig at the Crystal Waters community area, help sell pizza made by Les and Les before sitting back with my slices and a bottle of locally brewed lager to enjoy the band and conversation with friendliest-ever lady sitting next to me.

I feel like today was really one of the best afternoon's I ever had.

Good luck to tomorrow!

[current mood] Beans off the vine & Hopping

Wednesday
20Jan2010

Jam in a Van

The idea just seemed so preposterous that I had to take it on.

I'm walking past this tree covered in strange fruit and the farmer Dave says
"apparently it makes good jam, that's what they told us when we bought the place."

"Ever tried it?" I asked.
"Nup"
"Maybe I will"
"Better hope it don't poison ya"

So I googled about and confirmed by 'the truth source' that is the www, that it is edible. And the Brazillian Cherry does make good jam.

I've pulled over near some falls in the most gorgeous of towns, Maleny in QLD. I'll stay here a night or two. It seems just the place to have a little cook up.

So from within the extreme confines of my campervan I began the process of making jam. AND it is to be my inaugural jam-making experience.

I collected the berries in a container. Really tart things if you take a nibble.

I got onto google and found no recipe for this particular fruit. So I adapted from another cherry recipe.

I stewed the cherry berries in some water, added some lemon juice and rind then the sugar I just happened to have. Half white organic and half brown!

Bubbley goodness, I think it's working!

I then picked out the dozens of seeds which are poisonous.

In some ironic way they reminded me of the gallstones i have FLUSHED OUT of my system. I've been warned by family and friends not to post them on my blog, so I'll just point out that if you add a touch more green, you can imagine what I'm releasing!

Once the jam looks ready, I pour it into my jar and label.

I had a little taste and it was really really quite delicious!

Will buy some bread tomorrow.

[current mood] Crickets & Imagining Eating Scones with my JAM and cream.

Monday
21Dec2009

Peaches made with Love

I love the person who took this photo for me

so much that it makes me want to cry

that is, when i stop

and listen to my heart

i realise how much i love this person

and then i can express it in its truest form

however, with all loved ones i don't feel that deeply

not in our daily encounters

i don't want to feel it all when a person dies

i want to feel it all now and let them know it

i think this is harder than we realise

These are the meringues that went with the syrupy poached peaches.

[current mood] Homemade Gifted Biscotti & Neil Young on repeat

Wednesday
16Dec2009

Dreamy Islander Food

I have so many fantasies at the moment, I'm like suspended animation. I look animated, but not much is really happening. I'm caught up in being a design-machine which prevents me from living out any number of my alternative-life scenarios.

This morning as I walked the suburbs I contemplated the following life choices:
Live in Ubud and write a travel guide
Set up a design studio in Fremantle
Continue travelling in van and working on farms
Take up residency in a buddist commune
Enrol in a year long silversmithing course
Study teaching so I can teach art to kids
Just live in the bush and do art

And the last idea for the morning is to start a little healthy gourmet cafe of surprisingly delicious wholefood.

Inspired by my breakfast:

Islander Buckwheat Porridge
Cook up some buckwheat with water and coconut cream (like porridge) 20 mins
Mix in chopped dates

Meanwhile cut a banana in half, sprinkle with combo of maple syrup/coconut oil/brown sugar
Grill for 15 mins

Add sweetness to taste

(Keep Dreaming but eventually choose a bloody way forward!)

[current mood] Wine after weeks off booze & the sound a rubber stamp makes

Monday
02Nov2009

How My Mulberry Days Expand

Feeling high after a morning jog, my eyes are raised to the world above.
What's that there? Juicy and Ripe? MMMM Mulberries. My childhood delight!

There's one good thing about lack of birds, and that's fresh black berries, undisturbed!
So thanks Dalkeith for your urban development, I have my pick of the bush herewith.

Nothing like 'subtle' with a ladder and bucket, I clamber to reach the best of the bunch,
I'm already fantasising about my future breakfast and then there's always lunch...


Have you seen a better mulberry than this?
My stained fingers remind me how I dyed my hair in year 9 with mulberry juice.
"Popular kids" laughed, so I felt like a goose.

But not anymore, I reflect on my ways... I was ahead of my time.
I took risks, it wasn't gay!

Anyway, berries amount. What should I make?
I continue to avoid my work and plan for the bake...

I roll up a ball of 1 cup flour, 1 egg yolk, maple syrup and coconut oil
(ok I might have used butter just so the recipe wouldn't fail)

I pressed it into a pretty curly edged tin
My vision was big so I made the crust thin...

Then I toppled on berries and oozed on a drizzle
of egg yolk, sour cream, flour and ... sugar :)

Now while it bakes for 45 minutes at 180 degrees
I contemplate the work that I haven't achieved...

I could be designing a site for Scientific Instruments
Or laying out ads for a play about a rabbit
Or cleaning up the dog fluff covering the house
Or burning CDs to backup my data of escalating amount...

But before I even start... the oven goes off to deliver my tart!

Wouldn't you describe it as a WORK OF ART?

So I decided that I could be a wife, a lady of leisure, a chef every night.
As long as he pays for all the ingredients and comes home skipping with delight.

Sorry Oscar, you can't have any.

But there's so much there, I can't eat it all!
So let me think who I can call?

I decide it best to deliver it to friends:
Here's my work-avoiding tart. To your tum, from my heart! xo

[current mood] Humming loudly one note for half an hour until your heart explodes & Japanese Green Tea

Wednesday
05Aug2009

Dessert Club at Balthazar

The third Dessert Club was held at Balthazar Restaurant on the Esplanade in Perth.

Fancy. Complete with extreme mood lighting (which for my photography was not so hot, but for our appearance, quite flattering).

I made some chocolate dipped cherries brooches using brown paint and fake cherries. Which numerous people tried to eat even when I told them it wasn't real!

When the dessert menu was delivered I presumed it was the entree menu. It listed pumpkin soup and beetroot crisps. Where was the chocolate mousse? But then I spotted something that sounded like a french blue cheesecake, so had to go with it...

We ordered it all as no one could decide if they really wanted any of it.

Looks cute. Tasted rather foul.
We didn't know if the chef was a) arrogant b) a comic or c) a jerk.

Was it the peanut butter on a piece of bread or the rather (un)savoury pumpkin soup that tasted the worst? It might not be clear, because we finished it all off with hearty laughter (and a good glug of port).

And the surprising fact is that dodgy dessert does not equate to an equally dodgy dessert club. Tonight it was the opposite. It was the best dessert club thus far. High energy, dish swapping and new conversations and only some gagging.

Balthazar, you have some nerve, but you get away with it.

And here are those cherries in the making....

[current mood] Billy Lees (Late Night MSG fix) & Forks scraping Plates

Monday
03Aug2009

Judging a Wine by it's Cover

With my designer 'goggles' on in bottleshops, I instantly write-off any wine bottle that looks 'designed'. I go for that dusty one in the corner that looks like the label was created back when the great grandson ran the vineyard, back when computers didn't exist. No marketing ploy or angle, just simply a label that expresses itself earnestly.

I suppose I am still judging the bottle by it's cover, but in a filtering kind of way. I would never fall for clever, wacky themed bottles. With wine, I see design as a coverup.

A little limited in view (and potentially damaging self-promo confession!) because really, a good winemaker may well employ a good designer to package it up for best sales. Y'know, they may be market savy and want to sell EVEN more. Even though their wine is good. SO they might come up with some theme like Fire, Water, Earth and.. Pollution or whatever, and make it all 20-something cool to collect. or not.

Really, I guess I believe good wine will sell itself!

If anyone knows how much design DOESN'T correlate with product, I do.

Yep, a designer knows the hog wash that is design! I mean, to THINK that people actually THINK that design is a true representation! ha. Of course if you are working on something you love, and you put your love into it, and design appropriately, yes, then it can be. But as if a designer who is working on a foul tasting shiraz would go and deep etch a pile of poo and put that on the label with some comic sans type! nup! A designer will do what they are well paid to, design something beautiful!

And I will go into this more soon with oil company logos as the prime example!

BUT! I was in Exmouth and I was feeling giddy and I saw this bottle on the counter of the Italian restaurant and something came over me, like it was gold, and I MUST have it. So I rounded up my cash and came back to get my bottle of Dogajolo. Whether I was fooled or not, I would not know, until I opened it.

I waited for my Italian friend Alfredo to be at his best 'personality moment' to share it, waited and waited, until the only moment that seemed feasible to cork it, was as we were packing up boxes in my house! Not exactly fitting for this stunning label, but with some berry tart, we grabbed a neighbour with a corkscrew.

And like golden autumn leaves dappled in rich colours on a textured felty paper, this wine was divine, it ooozed artistry. I love it. I judged well. OR more precisely, the designer told the truth. Well.

And now I am re-working my theory of bottle designs, and trying to distinguish between that which is designed, that which is not designed and that which has some super magical artisan quality that reflects the designers actual belief in the product.

Maybe designers could invent a little secret symbol to hide in their artwork that actually means "hey, this is truly good' like a special "designer tick".

My theme song for this wine "I don't know much, but I know I love youuuuuu".

And for those that speak 'wine'. Here is the back of the label.

[current mood] Red Red Wine & Family chatter in the background

Tuesday
21Jul2009

How to Wake Up in the Morning

Make yourself some of this organic toasted muesli the night before!

Recipe (all organic)
Rolled Oats, Brazil Nuts & Hazelnuts
A blend of cold pressed Sesame Oil, Honey & Maple Syrup
All mixed together to lightly coat the oats and nuts.
Roast in oven for 15 minutes

While this is going put some raw pepitas and sunflower seeds on the stove
Dry roast, shaking constantly
At 3 minutes, add some linseed, toast for another 2 minutes.

Once all this is cooled, mix in with:
Organic Goji Berries, Dessicated Coconut and Sultanas.

Then serve when you wake with some full creamy yogurt
and a strawberry, Grand Marnier and blueberry stew c/o your mother.

awww yeah baby.

[current mood] Anything Ruby Coloured & JJJ