Posts by td Whittle

Book Review: Black no Sugar – 9 Short Stories, by A.W. Wilson

td Whittle

Posted on May 21st, 2013

Black no Sugar – 9 Short Stories by A.W. WilsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars Black no Sugar is a collection of nine short stories by A.W. Wilson, a self-published author, containing some bleak, pithy, funny, and well-crafted prose. I have read it slowly, one or two stories at a time, because (as promised) each story is like a dose of hot and bitter brew. In fact, that is just how I prefer my coffee, and it was the title, along with the hilarious image of a much-overused Munch painting on a Starbucks take-away cup (I’d thought I’d never see a fresh re-frame of that, but life is full of surprises) that made me decide to give the stories a try. I figured…

Categories: Book Reviews and Essays

Tagged: A.W. Wilson, Black no Sugar, book review

Planet Cactus

td Whittle

Posted on May 18th, 2013

We have some cactuses growing in pots on our back terrace. They are pretty and harmless, unless touched … or, so I’d thought. I had never really looked at them up close until recently. Robin took some photos of them out in the sunshine, thinking that I might enjoy them, and looking at the results made me realise two things: firstly, that I really like the aesthetics of cactuses, which I’d never thought much about until then; secondly, that we are harbouring an alien colony, which may or may not be planning to destroy us. Nevertheless, they are tiny, so I think we don’t have to worry just yet. Having said that, anyone who ever read The Day of the Triffids understands…

Categories: Photo Sets and Galleries

Tagged: aliens, cactus

Beware the Possum Moon of Doom

td Whittle

Posted on May 5th, 2013

Before my husband and I married, he lived here in Melbourne, and I lived in Houston. We talked on the phone daily, usually during his mornings and my evenings, but that would vary, and the time of day we spoke would inevitably influence what was taking place in our surrounding environments. The first conversation we ever had about possums, which are nocturnal animals that frolic in the Melbourne suburbs come twilight, went something like this: Him: “There’s a possum in my garden and I am watching it as I talk to you.” Me: “Ugh. You should shoo it away. They are revolting. I am an animal lover, for the most part, but I find it hard to love feral rats and…

Categories: Photo Essays

Tagged: Australia, Common Brushtail, opossum, possum, texas

Book Review: The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, by Steven Sherrill

td Whittle

Posted on April 17th, 2013

The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven SherrillMy rating: 5 of 5 stars Here’s my advice and the three-word version of my review: read this book. There are some excellent reviews already here on Goodreads about The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, and I don’t have an especially brilliant addition to make to those. What I would say, though, is that the book is worth reading because the writing is sublime. It’s at turns funny and tragic. It engages our empathy in a way that reminds us – however uncomfortably – that we, too, are instinct-driven animals lurking beneath the more refined parts of our neocortex; that we are somewhat freakish and terribly vulnerable; and that, frequently, we are wholly or partially…

Categories: Book Reviews and Essays

Tagged: Neil Gaiman, Steven Sherrill, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break

Book Review: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami

td Whittle

Posted on March 30th, 2013

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami My rating: 5 of 5 stars So here’s the thing about Haruki Murakami that turns my brain into fairy floss: how is it that this 60ish Japanese guy writes in such a way that I feel he is exploring not only his own psychic underworld, but also mine? (I should mention here that I am not likewise a 60ish Japanese guy.) Given his rampant popularity across cultures, I am assuming I am not the only one who has this experience. His fans seem to return to him like … Well, like whatever the 2013 version of a crack whore returning to the den is … No, more like an opium den, isn’t…

Categories: Book Reviews and Essays

Tagged: book review, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami

A Reader’s Question: Is it important for protagonists to be likeable?

td Whittle

Posted on March 9th, 2013

“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” ― Dorothy Parker, The Algonquin Wits Today, while perusing Goodreads, I became interested in a thread about John Kennedy Toole’s picaresque novel, A Confederacy of Dunces , which a couple of readers declared they’d set aside unfinished, because they did not like the main characters. I love A Confederacy of Dunces for many reasons, but I would say that the likeableness of Ignatius, Irene, and Myrna the Minx had little to do with my overall enjoyment and appreciation of the book. I am not sure that I even asked myself questions about their personal charms (or lack thereof) while reading it, except for considering that a woman would have to have…

Categories: Book Reviews and Essays

Tagged: Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Garcia-Marquez, Lolita, Love in the Time of Cholera, MacBeth, Nabokov, Othello, Patchett, protagonists, reading, Shakespeare, Shriver, State of Wonder, The AGE arguments about VCE curriculum, The Great Gatsby, The Sound and the Fury, We Need to Talk about Kevin

Happy Birthday, Sandra!

td Whittle

Posted on February 10th, 2013

Dear Sandra,

Your birthday is already happening on my side of the world, but it’s yet to arrive on yours. (It all seems to be going just fine, so far ;) I thought you should wake up to a hot and steamy cup of coffee and a special birthday post. How better to begin the day but with birthday haiku? These are three of my favourites:

Years may come and go

but our friends and memories…

what was I saying?

It is your birthday!

Drop everything and have cake.

You don’t have to share.

(Since I am not there.)

(And since I added that line, this is no longer a true haiku; but will it do, since it is true?)

Happy Birthday, friend!

May today’s coffee be strong

and the day inspired.

A great big, heartfelt Happy Birthday to you, my wonderful and beloved friend! I wish I were there to share those delectable cakes with you, and a bottle of bubbly, too. I hope you have a delightful day and an even better year ahead. And now, I am off on a bike ride to celebrate!

With love and wishes that all good things come your way,

Tina xoxoxo

Categories: Miscellany

Tagged: birthday haiku, bubbly, cakes, happy birthday, sandra's birthday

Our Favourite Spelt Bread Recipe (Using Bread Machine + Oven)

td Whittle

Posted on January 20th, 2013

spelt-bread

To our surprise, Robin and I discovered recently that we love spelt in breads, pastas, and other goods where it replaces conventional flours. We were surprised because we did not expect such a flavour difference. Since we had been enjoying the bread machine that we bought last year, we decided to try baking our own spelt bread just a few months ago. Initially, this was a failure, due to the recipes that we tried not being quite to our liking, and (even more crucially) due to the quickly-realised problem that spelt bread does not bake properly in bread machines. The reason I am posting this recipe and these guidelines are because most of the dozens of recipes that you find when you Google Spelt and Bread Machine Recipes do not tell you this! People post these recipes and comment that their bread machine spelt bread is the best thing since … well … sliced bread. I do not know whether they have bread machines with super powers, or whether they are just lying. In our experience, which is now rich and varied, spelt dough in a bread machine rises like the Sun, but then craters catastrophically, so that you end up with a flat and too- dense loaf that is not very nice at all. Bread machines are fine, and very useful, for making the dough for a spelt loaf, but not adequate for baking the bread.

After a few failures with our bread machine, we thought to look for help on the website of the local Victorian company called Simply No Knead, from which we had purchased our spelt flours, and from which this recipe has been adapted (and only very gently modified). Here’s what we learned: “Quite often ancient grains like spelt will rise beautifully in your machine and then in the final bake will flatten out. For best results use the Dough setting-let the machine mix the dough and then use your oven to cook the bread.” Once we followed that guideline, we had no more problems.

Guidance we did not follow from SNK would be, firstly, that we do not put oil in our bread tin. The initial reason for this is because we forgot to do it! But then, we realised it was unnecessary, and we don’t like too much oil in our food, anyway. The bread has some oil in it already, and it never sticks, but slips easily from the tin. Secondly, we use more water, more flour, and more salt than their recipe calls for and, to us, these mild alterations create the perfect bread.

Our bread tin was purchased from Marg and Maree’s Baking and Breadmaking, which is just a few blocks from home, and we are currently using their flours, too. One of the owners there explained that we should never wash our bread tin, so we just wipe it out with a dry cloth when we are done with it. Good luck with your baking! (Click below on +Read more for Recipe.)

Categories: Random Recipes

Tagged: spelt bread

Spanish Rice with Seafood

td Whittle

Posted on January 6th, 2013

Spanish Rice with Seafood

This is my version of Spanish Rice with Seafood, a favourite dish around our house. The one thing you really must have, besides the ingredients, is a large, flat-bottomed, shallow pan that heats evenly, in order for this dish to cook properly. I use my electric skillet, and it works every time. It is an unusually shallow and flat one made by an obscure company, and I bought it second hand.

Disclaimer: this is not an authentic paella, nor does it have any pretentions towards being authentically Spanish. However, I am authentically (at least part) Spanish, so I make no apologies for borrowing this recipe from my own family tradition of a meaty Spanish Rice, and altering it to suit my husband’s and my taste for all things seafood. This dish is always a hit with guests, too. I just made another version of this for New Year’s Day, and as it is a very hot summer here in Australia, everyone enjoyed its satisfying light-but-tasty qualities.

This recipe will serve 3-4 as a main dish, or 6-8 as a side dish. (Click below on +Read more for Recipe.)

Categories: Random Recipes

Tagged: Seafood Paella, Spanish Rice with Seafood

Bicycling Victoria’s Rail Trails: Lilydale to Warburton

td Whittle

Posted on December 26th, 2012

Note: Click on the image to enlarge and open the gallery; or, click on the small dots beneath the image, or on the arrow which appears on the right as you move your cursor over the photo, to move to the next image in the gallery.

Robin (my husband) and I love nothing more than romping around Australia, both locally and to far-flung places, using our various means of transport. We walk a lot, ride our bikes almost as much, and take our Kombi on long road trips once or twice a year.

This post is the first in a series about bicycling, more of which I plan to post from time to time, focusing particularly on Victoria’s Rail Trails. The trails are wonderful to ride, because they offer beautiful coastal and/or pastoral environments, and plenty of long, well-tended, and protected bike path (or walking path, whichever you prefer). Also, while you need a reasonable level of biking fitness if you are going to pedal 25 or 50 kilometres or more, most of the rides that we have taken are not terribly difficult. They have inclines, to be sure, but not many steep hills. Of course, if you own a mountain bike, you will be okay, regardless of hills, because some of those bikes have gears that can take you straight up a wall.

Robin has a yellow-and-black mountain bike from the early 90s that he bought second hand, and he’s pretty fit, so he has no trouble with hills. I, on the other hand, ride my Cypress City bike on all terrains, despite the fact that it was made for paved city and suburban surfaces. I’ve had it for several years now, and I really enjoy riding it, so I refuse to abandon it just because it was not built to ascend steep hills. (Apparently, I was not really built with steep hills in mind, either, so I am hardly one to judge.) When we encounter rough and/or hilly terrains, I simply dismount, and my bike and I trudge uphill companionably, side by side, like the old friends that we are.

Robin and I don’t call ourselves “cyclists,” because I am pretty sure we don’t qualify for such an official title, especially given our biking dress style and equipment. I am usually carrying a picnic lunch in my front basket, and Robin tucks his pant legs into his socks, so we aren’t exactly high-styling it. Then there’s the fact of my helmet, which is bright pink with white daisies on it, such as your average six-year-old girl might wear. It was the only one in the shop that did not look insectoid and mean-spirited, and the only one that fit properly at the time I needed one (I was going on a ride that afternoon). Naturally, I have to wear pink sunglasses, because nothing else matches. So, it is possible some people steer clear of us when they see us coming. Nevertheless, if you ever encounter us on one of the Victorian Rail Trail rides, you can be sure we are having a great time, however nutty and uncool we may look.

So far, we have ridden roundtrip, on several occasions, from Drysdale to Queenscliff (which is part of the Bellarine Peninsula Rail Trail) and the entire Bass Coast Rail Trail quite a few times. Most recently, we rode the Lilydale to Warburton Rail Trail, which is where the photos accompanying this post were taken. We rode from Wandin to Warburton, which is 56 kilometres round trip, and we spent some time enjoying Warburton while we were there. Next time we go, we plan to begin in Lilydale, but we got a late start this time.

All of these are gorgeous rides in good weather. We usually don’t stop to take photos, but we will start doing that more often, so that I can post them here. Also, it’s fun to have the photos to remember the ride once you are back home. If you live in Victoria or you are visiting here, and you ride the rail trails, please let us know about your own experiences. Happy riding!

Categories: Photo Essays, Photo Sets and Galleries

Tagged: biking, cycling, touring Victoria, Victorian Rail Trails