The Maggie Beer zoo, a collection of short stories and mushroom ice cream

Yes, I DID say mushroom ice cream

THINKING

In news to no one who has ever been there, the Barossa Valley is magnificent. The huge open expanses, the wide open skies, the acres and acres of vineyards. It’s properly mind-blowing but somehow at the same time also clarifying and calming. In a description that will help no one (except maybe my school year cohort) it looked like the cover page of The Story of an African Farm - the actual edition we studied at school in the 1980’s.

We stayed at a beautiful hotel and every time I looked out the window I felt peaceful and serene. I have discovered my favourite vista and it is this.

or maybe this….

Unfortunately for the wine growers it is a bit dry and so the whole landscape really gave the colour of a good cup of English breakfast tea, maybe that’s why I found it so calming. Until I visited the Maggie Beer Farm Shop.

I am as much a fan of Maggie Beer as the next person (if the next person likes verjuice and baked goods) and I was excited to go and sample her food support her. And the actual shop was lovely, I just wish I hadn’t walked outside.

Out the front are what can best be described as cages because that’s what they are and inside these cages are the most beautiful birds you can imagine, exotic birds with magnificent colours and plumages just walking up and down the perimeter of the cage. It reminded me of a zoo in the 1970’s. Caged animals stressed and on show for the humans.

I didn’t take any photos but I can’t get the images out of my mind. Sure there are some free roaming peacocks and other birds that give you the sense of a natural avian environment but really there are small cages with magnificent birds that seem to be very stressed. I want to break them free but I won’t because I am back in Sydney thinking of them and how I can campaign to get them better living conditions.

READING

If I had my time again I would pace this book better, I would savour each story on its own and give it the time and space it deserves. Instead I greedily started the next story as soon as I had finished the last.

I don’t need to tell you that Curtis Sittenfeld is an astonishing writer who excels at social commentary but I do need to tell you that the collection of short stories in Show Don’t Tell is an absolute gift that you should cherish and enjoy. Her wisdom explodes in each story and they each feel so current and contemporary that it’s almost like reading a live feed.

I tried to think of my favourite story to shout out in this post but kept fighting with myself so I won’t. My husband does not know this yet but I am going to force him to read a story or two from the collection as we continue to wage our fiction/non-fiction war.

EATING

I ate the most delicious food in the Barossa Valley that I really enjoyed (when I could block out the vision of the caged birds) but I also ate porcini mushroom ice cream, except that’s a lie, my husband ate it, I tasted it and remembered that I don’t like mushrooms.

Porcini mushroom ice cream for a very niche audience

Talking of my husband, he seared some tuna in sesame seeds for dinner and it was so delicious I think you should make it. Recipe? He coated the tuna in sesame seeds and then seared it in a hot pan.

Baked this cake for his birthday but added add a lot more icing sugar and passionfruit pulp to the whipped cream because I thought the cream was a bit blah for the cake

We are in the middle of the Jewish festival of Passover I am existing mainly on this matzah crack - not because of any religious beliefs but because it is so extremely delicious.

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Thanks for reading to the end. Hope this week is better than the last one.

Lana