by Mark Evans
Garden Tetris is a lot like the video game, but instead of trying to arrange falling coloured blocks, it’s plants you are trying to fit together efficiently within a limited space. Like the game it can take some practice. That supposedly short plant you stuck in on the edge turns out much taller than you expected, the one you put in the shade needs more sun (or vice versa), that climber … Read more »
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
by Tony Birch
Tony Birch is an author, activist and academic. This is his fourth novel. He is best known for his award-winning novel The White Girl and his short story collection Dark as Last Night.
Women & Children has just won the 2024 Age Book of the Year for Fiction and will probably win more awards. It is set in 1965 in a poor inner-city suburb of Melbourne. Our protagonist is Joe Cluny, ‘a wide-eyed, … Read more »
by Mark Evans
Winter is the perfect time to select and plant a deciduous plant in your garden. Deciduous plants are dormant during winter, making them easy to transport and plant and, at this time of year, nurseries tend to have the best selection including bare-rooted varieties that can make for a more economical purchase.
Deciduous plants drop all their leaves as an adaptation to conserve water and energy, avoid physical damage from snow and ice, … Read more »
Ingredients:
250g Anzac biscuits
100g butter
500g cream cheese at room temperature
150g caster sugar
¼ lemon – zested
4 truffled eggs – separated
100ml cream
30-50g black truffle – grated
Instructions:
Crush the biscuits, add melted butter and stir through. Pour the mix into a cake tin or spring-form pan, compress the mix evenly around the base. Allow to sit in a … Read more »
½ cup dry white wine
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp unsalted butter
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper,
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (optional, for garnish)
Mushroom mixture:
1 cup enoki mushrooms, trimmed
1 cup shiitake mushrooms, sliced
reviewed by Wendy Tucker
by Robyn Davidson
I eagerly read this memoir that has been 25 years in the writing. The name of Robyn Davidson was first heard in 1977 when a young woman was reported to be crossing the Simpson Desert from Alice Springs to the coast of WA. The photos that appeared in the National Geographic in 1978 were of a beautiful young blonde woman travelling across the desert with four camels … Read more »
