things i'm making/have made

Last week I made Anzac biscuits. I had to explain a million times what these are because it’s an Australian/NZ thing. These are biscuits/cookies that were first made in WW1 to send to Australian and NZ troops who were collectively known as ANZACS (Australian and NZ army corps). They’re made from nonperishable things like golden syrup, coconut, oats, flour and butter so they would withstand the long journey to where the troops were stationed. We antipodeans have Anzac day on the 25^th of April to remember the troops who died in Gallipoli. It’s common for kids to study this in high school, and the “Anzac spirit” is a big deal for Australians. For some reason, this particular day, when the troops landed at Gallipoli, is remembered as when our national identity was founded. I think because it was the first major thing we did as separate from the Empire. Anyway I’m not very patriotic, but it felt more special making these and telling everybody about it.

I have started crocheting again, spent Saturday morning in bed crocheting and watching Stepmom (tearjerker starring Julia Roberts & Susan Sarandon). I’m making a hat even though, as somebody at work told me yesterday, we’re going into summer. Feel like in England we can wear hats all year round due to unpredictable and generally mild temperatures. I will upload a picture and pattern at some point I guess, it’s my favourite hat pattern and it’s super super easy and pretty.

Aaaaand last night I made hummingbird cupcakes for my manager at my internship’s birthday this weekend. Hummingbird cake usually has pineapple and banana in but for some reason in my mind I figured it would be better with peach or perhaps I made one ages ago with peach.. so I decided to substitute that instead of pineapple which I don’t like very much to be honest. I used this recipe and this one as inspiration. I just used SR flour because in particular recipes I think it’s legit to skip the plain flour and baking powder/bicarb/baking soda game, and I used walnuts instead of pecans because they are cheaper. By the way, if you ever need to cross reference recipes, I would definitely recommend using tastespotting. The best website for inspiration/ideas/food porn. Something I noticed about hummingbird cake is that although it's apparently a "southern" food, nobody really knows where it originates from. MYSTERY CAKE. It's really good anyway.

food things

just a few small links to prove that I am not going to give up on this blog again.

I don't remember how but I stumbled upon this amazing amazing company, Bompas & Parr, who are jelly mongers. I feel really happy that's a true thing. I wish I could have seen this neon jelly chamber, seems so legit

The next food thing I really want to do/that I might do this weekend is go to Maltby Street Market. If only to get more Bea's of Bloomsbury cupcakes..

In 'making news' over easter I mad my own hot cross buns, for which I basically followed this recipe - the only one I could find which sensibly suggested soaking the fruit in tea. I soaked my raisins in chai tea and also added a bit of the tea to the milk/yeast mixture because I didn't have any spices. That turned out well, although they could have been more spicy probably. I was pleased how they turned out. I had been telling everybody prior to Easter that I was going to make satanic buns and do like antichrist symbols on them. All the deliciousness of Easter, yet no religion!! That only partially worked..

 
Yesterday I made a pretty nice crumble featuring leftover pears, strawberries and apple from a dinner my flatmate made earlier in the week. I find with crumbles they're mostly an intuitive thing, you never really need a recipe as such. I think the crumble mix itself works best in terms of a ratio, like 1 butters to 3 flour or something. You know it's okay if, when you grab a handful, you can press it together and then obviously crumble it onto your fruit. I made the custard too thick though. Sigh. It made me want a vanilla slice. But I am going to get my share of Australian treats this week, I have plans to make Anzac day. Also am wondering if I'm allowed to give myself a public holiday on Wednesday.

In other Australian biscuit news, a girl at work gave me a penguin which is EXACTLY like a tim tam. Really made my day.

I am also determined to get a baking-based job. Not sure how to do this apart from plying the local cupcake shop and Blackbird Bakery with macarons or something..

24/03/2012

had the nicest day getting to know south east london yesterday.

first i went to brockley market where i got a sourdough donut filled with lemon curd from the london particulars to go with my free coffee from [nice coffee bros] in the far corner of the market. i didn't realise my friend ellie worked there so i got to catch up and have a chat to her over the goods at the honest carrot's stall. after hanging around and sort of helping her pack up, i continued my journey on into deptford, where i used my south london art map to help me navigate the streets. 

unfortunately the map didn't warn me of the bountiful amount of vintage shops around. i ended up buying a lil book about the prehistoric era which i am going to send to stacey.

then i was in deptford suddenly, walking up the high street market which was as most markets in london seem to be: a mixture of horrible clothes, toiletries, carpets, batteries, linens, plastic smelling shoes and so on. but when i got closer to the train station i found this flea market where i bought a fun velvet cardi with gold buttons and beads. i also stumbled upon this craft park thingy. 

 hip ass kids selling cool clothing probably at prices I can't afford. Just walked around here with a big smile on my face feeling so happy about life. especially when I went into this place called Utrophia which seems like it has a zine store attached to it yay. 

felt slightly creeped out when I went into an asian grocer's on deptford high street because there was a bucket of chicken's feet. just caught me off guard. 

sat in the sun outside the Laban which I had to google on the spot because it felt like the reason why Charlie Brooker made the Black Mirror series.. there were these >5 y/o girls playing with their dads running around topless.. felt a bit strange until I realised it was a gym/dance/movement school.

went into some other galleries (which I always say in my head as gay-erie via simon pericich) aided by my SLAM & this lil helpful ladybird. 

then I walked back to New Cross Gate to get the train home and I bought some dried fruit and a 'courgette' from a grocer's and the guy was like 'what are you going to do with that combination of things' and I said I was going to try making granola with the fruit and scones with the courgette and I had to say scones different to I usually do because my accent made it sound dumb. 

um so everything here is beautiful and wonderful, I love it. when I got the train back to Crystal Palace I saw the dinosaurs in the park there for the first time and they looked great, I can't wait to go meet them

granny squares

I have been doing crochet for a lady called Wendy who sells blankets. I am nearly finished now, only 12 more squares to go!! I've figured out I can make 1 square per trip into work and then usually 2 at work if I'm onto it. Getting pretty sick of these colours though. damn. This is why I have started listening to podcasts.. hasn't become too tedious that way

I guess just for reference, the pattern I'm using is

chain 4, slip stitch into a ring

chain 3, treble crochet 2 into ring, 2 chain, (3 treble crochet, 2 chain) x 3, slip stitch to join row

change colour, start this row in a corner. chain 3, 2 tc, 2 chain, 3 tc. then 3 tc, 2 chain,  3 tc in each corner around. 

change colour, start in corner. chain 3, 2 tc, 2 chain, 3 tc. 3 tc in the space. then 3 tc, 2 chain, 3 tc in each corner around

4th row is the same but with an extra space

I was going to make some crochet tutorials last year and I might come good on that promise, but for now, easily the best place to learn (and the place I learnt) are the granny square tutorials on meet me at mike's. 

2012 with wool & i rejuvenation

more and more I have been thinking about giving up on any career goals I may sort of have and am thinking about throwing in the proverbial towel and becoming like a freelance domestic. I just want someone to pay me to bake yummy things or crochet hats and then tweet about it. jk I am still ambitious. but think I will definitely blog more about things I am making, doing and reading creative-wise. also seems cute to have a bit more of a 'life blog'

starting with these things:

svpply
not overly sure what the deal with svpply is to be honest, I have a feeling it collates stuff from shopping sites all over the internet. and it sort of 'remembers' what you've been looking at and selects items based on your previous browsing... but it's beautiful looking

frankly
this is a craft magazine for the webite 'folksy' which is a British craft website. I'm not sure if it's print.. seems closely related to frankie mag if so hmm. their articles all tell you how long it will probably take to read, which, in light of some of the things I've been bookmarking on the AV club, is quite kind of them

when I was volunteering at Future Cinema's production of Bugsy Malone last weekend I met this lady who works for a bakery in Shoreditch called Crimson Heart. cool gal, great cakes, terrible website! she was telling me about these themed cake nights they have as part of this British/worldwide organisation called Clandestine Cake Club. a cake club is easily the best thing I've ever heard of.. I really want to start one in Crystal Palace! also I want to investigate whether there are crafternoons around CP, seems like a thing that would happen there. or maybe I'll just start one myself, a la Brown Owls.

and here are things I would make if I had the funds to buy more than 15p packets of Sainsbury's noodles
hot chocolate on a stick
lime macarons (will have to write up the recipe I make them with for ya'll)
I really really want to make Japanese curry because back home I ate it like 3 times a week.. but in London there aren't as many hole in the wall asian places to get your fix like that, you have to go to horrible chains that charge you an arm and a leg. I've been researching it a bit and it seems like you need these specific Japanese curry cubes or you have to chuck a whole bunch of spices and veg in to make it like they do.

anyway next time I am going to do a blog post about Crystal Palace and what it is like here and other things of that nature

it's done!

Well it took me a month, but here it is. Southside Brown Owls, everybody!

Southside Brown Owls from Susie Anderson on Vimeo.

overload

A few weeks ago I went to Southside Brown Owls. I was really interested to see how everybody acted when they were meeting in real life. Southside was a good group to pick because they have only met a few times - I went to their third meeting. It is run by Shannon Rowe and Katrina Higham. Katrina owns the Windsor Deli, which is where the meeting was. She writes a food/craft blog. Shannon doesn't write a blog but she seems like an avid tweeter which is just as important these days. At the meeting chatting about online craft things I got the sense that twitter was the way of the future just because it's less involved. Speaking from experience, trying to write this blog, I concur: you can easily get 'snowballed' with all the stuff out there. Too much information for one gal.

One of the things that I've wanted to do for a while was to write about the craft-ish blogs and sites that I read/have read.

Whipup.net

My favourite thing about this website is the 'roundups' of patterns they do. It's an excellent aggregate of cool/fun patterns, recipes, craft books or websites. Their crochet one is particularly good.

Sarah McNeil
Illustrations, sweet things. Pretty.

Camila Galaz
Camila draws illustrations of pigeons in greylead, which I find really endearing.

Mrs Robertson Presents
There are a lot of blogs out there, it is true. But when one stumbles upon a blog that is actually well written - that my friends, is a keeper. Recipes and anecdotes from nearly-country Victoria from the inimitable Mrs Robertson.

Purl Bee
Purl Bee is useful for finding patterns, much moreso than whip up is. I believe they have a bunch of tutorials.

Kootoyoo
I used to read this blog religiously because it had beautiful pictures and interesting projects that recycled old things into awesome new stuff. Not so much any more, but at a glance it seems to be continuing on in the same fashion. I also dug this blog because it wasn't overwritten with cheeriness.

Ravelry
This website is essentially an index of patterns, free or for a small price, online. You can add your own (I assume, I haven't tried) and favourite the ones you find, use and like. Quite a good resource.

Northern Craft Bonanza
NCB is another craft group that meets in Melbourne. I have tentative plans to go to a meet when I get myself organised - it's closer to my place than any of the Brown Owls groups.

Brown Owls
Orchestrated by Pip Lincolne, this is a really excellent resource for anybody with the slightest interest in craft anywhere in Australia. The idea is that anybody, anywhere can begin a group under the name 'Brown Owls' and use the website to organise it. On the blog there is a calendar of the forthcoming meets. There are 3 or 4 different groups around Melbourne, a bunch in Sydney and elsewhere in Aus, and some all over the world! Sew exciting.

Sew much 2 read.