Our daily bread ...

It is incontestable that my daily schedule as a university academic was always significantly less rigid than the shift roster of a busy emergency room. A natural corollary of my marrying an emergency physician therefore was to accept  primary responsibility for getting our sons to and from school on a daily basis. And so it was that on one representative morning I was fulfilling my duty with our three boys in the car, when I was subjected to the following brutal take down.  “Dad” said one “do you get paid the same amount as Mum?” At this stage Cath was still a registrar working insane hours but not yet getting paid much more than I was. “More or less” I replied proudly. “Well …” said another voice, “ … how come she has to work for hers?”  Suitable chastened I remained silent and concentrated on my driving.

So why has this painful episode come back to haunt my life down the Huon. Well, after many years of being the bread winner, Cath has now turned her hand to being the bread maker! After her trademark exhaustive internet research, she decided on a “no-knead” recipe and set about perfecting her craft. The steps involved are deceptively simple and proceed as follows. First, in the morning the dough is gently mixed without any kneading. Second, the mixture is left to stand for the rest of day and then stored in the fridge overnight. Third, the dough is formed into a loaf and scored in an artistic way along the top. Fourth, the loaf is placed in a hot Dutch oven and popped into a pre-heated oven to bake. The result is spectacular. If a new loaf is not required the next day, the dough can remain in the fridge for a longer period without it adversely affecting the final product. 

No-knead mixing

 

Loaf in the hot Dutch oven

Voilà

Of course, having fantastic farm fare to eat means little if there isn’t a comparable place in which to consume it. This thought lead inexorably to the process of creative destruction that I referred to in a previous post (“On creative destruction …", posted on 10 April 2022). During our 6-month stay here in the second half of 2020, one of our spring projects was to dig out an area for a fire pit in the front garden. Over the past few weeks it became increasingly clear, however, that the small circular area we had created was way too small for fine dining al fresco. A plan was then formulated to increase the area to a 6 x 4 metre rectangular shape.

The plan

Of course, it is straightforward to mark out the area, but it’s a completely different kettle of fish when it comes to digging it out. 

Pepper turning away in disgust and refusing to help with the digging

Just when this process was almost completed, we decided to build a retaining wall on the higher side of the area to prevent unwanted slippage in heavy rain. Once the retaining wall was in place large amounts of fine crushed rock then had to be compacted to form a nice solid base. 

 

Compacting fine crushed rock 

The final touch was to compact a product called Tassie gold – a beautiful golden crushed rock – over the entire area to provide a finish both practical and pleasing to the eye.  

 

The new dining area

We are pleased with the way things have turned out. There is still some work to do: the garden bed above the retaining wall still needs to be planted; and the lawn around the platform has to be smoothed with loads of topsoil. But these touches are just the icing on the cake because the area is now fully operational. The only slight hitch is that the changeable, early-spring weather is not particularly conducive to open air dining! 

After a huge effort to get this project completed you would be forgiven for thinking that a week or so of rest would be in order, but alas, we have already started planning the planting of our olive grove which will involve a lot more digging. As Shakespeare eloquently put it in Henry V, Act III, Scene 1 "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ..."