Gong xi fa cai

Happy lunar new year to our Chinese friends and colleagues! Last Sunday, Huonville was host to a performance by members of the Chinese Community Association of Tasmania. In the river foreshore park, we were treated to traditional Chinese songs (from the young lady in pink below), Wushu martial arts and of course, the famous dragon dance. A cute-as-a-button four-year-old girl stole the show as she practiced her martial arts moves in a striking red outfit.

The group decided this year to take their traditions out to rural and regional areas in Tasmania, partly to share the celebrations and partly as a rehearsal for this Sunday's big festival performance on Parliament House Lawns. Red envelopes were presented to audience members who could answer some basic questions about lunar new year. I won a red dragon decoration for saying the traditional new year greeting in Mandarin. Well, kind of. As above.

Distillery with a difference

Tasmania now has at least ten whisky distilleries and quite a few making gin, vodka and other spirits. Recently, we visited one with a distinctly Tasmanian difference not all that far from home. At Bakehouse Distillery in Dover in Tasmania's far south, local blackheart sassafras leaves are used as one of the botanicals in their product Sassi Black. It's smooth and refreshing to drink, just what you'd want in something marketed as a digestiv or aperitif. We had a delicious platter of house-made breads, fermented foods like sauerkraut and smoked salmon to go with our drink. The distillery is open for tastings 4-6pm Friday to Sunday and 10am-noon on weekends, check them out on Instagram or Facebook. We'll be back with visitors someday for sure.

Community spirit

At Hobart airport collecting friends after Christmas, I was browsing through the racks of tourist information pamphlets when I spotted this one suggesting a "Foodie's Road Trip" to Frank's Cider Bar and Cafe, which we are lucky enough to have at the end of our road. What stands out is that while of course they are promoting their own business, they've used valuable real estate on their marketing material to list other food and tourism businesses and things to do and see in our town of Franklin, Tasmania. Marketing the destination, not just themselves. Nice job, Frank's, that's the spirit.

A neighbourly delivery

We are lucky to have neighbours who've become dear friends. We share a lot of laughs and food and good times. We have plenty of excess eggs to share and my neighbour is a whiz at preserving and bottling. Yesterday morning, this load of 'experimental jams' arrived. I can't wait to try the sloe gin strawberry and the frangelico peach!

And yet, because of where we live, these 'neighbours' are at least five minutes walk away, so we have our own space and don't get in each other's hair. Unlike when we lived in Sydney and had five neighbours on our immediate boundary... we heard every argument and smelled every meal and cigarette. I don' miss that one bit.

From the garden

Compared to the past few years, we have eaten little from the garden. What with rabbits eating many of the seedlings (no peas, snow peas, arugula, silverbeet, beans or broad beans), work travel at planting time in spring and me leaving the greenhouse shut one hot day, killing everything in it except the oregano and sage... it hasn't been the most successful gardening year. Still, there have been some delicious things to eat. I've dug up half a bed of beautiful baby pink eye potatoes, some lovely carrots, a few cherries and the two little blueberry bushes are so laden with fruit I've had to prop up the branches with stakes. I put half a kilo in the freezer yesterday! One the way are apples, pears and (hopefully) some tomatoes. I killed the two tomato plants in the greenhouse that were already fruiting, and the four plants outside are only just starting to fruit. Green plums can also be seen on one of the two trees planted a few years back. Fingers crossed!

Legendary funnyman in the valley

In two weeks, Australian comedy legend Rod Quantock OAM is the headline act at Funnies@Frank's, the regular comedy room run by resident valley funnyman a.k.a. my husband David here in Franklin. Among many other achievements in a comedy career stretching back to 1968, Rod co-conceived and starred in ‘Australia, You’re Standing In It’, ABC TV’s first Melbourne comedy production and the door-opener for all that followed.You really must grab your tickets quick for this one... especially if you love a bit of political humour. Thursday 1 February at Frank's Cider Bar & Cafe, see here for details.

A day at the fest, 2018

The Cygnet yarn bombers have excelled themselves. Everything from garbage bins to trees was decked out in colourful wool at the 2018 Cygnet Folk Festival over the weekend and looked fabulous. Check out this beautiful chair:

This year we bought a day pass just for the Sunday of the festival and spent a long and full day there. We started off with a yoga class in the Cygnet Town Hall. That's where the wholesome stuff stopped. Let's just say my diet for the wasn't healthy, but it was delicious! Coffee with an Eccles cake and a spinach ricotta pastry from The Lotus Eaters for breakfast, a sourdough doughnut from Yeastie Beastie, an organic choc mint ice-cream, a Taiwanese steamed pork bun (from Geeveston), Willie Smith's cider, a currywurst sausage from Silver Hill... oh boy. I'm back on the wagon today. Still have a couple of Christmas kilos to lose.

As usual, the variety of acts at the festival was terrific. We enjoyed indigenous songwriting legend Joe Geia and his band (our choir in Franklin sings one of his most famous songs, called Yil Lull), The Band Who Knew Too Much from Melbourne (singer and accordion player Dave Evans right) and Canadian balladeer Scott Cook and the Second Chances. In St Mark's church, we heard the distinctive sounds of a collaboration between ARIA award winning traditional Greek band the haBiBis and Jewish Sephardic music from the Balkans by Saray Illuminado and later, the harmonies of Queensland duo, Noel Gardner and Alex Bridge. We dropped in on a Scottish tea dance in the town hall accompanied by harp players Van Diemen's Angels and wrapped up the day with Hobart's Bootleg Gin Sluggers in the scout hall in Burton's reserve. All in all a top day out. The organisers and volunteers really did a terrific job.