Stalker swan

As we walked along the river at Franklin with friends visiting from Sydney last weekend, this swan followed us all the way.

Mirror image

I'm not much of a photographer, but it's hard to take a really bad shot on the Huon, in good weather or bad. Last weekend, it was flat and glassy and Tetsuya's boat was still moored at Franklin. Some crazy kids were playing in the river; that must have been a bit icy.

 

 

Meat crisis

Our friends visiting over the weekend were amused by this store window sign in Cygnet when we visited for the Mid-Winter Lantern Parade and dinner at The Red Velvet Lounge on Saturday. Now, I've been known to crave roast pork or a nice steak now and then, but this sign left us pondering the circumstances in which an emergency butcher is required...

SOS

'Save our Schools' has been the cry in small communities around Tasmania for the past week, after the State Government delivered its cost slashing budget last Thursday, recommending the closure of 20 schools, amongst them Franklin Primary School just down the road from us.

The school was established in 1860 making it one of the oldest in the State. Currently, 108 students attend. Bizarrely, Franklin Primary was the recipient of $850,000 under the Federal Government's 'Building the Education Revolution' stimulus funding during the global financial crisis, and the beautiful new library building only this month won a 'People's Choice' in the Tasmanian Architecture Awards. What a dreadful waste if the closure goes ahead.

I don't have children, so clearly it doesn't affect me personally, but the impact of decisions like this are felt throughout small communities, affecting not only the kids and their parents but potentially also local businesses, rural industries, sporting and social groups, community events and so on. It is great to see how everyone in Franklin is rallying around the cause, with protests, meetings, lobbying and a Facebook page set up by parents and friends of the school.

Quark

When I returned home after 14 months in Germany in early 1989, I brought with me several recipes from Oma (the grandmother of the family I lived with) that included quark as a primary ingredient. Oma was a wonderful cook and one of the kindest people I have ever met, with a subtle yet wicked sense of humour. Originally from Austria, she had once cooked for the household of some bigwig American official. Amongst Oma's recipes that required quark was one for Schnecken, those delicious pastry snails filled with currants, raisins, almonds and cinnamon, and another for a pastry base used to make various fruit slices or flans, including the wonderful Zwetschgenkuchen which is topped with small, slightly bitter plums. To die for.

I love quark. In fact my main reason for wanting to learn how to make cheese is to make this stuff. Aside from the great pastry recipes, my favourite dessert in Germany was a simple banana quark - ripe mashed bananas and a little sugar or honey mixed with quark. Delicious.

For years, it was impossible to buy quark in suburban Sydney. A couple of German bakers told me that one of the upmarket and expensive delicatessens - now they seem to be called 'providores' - in Paddington stocked it. Another baker told me he sourced it direct from a cheesemaker friend. Recently I picked up a jar of it at our local IGA supermarket from well-known Tasmanian organic dairy producer Elgaar Farm. No big surprise then that the owners are German... sorry, Bavarian!

So more than 20 years after I wrote down the recipe in German from Oma, I finally made Schnecken. The pastry wasn't quite what it should be (I had neglected to write down the quantity of flour and the vanilla sugar was not Dr. Oetkers!) and some looked more like slugs than snails. Very tasty, nonetheless.

Broccoli

Many of my early attempts at growing vegetables from seed have been spectacularly unsuccessful. This broccoli is the only one we're going to eat from the garden this year I'm afraid.

Cathedral Rock

When we drive down the Huon Highway heading home from Hobart, I often look right and see spectacular Cathedral Rock, part of the extensive Wellington Park bushland. So I was very pleased to be able to tick this walk off my 'to do' list today, joining a group of 14 people from the Hobart Walking Club for the 600m climb from the North West Bay River. The weather was perfect. This walk is described as 'a solid climb to a spectacular cliff with interesting views' - very accurate. It was also my final 'qualifying walk' to become a member of the Hobart Walking Club. Excellent!