Of late ...

Hello :) A quick post with some snaps of late! Enjoy ...

I've switched my coffee order in the past week, from a latte to a piccolo. Yes, exciting stuff. I've realised too much milk ain't great for my digestion, and have found having a smaller coffee is a lot better. It's all about listening to your body. Plus I'll also mention I never drink coffee without eating something ...again, for digestion. At the moment macadamias and butter/vegemite vitaweats are the winning coffee snacks. Or a homemade muffin.

How cute is my new piccolo keepcup!? Awwwww.

I love reading Dumbo Feather. It's a breath of fresh air from most of the other magazines out there, and is always inspiring, uplifting, and informative. A magazine of substance. Clare Bowditch is on the cover in this issue, and she's gorgeous, as is her interview. 

I try to make my salads for uni yum and some exciting ingredients lately include snow peas, almonds, olives, sun dried tomatoes, and green beans. I'll always add some chickpeas or a four bean mix to the salad, and usually take tuna and vitawheats too.

Love the Night Noodle Markets in Hyde park every year. It always comes around so quickly! The lanterns were so pretty this year ... I think it was the most photographed display!

At the markets I had the porklol as it's called, which was like a banh mi, and had shredded and pickled carrot and cabbage with a filling of roasted pork belly. Pretty darn delicious!

A typical lunch at home. Pasture fed sage & caramelised onion sausages cooked in butter, with beans, cucumber, roasted potato with dill and some labnah.

Pho from Great Aunty Three in Enmore is delicious! 

My lunch today using what was in the fridge. Chorizo, potatoes (steamed and fried in butter with the chorizo), cucumber, avocado, olives, and lots of dill from the garden.

& this afternoon I made a batch of banana bread muffins (recipe from Sophie Dahl's cookbook) and added some cacao nibs, coconut flakes, nutmeg, and walnuts. Oh and there's some butter too ;)

Also, did anyone see the catalyst story on cholesterol and heart disease? I haven't seen it yet, but will, as I'm a pretty big fan of Christine Cronau, who advocates a high fat diet. For quite a while now, I'm all about eating plenty of saturated fats from butter, cream, pasture fed meats, coconut oil, and coconut milk. A little paleo I suppose. I really do feel better eating less grains and more fat. Interesting stuff.

Oh and I still have a few travel posts to get through ...

Hannah x

A Melbourne Trip

Hello :) Last weekend I went on another little trip; this time to Melbourne. A visit was due to my friend Tara, who moved there this year. So thanks to Fridays and Mondays free from uni this semester, off I went for a few days. In the small space of time I was there, I felt like we fitted a lot in our schedule! Here are the highlights ...

Friday evening ... we went to Lentil As Anything, which I've been to twice before & always love it !! Pay-by-donation vegetarian food with a lovely community feel. The chai hot chocolates are a winner too.

Saturday morning coffee from Market Lane. It really was the perfect, strong latte, they know their stuff !! We even saw them weighing the ground coffee before each cup ... now that's dedication.

Sitting by the river with strawberries and mandarins from Queen Vic markets. It was a beautiful day ...

For lunch we had pintxos at Naked for Satan. Such a cool place !! We wanted to get a drink upstairs on the rooftop, but alas it was super crowded. 

Later we met some friends and got takeaway from the Moroccan Soup Bar. It's a vegetarian eatery and for takeaway you have to bring your own containers. It was only $30 for all that, very decent considering five of us shared. We sat in Edinburgh Gardens with a lot of other locals enjoying the evening.

Later that evening we saw the band Lowlakes at The Gasometer Hotel, which was awesome & I've been listening to them on spotify all afternoon ...

Sunday started with brunch at The Premise. Tara had a cap & I opted for a 3/4 latte.

To eat, I chose the special: scrambled eggs on toast with a white bean puree, chorizo & coriander salsa. Just wow! All I'm gonna say.   

Tara had poached eggs with an olive tapenade, feta, cucumber ribbons & preserved lemon. Oh la la!

I was happy when my foot fitted into these shoes as they were the last pair & on sale. Love them !! 

Showing my new shoes off ...

An afternoon coffee at The Journal, just next to the city library. 

& after seeing Frances Ha (great film!) we had Italian in a little laneway. I'm wearing a new necklace from Rose Street Artists markets :)

Have a great weekend :)

Hannah x

Remoulins & Pont Du Gard

Hello :) After a few days in Nice, we travelled to Avignon, in the South of France. Well we thought we were staying in Avignon, however when we arrived at the main train station we realised we actually booked a hotel in Remoulins, 30 minutes away. It ended up being great though, as Remoulins had an excellent restaurant we went to two nights in a row, as well as being within walking distance to Pont Du Gard ...

View from our hotel

One evening we stumbled upon a restaurant called La Ceriere, and decided to give it a try. There was an idyllic courtyard out the back, just as I imagined eating in a provincial French village would look like. The service was friendly, there was a lovely atmosphere, and the food was divine. It was such a nice place to embrace the balmy summer evenings ...

Both evenings we ordered an entree and main, with kir being our drink of choice

Melon and ham for an entree, elegantly plated and a combination I shall be trying soon!

Fish with ratatouille for the main. Really want to recreate this ...

On the other night I had garlicky mussels to start. So, so good.

And for the main I had a confit lamb shoulder with potato mash :)

What we didn't realise was that it was festival season, so there was music and festivities all around the place. It was a great evening atmosphere every night, with music and dancing in the street ...

One morning we set off to Pont Du Gard, a famous Roman bridge that crosses a river. But first, it was breakfast time from a nearby bakery. The piece of bread with cheese and tomatoes was crazy good ...there were two pieces of toasted bread and in between was almost like a potato gratin/rue. Pure deliciousness.  

We were told the walk to Pont Du Gard would take about 15 minutes, but actually took almost an hour. However it was totally worth it because of what we came across on the way ...

Yes, that is a fruit shop in the middle of the road in the South of France. I couldn't really get over it. It's the things like this, which I'll always remember ...stumbling across a fruit shop in the French countryside. 

Naturally, we stocked up on sweet nectarines and plums. 

Pont Du Gard. Just wow. It was incredible walking along the bridge and we even went for a swim in the river. Probably the most picturesque places I've ever been swimming !!

So there are just a few snapshots of our time in the South of France. There is another post to come on our time in Avignon, Arles, and Tarascon :)

Have a fun long weekend !! 

Hannah x

A South Coast Getaway

Hello :) I love going on little holidays. They are inexpensive, easy to organise, and I find two nights away to be a perfect amount of time to come back feeling more refreshed and relaxed. As Adrian and I have a mid session recess from uni this week, we decided to head down to the South Coast for two nights, before we dive back into uni assignments for the remainder of the week. We stayed in a unit overlooking Bombo beach, just a short walk from Kiama ...

On a hill overlooking Bombo beach

Fish, chips and calamari = ultimate summer holiday dinner

Wandering around Kiama

One morning was spent in Gerringong, although the water at Werri beach was freezing

A strong latte from Sea Vista cafe in Gerringong

Adrian focusing on the 9 letter word in the paper, which he usually gets in 10 seconds. Although I must say Tuesdays word was quite challenging ...

On our final morning, we decided to have lunch at the famous Berry Sourdough Cafe. We had a nice table out the front.

Yummy cappuccino 

For lunch, I had the linguine served with pork meatballs, olives, and pecorino, while Adrian chose the sourdough pizza with ham, mushrooms, and blue cheese and we also had fries with mustard aioli to share. Yes, quite filling! But very, very delicious.

The Berry Sourdough Cafe also has a bakery called Milkwood just down the road, so I picked up some treats to take home. The cake on the left has orange & polenta and the other is pear & ginger. Both divine.

The cottages in Berry were too cute not to take photos of :)

You can also see my previous posts when I went to the South Coast (almost three years ago!!) ...

The cottage (here)

Gerringong (here)

Berry (here)

Berry sourdough cafe (here)

Have you recently been on a little holiday? Tell me where you went!

Hannah x