Rosemary, that's for remembrance. No, for a book tour. A BOOK TOUR?!

Well, hello. Remember me? I feel like I've been away so long I've returned like an unexpected exgirlfriend at an engagement party.

This is me re-enacting The Prisoner at Portmeirion, Wales

Where've I been since last we spoke? I've been to some truly magical places in the UK...

- Stonehenge
- Glastonbury
- York
- Peterborough (ok, so Peterborough isn't PARTICULARLY magical, but it *does* have a good costume shop)
- London (duh, I live there)
- Portmeirion
- Betys-y-Coed
- Carnarvon

... and a few magical places in Japan...

- Yokohama
- Tokyo
- Kamakura
- Enoshima

... and now I'm in, um, magical Sans Souci, Sydney, Australia. Magical because I am staying with my parents while I'm back in Australia for six weeks and we haven't killed each other yet. It could be the mitigating presence of the Boy Next Door who, in addition to travelling with me to the furthest most geographical point from everything he knows, made himself into the Boy Indoors about the same time I disappeared offline. The two facts are not related, although this new and Very Grownup state of affairs means that I'll be referring to him as The Nice Bearded Man more or less consistently from this point.

For those of you who've been following this blog, you'd maybe guess that I've been away from my postings because not only have I been running around stone circles in the UK and Shinto shrines in Japan, but my book, Burnt Snow, is finally coming out. Like, this week. So it's been manic. Tomorrow, I'm in Melbourne for the Melbourne Writers' Festival, and then on the 31st I'm in Brisbane for the Brisbane Writers' Festival. Simultaneously, on September 1, I do my book show on Nabokov's Lolita for ABC 666 (still funny) in Canberra. On September 8 in Sydney, I launch my book at Shearer's Books in Leichhardt. Then I think I collapse. I get back up again, because then I'm in Newcastle for the Crack Theatre Festival as well as the National Young Writers Festival. Links to these last two when they work properly. Oh, and then I'm back in Canberra...

(By the way, check out the amazing Steph Bowe's blog here. I'm doing a panel with her on blogging - yes, okay, Dad, yes, heard it - at the Brisbane Writers Festival. She's written a beautiful book called Girl Saves Boy that would be a wonderful achievement even if she wasn't ONLY 17. Am I intimidated? Like, totally.)

It's all too crazy. I mean, it's MASSIVELY exciting but, sheesh, I'm tired. The book is, fortunately, finding some love in the jungle, and we got its first review 2 days ago. Australian Bookseller+Publisher VERY KINDLY wrote:

 FOUR STARS: This intriguing and well-crafted story slowly peels away the layers of normality to reveal a strange yet familiar darkness beneath... Addictive reading... Set aside a few hours and devour this book in one go. But be warned, the ending will leave you wanting more.

The publishers have also thrown their weight into the publicity behemoth, by providing information about the book via this handy page, while an extremely nice blogger called Rachel has a copy of Burnt Snow and is promoting it here. And for those of you who JUST CAN'T WAIT to read it you can either settle for the extract, OR you can pre-order/buy it RIGHT NOW from these fabulous bookstores (in alphabetical order because they are all awesome):

• Abbey's Books
• Booktopia
• Dymocks Books
• The Galaxy Bookshop
• Infinitas Bookshop
• Lamont
• QBD Books
• Readings Books
• ALSO: You can get an autographed copy pre-ordered by emailing Shearer's Bookshop here.

How's that? PLEASE don't freak out if they say the book isn't there yet - the book is being shipped AS WE SPEAK and and and I think all of these guys ship international. Whoo!

As of my exploration into the witch's world... it's actually been more important than ever that I rely on the mysteries of herbalism and meditation, what with the ongoing stress of travel, jetlag and a book tour.

Happy Sleeps

To get to sleep, I've learned the benefits of an easy sleeping balm. In addition to a glass of water (to stop dehydration) and a 15-minute walk (gentle muscle exertion), four (4) drops of lavender oil and four (4) drops of rosemary oil on a pillow knocks me flat. 

Lavender was known to the Greeks as "nard", and named in after the Syrian city of Naarda. It was an extremely precious herb to the ancients, due to the relaxing perfume it releases when crushed or burned, and its value as a holy herb meant not only that it was required to anoint the altars in the great Temple of the Old Testament, but both Mark and John reveal that a jar of it was cracked open and rubbed on Jesus' head (talk about bigness of brand association). The Romans named it "lavender" after the verb "lavare", meaning "to wash" and added it to baths. Today, you'll find a lavender bath as a traditional inclusion in a Korean bathhouse. Essential oil of lavender has anti-septic and anti-inflammatory properties - and Wikipedia informs me that in WW1 it was used in hospitals to disinfect floors and walls. Often credited with relieving headaches, it's recommended that you avoid it during pregnancy and lactation.

Rosemary I've written about briefly before, when I made a corndoll out of this herb to celebrate Lammas. From the Latin "ros marinus", it means "dew of the sea" - and is associated with smokin' hot love goddess Aphrodite, as it was apparently thrown over her naked body to cover her when she sprang full-formed out of the ocean. Rosemary is, unsurprisingly, used in lots of love charms - stuff a poppet with rosemary to make it representative of who you wish to attract, or plant several pots of it with potential lovers' names written on the pots - whichever grows highest is supposed to be your fated lover. It is also popular in wedding bouquets. It is long associated with the notion of remembrance, and credited with improving the memory. It is often placed on graves, is pinned to collars on Remembrance Day and students used to stick it in their hair as preparation for exams. Modern science credits rosemary with improving memory when pumped into cubicles in experiments - although it slows recall.

The benefit of sleeping in haze of lavender is well known, but the benefit of rosemary is that it (reputedly) stimulates good and memorable dreams. Like of finishing a book tour without a nervous breakdown...

Zzzzzzz..... Good night!

The Great Organic Veg Delivery Comparison Shop Adventure!

Hello, blog-fans!

Apologies for my absence - I've been working on my book (!) - a subject, I promise, will be milked to death in my next post.

Today, I'm adding to the blog a series of weekly reviews of my adventures in organic vegetable home delivery. It will contain a bonus recipe that demands the inclusion of this intriguing broccoli:

The Romanesco Broccoli

The Boy Next Door and I are fabulously stereotypical tree-hugging environment lovers... who live very deliberately *right in the centre* of one of the busiest cities on earth. Obviously, I love organic veg for all the environmental and ethical concerns of its production, but it's an unavoidable truth that it also tastes better. If you don't believe me, hold up an organic tomato to your nose and try not to salivate.

The other day I was rambling around London when I noticed a box of juicy vegetables sitting in an ethical-looking cardboard box outside someone's house. This is deranged behaviour in London, given that the easiest way of getting rid of things you don't want is to leave them outside your house, where they'll be stolen in less than five minutes (I time-trialled this with an old bookcase, it is true), but rather than lurk in the shadows to watch out for London's soon-to-be-healthiest local thief, I came home and decided to find my own organic veg supplier.

I found five:
• Riverford Organic Veg: www.riverford.co.uk
• Abel & Cole: www.abelandcole.co.uk
• The Organic Delivery Company: www.organicdeliverycompany.co.uk
• The Food Folk: www.thefoodfolk.com
• Farm-Direct: www.farm-direct.com

The Boy Next Door, who would, left to his own devices, exist entirely on a diet of fruity buns, has, as the result of a recent snotty flu, enfranchised me to set the nutritional agenda for our household. With a mutually agreed combined grocery budget of £40 a week, I set to work on my first order, from Riverford Organic.

The Boy Next Door works weird shifts, and I spend a lot of nights out, too, so for my first veg order, I thought I would err on the side of caution with quantities. The way Riverford work is that they offer you a box, with a choice of size, and base their contents of a number of items of fruit or veg to fill it. What these are, of course, are determined by seasonal availabilities. There are also dairy and meat options, booze, softdrinks and seasonal treats that you can order, as well as things for the larder.

I ordered:
- a "mini" box: This is advertised as containing 7-8 types of vegetable, being a week's supply for 1-2 people, and cost £8.95. It contained: 8 large potatoes, 5 medium carrots, 2 enormous zucchini/courgettes, 3 medium-sized leeks, 4 medium brown onions, 1 medium savoy cabbage and 1 medium head of romanesco broccoli.
- a "fruit bag": This is advertised as containing 3 types of seasonal vegetable, and cost £5.95. It contained: 4 enormous plums, 4 huge oranges and 8 small kiwi-fruit.
- a litre of semi-skinned organic milk (£1.06)
- a half-dozen free range, organic eggs (£1.95)
- a 170g wheel of St Eadburgha soft cheese (a treat for the Boy the Next door, £4.45)
- a 600ml tub of the "Soup of the Month" - tarragon and celeriac - for £2.99

The total for this spread was £25.35. I worked our larder up to £40 through the purchase of boxes of black beans, kidney beans and chickpeas, lots of dry spaghetti, bacon, wild rice, wholemeal pitta bread, hummus, apples, soft cheese, oatcakes, butter and fruit juice and decided to trade off our larder for anything else.

I emailed in my order to Riverford (the website is a little annoying, as you can't revise your choices at checkout - you have to reverse to the main page and manually adjust the quantities), but was DELIGHTED to learn:
- they delivered for *free*
- they would deliver before 9am on a Tuesday.

Now, the first point of comparison in this shop was to challenge whether a free, organic delivery would be cheaper than ordering the same things from the local supermarket. So I comparison-shopped with Sainsbury's online; we do all our regular shopping from the local Sainbury's, which has an organic section.

Withdrawing the cost of the cheese - which you can't get at Sainsbury's, and which, was, after all, a really a naughty treat - the cost of these items was £20.90.

Using the order mechanism for Sainsbury's Online, the same (or equivalent) items as my Riverford stock were:

Sainsbury's Carrot, Chickpea & Coriander Soup, So Organic 600g £0.28/100g £1.69
Sainsbury's Fresh Milk, Semi Skimmed, Organic 1.13L (2pint) £0.91/ltr £1.03
Sainsbury's Free Range Woodland Medium Eggs x6 £0.24/ea £1.46
Sainsbury's Plum Punnet 400g £4.98/kg £1.99
Sainsbury's Navel Oranges , Taste the Difference x4 £0.62/ea £2.49
Sainsbury's Kiwi Fruit, Organic x4 £0.35/ea £1.39
Sainsbury's Onions, Organic 750g £1.33/kg £1.00
Sainsbury's Leeks, Organic 400g £4.45/kg £1.78
Sainsbury's Lady Balfour Potatoes, So Organic 2kg £1.25/kg £2.50
Sainsbury's Courgettes, So Organic £0.66/ea £1.98
Sainsbury's Carrots, So Organic 750g £1.24/kg £0.93
Sainsbury's Broccoli, So Organic 400g £3.92/kg £1.57
Sainsbury's Savoy Cabbage, Organic £1.27/ea £1.27

Which totals to: £21.08 - although quantities are not equivalent (I got more kiwi fruit and leeks, but perhaps less spuds and carrots). Also, I couldn't get organic plums or oranges from Sainsbury's at this time.

Interesting. ALSO: were I to order through Sainsbury's for home delivery I couldn't get a delivery before 9am. Deliveries only start from 10am, and would cost me an additional £3.50.

That's only an 18p difference between Riverford and Sainsbury's on the groceries, but the difference in cost with delivery means a saving of £3.68, or 17% on the total shop.

Of course, there's an argument that I had to go to Sainsbury's anyway to get our other groceries, so there's a carbon issue with the delivery from Riverford. Of course, buying that many groceries would have needed the help of a car or bus to get home, anyway... Not to mention, there's an ENORMOUS save in time between ordering on the internet and hanging at home for an early-morning delivery, rather than the hours spent going to, staying at, and coming from the supermarket (not to mention that the Boy Next Door is not supermarket compliant, and tends to start wanting to buy £10 of jellybeans or stick bananas in his ears if we're in there for more than 5 minutes).

The real issue, for me, of course, was going to be the quality and taste of the food. I'm writing this on a Sunday, following our Tuesday delivery. Of our stock, we have 1 courgette, 3 onions, some eggs, the plums, 3 oranges and all of the kiwi fruit remaining, but we've had some lovely meals:

- leeks and cabbage fried with butter and bacon
- roast potatoes and carrots
- the Soup of the Month was fantastic
- the cheese lasted, oh, about 30 minutes (and that was the last of our oatcakes)
- spaghetti with broccoli and pinenuts
- fresh orange and bay leaf tea
- courgette with wild rice
- kidney beans with bacon and onion

... and tomorrow, obviously, I am going to whip up an omelette with the eggs, an onion, bacon and the remaining courgette, using the last two onions in a french onion soup for dinner.

Of course, it's alarming that the Boy Next Door and I have essentially been staring at a fruitbowl full of food that we haven't touched for a week. The plums I will make into a cordial tomorrow, the oranges will last a couple more days and I may juice them... but kiwi fruit are annoying little critters and any ideas what to do with them would be most welcome.

So, in summary, Riverford:

- good range of in season fresh fruit and vegetables
- also very decent range of meat, dairy and booze
- some interesting luxury products
- flexibility with ordering (instead of the fruit bag, we could have just selected apples and bananas to add on)
- website is clear, even if ordering is a little annoying
- free delivery, and at good hours for people with, you know, jobs
- they delivered on time and were very nice
- delivery came with recyclable packaging, as well as (bonus!) a handy guidebook to their vegetables (which is how i found out what the weird green thing was) with storage and preparation instructions, as well as recipes. Recipes!
- organic, responsibly sourced
- high quality food (one potato was a little dodgy, but a few flicks of the knife and it roasted fine)
- had to scrub the carrots and potatoes
- got freaked out by the weird-looking broccoli (pyramidical cones and bright lime green in colour)... but it turned out to be crunchy and scrumptious
- tasty food that lasted the promised week
- price comparable (slighly less) than Sainsbury's

The week ahead we are going to try Abel & Cole and see how they compare.

In other news, today I bought a peace lily... and already my apartment is more joyous.

To leave you...

• 10-Minute Spaghetti with Broccoli and Pinenuts: Heat 2 tbs of olive oil in a pan, adding your own desired quantity of pinenuts. Cook the pinenuts in the oil on a low heat until they are VERY slightly more golden than beige, but remove from heat immediately when they start to turn this colour. Do NOT drain, but set aside. Boil water in a kettle and pour it into a saucepan, adding (preferably wholemeal) spaghetti. Once the spaghetti is is bent into the saucepan, add a slice of bacon to the water, a dash of salt and cover the pan with a bamboo steamer that fits it. The steamer should contain half a head of romanesco broccoli, cut into flowerets. Bring to the boil - once the broccoli is cooked, the spaghetti should be, too. Drain the spaghetti, add the broccoli to the pan, and pour in the oil and pinenuts, seasoning with ground black pepper and salt, to taste. Can be served with shredded pecorino or parmesan cheese.

Valentines, Palentines, Theatre and Chocolate

I've never actually celebrated a Valentine's Day before. When I was at high school, my arty-weirdo group of girls and gays would celebrate "Palentine's" with presents and cards devoted to friendship. In Year 12, walking home from the train station with a potted African violet, my bobbing purple flowers earned looks of hateful pity from the shiny-haired girls who colonised the rail-bus seating. They rubbed the blackened petals of cellophane-wrapped roses against their mucky lips and I remember thinking that their store-bought roses would be dead in a day, while my African violet would outlast all of them.

From Palentine's to the world of boyfriends, I still didn't manage to indulge the traditions of cards and hearts, declarations and pretty red things from year to year. I think one February 14 I went to the theatre with a beau while wearing a pair of heart-shaped earrings, but my most recent ex decried all Valentine's traditions. As a remnant of a resented singlehood, he and friends called Valentine's "The Battle of Cape St Vincent Day". While it's technically true, the traditions involved seemed little more than recounting the details of the battle to anyone fawning over their lover in his company and I got no chocolate. Sucks to that.

So now to 2010, and the Boy Next Door, bless him, thinks that it is a poor representation of any relationship to not give your partner a Valentine's token of attachment - if only to spare one the humiliation of having to say: "Oh, my boyfriend doesn't believe in Valentine's Day" to the girls at work. This morning he presented me with a breakfast of toasted cinnamon bagels and tea, a sweet card and a large Toblerone. From me he got a fridge magnet and a chocolate-bar shaped like a Swiss Army knife. Then he drove me to the King's Head Theatre in Islington to see my short play Hot Man. We went down to The Bull on Upper Street for a celebratory post-show Valentine's meal: roast chicken - and cheesecake to share.

This is the King's Head:

To commemorate my first real Valentine's Day (with chocolate), I offer you something chocolately and romantic with star anise. In Catherine Yronwode's Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure, the properties of this pretty herb include being useful in a conjure bag to ward off the Evil Eye and as bestowing visions of coming good luck in psychic dreams. For lovers, eating star anise (or burning it as incense) is said to foretell, through dreams, a lifetime of happiness together. For me, star anise in hot chocolate is a natty trick I learned from a Swede in Brussels...

• Hot Chocolate Magic Milk Marvellous for 2: Prepare two caffee latte glasses by adding one star anise pod to each of them. Drop 2 tbs of full cream milk into the bottom of a small saucepan and gently heat. While it warms, break up the squares of 200g of plain chocolate (milk, dark, white are all fine) and drop them in the milk, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. As the chocolate starts to melt into the milk, gradually add another 500mls of milk to the pan and keep stirring. When you think all the chocolate has melted, transfer the contents of the saucepan to a blender and give it a good blend (if you don't have a blender, just keep stirring). Return the blended mixture to the saucepan and reheat to hot, stirring constantly, but DO NOT boil. Pour into the two glasses, over the star anise. This is particularly good with buttery pastries, like croissants.

Valentine's and Wrists and Ribbons

Today has just been the start of Chinese New Year - and Year of the (Metal) Tiger, so I've been told.
To commemorate it in a witchy way, I've pursued a superstitious mission assigned by my friend Linda, the marvellous author of charmingly naughty books and Sinology Queen of the Antipodes.
Linda told me to wear something red around "wrist, ankle, neck or waist" for the duration of the Year of the Tiger ahead. This is to channel, I presume, the energy and ferociousness of tiger spirit into my endeavours. As this is the year that my first book comes out, you can imagine I'm happy to indulge in any folky practise if it keeps me symbolically focused and gives me something to do instead of panic wildly.
Consequently, I've been looking for some weeks for the right thing to tie around myself. Playing on the fabulous Etsy a couple of weeks ago, I came across this lovely item:

It's obviously very pretty, and quite to my girlie tastes. Those heart-shaped red rocks you see are red jaspers; The Crystal Bible states that, amongst the stone's many properties of nurturing and detoxifying, red jasper will help dream recall if its placed under the pillow, and also that it "stimulates the base chakra". Translated, this means it's the stone to wear for a passionate Valentine's Day.
I bought the bracelet - not because it's what I'm going to wear around myself for the whole year (it's too precious for that; I picked up a clasped red ribbon in a bead shop in the West End that's now tied around my ankle). I bought it because of this passage in my novel, Burnt Snow:

“What is it?” I asked.
“Open it,” he said. “I don’t mind if you look.”
I tumbled the contents from the bag into my hand. It was a small bracelet, made out of red strings wound together and threaded through red stones, with a slipknot instead of a clasp, beads at its end. Looking more closely, I saw that the three large stones on it were heart-shaped, and made of red jasper.
Red jasper, I knew, I was a nurturing stone. It encouraged the heart and – as soon as I remembered this, I blushed – the sexual organs. Whoever had made the bracelet knew that red jasper was a love stone, but I could sense no magical charge on it.
“It’s pretty!” I said, sliding it back into the bag.

Okay, so it's not the same bracelet, but they ARE the same stones. Tomorrow, I'll be wearing the bracelet on a date with the Boy Next Door.

I'll let you know how it goes (!)