Today




Today has been made for pottering about your empty apartment in overalls and stripes, putting flowers and leaves in milk bottle vases, watching the light stream in through windows for hours on end and eating jam on toast (and nothing else). These days are so good sometimes you wonder if you dreamt them all up in your head. Take a picture.

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think pink 2.0


Jane by Andrew Birkin // Sans Ceuticals

 
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My Own Private India



'People have been drawn to India for centuries for reasons that still excite travellers today; for legacy, for colour, for the opportunity to stand before something that is bigger than yourself.  When EM Forster wrote that India is “not a promise, only an appeal,” he summed up something that Hunt herself acknowledges implicitly. “Be brave,” she says, “but be careful.” The beauty is in exploration but also in reserve. Fresh from her latest trip to the country, Hunt spoke to us about India’s siren-song appeal and its particular relationship with Jac+ Jack.' 

I interviewed Jac + Jack designer Jac Hunt about her own private India for Brace magazine. You can read the whole article here. One of my oldest friends is in India now, having the time of her life. I want to go, I want to go, I want to go. 

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team nigella



I'm so team nigella it's not even funny. If we can forgive Kate Moss for years of drug use I'm not sure what's stopping us from doing the same for Nigella. Maybe because she's up on a pedestal, and we take some of perverted pleasure in watching heroes - but in particular, heroines - fall. But we have to remember, it was us that put her up there. Us that made her the Domestic Goddess par excellence. She gave us the term, but we applied it to her, she who from the start just wanted women not to be afraid of the kitchen, not to be afraid of being domestic, not to label ourselves or let ourselves be labelled un-feminist because we enjoyed such a simple, traditional thing as cooking. There are so many women who owe their love of food and cooking to Nigella, but I just want to talk about one - me. It was to Nigella that I turned when I made my first home-baked birthday cake all on my own. I banished my mother from the kitchen and fuddled my way through a recipe with the most deliciously written introduction I have ever seen. It was Nigella that I ripped open the wrapping paper to on Christmas, and spent whole nights with the light on low, devouring recipe after luscious, effortless recipe (linguine with pancetta and lemon oil! if only it could always be this good!) long into the night. It is Nigella that I have to credit for my greatest culinary successes; to this day I am renowned amongst my friends for Cloud Cake, a flourless chocolate torte that is so gloriously balanced it gives 'intensity, and then relief, in every bite'.

Time passed and Nigella, domestic goddess that she is, was relegated to just that. Goddess status. My mum and I found new foodie crushes, who seemed to speak to the simple, casual way we had grown to eat (nigel, hugh, sophie, I am speaking of you). We took out her books to consult recipes that we adored and those alone. But we never stopped loving her. How could we? How could I? When she taught us not to feel ashamed at sneaking a spoonful of clotted cream from the fridge at 3 in the morning, when she insisted we not be afraid to take short cuts in the kitchen, when she showed us just how much pleasure - is there a better word for nigella than that? - we could get from cooking.

As I finish writing this I can see so many Nigella books in my mum and I's groaning cookbook shelf. Without pausing to get one down and check I would be able to tell you where all my favourite recipes are (Cloud Cake, page 110 in Nigella Bites, covered in flecks of chocolate and with the page slightly ripped, not that I need the recipe anymore though, the devils on horseback from Nigella's Christmas, the one pan cherry chocolate cupcakes from domestic goddess, the easiest, simplest, BEST TASTING cupcakes I have ever had). I could even tell you the occasions we had all her food, too. Because, as she says in Feast, she makes food that celebrates life. That's why all of her books have sections for the festive season, for parties, for entertaining, for sharing. Her food is about love. It's not really about expedience, or restraint and it's certainly not about health. Just plain old love. That's worth something, in my eyes.

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dancing in the moonlight



Is this what all weddings ought to be like? Bathed in the dusky glow of northern beaches summer, tinged with a rich, heady red-wine wash, tasting like the best days at bread & circus (which is to say, every day), played out against the strains of gentle waves lapping the sand? So good, so right, so perfect, that the bride - the beautiful, beautiful bride, in her beautiful, beautiful dress - couldn't help but jump out of her seat to spread her arms wide and smile a silky, ecstatic smile and sing at the top of her voice when the talented band strung up this song. Such a fine and natural sight. As far as evenings go, it's going to be pretty hard to top this one.

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to pack and wear; v2.0


 
Whoever said it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive surely knew a thing or two about packing lists. I live for them. I scribble them down on everything to hand - the end papers of books, napkins, the backs of receipts - and find them weeks, months later, only to scribble them out and start again. A list I wrote last week could be completely, hopelessly wrong by today. For me, the joy of travel has always been partially shrouded by the inane thrill of planning. I gather tips and recommendations, I buy a map and plot walking routes out with green pen, I email everyone I know who lives even remotely near where I am going and beg them to meet me for tea/cake/talks, and I write tens/hundreds/thousands of packing lists, just like joan (always like joan). Writing packing lists makes me giddy. It makes me light-headed with excitement the way that, say, mundane tasks like applying for travel money cards and buying thermal underwear doesn't.

Like last time, this trip is going to be different. It's a trip to travel light on, for sure. I travelled light last year - well, light for me - and then was confronted with the horror of completely exceeding the confines of my suitcase in London (I coudn't close it for love or money, even with me and my friend sitting on the lid) that I had to buy a new suitcase from a greasy-fingered man behind Leicester Square for the price of a weeks worth of meals at Ottolenghi. Never again. Everyone laughed at me and said I brought a too-small suitcase but I knew the truth. I didn't pack truly light. But I am going to this year. This trip - to Denver and New York and Vancouver! Still taking any tips and recommendations if you have them, comment or email me - is going to be a bit of everything. A bit of work, a bit of snow, a bit of fun, a bit of new, a bit of old, a bit of all that good stuff that makes travel so intoxicating, so enthralling; that glorious mish-mash of the familiar and the foreign that makes you go, yes, I could do this, everyday for the rest of my life. I'm taking one coat (the BEST coat). I'm taking my trusty Benah pouch. I'm taking porsellis (even in New York winters I'm a slave to ballet flats. There will be boots too, don't worry). I'm taking lip balm and hand cream. And, at this stage, I'm taking one sweater. That will probably change, but oh, this sweater is a good one. Hope, grand, so grand, with a turtleneck you want to hide your face in and a long, thigh-skimming hemline and a thick, stocking-stitch knit that your mum sniffs at ('I could have knitted that for you,' I imagine her saying), from My Chameleon, where all the good, grand stuff comes from, and just begging to be taken to some proper cold weather.

Chances are by next week I will have rethought my whole 'Merica Winter 2K14 wardrobe, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I won't. I'm taking the sweater to Tasmania this weekend for a road test (summer in the city means 18 degrees, my dream) and I'm pretty sure that it's going to pass with flying colours. The best bit? It's so versatile and so much of a cosy, multi-tasking hero piece all you need to go with it is a few pieces of delicate jewellery and rosy lips. Packing light is going to be a cinch this time. I swear.





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wild prairie


I want this for christmas so bad that I'm tempted to just get it myself and wrap it up in red and green with a big velvet ribbon and stick it under the tree. That's how much I want it. I've been getting out my Slim Aarons print almost twice weekly because I just can't stop looking at it. There's something about the home and homewares that's getting me excited at the moment, more excited than clothes, or beauty, or books, or movies. I've got new sheets, new pictures, and dreaming of enough coffee table books that my house just looks like this. Time to move out, maybe??

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I don't like mondays

Elle AUS December 2013


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well read

Out-takes by Rachel Kara for Brace . See the full article here.

Working with RKB is always a dream. There's an instinctiveness to the way she shoots that makes her the ultimate partner in crime; who would you rather have driving the getaway car? The person who asks you if it's time to go or the one who's had the engine running since you ran into the bank? This piece we shot for Brace Digital with Brenda, the creative director behind my favourite Australian label Benah, was my favourite kind of work. Friends coming together, talking about nothing but books, bottomless pots of tea and wishing hopelessly for cake. I feel like I always say this when Rachel is involved, but if only it could always be this good.

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the start of things

'I remember the rain - how it hammered day and night against the windowpanes; how my grandmother left a hay bale outside the back door to act as a dam; how Mrs Maddox came to us for buckets when her porch began leaking... My grandfather's hair plastered itself down over his forehead, like weed. And I remember how, by Valentine's Day, the heaving ewes were huddled in the barn, the Brych finally burst her banks, and the mud came. Mud - such a small word. It looks weak, bashful, what harm can three letters do? The answer is more than you think. That mud was the start of things.' 

Susan Fletcher, Eve Green


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a kitchen of one's own



 Talisa always has the best interiors inspiration because she is the gal I know with the best house. It's like anything - fashion, movies, books, chocolate - if you want inspiration ask the people whose taste you admire. Well, I spent hours trawling this website last night (despite and found this apartment, which I love not for its reality (bottles on top of the fridge and a mis-matched book case, you are too good), but for its kitchen. It doesn't all work together - blue chairs, and two different kids of wood, and mis-matched crockery - but that's life isn't it? We don't always have things that go, or colours that work, or furniture that we bought especially for that room. I can't wait to have a kitchen of my own. I think because I've been cooking a lot more that I've started to think about what I want, what works for me, what I need. My kitchen at home is pink. It's wonderful. It's so my mum it's not funny. But when I have my own kitchen it's gong to be white and wood, with pictures on the wall (who said that you should hang art in the kitchen? because they're brilliant), and a place to eat breakfast on a weekend, and lots of bench space for when I want to make coconut dream cake or nougat for christmas, and windowsills to store cook books and plants and everything in between, and best of all, it's going to be all mine.

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life in a tiny room




Today a package arrived containing a set of sheets so fresh, so clean, so light and bright, I had to put them on straight away. Of course they were from IN BED store (thank you, thank you, thank you!), that delicious purveyor of dreams, and it was such a treat I almost crawled straight back into bed again (on a Monday morning, very bad). One of my favourite blogs to actually read is Read My Tea Leaves, and she has a lovely section where she shares the trials and tribulations of her life in a tiny new yawk city apartment. Well, those who have seen my room know that I live in a tiny room. It's not even a real room, it's like a sunroom annexe to my house, and though that means that while it is gloriously light-filled the whole year round, it is also very, very small. One of her tips? Use white sheets. Because it makes the room seem bigger and they're also a dream to sleep in. Well, Consider this suggestion well and truly observed. Now to get some low-maintenance house plants and actually start to take proper care of them...

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saturdays are for love




Who would have thought that we could have pulled it together, after cancellation after cancellation, and all of it a SURPRISE? Only for you, RKB. A kitchen tea for the ladies, at our favourite place, with our favourite people, just before you get a(nother) ring put on you. Who would have thought we could have done it - betterthanchiswick lamb, nigel's mistress chicken, a coconut dream cake, and pavlova with all the trimmings, just the way it should be - and all with maximal minimal stress. We pull out the stops when we do it for love. Afternoons like this are the ones that make the working week worthwhile, the ones that you get up every morning at 6.45 for. They're the ones that never end, even when the rain starts to drizzle down mere metres away and the staff start to get out the mops and clean up around you. Lucky we have friends in high places that let us linger, eh? If only it could always be just like this.

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something new


I hate to get all consumerist on you guys but... I've got some new stuff and at the moment it's ruling my world. New candle, new throw, new moisturiser, new book, new glasses. Just let me laze about all day, please!

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in the kitchen



The first time I went to the Nordic Bakery I didn't care about cinnamon buns or prawn sandwiches or elderflower tea. I was meeting Stevie for the first time and was so excited and so cold and (so) late. Happily, so was she, and we spent a couple of hours chatting about nothing and keeping warm. I remember Stevie tried to get a sneaky picture of the girls in their aprons (and cos she loves a good pinnie) because they were just that cool. Seeing these pictures of chef Soli Zardosht in London brings it all back. This is how all aprons ought to look if they possibly can. Thick straps, low armholes, big pockets, and a slip-into-it pinafore quality. I'm a messy cook - aren't we all? - and I need an apron. I need an apron to keep a tea towel in, to protect my clothes, to wipe my hands on when they're sticky with the residue of peach juice or tomatoes or olive oil, to leave on when you have to dash down the road to buy more golden syrup, to let the straps slip comfortably off your shoulder. But I want an apron because they're just that cool.

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only a game

"With Mike it was different. There was no pitying smile on Adair's face as he started his run preparatory to sending down the first ball. Mike, on the cricket field, could not have looked anything but a cricketer if he had turned out in a tweed suit and hobnail boots. Cricketer was written all over him - in his walk, in the way he took guard, in his stance at the wickets." 

P.G Wodehouse, Mike: A Public School Story

Isabel Lucas in Vogue Australia December 2013

Not only because I just spent the last year reading all about it, but I find cricket very, very interesting. The love of the game - one quote I particularly like is, "it was only a game... but it was life!" - and the historical legacy, spread out across the colonial diaspora, that sound of leather on willow reverberating everywhere from Sydney to Simla (and yes, even Hong Kong, as my thesis went into great lengths about), the sheer illogicality of it, its convoluted, elaborate, maybe, yes, archaic set of rules, and, most of all, the ritual. I remember that ritual well; watching my brother in pristine, freshly laundered whites, grubbied only by a bit of sweat and grass patches on the knees ('I had to dive mum, to get the catch!'), swapping his sneakers for shiny school shoes, donning his bright cerulean blazer, and walking into the hall for tea break with his team-mates. Gathered around a table, shaking hands with the opposition over cucumber sandwiches and early grey. Where did this sport come from? That year when the cup was in question and it took a whole day before the points could be accurately tallied up I remember my brother's tense, tightly wound psyche bringing us to the brink of exhaustion. 'It's only a game', I wanted to say, loudly, often. Oh, I didn't know then, not quite. It is only a game. But it is life.

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Uniform (2)




Maybe it's the sudden cold snap that we've had, but I've rediscovered my overalls, in a big way. I put them to the side for a little bit once I fell (truly, madly) deeply in love with birkenstocks, and feared that pairing the two together might be somewhat of an unforgiveable fashion faux pas. Not that I care about things like that, but... well there are only so many questioning stares that a gal can take. But over the weekend, as the chill creeped in - over blankets and through thin cardigans - I realised that what I really wanted to wear was something all in one, with deep pockets and thick straps and a bracing, reassuring sturdiness. I curled up in my parent's bed, electric blanket set to HIGH, and read books and drank tea and furled and unfurled my toes and played with my hair and thought about painting my nails. A few times I had visitors, they came with cake and left with none, and I sat cross-legged on an armchair, plotting international trips and gossiping. Overalls are so comfortable, so effortless, so easy, in all situations. They are made for the weekend. And that is what we really talk about when we talk about overalls. 

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Stay IN BED



I wrote a profile on new lifestyle store IN BED for Broadsheet, and I fell completely, unashamedly in love. If you - like me - are a fan of clean sheet days, cottony throws that double as wraps that double as towels that double as blankets, breakfast in bed and spending whole weekends in your pyjamas, this is the site for you. Dreamy.

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today is cancelled


I wish. I'm at work in a big sweater and ill-advised birkenstocks (it's pouring down outside, and a little bit inside too, hmmm), and just trying to stay warm. The only upside? My work is inside sydney's best new cafe. Now that definitely helps.

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cinematic style - goin' to the chapel in various



Rachel McAdams in About Time // Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama // Andie Macdowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral // Keira Knightley in Love Actually // Amanda Seyfried in Mamma Mia

Soon a few friends will be goin to the chapel, cos they're gonna get married. Excited doesn't even begin to cover it. All good things in life end in weddings. Also, three richard curtis movies? It must be time to watch Notting Hill again...

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I just don't know

'I wrote my first novel because I just got married and I was living in Stratford-upon-Avon and there was nothing else to do. I was very bored. I had no particular friends there. I'd been very busy up until then—at university, passing examinations—I very nearly took a job that summer and if I had taken a job, I probably wouldn't have written the book. So in a sense it was accidental. Whether I would have written a novel later, I just don't know.'



Just thinking.

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where


Pink for the wardrobe but green for the house. Even back in February I knew this was the life I wanted (with Ashley's wardrobe, natch). But revisiting it now only drives the point home. I don't know what I'm going do, I don't know who I'm going to do it with, I don't know when, or how, or what, but I do know where

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think pink


Emilia Clarke in Vogue UK December 2013 // Fjura by Luisa Brimble // Protagonist by The Line


I almost can't believe I'm saying this but... I really want some pastel pink in my life. It's almost not even pastel, it's like that suede-y, blush colour of young peonies. I blame you, Jessie.

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