soul food friday ~ a guest post by the first born!

You know I haven't been feeling too crash hot this week, and completely snowed under with work as well, so I asked the first-born to come to the rescue and write a post for me...and she did...and here it is! Enjoy.

So I know Fridays are all about food for the soul around here, and what better way to feed your true self than a mini-break with beautiful friends, great music and delicious treats. Last weekend a group of ten of us got the hell outa dodge (aka Sydney) and retreated to the peaceful beachside town of Patonga, which is about two hours out of the city, on the central coast. And if getting out of the hustle and bustle of ye old Sydney town (can I have a push and a shove with my takeaway coffee? Thanks!) wasn’t enough to whet our appetites, the fact that we were staying in designer digs certainly pushed us over our highly stimulated edge.

Dickebusch has been restored and renovated by the owners of Koskela, an interior design store in Surry Hills. You can read all about it here. I’m not sure where the name comes from. We may or may not have answered the house phone, ‘hello, dick and bush’ every time it rang. Mature, right. The house and furnishings are beyond beautiful and they really have thought of everything when it comes to making your stay as comfortable and hassle free as possible. (Beautiful linen, organic shampoo and body wash, fishing rods, mags galore, even a paella pan!) And the super cute and quirky design details bring an extra element; like you’re staying in a home not just a house. 

 

The surroundings and the virtually car-free roads inspired many a bicycle ride, something I haven’t done since I was about 13. Man, I love that feeling! So freeing. If only I didn’t bump my shins EVERY time I got on the thing I could have enjoyed the experience sans bruises.

 OK, these aren’t the bikes we rode, but how cute are they!

One of the biggest highlights of the weekend was the food. Glorious food! Everyone who knows me knows that I am quite the cook (MasterChef? Please. I wouldn’t waste my culinary talent by going on that show) Ha! OK, I can make a mean boiled egg but THAT’S IT, so I am immensely lucky my friends cook food that I would actually pay for it’s that bloody good. We were split into teams and each team was assigned a meal to prepare. So far so good. After the teams were decided however, there was no further discussion about what would actually be made; adds an element of surprise you see. SURPISE! We ended up with no less than 3 lamb roasts! True story. And no, it didn’t create any sense of competition at all. No… not at all. It was all so scrumptious; I have not eaten so well for a very long time. Special props to Carrie who made the best Pavlova I have ever tasted. And for the record, I was on a breakfast team and I chopped the whatevs out of those spring onions for the omelette.

Don’t forget the alcohol – scotch and dry, yum!

Needless to say it was a divine weekend; none of us wanted to leave. Thank you, thank you to my amazing friends. Maybe we can do it again sometime, eh kids?

Not much left for me to say except:

• why didn't I have that life when I was 25?
• thank you friends of Jess for continuing to feed her and can I please have Carrie's pav recipe?
• when do I get to go to Dickebusch?
• I'm not sure that I've actually seen the first born cook a boiled egg or anything else for that matter!

...and thank you my darling girl for filling in for your poor, sick (cough, splutter) mother...love you heaps and heaps. Isn't she wonderful.

all images by Jess using the Polaroid application on the iphone I most generously donated for her mobile phoning pleasure!