Mary Jenkins passed on a couple of weeks back at the age of 73 from lung cancer.  She did not smoke but lived in an area where a factory is belching allegedly toxic dusts which no one seems able to deal with satisfactorily. I went to the memorial service. There was no funeral as such as she had kindly donated her body to medical science. I hope they use it well.  Mary was a small  energetic WelshOz woman and lived with her quiet husband not far from Fremantle. She did a degree at a late age and taught at TAFE til she retired when she concentrated on local issues. I used to bump into her in the Greens office where I was using up all their paper for the Environment Centre handouts and she was volunteering.  She was very often outraged about something and doing her best to fix it.  She missed out on being Mayor of Cockburn by 100 votes which was a shame as she was well suited to being a Mayor. This toon appeared in the paper just after the memorial service and went down well. There is a big gap in Spearwood Residents Association and the local press. We could do with more women like Mary who CARE and do something about it.

Well since then I have got into major grumps due to being cold then hot then cold again, typical Melbourne weather in fact, and not getting uninterrupted sleep.  The noise in the streets at night is too much, walking about during the day I feel like I am in a Diane Arbus world. [diana-arbus-photography.com  you turn the pages at the bottom middle]  So food has become less important too.............  I am going down to St Kilda in just over a week so that will be quieter with better air.  I like cities but not being in the middle of them.............. The bush is relaxing but I get so bitten by what USA people call critters.......... would only live in the bush if the house was completely fly screened like my house in Sunbury,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Update in April

After 5 or so days of WEATHER we had some sun. Good. I feel human again. The room I am in seems to have a lot of sympathy for WEATHER and invites it in whether or not the window is open.
My foodie explorations have somewhat dwindled. I got a severe case of Seasonal Affingorribleweather Disorder and went grumpy. Also I had some food reactions leading to a migraine over Easter. This is real grumpy making.
Melbourne from the middle of town is mainly NOISE ,CROWDS and tram dodging. I have an unfortunate tendency to look at the lights for the traffic coming across me and thinking I can go. Have to stop doing that. I would like to upcamp to St. Kilda but I have rather a lot of luggage and an aching back when I do move it so too bad. And there is a tram from here to the college I am going to.
I picked up a free novel that I did not expect to read much of and it turns out to be about Lily and her adopted mother who is freaking out about being 4o and alone and then at being 52 and alone. Keep going mother and we will be kindred spirits..............
My main meal when I am cooking for me is the nice dark green Russian kale you can get in the Eastern States which is flat not curly but just as tough, and whatever fish I fancy, and carrot, and fresh herbs and thin noodles, tossed in a wok or pseudo wok. I can eat this every day quite happily.
I have stopped buying tea -too much fluoride and I do not really like it much and coffee- sluices out your calcium- so it is water water water.................... and the odd decaf with yukky soy on the side when I get desperate when out and am lured into an ambient cafe. Many ambient cafes in Melbourne............ in Richmond, in St Kilda, in Elwood, in Elsternwick, in Fitzroy, in Collingwood, in Carlton........even in Melbourne!!!!
They follow the rule of women who like to look as if they have made no effort but have............tables and chairs they have found by the roadside................. sofas ditto........... concrete floors...............aged class cabinets........... but glossy fresh food..........and the ultimate in glory to me.......... gluten free choices......!!!!!!! Much as in Freo.
I am sure it is more crowded than when I was living here - not surprising considering the immigration spiking. A Chinese girl I spoke to says she thinks we will all look Chinesy in a couple of generations and I thought so too. She was much amazed by how many of her people were here. It seems like about half the population of the city but about 30 percent are probably students. Many Japanese are on the move too...... and so many Germans that someone has put a cap on the number we can give work visas to a year....5000.
The trams are often standing room only. And the Myki touch card is up and running and the Metcard is being fazed out. The result is that a lot of people are doing neither and keeping an eye out for the Tram Nazis so they can jump off. People are resistant to Myki cos it went a couple of billion over cost and about 5 years over starting date. It IS a big sprawling place to implement a ticketing system compared to Perth's 4 train routes. But it seems to have the same parameters and potential for saving money for us the punters. I am very happy to have my Myki if 5 years late. It is a pretty green abstract design and feels nice. It is important that it looks and feels nice..........
But I feel a bit sad that Melbourne has the same overfull to bursting point feel that London had about the time I left...... more on the people side than the traffic side..... But London has not burst...........it has kind of gone down like a deflating balloon................with traffic diversions and car tariffs and stuff.
Melbourne is redolent with millions of bikes, mainly the old classics I like. I could pick up a really nice one here cheaply but since I have no where to put it there is no point.......... and I can hire one from the new city blue ones on the street for #2.60 a day, using a $5 bike helmet I can buy from a 711 store especially. I got the helmet!!!! It looks a bit naff on the tram but I think it is cool. I may hire a bike one day soon......... So far the bikes look very new and most of them are on their sites so it is not taking off in a big way................. Enuf.........

Further food forays

Well went to FOE and had a small lunch. I actually wanted the large option but was given the small one. There you go. It was biodynamic and organic and very nice altho I could not identify everything in it. Fried eggplant. Cabbage. Spud. Did not have the cous cous option as that is wheat. Very nice. Could eat there every day and feeling virtuous is a plus. The woman whose name I had forgotten was BETH who had one of her pretty daughters on the till. Beth is the mainstay of the lower deck of FOE.
On the way back I ducked into Habib's Whole Foods near Flora Indian and caught a horrifying news item about Animal Lib people rescuing chickens who were in Belsen conditions in a non free range egg farm. I am so glad I gave up eggs. I get biodynamic ones occasionally and they must have a good life as biodynamic farming is a very devoted way of living. There are a lot of free range eggs around cheaply and you just cannot trust the source. Eating animals who have been illtreated is not on and eating animals is not too crash hot but I am not perfect. Have completely gone off chicken but I suspect that is cos it may have been fed GM soy rather than any virtue on my part........... Then tonight I had Masala Dosa as introduced to me by Deb Hay once, from Flora in Flinders St. Very nice rice pancake the size of a folded window stuffed with potato and served with a spicy tomato dipping soup and a coconut and bean? dip. $7 and very nice.

Well here I am in Melbourne. If Freo for me is about music [not counting family and friends that is] Melbourne seems to be about food - not counting friends of course.
So far I have found an interesting little cafe called Gypsey and Musquito in Bridge Rd the wide bit of Bridge Road where you can eat native Oz food. I needed breakfast so I have FIELD MUSHROOMS DRIZZLED WITH SMOKED PAPERBARK OIL on gluten free toast with rocket. It was the strange oil that made it as it was a lovely astringent oil that set off the big brown mushroom taste wonderfully. The rest of the food in the cafe was intriguing. Strange rectangular pies with pointy sides full of strange things. Omelettes with unusual Oz ingredients. And the essential pale and interesting looking waitress with hair piled on top of her head in artistic chaos and dressed in vintage oddments And an earnest young man. Very nice.
Bridge Rd not as lovely as it used to be. Too many For Sale signs and Sale signs and 70% off signs as in most places at the moment.
But Thomas Dux which took over from Macro next to Cotton On outlet has heaps of lovely healthy products to take home. Expensive but...........
I also went with a friend and 2 of his friends to the Lord Ram Birthday on Sunday night at the Hari temple in Dunk St in Sth Melbourne. Not used to queueing for half an hour in a long twisting row with Krishna devotees and families to get upstairs to the room where two rows of hungry people are given food by six men each side with different dishes to place on your...receptacle. Ram was one of Krishna's incarnations of course......

You are best off taking your own large plate as they provide a thin cardboard fold up rectangular thing which they fill with various things including the dessert. It lasts almost as long as you need to finish the meal and it is quite dangerous to walk downstairs with it past lots of wiggling giggling little Indian children.
We had to eat sitting on the edge of the garden as the usual week time hall was over full of cross- legged devotees. There is a temple room on the way to the food which looks just like Bollywood all golds and yellows and reds with people dancing to spiritual chants. My friends were not into that part of it so we did not go in.
Other wise there is Crossways the Hari place upstairs in Swanston St which is great for lunch and Gopals which has longer hours and where you have to be more careful what you chose as it can get a bit more expensive by Hari standards. The food is reliable and you can go back and refill as often as you dare. That is more of a man thing.

The next place to eat is Friends of the Earth in Smith St on the right just before..... Johnson St. It is all organic or biodynamic and has had the same cook for years whose name escapes me. I worked there as a vollie when I lived in Melbourne - in the book shop which is now part of the cafe. That will be my next lunch out. And my next edition.

Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride part 1

AbsentAmie

Whew
What a palaver
What is a palaver?
Now I am not in the mood for writing
I am in the mood for eating
But I have eaten my share and Big Bear and Middlesize Bear will be wanting theirs I will have to make something else Buckwheat pancakes? What is left after the Summer Solstice onslaught on the food storage
Anon