Woman’s World

It was rainy here in the ‘Berra this weekend. One of those grey days where the only sensible thing that you can do is curl up with a good book and a nice cup of tea, or, failing that, go book shopping. My housemate, Virginia Boots, and I, are frequent habitués of the particularly excellent second hand bookshop across the road from our apartment. For those of you who haven’t visited ‘Beyond Q’ at the Curtin shops, it’s worth the trip down the stairs to this treasure trove, not only for the quality merchandise, but for the wonder of discovering the curios that the owners specialise in.

This weekend, I found a particular treasure, a tome titled ‘Woman’s World’, from, I guestimate, the sixties. Divided into nine sections, it deals with the following: Beauty, Fashion, That Something Extra (including how to avoid something called ‘Phone Boners’ – I’ll leave you to imagine what that term may have meant in the sixties), Cooking, Every Wise Woman ( i.e, money and catching a man), Love and Marriage, The Home, The Family, and Interests and Hobbies (‘Let’s Write a Letter!’). It gave me laugh-out-loud giggles in the store, and, knowing that at least two girlfriends could use some of the camp common-sense that this book dispenses (‘You must cherish your looks if you want to be cherished’ ‘It takes a bright girl to keep a job, but if you never get inside the door, how can you prove you’re bright?’), I simply had to buy it.



All Sunday was spent, with various lovely people, chortling over the staged yet somehow naieve colour photographs. The book certainly paid for itself in laughs. It goes without saying that we allowed ourselves that (post?) feminist moment of self congratulation: Baby, We’ve Come A Long Way. Particularly when comparing out lives with the limited focus offered in the pages of this book.

It was only this evening, after a particularly exciting and strenuous fist day of fieldwork, that I actually sat down and had a good read of this book. When I looked past the giggles, and past the self congratulation, I found myself thinking about the woman (women?) who might have read this book over the years, and their serious hopes and aspirations for the things that my girlfriends and my mum found so funny.

I could tell, from the outset, that this mystery woman was much neater than I, for the book is in immaculate condition. And, she didn’t like to write in her books – the nameplate was left blank. I gleefully filled my own name in – possibly my favourite part of a new book purchase.

But what really pulled at my heartstrings, and made me feel a bit shabby for my mocking laughter, were three teeny tiny crosses, made in pencil, against some names on the list of Names for Baby Boys (is there anything this book doesn’t cover?). What little else I know about this woman who came before me, and whether she followed the advice of this book to the letter or perhaps if she threw it out the window in favour of a smaller and punchier book by Ms Greer, I know that she liked Brendan, Gavin, and Malcolm as names for boys. Knowing this about her, and knowing that she must have felt these three names were important enough to grab a sharp pencil and mark them in her immaculately kept book, made her so much more real, and my gentle mockery somehow wrong and mean.



This book was written for, and read by, women whose hopes were as real as mine, who were as excited and anxious about how best to live their lives. Maybe I’m a little too quick to dismiss books like this, or to have a giggle, because it’s too close to home. Maybe, Baby, it’s best not to think of women as having Come A Long Way, at point B as opposed to point A, but working on the same things, albeit form different angles. And, as always happens when we look in the margins, between the lines, beyond the sixties typeface, we can see women, and lives, infinitely more complex and rich than a series of instructions and paper-cut-out dollies.

Dancing Queens and Other Early Sartorial Influences

Did you do dance classes as a little dude or diva? I most certainly did, from the age of three until my family and I moved to Canberra when I was eleven. And I loved it. Mainly, actually entirely, for the clothes.

The dance school I went to, romantically named Belcastro’s School of Dance, was a St Clair institution, and put on an end of year dance concert every November. Depending on how many genres of dance you were taking, you would need anywhere between three and SEVEN (!!!!!!!!!!!!) glorious costumes for the end of year recital. And I’m not just talking tutus here, although there were plenty of those. I’m taking Jungle Girl Outfits. Snow Princess Robes. Antebellum South Bonnets. Futuristic Fluorescence. POCHOHONTAS. These costumes were in addition to the privilege of being able to wear ‘dance wear’ 1-3 afternoons per week. Leotards and plaited buns. Those peculiar thick flesh colored ballerina tights. Tap shoes. Crossover tops.

In addition to all this wonder, I had the privilege of being taught by some most noble and lovely ladies, who profoundly influence my attitudes towards style to this day. Belcastro’s was run by the two Belcastro sisters, Julie and Jan. Gorgeously, Jan was very very skinny, and Julie was very very large. Their mum, Mrs Belcastro, looked after the till and ran a made-to-measure costume making service for those poor girls and boys whose mum’s couldn’t, or wouldn’t, sew. Julie and Jan, despite the size disparity, wore exactly the same outfits every day – a floaty skirt, camisole, and over jacket in watered silk. I don’t ever remember them wearing anything else. With hindsight, I think the magical dancing outfits were probably polyester, for ease of washing, but, to Little Peggy, they were as soft and as shiny, and fit for dancing royalty – they couldn’t be anything but silk to me. Julie’s outfit was rose pink, and Jan’s was jade green. Mrs Belcastro wore a never-ending series of home-knitted and home-sewn cardigans and skirts, befitting her gray-haired, bifocaled seniority.

As the year drew ever closer to the end-of-November concert extravaganza, Julie and Jan’s stress levels increased as the strain of coordinating hundreds of tiny dancers into a coherent performance became apparent. Both would chug vitamin B tablets during class, single handedly keping Nature’s Own afloat. Mrs Belcastro’s desk was obscured by piles of feathers and rhinestones as she bought her sewing for idle moments. Senior girls, whom the Babies (as all the under fives were known) revered as demigoddesses, jockeyed for prime solo spots. Dads began to despair that a WHOLE SATURDAY, at the start of cricket season, would be spent in the stifling school hall of St Clair High, watching DANCING. Although, once they cottoned on to the fact that there would be senior girls, wearing not a lot, dancing on stage, they regarded dancing in a more positive light.

The day before concert day was dress rehearsal day, which was a point of high stress and anxiety for poor old Julie and Jan, but the best day of the whole year for me, because it meant seeing all the costumes, all finished, all at once. We also got to do a trial make-up run to see how our faces would look behind the lights –almost, but not quite, as exciting as costumes.

There was always a bit of competition to see whose mum’s take on Mrs Belcastro’s pattern was the best – when we were babies, this meant The Most Sequins and Tutu Pouf. As we got a little older, it meant The Shortest and Tightest. After a year of planning and hard work, with a typical Sydney thunderstorm building, there was inevitably a row on rehearsal day between the Belcastro sisters, the senior girls, the other dance teachers, or the poor husbands who were on sound system duty. Jan, particularly, was a tat Nazi, and made no bones about the fact that anybody with visible tats would not be dancing under any circumstances. End of. Hence, there were some particularly choice phrases tossed around backstage as the senior girls, in little but G-Bangers, anxiously helped each other cover the ubiquitous early 90s dragon shoulder n’ cleavage tats – this was the time before tramp stamps - with layers and layers of sweat-proof-dance-proof-nuclear-proof foundation. Oh how the mighty demigoddesses were fallen, but we Babies loved them anyway.

I remember, more than the rows and tat dramas, the kindness and graciousness with which Julie and Jan treated their students on dress rehearsal day. More than anything else, it’s this graciousness that makes them queens of dancing and of style. I’ll never forget Julie consoling a distraught mother and daughter who, upon seeing all the other Lion Cub Suits for the Lion King number, realized that they’d spent all night fashioning the sequins into leopard-like spots, rather than scattering them randomly for a luminescent effect. Julie swept in, in her magnificent rose pink dancing outfit, crowing about how wonderful it was that we’ll have a special leopard cub dancing with all the lion cubs today? Wonderful indeed, because I think that girl danced her leopard-spotted heart out that day.

Likewise, I’ll never forget Jan quietly having a word with the senior girls about a little girl whose mum wasn’t around, and whose adoring dad, trying his best to make up her face for the spotlights, had given his six year old a facefull of slap that would, by comparison, make a trannie look natural. The senior girls, adept with the make up brushes, quickly did a spray n’ wipe on the little one’s face and worked her make up back to something more Dance Concert than Drag Night. I don’t think her dad noticed the difference from the audience, but his daughter certainly did.

At the end of the concert, as the whole of the dance school filed on stage to take the final bow of the year, Julie and Jan would graciously accept the overblown bouquets of roses, organized by the senior girls, and thank us all for the wonderful year of dancing we had given them.



Standing on the stage, in front of all the parents, they would clap for us, and make us feel like we really were dancing queens. And it’s this graciousness, and the radiance that it bestows, which is the true legacy that the Belcastro sisters have bequeathed to me –I am always striving towards a glimmer of what they had. That, and there’s nothing I like more than a crossover top, a couple of sequins, and a floaty, poufy, skirt.

Make Me Happy

Many moons ago, my creative writing lecturer told my class that the most powerful thing that you can do is to make something – anything at all. According to him, it didn’t have to be anything special or recognised, or particularly good, but it just had to be something that you made yourself – where the lines between intent and finished product were clear and traceable, and where you had a part in something, from the beginning, middle to end.

This is something I think a lot about, as I get on with the business of life as a PhD student. I sometimes think that by being firmly situated in an analytical environment, where, at its worst, things aren’t made but torn apart, makes me all the more grateful for people who make things, and for the albeit small skills I have that allow me to make. As above, they’re not the best, they’re not critically acclaimed, they’re flawed, but there is something highly satisfying in wearing, using, or living with objects that are made, wherein you can feel the links between intention and action.

Spending a Saturday afternoon at Bunnings with the Dreamboat and what felt like the large majority of Canberrans, it became apparent that making things is something that, without thinking too hard or analysing too much, people do all the time. Something about planks of wood, nails, glue, paint, weed matting, and all those other amazing and mysterious things that make their home in Bunnings makes you feel somehow more alive and strangely competent, masterous even, of your own environment. It is, fundamentally, good for the soul. Who knew a bit of humble DIY could be so empowering?

So, here are some glimpses of things I’ve been making lately. I hope that you enjoy them, but, more to the point, I hope that it makes you want to make something of your own, whatever that may be.

Anybody recognise these cushions? They’re all reincarnated dresses/bags,

The beginnings of a new cardigan. Not sure if I like how much the ribbed cream/blue stripes remind me of a milk jug…

Table runners from dressmaking offcuts,

Sweet summer skirts,

Pots, and pots, of tea.

Happy making!

Bedroom Advice for Young Ladies – Top Five Handy Hints for Better Bedroom Experiences.

Hint #5: Size Does Matter.

I wish somebody had given me this sage advice when I bought my first ‘grown up’ bed 7 years ago, but size does matter.

(What did you think I was going to be talking about in this post? Clearly, the title could be about nothing other than interior decorating. Minds out of gutters, people…)

You see, should you want to be sharing your bed with a Someone, a Someone who is potentially rather tall, you might want to consider splashing out and going for the queen size, as opposed to double, option. Or be totally extravagant and go for a king.

Either way, remember spooning all night is delightful in the realms of imagination, but, in reality, it’s pretty annoying. And nothing kills passion like waking up cranky.

My key problem with my bed is that it has a foot on it – see picture. Whilst my bed looks lovely, like something that a Scandinavian lady-of-the-manor would indulge in romantic trysts on, it means that my Someone, who is a rather tall fellow, cannot lie straight in my bed. Instead, he lies diagonally across it, leaving me with two triangles of mattress with which to rest my weary bones. Which makes for lots of squishing, and a cranky Peggy first thing in the morning.



So, the moral to the story is, if you are at all interested in sharing a bed with a Someone, be considerate of their size. Opt for the next size up, or at least, pick a double bed frame without a foot, so that the Someone’s feet can poke over their edge till their heart’s content.


Hint #4: A Restful Colour Palette for a Good Night’s Sleep.

Your bedroom is for sleeping. Sleeping is very important. Studies vary in their recommendations, but I’ll tell you this for free – a bad night’s sleep is sure to mess up your day.

Colour, lots of it, is fabulous, and the rest of my home, and indeed most spaces I inhabit, are a veritable rainbow. But, the one place I make an exception is the bedroom. Just as certain fast food restaurants (*cough* MacDonald’s *cough* *cough*) use bright and clashing colours to stimulate appetites and encourage you to EAT THEN LEAVE, choosing restful colors, preferably from the same colour family or an analogous grouping, is a simple way to make sure that your bedroom visually cues yourself into being calm, rested, and serene. Even if you’re the latte-chugging-hurry-sick-mobile-phone-irradiated self you are during your business hours (*cough* Me! *cough* *cough*), a room that’s got a monochromatic scheme, or a subtle range of colours, is going to have some sort of a calming effect. Think shades of blue with greens, a mix of creams and wood tones, or even the classic white on white. All are excellent bedroom choices for a young lady.



Total mastery of the bedroom colour scheme isn’t easy to do in a rental property, or in other situations where you can’t paint. But, all is not lost.

One way around this is to go with whatever colour your walls happen to be, and roll with that as the theme. Luckily, the last three rooms I’ve had have been white or off white, which has meant that I’ve built up a collection of bedroom furnishings and furniture around a neutrals/white/black/wood palette.

Also, don’t underestimate the power of soft furnishings – soft in texture, but strong on impact, if used correctly. A fugly chair can quickly be turned into something much more attractive by the artful draping of a throw or two in a chosen colour – and the textural interest a throw provides can break up the potential monotony of monochrome. You can also choose to match YOURSELF to the monochromatic scheme, but I think that’s crossing the border between restful/serene, and padded walls. But everybody’s line is different…


Hint #3: Be Flexible.

As mentioned above, I’m renting, and anticipate being a renter for quite some time. Which means, regrettably, moving quite a lot more than I would like.

Moving a lot necessitates a high degree of flexibility in the bedroom. When selecting bedroom furniture, it’s imperative that it’s flexible in two ways: firstly, it’s easy to transport – it comes apart, or is lightweight, or, at very least, has ample gripping points for the brothers, dads, and friends enlisted to the task of moving to grab onto.

Secondly, you want, as far as possible, any furniture you buy to be up to radical multi-tasking, as, in the process of changing house, your room size and layout is likely to change radically as well. One of the things I loathed about working in furniture stores as an undergrad was that the ranges were targeted very specifically towards certain rooms, and to having a single use. To me, this is a really inefficient way of thinking about placing furniture in a space

My bed, with all its faults as outlined above, is fantastically flexible – it comes apart and can be put back together in ten minutes, and none of its component parts weigh more than five kilos. It can be stored virtually flat (thanks IKEA!). Because it’s a frame and mattress, rather then an ensemble, it’s also a multi tasker, in that the under bed space can be used for storage. This almost, but not quite, makes up for its other shortcomings.



Another piece of flexible bedroom furniture is my great grandfather’s fold out desk. Aside from being a lovely thing to have, with its ink stains and faint smell of pipe tobacco, it’s a truly flexible marvel.




Point A: the desk can be lowered or raised as needed, opening up a compact space when the desk it not in use. Point B: It’s actually quite roomy – and lockable – and is thus a perfect repository for various important documents and other secret things. Finally, Point C: Although it now makes its home in my bedroom, it is not bedroom specific – it’s flexible enough to be used, in other future houses, as a telephone table in an entrance way, as a desk in a study, a funky book display in a lounge room, or even as a hutch to store kitchen palaver. With flexible pieces, you are only limited by your imagination (and there I go, lapsing back into furniture salesgirl mode…)

Hint # 2: Put That Thing Back Where it Came From.

There is nothing worse than trying to relax when you are surrounded by a sea of moving bedroom debris. Hence, my very simple piece of advice: put things back where they came from.


As my pics suggest, you don’t necessarily have to put the things back neatly – they just have to go back. In their place. Leaving the important surfaces (bed, desk, reading chair) sans clutter.



So, you get your favorite yellow cardigan out to wear with your new skirt. It doesn’t work.

What do you do?

You put it back where it came from, on the hanger, in the wardrobe.

Simple.

Hint #1: You’ve Got The Love.

All of this is sounding a little didactic, but, at the end of the day, this is your room, so it should be personal – it should reflect, probably more than any other space in your home, your loves and your passions. And not in the l’amore, l’amore sense, but in the sense of who and what really matters to you, the people and things you want with you when you are dreaming.

Reciepies That Keep On Giving – Part One: Stovetop Magic Brownies

One of the things I’m really excited about branching out into with this blog is recipes. I love to cook, and loved to do so before it was trendy. Ok, that was a hipster moment, but I’m willing to deal with that because this is 100% truthful. Watching Junior MasterChef with my housemate, Virginia Boots, I can’t help but be a little put out that cooking is now what all the cool kids are doing. Cooking is what I used to do all weekend, every weekend, when I was small, and it certainly wasn’t cool. Often, it was with Mama-K, but other times, it was by myself, mucking around with flour and sugar and butter. I guess that’s a point of difference between my childhood cooking and the childhood cooking depicted on Junior MasterChef – no expensive or flashy ingredients, but lots of good, honest, floury fun.

And in the spirit of good, honest, floury fun without expensive or flashy ingredients, here’s my first recipe in my series of Recipes That Keep On Giving – Stovetop Magic Brownies. My idea about posting the occasional Recipe That Keeps On Giving is a chance to showcase some of my favorite and most frequently cooked things. Not because they are the fanciest, but because they are the easiest, most economical, are always well received, adjust up and down to feed a crowd or just yourself, and, more often than not, freeze, defrost and transport beautifully. They’re kind of my kitchen’s best and fairest players.

This brownie recipe is fairly new to my regular rotation, but it certainly meets all the criteria for a Recipe That Keeps On Giving. Having played with other brownie recipes and not being particularly happy with the results, especially when the outlay on ingredients is taken into account, I was very pleased with the results this recipe yielded with minimal effort or expenditure. Originally, it came from ‘She’s Leaving Home’, lovely cookbook by Monica Tapapgia (AKA, Monica From Playschool, if you grew up in the 90s like I did…). However, I’ve simplified the methodology, and adjust a few ingredients – enough so that I feel justified in changing the recipe’s name. I call these Stovetop Magic Brownies because all the mixing is done in a single large saucepan, on the stovetop, and they are magical because…THEY DON’T CONTAIN ANY ACTUAL CHOCOLATE ! Although I’ve had arguments with The Dreamboat and his housemate, Jordan Hawthorne, about whether cocoa powder, a principal ingredient in this recipe, counts as ‘chocolate’ or not – I maintain it doesn’t, Jordan and Dreamboat maintain it does – what we can all agree on is that these brownies are amongst the richest, moistest, and chocolatiest we’ve ever tasted, semantics aside.




Stovetop Magic Brownies

Makes approximately 24 medium brownies, depending on how you slice it.

350g Salted Butter
140g Cocoa
675g (yep) White Sugar
6 Eggs
250g Plain Flour
3 Tablespoons (yep) Vanilla Extract
200g Chopped Nuts (Although I never really bother…)
1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Line a lamington tray, or other largish, deep sided, square or rectangular dish with baking paper, or grease generously with butter. This temp might seem quite low for brownies – it is indeed, and it’s one of the variations I made on the original recipe. I’ve found, at the suggestion of Sam from Amore Cakes’ cookbook (check out her brilliant chocolate almond cake next time you’re at the Epic farmer’s markets!) that all manner of things have a better taste and consistency when cooked at a lower temperature for a slightly longer time, these brownies being no exception.
2. In a large saucepan, begin melting the butter over medium heat. When your butter is about half melted, add in your cocoa powder, and stir occasionally with a wooden spoon, being careful not to let the cocoa/butter mixture burn, until almost all the butter is melted and the mixture is dark and glossy.
3. Turn off stove, but leave saucepan on the element to make good use of the radiant heat. Add in the sugar, and stir until thoroughly combined. I like to add the sugar whilst the mixture is quite warm, as it seems to help it integrate into the mixture more quickly.
4. Now, add in your eggs. At this point I like to switch to a balloon whisk, but I’ll leave the choice of weapon to you. Mix until smooth. Stir in the vanilla essence.
5. Finally, carefully add the flour (and nuts, if you are using them), bit by bit, so that you don’t have too many flour splashes to clean up.
6. When everything is incorporated, pour mixture into your prepared tray, and let it settle out. I never bother trying to make a groove in the middle with the back of a spoon to ensure even rising, but if you would like to do that, you can. I’ll just judge you from afar.
7. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, or, more importantly, until the middle of the brownie doesn’t smooch in when you touch it.
8. Slice brownie in the tin about ten minutes after cooling and dust with extra cocoa or icing sugar, if that takes your fancy. Leave the brownie in the tin until entirely cold, if at all possible, to get the best and moistest result.

And there you have it. Last week, I made a triplicate batch of these for my first years, to celebrate the last tutorial of semester. Needless to say, they soothed the pain of talking about exams no end. Ah, the devine power of a Stovetop Magic Brownie. I think this rather bad photo captures how I feel about them…