I often think that it’s about time I got my driver’s license. Get myself a zippy little car and not be tied to the constraints of Sydney’s over-priced and archaic public transport system.  But that one hour (or so) each way of public transport commute is the best uninterrupted Me Time I get all day. I read, listen to music, and journal. And sometimes, when the stars are in strange alignments, amazing human interactions occur.

Last night heading home from work on the 440 bus down Parramatta Rd, a lady sitting next to me asked in a thick accent how many stops were there until Wynyard Station. The eldery gentleman sitting on the other side of the lady piped up and said it was two or three. He then asked the lady, “¿Tu  hablas Españoll?” (do you speak Spanish?). She laughed and said yes. Excited at the prospect of practising my Spanish, I said, “Yo hablo un pocito Español!” (I speak a little Spanish). It turned out that the rather adorable elderly gentleman was Italian, and he was a fluent speaker in Italian, Spanish, and English. The lady was Brazilian, and she was a fluent speaker in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. For the next 10 minutes we had ourselves a conversation in a mixture of Spanish, Italian, and English! It lifted my heart and soul to think  of how the three of us had come to be in this conversation. Three people of entirely different ages and backgrounds traveling together down the road getting from A to B.

Sure every bus trip isn’t filled with such magic, but how wonderful that there is the chance that it could occur. I’m sure I’ll get my license eventually. But in the meantime, I’ll enjoy the me time, and occasional surprising magic, of catching the bus. 

The hip, not-so-new thing amongst organic food lovers and locavores (people who try to source all their food from within a 100 mile radius of where they live) is cooking with sprouted grains. You take whole grains, sprout them by rinsing them in water twice a day for a few days, grind them into a paste and bake. Apparently sprouting grains helps one absorb more minerals, increases the vitamin content of the grain, and is more easily digested. Woohoo. Plus, it is meant to taste fabulous. Inspired by an article in my 2010 Permaculture Diary, I decided to have a go at baking “Essene bread” (the Essene’s, my diary tells me, were “peace loving, mostly celibate, vegetarian folk who lived communally with collective ownership” around the time just before and after Jesus. They have since, not so surprisingly, died out).
 
I took four cups of whole dry wheat grain, and watched with amazement as the little brown grains grew longer and longer white and green tails over the space of a couple of days. When the sprouts were long enough (approximately the same size as the grain), I threw them in a food processor with a bit of water, and churned out a gooey paste. I discovered I’d used a  little too much water, and the paste was a little too gooey. But I persevered. I beamed positive vibes at the round goo as I placed it in the oven and let it bake for over 2 hours.

The result? The edges, which had caramelised, were as delicious as the article had promised. Like a rich dark brown sourdough with bursts of juicy flavour. The insides however were just sloppy goo... But, hurrah! I have baked with sprouted grains! And I know for next time not to use  so much water, to set the oven at a slightly lower temperature, and to let it all bake for longer. I’ll be back Essene bread... even if your inventors never will be! 

Coming home on the train last night I was imagining what I was going to cook for dinner. I decided on roast tomatoes and cous cous. I could taste the light and fluffy yellow cous cous, prepared in vegetable stock, mixed in with peas, carrots, capsicum, and creamy fetta. Once home I sliced two tomatoes, drizzled them in the dark balsamic and light olive oil, and  liberally sprinkled the juicy red half-moons with salt and pepper. Next step, to the cupboard to claim the cous cous. But when I got there, the cupboard was bare. Well, not quite bare, but bare of cous cous. The sadness! 

Luckily for me, my wistful taste buds and I have spent the last week reading Frances Mayes' mouthwatering memoir “Under the Tuscan Sun.” Oh how I wish we could all jet off to Tuscany every summer to restore an ancient farm house and fill it with ingredients picked up from the local town or back(vine)yard! Even as a vegetarian, Maye’s descriptions of chickens roasted with 40 cloves of garlic (40!!!!) and endless variations of bruschette, and hazelnut ice cream have made me a salivating wreck on Sydney’s buses and trains after work. 

So, with Frances Mayse and her Tuscan kitchen on my mind, I turned to the classic staple, pasta. I roasted the tomatoes, along with some diced potatoes, garlic, and onion until they were all sweet and soft. Along with a generous helping of kalamata olives, a drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkling of oregano, I tossed them through a batch of pasta. Mmm hmm! And  there’s still enough left to take for lunch this week. Ah, heaven. Thank you  Frances Mayes!   

One of the history courses I took at university, Researching and Writing History, required us to research the history of a building. Being obsessed with theatre, I chose the university's black box theatre, Studio One. 

The history was subsequently included in a submission to help save the theatre from demolition, and was included in Origins, the newsletter of the UNSW Archives.