When you’re an adult, life is so easy to screw up.

Each leaf on the eucalyptus tree looks like a dripping slice of mango, in sunset after the rain. The earth is dark, the grass a yellow green and the jacaranda a bright cloud of purple down the hill. The evening light infuses the air. It looks as though the world is submerged in honey. The slate grey storm front has passed, the hail-ice has stopped dancing on the lawn; the clouds now pass each other cordially and offer glimpses of flaming fairy palaces too high in air to reach, and so not real. The sun drains quickly beyond the clouded horizon, and the purple air is deeper than it ought to be so soon.

1. Apple Dumplings. Nanna’s recipe, taught to me by Mum. All time greatest dessert ever, including the chocolate ones. Yes, that is actually possible. It’s easy, and it’s delish. Recipe: Get green apples, peel and core them, then cut into half-moon pieces. Get square puff pastry sheets. Quarter them. Put a dessert to table spoon full of white sugar in the centre of each quarter. Dust each sugar-hill with nutmeg, cinnamon and ground cloves. Put as many apple pieces as you can on the piles of sugar (about half an apple’s worth). Wrap up the apple etc in the pastry by bringing up each corner and pressing the edges so it’s a sealed bundle. Turn upside-down in a greased baking tray. Squeeze as many as will fit into the baking tray. Brush over them with milk to brown. Bake for approximately half an hour in a 180 degree oven, till they’re brown on top. Voila. (Warning: The smell may drive you ravenous while they cook, but let them cool a little before eating or you will burn your mouth.) They may be served hot or cold, by themselves or with ice cream or cream. Fresh and hot is best. Spoons do not have sufficient cutting expediency, as you may have discovered with other pastry dishes. I prepare beforehand and have knife and fork ready: we wouldn’t want to have to put off the eating for any longer than is absolutely necessary.

2. Nanna’s Grape ‘Pie’ - This one is almost as good as apple dumplings, but it is labour intensive, and I was never taught how to cook it. But for people who actually *cook* it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, as long as I give you the basic idea. You get black, sweet grapes. Halve and de-seed them. Sugar probably goes in to the mixture of grapes. Put this mixture into a baking tray or cake tin (there’s no base for this ‘pie’, and no pastry). Prepare a butter cake mixture. Pour the butter cake mixture over the grape layer. Bake. Hide from the salivating zombies who have been awoken from the dead by the perfume of grape pie. Cupboards might do, so long as you haven’t any 11 year old wizards in the house. Eat. You could also put this with ice cream or cream.

3. Clafoutis. (pron. clah-FOO-tee) A weird French dessert, a late addition to my family’s recipe books. Is somewhere between a cake and a set custard in consistency. Is Absolutely Awesome. There will be recipes aplenty elsewhere, online and such. If not, ask and I shall pester my mother for the recipe. Things to add to clafoutis mixture: morello cherries, or pears and brandy (um, I think it was brandy. I haven’t had this one, but my sister’s mother in law is dotty about this sort of clafoutis). Also good with ice-cream.

4. Mulberry Pie. Mum used to make this when we lived at bible college in NSW, when I was 3-6. There was an enormous mulberry tree and everyone would go out and collect buckets and buckets of mulberries. We’d return soaked in red, with stained fingers and faces and toes from squashing fallen ones underfoot. Mum would slave and make us mulberry pies. Oh, the memory! There is no other berry that compares to those mulberries!

I should probably post a picture or two here of the dumplings I made the other night. But the urge to eat overtakes the urge to take a photo, and then it’s too late: they are all gone. Happy cooking!

First, an hilarious blooper from Stephen Fry. For those who love Gilbert and Sullivan… I love it when this happens!

Second, on another track, here’s a great link to Cabinet of Wonders, which is a consistently fascinating blog about little-known facts of science and history, the Enlightenment era and stranger things still. This blog entry talks about the conflation of illness and physical ugliness with Evil, and the impact that this has had in fiction. Great to read if you’re a writer!

Here are some paraphrased questions asked by an ESL* student at my church’s English classes (run for migrants and backpackers), which prompted some discussion, and my answers (in which, if there is anything good, it came from God, probably via other authors):

Q1. Australians don’t like lawyers. Is not the law the upholder of good? Are not lawyers the champions of justice? If we don’t respect lawyers, where does our society “keep our conscience”?

Well, it used to be the church that told society what was right and wrong. Now… I think people turn to scientists and philosophers? I think they believe scientists can answer all the questions. I do not believe this: science can tell us how the world works, but it can’t seem to answer why it works that way.

It’s an interesting question though, because who makes the laws that lawyers uphold? People do. They agree as a society what is good and evil. But how do people decide what is good and evil? Where do they get that knowledge or standard from? By themselves, how can humans have the authority or ability to make that decision, when we ourselves are not perfect? When we ourselves are sinful? Surely there must be a higher law. Surely, only a perfect God can give a perfect law.

Q.2 Then why did God, who is perfectly good, create Satan, who is evil?

I’ve asked this one. I’m sure there are theories. Ultimately, I don’t know.**

I believe some things will always be mysteries, because we are human, and our ability to understand is limited… because we cannot see the world except from our own point of view, and because that view is shaped by the culture we live in and the way we are brought up… it is like we look through a window at the world, but the glass is all dirty and distorted. Our job as Christians is to study God in the scriptures, and ask Him for understanding; to know Him and love Him more and more. Doing that is like polishing that window pane until we see the world clearly, as God sees it. That is the job we will be doing for the rest of our lives.

* ESL = English as a Second Language

**I have some theories. Untested, and I didn’t answer the student with them, so I’ll leave them out for now. They have to do with the broader point of view of God, and also that to have His human creations love Him, humans had to choose to do so, which meant that there had to be an alternative. But that’s only a vague idea in my head really. I don’t have any scriptural backup as yet!

Apparently, all you have to do is type a popular search keyword into google images, then post the first picture you find on the first page. Voompa! 437 hits a day is my current record, using a picture of a wedding dress. Found it out completely by accident, because I wrote a genuine post about that picture and the awfully babelfished article that went with it.

As irritating as I find the idea of meme-tag games, this might make a good one. You could even make it a competition, if you had the energy. For added complexity (as people who do memes seem to enjoy putting in some effort) you could create a whole post to make your reference to that picture relevant. And for even more added points, you could try to blog in such a way as to represent yourself and interest passers-by in reading more of your blog. Reply to this post if you want to join in, then keep me updated on the results.