Eat Like a Girl

Danny! A gorgeous orphan koala at the Great Ocean Ecolodge

Well, hello! Are you still there? You are! I can still see you exploring the archive, which is very cheering to see, and unexpected. I have that blogger paranoia where if I don’t write for a while you disappear, you see. It is a common affliction.

What a couple of weeks! That illness which demanded chicken soup turned out to be fierce, and I spent much of a week in bed. When I finally came to, I had to work like a demon to make up for lost time, even through the night to deliver bacon boxes, before I boarded my flight to Australia. I slept almost the whole way here. Which is 24 hours or so. I am now in Melbourne for the Food & Wine Festival, which has been a terrific experience, and I have lots on that, and the restaurants that I have visited in between to share here in the coming days.

I don’t know if I am tired because I am jet lagged (it has been a week so I really should be ok now), or because I am recovering from being ill. Either way, I haven’t had a lot of energy for writing. Perhaps I diverted too much of myself into Project: BACON and my body enforced a break? Maybe so.

Writing and publishing Project: BACON the way that I have chosen to was the right thing to do, but it requires three times the level of energy required for writing a book. And that is ok – in fact it has been so very interesting – but it is much more than I had factored in, in terms of timelines and energy involved.

My conversations recently have been all about paper, and colour, and print, volume sizes of books (so that I can figure out storage), cloth covering, gold leaf, spangly enthusiastic pigs, timelines, even forklifts, and that is just the printing. Which is one small portion of the book production process. So, the last few months have been pretty intense. However, Project: BACON is shaping up nicely, despite road blocks, the latest of which being my poor photographer who was injured her knee quite badly on the ski slopes and needs surgery. Woe for her and I hope she feels so much better soon! We get moving on the photographs in April, when she should hopefully feel a bit better.

So, for now, some photos. And soon lots more. Some housekeeping too, before I go:

There are still places available for the next – and last for the foreseeable – Sunday Bacon Club on April 6th. The date had to be moved from the original March 30th date as I hadn’t realised that it was Mother’s Day (doh!). You can book by paying on paypal here.

You can still order April Bacon Boxes (including candied bacon salt, bacon flapjacks, bacon butter fudge, bacon butter toffee, bacon marshmallow krispie bars & bourbon bacon chocolate brownies). Numbers are limited. I don’t think people have seen them as they are further down the page so there are plenty left. So grab them! :) Limited edition gorgeous copies of the book are available too. You can only order up until May on Shopstarter to get a hardback limited edition copy. I am investigating a possible paperback that will retail online, but this is not a guarantee, and won’t be available for a little while.

Project: BACON folks who are awaiting bacon boxes – you can expect an email from me soon. All remaining will be made and shipped when I return at the start of April – thank you!

Nectarines with chilli salt at Little Saigon Market in Footscray, Melbourne

Nathan Outlaw’s terrific mussel and oyster soup, and a visit to a mussel farm, at the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival Water Masterclass

Sunset at the Great Ocean Ecolodge

Aaron Tourner at the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival Water Masterclass

Aaron Turner, cooking fish over a firepit on the beach, protected by hessian sacks, at the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival Water Masterclass

Highlights from an extraordinarily fun and really delicious Rickshaw Run in Footscray, Melbourne

Highlights from a wonderful meal at Attica

Sunset in downtown Melbourne

A wild koala, on a very bare tree. Just at the side of the road

Er… it is a little koala heavy, right? But I saw a lot, and I LOVE them. So please forgive me, and enjoy them.

My visit to Australia is supported by Tourism Australia