Teo made his first cake.  The cake was not bad at all for a two year old. The wild raspberry topping was the highlight. He and Grumpy (Lewie) went hunting and found all the wild raspberry patches nearby. Only a small proportion made it back for the cake.

Berries are only in season for a short, spring season.  My strawberry patch this year is a victim of a very determined bandicoot all winter, so it’s not the big bowlful a day of some years, but still enough for strawberries and pawpaw and orange fruit salad for breakfast, with toasted macas and yoghurt.

Strawberries should be a luxury food.  A couple of months of indulgence a year, sweetened by a whole year of waiting.  There’s this thing with seasonal luxury foods, that they start out expensive and the price encourages every kind of scammy hereticism, pushing them to grow until you get something that is cheap and very very nasty.  Like salmon.  And turkey. And strawberries.  Strawberries are one of the “Dirty Dozen“, and the best way to stay classy is to let them be what they are, a late spring treat.  From your garden, or buy organic farmers’ market ones now, for a month or so, and remember how good they should be.

Back in June, I posted a picture of my new very beautiful Yule gift of this fruit bowl, filled with mid-winter fruit – lemons, limes, mandarins, oranges, grapefruit.  

Now it is strawberries and pawpaws in my part of the world.  They make my very favourite breakfast smoothie.  (Maybe I lie there.  I have many favourites – custard apple and orange is a strong contender too, and our mango trees are laden with babies, so no doubt at New Year I’ll be telling you it is mango and yoghurt, or maybe mango and pomegranate).  If you are keeping calories down, paw paws and strawberries both have the added advantage of being surprisingly low.

And they make the best fruit salad, especially if you can find a late orange to add too.

Paw paws don’t travel well, so if you are not in a tropical or sub-tropical region, you will probably be as disappointed with any you buy as I am if I ever make the mistake of thinking I will find good apricots in northern NSW. But up here, we are in paw paw heaven this time of year.

Happy equinox everyone. For us in the southern hemisphere, it is ostara, the spring equinox, celebration of babies of every species (and rabbits and eggs). Celebration that life renews over and over, generation begatting generation into not just the 7th generation but forever. A good moment to reflect that this is sacred and our sacred duty to protect.

Some years I don’t bother with European cabbage.  My winters are short.  The cabbage moths are active right into autumn, and back by mid-Spring. Cabbages take up a surprising amount of room.  You harvest them once (unlike broccoli or silver beet) and then they’re gone.  Chinese cabbages are easier and fill the same slot, sort of.

And then I have a cabbage year and remember why I love them and vow I will plant cabbages every year.

We’ve been eating pink coleslaw, with homemade mayonnaise, shredded cabbage, grated carrots and beetroot and finely diced red onion.  We’ve been eating shredded cabbage sautèed very quickly in half butter, half olive oil till it gets little crispy brown bits. We’ve been eating mini vego Chico Rolls.  We’ve been eating minestrone. We’ve been eating Okonomiyaki – Japanese cabbage pancakes.  We’ve been eating soft boiled eggs chopped up in a bowl with diced cabbage and a little mayo for breakfast.  I’m even thinking I might make sauerkraut this year.

Remind me next autumn that cabbages are so worth it.