What if –

– I started putting Canberra recommendations on here?

Maaaaybe.

CRANK CRANK CRANK.

WHAT IS THAT SOUND.

ALMOST LIKE AN ENGINE STARTING UP AGAIN.

the best photo i took in hawaii (and all the other ones.)

here it is: the best photo i took in hawaii. this sums up honolulu: the real palm trees flourishing next to a painted mural of yet more palm trees, because why not, let’s make it abundant. i like that i caught the stars and stripes, and the limo driving by, both opulent but dwarfed by the amount of sheer green going on here.

in evidence of how everyday and incidental this lushness is in honolulu: when i took this, i had my back to an IHOP.

this trip happened last year, almost by accident: my tax return, leave entitlement and a flights sale converged and suddenly i was on my way. it happened in a heartbeat, and let me tell you: i would go back in a heartbeat.

some geography: waikiki is the central beach district in the city of honolulu on the island of oahu in the state of hawaii. i landed alone, after a sleepless flight, at 6am. mum wouldn’t be landing for hours. for me, the best part of the trip was those intervening hours, when i was set free in a different country on the other side of the world.

my not-very-secret gingerbread recipe

here’s something embarrassing: I thought I knew where I got this recipe from, and it turns out i was completely wrong. here i was, thinking that this was an adaptation of Kikki.K’s recipe for swedish pepparkakor, and then when I actually went and read that recipe, it was nothing like this one. so here is a gingerbread recipe that i may have dreamed, might have hallucinated, and really just hope i haven’t stolen from someone.

I’m calling this my ‘not-very-secret’ recipe because once upon a time, i kept it closely guarded that i added orange zest to my mix. now, it’s out in the open.

Here’s what you do:

INGREDIENTS
(these are a lot like the Kikki.K ones, which may be why I was confused. Who can tell.)

1 tbsp golden syrup
½ cup soft light-brown sugar
½ cup butter
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
2 cups self-raising flour, or plain flour with baking powder

METHOD

1. Put a medium-sized pot on the stove at a very low heat and pour your golden syrup brown sugar and butter in. Stir gently. Then add your cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, and the orange zest.
2. Take the pot off the heat and start adding your flour little by little, stirring in between. Depending how exact you were with your measurement of golden syrup (if you’re like me – not very exact at all), you may need to add a little more flour until you reach a nice consistency.
3. Roll out your gingerbread mixture and cut it into shapes, people, or if you’re feeling really ambitious, the blueprint of a gingerbread house!
4. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Enjoy!

xox

Dora

teddy picker’s

oh man oh man oh man! this place is so cute!!

the other weekend I went to Teddy PickersTeddy Pickers for the first time (or at least, the first time that I wasn’t fighting off one of the most stinking, wretched hangovers of my life).

it’s a big blank cafe, half indoor and half outdoor, that the owners have filled with the strangest assortment of vintage and vintage-inspired goodies you could fit in one place. They have a collection of microwave cookery books, a personalised Vegemite jar (‘TEDDY’S), a crochet frog, and fake liquor bottles for you to run your eye over while you nosh down on your all-day breakfast. Say it again: all day breakfast!

It’s got a loft which I think would be perfect if you’ve got a bigger group, and you get to it by going up this staircase filled with Photoshopped family photos:

They’ve also got a turntable and an electronic drum kit up there. Because why the heck not.

xoxo

Dora

melbourne

I got to go to melbourne on a work trip recently. (me! a work trip!! how fancy.)

the 4am start was cruel and the sunset view honestly wasn’t worth it, but definitely made the sleep deprivation a prettier experience.

our flight turned out to be so early that we arrived where we needed to be with time to spare. we were starving but thankfully the suburb of Footscray where we were based was home to a ridiculously beautiful little cafe. Just sitting there at the corner of the carpark.

its punky lil name was bad love club.

will you LOOK at this feature wall!

(plus, that handy little basket of blankets. i’m such a fan of cafe-provided blankets in case it’s chilly and these ones are above and beyond in the coolness charts)

they had the exact thing we felt like – jaffles! high on butter and salt and golden crunch.

maybe you guys don’t call them jaffles. i feel like they get a different name in every place. but basically a jaffle is the same as a toasted sandwich, or a toastie? i think a grilled cheese in America is a similar thing too although i think that’s made in a frying pan rather than a sandwich press.

they have a little line of these lollipop cactuses all along the window and i kept on dorking out about them, to the amusement of my colleagues.

the work part of the day wasn’t nearly so beautiful, but it was really interesting! i was feeling deep, deep under the weather so that night i tragically had to miss out on adventures and go back to my hotel room and sleep. i did get room service for the first time in my life! geez was that an expensive way to get dinner.

next morning i woke up a little better and went to breakfast at a place about five of my friends in canberra had told me I had to check out: auction rooms cafe.

it took us two goes there (yes, we went back next day) to realise it’s called that because it’s set in the hollowed-out remnants of a building that used to be, da-doy, the city’s auction house.

the food is very much here and now though, and so delish!

after work that day, we went exploring through melbourne a little bit!

the city is so thick with colourful little gems of stores but also so busy! after six months of canberra i’d forgotten what it’s like to not be able to stop and take a photo for all the people pressing through. i sneaked this one on a chance.

for dinner my vegan friend promised we’d have an amazing time at veggie bar and boy was she onto a good thing. this place is huge and bustling and has the hugest menu of vegan and vegetarian feasts!

we booked a table and managed to score one in the upstairs mezzanine with a view of the bar!

perk of summer: there was still blue sky outside the skylight windows when we got there at seven.

I had a big ol’ juice while everyone else got in on the (substantial) cocktail menu – just another joy of being sick. and vegetarian laksa! big and spicey and the creamy noodley comfort food you want after a day of having to do stuff.

we partied on to a bar called naked for satan (again, melbourne seems to like a punky/hubristic lil name). i must have been the only person there drinking orange juice, hehe. but the fit out was pretty swell and very ’20s, and there was a tourist-quality view from the terrace on the rooftop!

i do love a good rooftop.

lots of love,

till next time,

dora xx

the knox made in watson

I. LOVE. This place.

(Hello! It’s been a while!)

The Knox is a thing that seems to exist specially in Canberra – a gem of a cafe, set in the middle of an ordinary little suburban set of shops with a newsagent and an IGA and maybe a vet. It’s full of flowers and foliage, and full of bustle. Also: wonderful, wonderful menu choices.

It has an indoors and an outdoors, which means it fits lots of people, and also that whenever you rock up there’s usually a table! Plus someone nearby will have just ordered a spectacular dish involving placed eggs and lacings of delicious-looking sauce for you to stickybeak at.

And get a load of what they’ve got on offer to stickybeak at:

(Hash browns! Bacon! Home made spicy beans! And the poached eggs, I’m calling it, deserve a second shout out.)

I came here with the boy and we bought two of these big fat cookies to fuel our later adventures. Yum yum YUM.

 

xo

Dora

local press

Local press is a bit of a Canberra icon, and for good reason: every inch of it is absolutely beautiful.

It’s on the Kingston foreshore and adds so nicely to the slightly seaside vibe of the area, with its driftwood decorations, exposed brick walls and hanging dried flowers.

the “press” in the name comes from their cold pressed juices, which come in these cute jars! i’ve always meant to squirrel one of the jars away and put flowers in it.

I love that there’s a little posy on every table!

like so many things about Canberra, local press has a touch of kitsch and chunky 80s about it: every tea they serve comes in a pot with its own bobbly cosy, and their water glasses are these amber medicine-bottle looking things.

and I haven’t even got started on the FOOD:

healthy, but not too healthy. 😉

Love,

Dora

xx

kingston foreshore (for sure)

i’ve been trying to make more of an effort to get out after work and explore my new hood. last week, that let me to the kingston foreshore – an area of the inner south on the bank of lake burley griffin – and i was so glad it did.

i arrived on sunset. the streets were full of groups of friends strolling to dinner, joggers, and dog walkers. there’s a park full of winding paths and little secret bridges at one end:

and then sunset set in properly.

then there’s the waterfront itself. all along the side of it is bright bubbling restaurants, so that the water reflected hundreds of golden lights as the sun went down.

on either side of the lake are these embankment-style walkways, where you can walk right next to the water – somehow, the town planners must have decided that we were all responsible grown-ups because there’s no fence at the edge, it’s just walkway and then water. walking along here while i do phone calls back home is one of my new favourite things.

I can’t wait to head back there, grab an ice cream and sit and do some people-watching pretty soon.

xoxo

Dora

akiba

when my sydney friends came to town we had some plans in place, but you always end up wandering around blankly looking for something to do or, in this case, somewhere to eat. a couple of us had heard good things about akiba so we checked it out and boy was that a good call.

this place is SICK.

akiba’s aesthetic is sort of a cross between a big ol’ hipster wine bar and a bright and feverish street market. it was so full of details that I ended up leaving our table in between courses so I could just walk around snapping pictures.

as for the food itself, all I can say is that it was too good to stop and photograph. I got as far as the place setting and the first dish that came out and then I lost my freaking MIND. we shelled out for the $33 kobe beef, which was charcoal and luscious and 10/10 worth it. we got edamame beans, because you always should get edamame beans, and these ones came with crunchy salt and spices and were h e a v e n l y. we got fried chicken and dumplings and ate and laughed and  and caught up after months apart and marvelled at how delicious everything was.

the bar was a sight to be reckoned with but inevitably all of us wanted to stay sober so they made us custom fruit juices! I got watermelon and passionfruit, and that started a bit of a trend.

dessert was, of course, jaw droppingly beautiful: this was a mandarin-chocolate bar cake.

if you’re in Canberra, GET YOURSELF THERE.

love love,

Dora