Right at this moment, as you are reading this, women all over the world are giving birth.  Some are doing it in high tech obstetric units, some are doing it in simple community hospitals, some are doing it with a war going on outside, some are doing it amidst poverty and squalor, some are doing it in a taxi or other vehicle, and some are doing it in the peace and comfort of their own home. 

... more inside ...

Being in the last year of one's thirties can cause one to review the last decade with a critical eye. Questions arise like, "Am I where I want to be, am I happy with my achievements, is this all there is to life etc....." It seems like a natural progression for most and for those who've lead a life unexamined, it can be a pretty painful time.

On the positive side, one has the priveledge of perspective and experience which can be the basis of choices made in wisdom with a deeper abiltity for reflection. I contest that mid-life cirisis starts at 40. Sometimes it feels like the whole last half of the thirties has been this way for us. Maybe it's just happening sooner for this generation.

Dag, wishing you a Happy 39th.  I'm glad to be on this journey with you and am looking forward to the next decades of adventure together. 

Our New Years Day ritual has been a Japanese feast of Osechi Ryori, for the last 5 years or so.  It's partly so we can relive our nostalgia for Japan and to continue to feel connected with Japanese culture. Since Osechi is quite specialsed food, we are fortunate to have a local restaurant which makes obento boxes of it, otherwise I wouldn't know where to begin finding recipes and ingredients.

Typical foods featured in Osechi are:

grilled mackeral filets, grilled salmon, boiled banana prawns

salmon, tuna and mackeral sashimi

salmon roe, cod roe

shiitake mushrooms, mashed sweetened yam, sweet black beans, konyaku, renkon slices (Lotus root)

take no ko (boiled bamboo shoots)

tamago yaki (fried egg roll) 

kamaboko (fish cakes)

sekihan (sticky rice with adzuki beans)

We made the sekihan and miso soup to go with, as well as pickles, like umeboshi. (plums) 

To finish off, there was macha ice cream with mashed, sweet adzuki beans on top. (green tea ice cream) 

It's not the kind of breakfast that most Westerners could handle and even Dag thought he was experiencing fish overload. I like how there's symbolic meaning attached to each food, usually to bring good luck and prosperity. Woops, those fish eggs are for fertility, oh well, a couple wouldn't have much effect, surely?

So from Australia, to our friends in Asia and the rest of the world, Happy New Year. 

We've been having unseasonal weather for Christmas, with lots of rain and chilly temperatures of 24C. 

Three years ago it was a scorcher at 40C with hot dry winds. I actually prefer what we're experiencing this year, because it means we have an appetite for all those yummy Christmas foods, like pudding and custard and fruit mince tarts.

When it's 40C you don't feel like preparing or eating anything.

Usually families go down to the beach for Christmas and Boxing day and it's so packed, there's hardly a spare inch of sand. Yesterday there were some families on the grassy parks adjacent to the beach, but hardly anyone was on the cold, wet sand, or swimming.

 A favourite family activity is a game of cricket, with young and old as well as the family pets joining in. Games played as the day progresses, are fairly amusing to watch, depending on the level of alchohol consumed.

Boxing Day is supposedly named after the tradition where wealthy families passed on their unwanted gifts to servants the day after Christmas and is usually spent at the beach or barbeque, here.  Today it's raining on and off , so we're indoors again, happily polishing off left-over turkey and pudding and custard.

Turkey is a food introduced into our family tradition by Dag, since it reminds him of childhood Christmases. It is not reallly popular here, though, people preferring cold cuts of ham and chicken and boiled prawns which have been chilled, served with vinegar or cocktail sauce. 

My mum always made traditional steamed pudding, done in a calico bag, so I decided to give it a try this year. I've baked them in the past, but the steamed pudding is so much moister. Luckily, as I mentioned, the weather has been cool, because it takes about 6 hours to steam one pudding and if it had been like Chritmas gone three years ago, it would have resembled Hell's Kitchen, for sure.