There are as many versions of okonomiyaki as there are vending machines in Japan, which makes sense, seeing that ‘okonomi’ means ‘what you like’ and ‘yaki’ means ‘cooked’. The mixture varies from region to region, as do the toppings. In Hiroshima they layer up the savoury pancake with noodles and other ingredients, whereas in the Kansai region, they tend to keep it a bit simpler and go for an all-in-one batter. Nori’s Mum often made it with thinly sliced pork belly, which is tasty too!

This dish is super popular in Japan – there are Okonomiyaki restaurants everywhere. My favourites are the ‘grill-it-yourself’ establishments – after choosing your fillings, your batter is delivered to the table where you then cook your own on communal hot plates. Because not everyone has one of these grill plates hanging around the house, you can either use the hotplate on your BBQ or a fry pan, like we do. If you’re using a fry pan, it’s best to keep the pancake relatively small to make for easy flipping.

We add chopped calamari to ours which adds a nice texture, but you should embrace the meaning of ‘okonomi’ and literally add what you like, which could include: thin slices of pork belly, octopus or more vegetables would be delicious too. You can easily make okonomiyaki vegetarian by using a dashi stock made from mushrooms or kombu and omitting the calamari and bonito flakes. The pancake is then smothered in okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese mayonnaise and topped with things like nori, bonito flakes and spring onions – DELICIOUS!

Oh, and I should also mention that you need to pay close attention to the bonito flakes when they hit the steamy pancake, or YouTube ‘Bonito flakes dancing’ – my number two reason why I love okonomiyaki. Number one is of course the taste!

Method

The first thing you need to do is make your pancake batter. To do this, put the plain flour in a mixing bowl and slowly add the dashi stock, whisking until it becomes a smooth mixture. Now you add the rest of your ingredients – so add the eggs, cabbage, beni shoga, spring onions and calamari and mix well to coat. Season with salt.

Heat a fry pan over medium heat and add a small drizzle of the vegetable oil. Spoon in half or a quarter of the batter, depending on what size you are making, and flatten with a spatula, but don’t press too much as you don’t want the pancake to be dense. If you’re adding pork belly you can lay it on the top of the pancake at this stage.

Cook the pancake for about 4 minutes until just beginning to set and the underside is golden. Flip the okonomiyaki over and cover with a lid. Cook for a further 4 minutes. You may need to adjust the cooking time for bigger pancakes to ensure it’s cooked all the way through as there is nothing worse than a floury okonomiyaki!

Repeat with the remaining batter.

To serve

To finish the okonomiyaki, drizzle over the okonomiyaki sauce and then the Japanese mayonnaise. Scatter over your toppings of spring onions, shredded nori and bonito flakes

This sweet and supremely photogenic little farmhouse on 113 vivid green acres in Poowong East, halfway to Wilson’s Prom in Victoria’s South East belongs to Tamsin Carvan, her daughter Martha (8 years old) and partner Allan Walker.  Tamsin moved here and established her farm almost eleven years ago, after many years living in Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra, though her childhood years were spent growing up in the Blue Mountains of NSW.

Tamsin’s big move from Canberra to a farm in Gippsland didn’t happen by chance.  This is a carefully crafted lifestyle, evolved from a nagging desire to return to a simpler way of living.

‘For many years I knew I really wanted to try my hand at farming, and get out of the city where I always felt cramped up and claustrophobic’  explains Tamsin.  Despite her enthusiasm for building a new life in the country, Tamsin was also very pragmatic about the risks, and was particularly conscious of drought.   ‘I knew that I didn’t want to live anywhere where crushing drought was a real risk’ she says. ‘We opened up the atlas and marked all the places across Australia within a two hour drive of a major airport (I was still travelling a lot for work back then) where rainfall exceeds evaporation – and there actually aren’t many!’ Tamsins explains. ‘Once we laid our eyes on this part of the world we were completely sold’.

The hills were so green that I cried. We found this farm on the internet while still in Canberra, and I hadn’t even seen it in the flesh when we made the offer on it. I just knew it would be right”.

From here, Tasmin now runs her amazing little business, Tamsin’s Table, which sees her host an ever changing schedule of Sunday lunches, harvesting and cooking workshops, and other seasonal events.  Though it hasn’t been in operation all that long, Tamsin’s Table has been a runaway success, having made way for a steady steam of day trippers from the city, and connected Tamsin with many likeminded local creatives.  Tamsin’s Table gives guests an opportunity to get their hands dirty, as they join Tamsin in harvesting, preparing, cooking and eating the freshest vegetables, eggs and dairy produce from her little farm, alongside local wines, meats and other treats. ( You’ll learn much more about Tamsin’s Table next month when she joins us for Tasty Tuesday in November!)

When she first moved in, Tamsin’s house was a typical dairy farming house.  With the help of her talented partner Allan and creative local friends, over the last few years the home has been thoughtfully transformed into a lighter, brighter and more open plan space, with a bigger kitchen and bathroom, larger windows, and views to the rolling hills which surround the property.

‘When we first moved here, I couldn’t understand why so many of the houses around here seemed so windowless and dark, given they were set in such spectacular locations with incredible views – but now I do’ Tamsin says. ‘They were warm and cosy and easy to heat, and when you’ve been up since before dawn milking, then out in the paddocks all day chasing cows, all you want is to come inside and be warm and feel that work is done, rather than settling into your chair only to see that there are troughs leaking or the cows have jumped the fence into the neighbours!’. Needless to say, Tamsin realised this only after having knocked out half the walls, replacing them with windows and raising all the ceilings!

There’s something instantly comfortable about Tamsin’s house – there’s a warmth and familiarity here that’s hard to pinpoint.  It’s the kind of house you imagine might be the centrepiece for some popular film or drama set in the Australian countryside, with a cast of loveable characters you feel you’ve known for years.  At the heart of the home, of course, is Tamsin’s kitchen – a deceivingly professional set-up of industrial proportions, which somehow still feels like a relaxed, country kitchen.  From here, Tamsin can effortlessly whip up a feast for 20 (and she does, regularly!) using nothing more than farm-grown produce.

There not much ‘new’ in Tamsin’s house. ‘Pretty much everything in the house I’ve owned for a really long time, since I was in my teens or early 20’s’ she says.  Alongside these much-loved relics are a few treasured pieces handcrafted by Tamsin’s partner Allan.  One favourite piece is the beautiful lamp that Allan made Tamsin for a Christmas gift, and the kitchen bench which Allan also made. ‘You know a bench or table works when everyone gravitates towards it, and wants to stay there all night!’ says Tamsin.

There is a LOT to love about this home. For Tamsin, the joy of this place really is about much more than the sum of its parts.  ‘Even though I love what we have done to the interior of the house over the last few years, I lived here for many years prior to any renovations being done and loved it just as much’ says Tamsin earnestly. ‘To me, it is all about what I can see out the windows – space, the weather, light, birds, beautifully tended farm land, a community, and the trees’.

Jess Wong has a Bachelor of Design from Queensland College of Art, but her interest in lettering and typography has been a personal passion for a long time.  She has been fascinated with handwriting since she was a little girl, which she can trace back to one particular moment!  ‘In primary school, I had the biggest crush on my Grade 5 teacher, because he had this beautiful, loopy handwriting that I absolutely adored!’ she says.

After moving to Sydney, Jess developed her meticulous lettering skills because she says she was a little lonely at first, so spent many evenings at home practicing lettering to pass the time. She started uploading her work to social media, and has slowly grown a following since then.

Jess’s work is a mix of hand-rendered and digital vector lettering, with a little bit of illustration thrown in.  She says she tries to push herself to work with as many different styles and techniques as she can, however she tends to gravitate towards drawing oversized, curvy scripts.

I aim to create lettering that is expressive of the words it is communicating, and always maintains a certain imperfection or human character in the way it is drawn’

‘I Believe in Space’ is Jess’s first solo exhibition, which has already had one recent showing in Sydney, and opens in Melbourne tonight! The show includes a collection of Jess’s incredible hand-lettered works on paper, alongside letterpressed pieces printed by The Hungry Workshop. Half the show is a collaborative effort, based on people’s answers to the question – ‘What would you say to your loved ones if you or they were about to depart on a super long mission to outer space?!’

Beyond this exhibition, Jess is keen to continue extending her skills to encompass more traditional styles of lettering – specifically, calligraphy and sign painting. ‘I’m also hoping to paint some larger wall pieces – I completed my first one a few weeks ago and really enjoyed that process.’ she says.  ‘If anyone’s got an empty wall that needs some love, give me a shout!’

I Believe In Space’ by Jess Wong
October 16th  until November 28th (Opening tonight from 6.30pm!)
The Hungry Workshop
461 High Street
Northcote, VIC

I honestly can’t remember how I stumbled across the work of Melbourne illustrator / artist Sandra Eterovic.  It was many years ago now… I think it was actually her quirky hand painted mirrors which first caught my eye in around 2010, and I’ve been a huge fan of her cheerful, slightly mad hand painted pieces ever since.  We invited Sandra to participate in the very first TDF Open House in 2011 (which seems like eons ago now!), and have kept a close eye on her work all this time. There’s just something quite special about her.

Sandra is a prodigiously talented illustrator and painter.  I think she can basically paint anything.  She worked for many years in the fashion industry, designing prints and textiles and developing products for children, but she now work as a freelance illustrator and artist, making custom illustrations for a host of editorial clients, and staging exhibitions of various works under her own name.  She also sells some of her creations online in her Etsy store.

I LOVE Sandra’s work.  Whilst accomplished, there is a childlike naiveté about her painting style, and above all else, each piece seems to perfectly reflect Sandra’s unique sense of humour!  In Sandra’s imagined world, a host of quirky protagonists play leading roles – a girl with a hamburger or sausage for a body, a hybrid creature sitting somewhere between a dinosaur and a pineapple (!), a mouldy piece of bread or a freestanding volcano, mid-eruption.  Its all quite MAD, in the best possible way.

This weekend, Sandra’s solo show entitled ‘Still Waiting to be Blown Away’ opens at Hut 13 in Richmond.  The show will incorporate a great variety of original paintings and hand painted sculptures at refreshingly affordable prices. Well worth checking out if you’re in the area!  You’ll also spot Sandra’s work at TDF Open House once again this year!

Still Waiting To Be Blown Away by Sandra Eterovic
Open from this Saturday 18th October until 12th November 2014
Hut 13
79 Swan St
Richmond, VIC

Tell us a little about your background – what path led you to becoming an artist, and to creating the style of work you are currently making?

Although I was consistently occupied by drawing and craft as a child, I was wildly indecisive about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I went from wanting to be a doctor in my first years at school, to a fashion designer in the last, and I think I was ashamed of that. In year 12 I visited RMIT and found every creative department exciting. I found it impossible to choose just one course, so I opted out and majored in Fine Arts (Art History) at The University of Melbourne instead. By fourth year I was mostly writing essays that were thinly veiled criticisms of the discipline, so art historian withered as a career option as well.

After that, a two-year multidisciplinary art and design course at TAFE felt like heaven. A major in illustration led to a full-time job in the fashion industry (yes, after all!), drawing cartoon characters for boxer shorts. A decade later I was designing prints and textiles for children’s brand Seed. It was while doing trend research on the internet that I discovered the burgeoning online world of artists, illustrators and crafters, particularly blogging pioneers like Camilla Engman who proved that it was actually possible to be successful in many creative disciplines. That, and a small course with the wonderful Jane Cocks at Latrobe College, helped me to pluck up the courage to start making and showing my own work in galleries and online. Family and friends, particularly Anna Parry (nee Nilsson) were hugely supportive as well.

How would you describe your work?

I believe that the style of my work has been unconsciously influenced by the books I read as a child, and a couple of long stays in Europe visiting extended family. My grandmother’s kitchen, our cousins’ unfamiliar books, and strange packaging in the supermarket have all made their way into my aesthetic. My work is colourful, relatively accessible, a little retro, sometimes pretty, but hopefully also funny and a bit dark.

I would like to think that my work is occasionally wry, as I love the word ‘wry’. But never fabulous! I hate the word ‘fabulous’, probably because it makes me think of the fashion industry.

What can we expect to see in your new exhibition ‘Still Waiting To Be Blown Away’ at Hut 13 later this month? What has inspired this body of work?

I have made a variety of work for this show, from a series of relatively small paintings on table tennis bats, to a very large sort-of-portrait of my lounge room. There will also be a few medium sized works and a large and rather experimental piece which is somewhere between a painting and a sculpture. The thing that all of the works have in common is that they are painted by me on wood using acrylic.

My ongoing interest is in what we choose to reveal about ourselves as opposed to what we hide, and the way that we present ourselves both in terms of our appearance and our possessions. When I was about seven my Mum explained to me the concept of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and I have been deeply fascinated by it ever since.

I am also interested in gender roles and relationships as a subject, from the most intimate to the basic ways in which anyone who happens to be alive right now relates to anyone else who happens to be alive right now. Human beings are a bottomless pit of fascination.

Can you give us a little insight into your process?  Is each work pre-planned or created very intuitively? Do you work on multiple pieces at one time?

I have been avidly keeping notebooks since a friend’s husband thoughtfully gave me one 18 years ago. I am now up to my 29th! In them I paste magazine and newspaper clippings, print outs of internet finds, drawn or written observations, doodles and ideas for various things that I might make (from a large wooden contraption to a knitted scarf). Sometimes ideas pop up fully formed, other times they are half-baked and need to percolate (maybe for a week, maybe for a few years).

Most of the time if I find that it’s better to let an idea sit for a while before making it real. In that regard, most of my work is pre-planned. The spontaneity will be in the colours I choose, or the amount of detail I add or subtract. I do work on multiple pieces at once, mostly due to having to wait for sections to dry. I can work relatively quickly once I get going.

What does a typical day at work involve for you?

There is no such thing as a typical day (which is probably a typical answer to that question!). If I am to work in the studio, I will answer emails from home first, make my lunch, do any research required for reference and then print that out to take with me (other times I just do a Google Image Search at the studio and peer into my iPhone).

On a good day, there will be a retail or Etsy order to wrap and take to the post office on the way. When I get to the studio I try to work as diligently as possible. Other days I work from home. This is where most of the production work happens: sewing and stuffing dolls and cushions, or packaging A4 and A3 prints. Occasionally I do sketches for illustration jobs in the kitchen, usually when the weather is too cold to face the studio.

Can you list for us 5 resources across any media that you turn to regularly for creative inspiration?

My regularly visited favourites include: Flickr, which has fallen out of favour lately, but I’m still in love with my Flickr Favourites and Pinterest. I like to catch up on and It’s Nice That, a British art and design magazine-style site which always has something fun, clever and unexpected to explore. A perennial favourite is The World of Interiors magazine and Frieze magazine which I generally borrow from the CAE library.

Which other local artists, designers or creative people are you most inspired by at the moment?

Noel McKenna - Noel’s work is incredibly charming, poignant and funny. I don’t think that anyone captures the absurdity of everyday life in this country as well as he does.

Jon Campbell - From a tram to tea towels to billowing flags to enamel paintings to neons, Jon Campbell is a legend. YEAH! And I reckon he might be a really lovely person too, though I haven’t met him.

Rob McHaffie - I am a fan of SO MANY local artists of McHaffie’s generation, but I have been consistently drawn to his beautiful, precise and slightly nutty work, and have been a longtime fan of his generous and funny blog.

Kirsten Perry – Kirsten’s work is funny, clever and rather brave. I always look forward to seeing what she has up her sleeve.

Alice Oehr -I love the charming aesthetic of Alice’s work, which is absolutely a reflection of her personality.

I have spring gardening fever at the moment, and have become a devotee of The Planthunter thanks to The Design Files. My idol garden is Ian McMaugh’s little Sydney jungle. I have a long way to go!

What is your proudest career achievement to date?

The slow but steady build up of interest in my work has been incredibly buoying. Sometimes I feel a little like I am growing up in public, which isn’t easy for a shy person. The ongoing support from Craft (formerly known as Craft Victoria), a body for which I have always had a huge amount of respect, means so much to me.

What would be your dream project?

I have many dream projects. One is to illustrate a great book cover that I will spot on the shelf at Readings and feel really proud of. Another is to exhibit my work more regularly and make a living from it. Yet another is to license some of my illustration work so that it could be manufactured ethically into really appealing products. Partly so that I don’t have to do my own production work anymore!

What are you looking forward to?

I am having an exhibition of work at Boom Gallery in November 2015. I am really looking forward to planning what I will make for that. However that seems forever away as I have a lot of work to get through right now and can feel Christmas 2014 breathing down my neck already.

MELBOURNE QUESTIONS

Your favourite Melbourne neighbourhood and why?

I am a very proud Melbournian and love all of its inner city neighbourhoods, especially walking around residential streets and peering into people’s front gardens and windows. However, weirdly, when I am visiting family in Europe I miss Lygon Street. More specifically, I miss evenings spent shopping for books at Readings, crossing the road to see a film at The Nova, and then strolling around the corner for a pizza at D.O.C.

Where and what was the last great meal you ate in Melbourne?

Last night I had dinner at my parents’ house. Dad cooked a great barbecue, which we ate while drinking his homemade wine. Mum took care of the veggies (including greens from the garden) and we had crepes with her homemade raspberry jam afterwards.

Where would we find you on a typical Saturday morning?

On Saturdays I get up early and go for a swim at the Richmond pool. Then I shop for fruit and veg at the Gleadell Street Market, and ride my bike up to Three Bags Full to meet friends for breakfast. Actually, that’s a complete lie! I do get up early, but I sip my coffee with one eye (and ear) on Rage and another looking into the back garden, then go outside in my pyjamas to potter about if the weather is decent. If it’s cold or raining, I might do some sewing or turn the evil computer on and idly add to my Pinterest pins or hunt for vintage clothes on Etsy. Before I know it, it’s lunch time. An awful habit that I need to break!

Melbourne’s best kept secret?

It’s probably not a secret to readers of The Design Files, but I am consistently surprised by the number of people I meet who do not know of the existence of the wonderful Waverley Antiques. Hidden in an industrial zone, it’s an enormous treasure trove that requires at least an entire day to explore properly, a pocketful of cash, and a large van. I haven’t been there in ages, and am really looking forward to my next visit.

DesignByThem had me at hello. Or, more specifically – at their Dial Hose Hanger. It seemed such simple genius to make a ubiquitous backyard eye-saw aesthetically pleasing, finally! Why had no one thought of this sooner?!

So, who is the ‘them’ to which they mysteriously refer? DesignByThem (DBT) is a furniture and object design house co-founded by Sydney designers Nicholas Karlovasitis and Sarah Gibson in 2006, after identifying a need for an Australian design brand that brought local together designers under the one umbrella. They’ve since worked with a wealth of local talent including Tommy Cehak, Stefan Lie, Gary Galego, Stewart Hollestein and Seaton McKeon to the DBT family.

Both Industrial Design graduates of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Sarah and Nick actually conceived the idea for their business in their second year of study. After graduation Nick went on to work at a design consultancy, and Sarah worked at a commercial furniture company, however both eventually left these jobs to take up part-time teaching gigs at UTS, while simultaneously taking the plunge and launching their own business. ‘It took us a few years to develop a range of products before we could approach other designers to be part of the brand,’ Sarah explains.

The DBT collaboration model works in a few different ways. As Nick explains, ‘Sometimes designers come to us with a basic concept, and we work with them to refine their idea into a developed concept. Other times we are given a production-ready design and we work with the designer to make minor adjustments before releasing the product to market.’

DesignByThem are quite flexible with their product ranges, choosing not to specialise in any one niche area. Their collection consists of furniture, lighting and homewares, and even some garden-ware products.  ‘Our focus is on the key values of our products – durability, a sense of fun, timelessness and sustainability,’ says Sarah.

DBT’s latest product offering is the ‘Them Chair’, which was developed out of a desire to create a high-end timber chair that could balance advanced manufacturing techniques with a high level of craftsmanship, attention to detail and simplicity. Easier said than done – as Sarah describes ‘designing a unique timber chair was a difficult balancing act, but we are so happy with the outcome!’

Nick and Sarah aim to design pieces that will stand the test of time, and to achieve this, they look to the past when designing for the future.  ‘We want to create designs that have aesthetic longevity – and one way we test this is to imagine our products in the past. Hopefully if they look good in the past then they will continue looking good in the future!’ says Nick.

Gabi Sidhu and Pawel Gaca are partners in business and life, with very different career backgrounds which have proved invaluable in the planning and launch of their impressive online store, Resident GP earlier this year.

Pawel is an engineer by trade, and is responsible for all the practical and technical aspects of the business, whilst Gabi has  a background in architecture and design, and focuses on sourcing products, customer service and generally drives the creative side of the business.  ‘Our personalities and skill sets really work perfectly together and starting our own business just seemed like a natural next step – so far so good!’ says Gabi!

Gabi and Pawel spent a year planning, researching and sourcing product before launching Resident GP in March this year – and it shows!  Their extensive product range covers homewares, lighting, accessories and jewellery, and includes number of unique collaborations and Australian exclusives.  ‘We really didn’t want to be just another online homewares store, so we invested a lot of time in uncovering new items that people haven’t seen before’ says Gabi.  The pair relish the opportunity to collaborate with local makers on limited edition products, such as their series of prints with Brisbane based typographer Jasmine Dowling.

Gabi and Pawel source their products from all over the globe.  ‘We spend a huge amount of time searching for the next undiscovered gem because we, like our customers, love knowing we’ve found something before everyone else has’ says Gabi.

Though they share a heartfelt passion for great design, both Gabi and Pawel believe that design is about much more than aesthetics. ’Behind every design there is a story to tell, and it is in uncovering these stories that the true value of each product is realised’ explains Gabi.

Having recently relaunched their website and branding with the help of local design team A Friend of Mine, stylist Marsha Golemac and photographer Brooke Holm, Gabi and Pawel are excited about what’s ahead. ‘ Running your own business is hard work, and we are learning as we go…it’s only been six months… but it is so rewarding’ Gabi says. ‘We feel really lucky to be able to combine our passions and skills in this way, and look forward to sharing more gorgeous product with our lovely customers over the coming months’

Ochazuke is ultimately rice and green tea! It is a fantastic way to use up left over rice and is a really pretty and delicate dish where all the ingredients have their chance in the spotlight. Rice is such an important food source for Japanese people, and Nori’s family, who grow their own rice, take it pretty seriously. In fact, if a few grains are left in someone’s bowl, they call them ‘the tears of the farmer’ – no rice is wasted in our house! The left over rice is transformed into something special with a subtle broth of dashi, genmaicha and soy.

Genmaicha translates to ‘brown rice tea’ and is a green tea combined with roasted rice. It has a lovely nuttiness and compliments the dish really well. You can find Genmaicha in Japanese supermarkets, like Hinoki Japanese Pantry, in Fitzroy, which is our go-to for all Japanese items. If you are unable to find any, just use normal green tea! For the dashi stock, you can buy it already prepared in granule form or make some with bonito flakes, like we do. Whichever you choose, simply follow the directions on the packet.

Ochazuke is quite a traditional dish, quickly prepared in the home with left over rice and fish or just pickles or shiso flakes, and for this reason, it is not often seen on menus here in Australia. In Japan, however, restaurants and Izakayas do serve fancy versions with top quality produce and expensive fish. For me, this dish epitomizes Japanese cooking – good quality ingredients, simple preparation and clean flavours. We love to eat this dish during the week when we feel like something nourishing, but simple and easy.

Method

Rinse the rice and transfer to a medium saucepan. Cover the rice with enough water to come up 2cm above the rice. Cook covered on a low heat until all the water has been absorbed (12-15 minutes). Leave covered for a further 5 minutes. Set aside.

To marinate the tuna, place tuna in a small non-reactive container or dish and add remaining ingredients. Marinate for 10 minutes. Be sure to keep the marinade, as you will pour some over the tuna and rice later.

To make the broth, in a large saucepan, combine dashi stock, genmaicha and soy sauce. Bring up to simmering point and take off heat.

To assemble the dish, place some rice in individual serving bowls. Arrange slices of the marinated tuna on top of the rice and pour over a little of the remaining marinade in each bowl. Scatter over shredded nori, sesame seeds, spring onions and shiso leaves. Gently pour the hot broth around the rice and serve.

The Clohesy family have been here exactly five years, and are the third owners of this slightly unusual 2 bedroom home.  Orginally from Sydney, Amber and Ben found their home without exactly intending to.  ‘We’d recently moved from  Sydney and were renting in Hawthorn, but were house hunting in Richmond’ explains Amber. Whilst they really loved the Hawthorn area, the big houses and blocks had factored them out in terms of price, so neighbouring Richmond became their focus.  However, this place just turned up in a search one day and intrigued Amber.  ‘At first we thought the place looked crazy, the furniture was really at odds with the architecture – all heavy antiques and giant old persian rugs. We had a laugh at this funny little house, but on a second look at the pictures we stopped laughing and decided to go look’.

From pictures, Amber and Ben had assumed the house was from the 70’s (and assumption I also made at first!) but once they got inside they realised it was ‘new-ish’ and didn’t need any renovation. ‘By the time we got to the bathroom and I spied the marble bath surround, and amazing opportunity to open the bathroom right up to the central courtyard, I fell in deep, deep love, and we decided to buy it there and then!’ says Amber.

Though modest in size, the home is deceptively easy to live in, and endlessly versatile.  Each rooms flows effortlessly into the next, and what the space lacks in floor area it certainly makes up for in  ingenuity.  The home is full of unexpected details, such as the transitional ‘walls’ which are in fact oversized doors that open to reveal functional spaces (such as the study nook adjacent to the bedroom), and clever hidden storage.  Amber and Ben say they have had to do very little since purchasing the place.

The house is so unusual, from its circular central courtyard filled, open and closing walls, it’s introspective outlook and the way the tree paints dappled light across the dining area of an afternoon.  Living in something unique is really fun’

Amber describes her style as ‘Scand-American’. ‘I love to mix blonde timbers and I’m a bit obsessed with mountain and forests on everything’ she says.  A colour enthusiast, Amber has  filled her home with bold colour, treasured artwork and souvenirs from overseas trips, and of course a fair bit of stock from her own range of homewares, and her well loved Hawthorn store. ‘I would burst with boredom if I ever felt the house was ‘done’, and owning a homewares businesses means things can change pretty fast!’ she says.

‘There are a few pieces I absolutely cherish’ says Amber. These include the Ercol candlestick dining chairs, lovingly restored by Grandfather’s Axe, and a pair of paintings in the living room which depict the Cinque Terre, where Amber and Ben had celebrated an anniversary before they were married. ‘Coincidentally the artist Laurie Mossuto had visited Italy the same year we did, and then painted after his visit’ explains Amber, adding ‘more importantly, the artist Laurie is also my very ace step-father, but these works were done before he and my mother got together!’.

If you love Amber’s fun, eclectic aesthetic, do check out her store The Woodsfolk , which has a brand new online store that just went live this week!   It’s a beauty, full of styled photography and Amber’s signature mix of bold, cheerful homewares –  well worth a little look!

Man, I am really loving writing this monthly Small Business column, each mini-interview we do really is full of such juicy nuggets of generous advice and wisdom from local entrepreneurs…. and gives me the best excuse to be even nosier than usual with my line of questioning!

Today we introduce the rather amazing Annie Abbott, whose Melbourne based shoe brand Habbot has grown in leaps and bounds since she first launched her business.

Habbot officially started back in 2011, when Annie quit her ‘real job’, and released her first shoe collection. That’s THREE YEARS people.  Already, Annie’s business has grown to three beautifully decorated high street stores in Melbourne, and a busy online store which perfectly showcases the tenets which underpin her brand.

Though her business has only been operating for three years, the seed for Habbot was sewn way back in 2004, when Annie was inspired by a hugely successful young clothing company she was working for at the time in Sydney – Sass and Bide.

I saw what could grow from big passion and hard work!’

Since opening her third store last month at The Strand in Melbourne’s CBD, Annie’s staff has instantly doubled in size, to 13 employees, which she admits it something she’s still getting her head around!  ‘It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was working every day for three months at a time in my pop-up shops, with just my sisters and husband on hand for back up!’ Annie recalls.

It’s been so inspiring to see Annie’s little local business grow into something with significant presence and a growing client base of loyal customers, in such a short time. Habbot’s commitment to contemporary design and Italian craftsmanship is a winning combination that has ensured the brand has always stood out in a crowded market.  I’ve also always been impressed by Annie’s commitment to working with really top quality local collaborators to ensure her brand is always beautifully presented – from her exquisite recent store fit out by Fiona Lynch, to her striking campaign imagery, most recently shot by Brooke Holm and styled by Marsha Golemac.

We  asked Annie a few burning questions about building her brand and her business over the past 3 years,  here’s what she had to say! –

Hi Annie!  You’re a very impressive local businessperson… Tell us a little bit about your pride and joy, Habbot.

Habbot is a Melbourne based brand of women’s shoes, handbags and accessories that are designed locally and made by hand in Italy. We sell our collections through our three Melbourne stores, and our online store, and employ a total of thirteen people. Nine of my employees work across the three stores, and an additional four part-time team members help me in the office with marketing, sales, graphic design and administration. I also employ a book keeper and use an emergency IT specialist as required.

Although our stores sit alongside some really great fashion names, I don’t really consider Habbot to be a ‘fashion brand’, in the sense that my design decisions are not really driven by seasonal trends where high rotation is encouraged. Instead, I choose to design shoes that celebrate my love of bold colour, appreciation of classic design and fine workmanship, and my sense of humour.

Habbot’s specialty in the beginning was focused in mostly flat shoes of the lace-up or loafer variety. This was the Melbourne girl coming out in me! It was also a response to the years I spent working in London (at Net-a-porter) and then travelling as a shoe buyer in France and England, where quality flat shoes for women are really celebrated. I’ve branched out since then, and now bring that same vibrant Habbot aesthetic to other shoe categories, bags and accessories.

To achieve the quality of materials and manufacturing I sought for Habbot I decided from the outset to partner with craftsmen in Italy to make my shoes. I have been working with a family operated factory in Italy and travel to see them usually three times each year. Much of my design work is done on these work trips, with the distance serving as a good separation between my ‘business’ head and my ‘creative’ one.

What does a typical work day at Habbot involve?

6am – Wake and check my first round of emails on my phone in bed (much to my husband’s frustration!).

6.30am -  Breakfast of porridge where I re-read detailed emails that have come in from Italy overnight, speed-read my favourite blogs and check out what other retail brands are doing via their newsletters and emails.

7.30am – City store visits. I often drive into the city to deliver special customer orders to the stores or install new window displays (it’s not uncommon to find me up a ladder in the royal arcade store window at 7.30am!)

9.00am – Arrive at the office, behind our Armadale store, and scribble an unrealistically long to-do list for the day over a cup of tea.

9.30am – Consult task management software trello to see where everyone is at on the tasks we’re working on this week.

10.00am – A quick chat working in the Armadale store that day as they open up.

1030am – On most days I am joined in the office with either my marketing guru or retail sales manager so we spend the next few hours going over plans or current activities relating to those areas.

2.00pm – Late lunch at my desk. I’ve never been good at taking a proper break.

2.15pm – A random assortment of tasks usually relating to product adjustments on the website or point of sale system, responding to emails, paying bills, following up customer inquiries and information requests, and putting out the regular little fires that occur in small business.

6.00pm – A great quiet time to review financial reports, see how we’re tracking against goals, and highlight areas that need attention or opportunities that have come up.

7.00pm – Leave for home with my production folder in hand for some after dinner design spec adjustments and Skype calls to Italy.

What are the daily office rituals or systems you use to enhance your team’s productivity?

The staff in each store keep a daily log to measure foot traffic into the stores, happenings in the local area and customer feedback. This is summarised in an ‘end of day’ email to me each day which helps me keep in touch with the single most important thing we do, serving our customers.

Our point of sale system is called Retail Express, and is cloud based so I can access live sales results from my phone and iPad at any time. This is fantastic and allows me to keep up with sales progress, but sometimes I have to ban myself from logging in whilst I’m designing as the left and right sides of my brain start to fight with each other!

My retail sales manager works most of the week in the stores, so in addition to our constant phone conversations we spend one day a week going over what’s selling and any stock management requirements that come from that. She then updates a live notice board within our point of sale system with a summary of these results to celebrate special achievements and keep everyone in the loop.

I have recently introduced collaborative task management software Trello, which helps keep me and staff members up to date with both our long and short term tasks and deadlines. We use this in conjunction with a detailed six month company planner set up in excel. At our monthly sales and marketing meeting we measure the business against our goals and modify the planner for any unexpected results.

We use Google Drive to keep combined lists of special customer requests between the stores, and use Dropbox between the office team in place of a server.

With the benefit of hindsight, what do you know now about running a small business that you wish you had known when you started?

Some industry rules just don’t apply to Habbot. For example, black is not always the best-selling shoe colour! (I had to clear a lot of black shoes in the first two seasons because I carried this industry standard from my old job into my new business).

Don’t be afraid to tell your own story. To begin with I thought I needed to appear bigger and more established than I was for people to accept my premium brand, with its premium price point. Later on I realised that people were actually interested in the genuine story behind Habbot, and so I refreshed my logo, website and image completely which was a very liberating experience, but one that came at significant cost.

Set up some ‘brand guidelines’ early on so that everything you communicate is consistent and gives a strong message about your brand. As a solo operator I found that my mood and energy levels often affected the look and tone of my marketing and communication. Sometimes my message was super casual and friendly, and other times I was quite formal and direct. I’m sure this sometimes confused people. It’s only now that I’m able to keep things consistent by sticking to set of rules that clearly convey what Habbot is about.

What top three tips would you share with other small business owners?

1. Do more of what works, and less of what doesn’t. I followed this advice that was given to me when I decided to move away from wholesale sales and focus on the success I was having with my retail pop-up stores, and now apply it to almost all situations. It really helps me use my time and resources efficiently.

2. Celebrate your successes, no matter how small, and don’t dwell on your mistakes. One will spur you on and remind you of the passion that started you off, and the other will just hold you back.

3. Set your expectations high with suppliers and employees from the beginning (even if you’re only tiny) so that everyone is on the same page and you don’t have to re-set them at a later date.

Bonus tip: Only spend money where you have to. For the first two years I ran Habbot out of a shed in my backyard, and stored my shoes in a secure storage facility. This allowed me to conserve funds on the ‘back end’ and buy stock and rent pop-up shops to grow my business at the front.

Who is a local small business owner you admire and why?

Any small business owner who is combining business with parenting! I’m yet to attempt this, but the idea of it makes my mind boggle! The list of parenting business owners I know is long and distinguished, but a particularly special one would be Interior Designer, Fiona Lynch who designed my new Strand Melbourne store. I admire Fiona’s commitment to the colour mauve (she worked hard and won me over!), and also her ability to get the exact result she wants from tradesmen without ever having to raise her voice!

Habbot’s newly opened store is at Shop 10 in The Strand, 250 Bourke st, Melbourne.  It is SO beautiful – well worth a look!  Annie’s other two stores are in The Royal Arcade and High Street Armadale.

Parker Furniture began as ‘Dagger and Parker’, a partnership formed between craftsman Alf Dagger, and Salesman Jack Parker, after the depression era.  From humble beginnings, selling chairs Dagger had crafted from packing palettes, the company quickly grew to six employees, making government tender furniture and ammunition boxes during the war.

Originally, the company made mainly traditional style furniture – reproductions of antique or art deco styles.  In the mid 1940’s, Tony Parker was plucked out of school by his Father, and after some time spent studying industrial design and accountancy courses, and honing his skills working  at department store John Lewis in London, Tony was put to work in the family business, where he was forever destined to shake things up!

When Tony returned from London, he had big ideas.  He had been involved in setting up a contemporary furniture department at John Lewis, and was full of ideas for more streamlined, modern furniture – with revolutionary ideas to display, sell and market it.  His father was a traditionalist, and saw little value in Tony’s ideas at first, but was persuaded to produce a few pieces.  Blessed with both a strong design sensibility, an innate understanding of marketing, and an insatiable entrepreneurial spirit, Tony was convinced his designs would sell. When Grace Brothers showed an interest, followed by other high end home furnishings stores in Melbourne and Sydney, Parker Furniture really took off.

With Tony Parker at the helm, the company grew to 380 employees by the end, working out of a purpose built factory in Seven Hills, on 20 acres.  Tony recalls these days fondly and with great pride – ‘We were the biggest in Australia, and we sort of set the pace.  We used to make dining chairs in the thousands’.  Tony’s passion for quality craftsmanship and design integrity led Parker to become an iconic Australian brand, which really has stood the test of time.  We still see well loved Parker chairs and tables and sideboards in so many Australian homes!

In recent years, the great history of Parker Furniture has been revived by a unique collaboration.  Sydney based retailer and design incubator Workshopped has joined forces with Tony Parker, exclusively producing select pieces from his mid century furniture range exactly as it was made back in the day.  The range is handcrafted in Sydney by Covemore Designs, a company founded by ex-employees of Parker in the 1990’s.  The partnership is still in quite early stages, but Tony, along with Workshopped director, Raymond Scott, are incredibly excited to bring Parker’s iconic furniture to Australian homes ones more.

And, as usual, Tony’s sights are set on the bigger picture!  Aside from his well loved mid century range, he’s keen to develop new pieces under the Parker name, working with his old research and development team, now at Covemore Designs, to determine a new look for Parker.

It was an honour and so enlightening to speak to Tony about the rise of Parker in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, and his optimistic outlook for the future of the brand.  He is passionate not just about great design and craftsmanship, but also about excellence in retail – and though discouraged by the ‘discounting’ model which now drives big retailers, he’s confident the tide is turning, with discerning consumers now coming back to high quality products, designed with integrity and built to last, rather than ‘race to the bottom’ pricing.  Call me old fashioned, but I’m inclined to agree!

Hi  Tony! Tell us a little about your background, and what originally led you to furniture design and to working with your father at Parker Furniture?

Well, life was very different when I was a child, you did what your parents said without question. I always wanted to do architecture, I’d always be drawing plans of homes and interiors and all that sort of thing, that was my interest in those days.  But my father, as he had left school in intermediate, he pulled me out in intermediate and he just said ‘you’re finishing school’ and so I finished school, and I went and got myself a job.

My first job was at Dickson Primer, who distributed building materials and machinery.  But my interest was still in design, so I took courses at night, whilst working during the daytimes.  There was no such thing as ‘design’ as we know it, so I did industrial design, and I also did accountancy and salesmanship courses.   I was doing something at Tech every night almost.  One day, when I was about to be made timber manager, the boss called me in and just said ‘you’re starting with your father on Monday’.  That was when I started working in the family business.

My Father had lost his job during the depression in 1930, so he started buying fish at the markets and selling them in the suburbs.  After about 18 months he met another chap called Alf Dagger, who was picking up odd bits of timber from palettes and so on and making kitchen chairs and selling them for sixpence, and this chap thought, well if Dad’s going to the suburbs selling fish, he can take his chairs and sell them there too.  So they formed a partnership and they did reasonably well.  Then they got started making kitchen cabinets, all from markets, no fixed shop.

I might add I was only young at the time, and Dad was also building a house, so you can imagine, having a young child, having lost your job in hard times and building a new home, it must have been quite strenuous for him.

So when I was pulled out of Dickson Primer, and had to start with Dad’s business, which was then called ‘Dagger and Parker’, they used to make government tender furniture. During the war they made desks and ammunition boxes, and parts for the mosquito bomber, so they were quite busy, but they only had six staff.

When I joined I was put to work in the factory, and at night I was still doing my courses. In about 1950, he got the services of a designer by the name of Harold McGee. and I worked with Harold, on design.  I was much younger than he, and wanted more changes… but of course at that time it was all reproduction traditional furniture. Art deco had also made its mark in the early 30’s, and there was a bit of, I suppose, ‘cheaper’ reproduction of art deco style furniture, and that’s what we did.

Then I realised I had to get away, so I went to London in 1952 and got a job with John Lewis, the big department store.  They were in in Oxford street, as they still are today, but now it’s much bigger of course.

I was a salesman in the furniture department.  They quickly realised I had done design, so they wanted me to start a contemporary furniture department.  It was going to be on the bridge, going between two buildings, roughly 2500 feet.

In those days they displayed all sofas all in a row, dining tables all in a row, it looked pretty uninteresting. I realised if I was going to create a different style of living, that I had to show the furniture as it would be used in rooms, in the company of lighting and artwork and ceramics and all the rest.’

Also, at the same time, I found out that they had no measure of success of one design over another.  So I learnt a lot about that, about selling and training staff and managing  a team. You had to identify your salesman’s weaknesses and strengths and train them accordingly. Return per square foot, gross profit per square foot, salesman’s return, the whole story.   I quickly realised the more information the salesman had, the more helpful they were to a customer, and how to close the sale.

SO you learnt the business sales side as much as you did the design side whilst you were there?

Yes.  But no one taught you, you had to find out for yourself. And I guess being away from home, I had no comfort zone.  I used to walk from John Lewis to my little flat in Maida Vale, to save the bus fare.  I’d save tuppence on the way there, and another tuppence on the way home, so that was fourpence, and by the end of the week that would buy you a meal!  So, I had plenty of thinking time.

How did your time in London influence your work for Parker back at home?

Well, when I was over there I wrote a lot of letters, and I sent back some designs to my father.  He was a ‘tradition’ lover, so he didn’t really understand these contemporary designs, but nevertheless he had them made.  They made it in Queensland maple and coachwood, and stuck it in the corner of a factory, and put a tarpaulin over it.  When I got home Dad said ‘well, it’s over there, but it will never sell!’

Fortunately, a director at Grace Brothers by the name of Reg Paul, who ran the homemaker division, showed an interest in my designs.

Grace Brothers at that time were by far the top homemaker store in Australia.  They had interior designers on site, beautiful presentation of displays, and all this sort of thing.  Reg was very keen to see my furniture.  I set it out in the factory, just on the concrete floor, and he liked it.  He said there was  an exhibition coming up, the first of its kind in Australia, at the Sydney show grounds.  ‘Why don’t you take some space and show this furniture?’ he said.  My father wasn’t keen on the idea, but Reg convinced him.

So of course we had to build our own stand, and I put down a flooring and a ceiling, and painted the walls (I got permission to paint the walls but we had to paint them back again to the original colour afterwards!), and I had to get lamps and rugs and paintings and all that sort of thing.  I met all these budding artists, you know like Roy Fluke and John Coburn. I mean of course they were not known then, so they were very happy to get their paintings on the walls!

We set up ‘dream rooms’ in roughly 27 foot by 12, so in a scale the customer could understand, complete with paintings and lighting and so on.  In 4 days, we sold 12 months production.   People saw how they could live.’

It went off like wildfire.  But then the job really was to get retailers who would give me a space of at least 2000 square feet. Because some people had only bought a buffet or a dining setting, and I realised at the end of exhibition that that wasn’t going to be good enough.  Because unless the retail store looked like our exhibition, it wasn’t going to work.  I didn’t want any failures, I only wanted success.

So I didn’t tell my father, but I cancelled the orders, and wrote a letter to the six stores that I thought would attract our style of customer.

It didn’t happen all at once, but after a while Grace Brothers came around, and they became our best customer.  They gave me the square footage I wanted, in the middle of their furniture floor, and it was a raving success.  We needed a homemaker like  Grace Brothers, to give credibility to the style.  Sometimes, Beard Watsons would give us their shop window for a week, and that was like gold in those days.  It was the top home furnishing store outside of Grace Bothers, it was in George street in Sydney, and very famous.

It was 1953, and I was 23 at that time.  That was a problem, so I used to go under the guise of operating on behalf of my father, because that gave me more credibility.  Because at 23, telling middle aged men how to run their business was not exactly their cup of tea. But they got to trust us, in the end I used to give them what their suggested floor stock would be, when it needed refurbishing, and we would service it on the floor.

When did the company switch from being a partnership between Alf Dagger and your father, to ‘JW Parker’ – an exclusively family owned business?

Alf Dagger left the business when I started  doing designs, because he was also a traditionalist, and my designs were too contemporary for him.  So when he left it was just my father, and the business was named JW Parker Furniture.

Mind you, my father didn’t agree with anything I did, so I quickly realised I had to get my brother in, Ross, who was 5 years younger than me, and still at school.  He was allowed to complete his schools certificate and go to university, where he did economics.  He did it at night and worked with us in the day.  He used to do time sheets and things like that, to pay his way through uni.

When he got through uni, Ross went to London and got a job with FIRA (Furniture Industrial Research Association) and this was when he learned about manufacturing and starting getting interested.  In the meantime, we were growing really fast, and I really needed my brother to get my father off my back, but also so I could concentrate on design and marketing, while he looked after the finances.  Because when a company grows so fast that’s often when they’re most vulnerable. You need a finger on the pulse in all quarters.

Fortunately, Ross did join the company, and we grew at a terrific pace.  We had probably about 80 staff at that time, all in production. We outgrew Erskinville, where we were in an old vinegar factory,  and in 1957 we bought 4 and half acres at Regents Park, and built a factory there.

We were growing so fast, so in 1961 we extended our factory and put on a big showroom, the furniture manufacturing showroom in Australia, and that attracted a lot of attention.  We let the public come in, we’d offer sales and interior design service, and that’s when we really expanded.

Well, we outgrew that, and we bought 20 acres at Seven hills in 1973, moved into a brand new factory there in 1975, and had a magnificent showroom.  We were quite large by then, we were employing about 380 staff in the end.  We were the biggest in Australia, and we sort of set the pace.  We used to make dining chairs in the thousands.

The market must look so different today to how it was back then. 

It’s all different now. Discounting started in 1964, and a retailer in those days was putting 50% on, but if he got a third mark up, he was doing very well.  Well, today they put 100% on, because they can, because it’s coming from somewhere else. It’s so cheap, that they put 100% on so they can say 30% off, or whatever.  In our day, if you said ’10% off’, that had to be 10% off the average price for that item for the last 3 months.  That’s a very different story.

We’re really falsely advertising to the market.  And really, the value of that chair, and the construction of it and the quality of the fabric and the way they upholster it, no one cares!  ‘I got that for 50 bucks!’, ‘I saved $25’… it’s the market’s fault.  It doesn’t matter whether your flying in and aircraft or shopping in a retail store, all value and service has gone, we’re down to the bottom dollar.  You pay more if you want an air ticket printed, you pay more if you’re carrying luggage, so it’s at rock bottom.  And you know, now we have to climb back and get people to understand value again.

Do you think we can turn that sentiment round?  Do you think there is a bit of a shift coming where people are slowly starting to understand value again, and crave a higher level of craftsmanship and integrity in what they buy?

Yes, but only if you’ve got the dialogue, and credibility, and that doesn’t happen over night.  I believe Woolworths, who are coming into David Jones, I think they will lead the market back to selling brands that have value and integrity.  I hope so.  You have to realise, the retail managers today have only grown up in a discount market, they have not experienced what good retailing is about, and how exciting it can be.

So, what happened in the end with JW Parker Furniture?

Well, I’m now 84.  In the 80’s my brother said ‘we’re getting on, we can’t go on forever, and the longer we go on the more at risk we are, we have to teach others to move in and take on the company and let them run it their way’. I didn’t agree with that, but still.

So we got a chap to buy the business, Reg Humphries. Unfortunately, he died within 12 months of a massive heart attack, aged 46.  So his widow had it, and his financial director just took it over.  So I said ‘look I’ll do design for you, I’m good at marketing’.  But he wasn’t interested.  He thought he could do it himself.  He sent the place broke in 3 years.  In the meantime though, we got key people out, and that’s how Covemore started. Covemore Designs out in up 1997 by a small group of old Parker Furniture employees.  It originally started a Parker Furniture refurbishment service after we had shut down.  They are the ones who make our licensed furniture now, and they have my old R&D team from Parker Furniture in there.

How did it come about that Covemore Designs started making your furniture under license?

Mike Lewy at Covemore Designs came from Parker.  He used to be a manager in our machine shop.  Through their restoration work, Micheal Lewy saw an opportunity to introduce some 60’s lines back into the market, and whilst taking to Raymond Scott of Workshopped, who he was working with on other projects, the idea came up to get me involved.

So, it’s a three way thing between Covemore Designs, Parker and Workshopped.  It’s the first time Parker furniture has been produced again, since our factory closed down.

I go out to Covemore every Wednesday morning, and I’m available to them at any time.  Now, because I have got to get them from their own comfort zone into my comfort zone, that’s a journey, and it might take a little while, but we’re making progress.

We want to grow Parker, now.  I’m getting some of the old team back in to do some R&D on some new designs.  We want to make not just our retro designs, but new designs too.

The Parker furniture pieces that Covemore are making now, are they being made now exactly as they were back in the day?

Yes, exactly.

Parker Furniture has such a strong history of manufacturing within Australia.  Do you find that a challenge, to be competitive whilst maintaining your manufacturing here?

Well frankly, this time I’m not interested in price point, otherwise you wouldn’t be making it.  But, in principle I’m not against manufacturing overseas.  But, first of all, let’s make the product. Then, see where we make it.  It doesn’t have to be a Parker Factory necessarily, but the R&D has to be Parker. But you do have to do it where you can be sure you have safety and security over your designs, and they’re not going to be copied.

We photograph Australian homes every week, and I constantly see Parker furniture, and young people referring to it by name. Did you ever think, way back when you were 25 or 30, that you work might be considered ‘iconic’ when you were  building the business back then?

No! But there was an American interior designer by the name of Jim Schwartzman, who was out here, and he said ‘Tony, you know your stuff’s going to be the antiques of the future’.  I laughed at time, thinking ‘typical American baloney!’.  But he’s probably been pretty right. He could see it, but at the time you don’t.

Do you have many of your original designs at home?

I don’t have any!  My family does.  My kids have taken it all.  But I’m going to re-do my apartment in the new Parker designs!

Can you give us a little insight into what a normal week looks like for you these days?

Well, I play golf Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.  When you get to my age you, too, can play golf three days a week.  Wednesday I’m out at Covemore.  I also run a few Golf tournaments, so that takes a bit of work too. And on the other days I do my thinking on design.  It doesn’t sound much, but I’m flat out!

I also have two daughters and a son.  Georgie Parker is my youngest daughter, the actress one.  So I see her.  I’m ordered for coffee on either Monday morning or Friday morning, whenever she’s not shooting.  I’ve also got a son, Michael, in Newcastle, he’s 6 foot 5 and has two kids.  And I’ve also got another daughter Vicky in the country, down at Harden, she’s got 3 children.  They’re all bigger than I am.

Are there other designers either of your era, or more contemporary ones, who you really admire?

Well, of course, in my time, those were the days of Grant Featherston and Clement Meadmore and some of those people.

So, did you admire their work too?

Well… ah.. don’t print that!   Grant Featherston’s work is more popular now that it was then.  Because it was shell construction.  I wouldn’t have bought them, if I was a customer, because they weren’t that comfortable, but they were very unique at the time.  And now they are very popular, because it makes a statement.  It is something that fills a void, it has a lot of personality, that shell chair.

What media do you tune into on a regular basis – newspapers, radio, TV or others?

Well, I listen to ABC radio, that doesn’t necessarily make me boring.  I find the morning shows are quite educational.  I don’t watch that much TV, but my wife likes watching murder mysteries. I like Insight. I watch Grand Designs, I learn a lot from that.

The press is a bit boring, you could throw away the first few pages of the paper.  No longer is writing an art, they just want to sell headlines.  When you sell headlines, you miss the point.  It’s a bit like saying ’50% off’!

What are you looking forward to?

The reawakening of Parker.

Sydney Questions

Your favourite Sydney neighbourhood and why?

Well, I lived in st Ives all my life until I was 65, so the North Shore, with the trees and all that, is still where I really feel at home.  I mean I spent 60 of my 84 years there, so, well, it’s obvious where your roots are.

Where was the last great meal you ate in Sydney?

I’ve had some good meals in my time.  Rockpool some years ago was a bloody good meal.  But what makes a good meal is the flavours, the company, the ambience of the place.. there’ a lot of things that make a good meal.

Where would we find you on a Saturday morning?

Elanora Golf course.

Sydney’s best kept secret

Six of us started Bilgola surf club back in 1949. I’ve always liked that, it was an intimate beach, between Whale Beach and Avalon beach, up on that Palm beach peninsula.  That to me has always been a wonderful spot.  Looking at water always relaxed me.

Matt and Lentil Purbrick of Grown & Gathered are the cutest pair of farmers around. They grow vegetables and flowers on their farm in Tabilk, an hour and a half north of Melbourne, and every Saturday they drive down to the big smoke to distribute their bounty of vegetables, flowers, bread, milk and cheese (thanks to Peaches the cow), selling out every week!

I first met Matt and Lentil in July this year. My friend Jardine Hansen and I were heading south from Sydney to Melbourne on a botanical roadtrip. Yeah, that’s just what Planthunters do, you know.  We had planned on dropping in on their farm for a quick hello, and ended up staying the night. We had never even met them before! Not only did they put us up for the night, we had a wonderful time, eating, drinking and chatting about plants, life, and stuff. I am telling this entirely unrelated story because it’s a great illustration of the kind of people Matt and Lentil are. They are warm, genuine, generous humans. They are so wholesome it should be kinda sickening! Except somehow it’s not. Thank heavens.

Anyway, back to the farm… Matt and Lentil have lived there for around a year now. They renovated the house in winter last year (more on that later this week!), installed a couple of pigs in the paddock to prepare the soil, and started planting the beds last October.

Since then Grown & Gathered has gone from strength to strength, which is a testament to the incredible work ethic of this industrious pair, and their open minded approach to farming. Matt and Lentil have spent the last year fine-tuning their experimental growing techniques to get the best out of their little patch of earth. They’re obviously doing something right!

‘I’ve been growing stuff for four or five years now and have never had a garden that’s so bountiful’ says Matt. ‘ What comes out of this block of land just blows our minds.’

Matt and Lentil are conceptual farmers. They explore new ways of doing things, and their passion for genuine sustainability is clear, in the produce they grow, they way they live, and the way they run their business.

For example, they grow lots of flowers – but they don’t sell them. Instead, they trade. Why?  As Lentil explains – ‘For a while Matt and I were selling vegetables and flowers side-by-side. With vegetables, people were aware that vegetables have seasons, that organic is better, and that it’s best to try to source locally and directly from the farmer.  But with flowers, few people had ever challenged where they might be from, or how they might be grown’.

Flowers are about beauty and joy and colour and emotion. Money can’t buy that. We want to create community, share abundance and make conversation instead. So, we only exchange our flowers for something other than money’

They are also passionate about waste. Every Saturday they drive down to Melbourne with a van full of produce, returning with a van full of food scraps for composting. They pickup green waste from the restaurants they work with – Pope Joan and Auction Rooms, and customers are encouraged to bring their compostable stuff to the van when they pick up their vegetables.

‘This is our version of closed loop farming’ says Lentil. ‘We take the goods down, bring the scraps back, compost them, and put them into the soil to grow more vegetables. It’s an entire system. We don’t bring any new inputs into the farm.’

With Grown & Gathered, Matt and Lentil have built way more than a bountiful vegetable and flower farm. They have built an example of living authentically and passionately in a genuinely sustainable way. There’s plenty of buzz around words like local/organic/sustainable/foraged these days, and often without much consideration or knowledge of the entire picture. These two are the real deal. There is no bandwagon in sight; they’re just doing it.

Make and Do is a book about creative projects and creative spaces.  Beci has based each chapter around the different materials she uses in her studio – paper, wood, textiles and found objects.  Our favourite project hands down are the GIANT WALL SPRINKLES (genius!).  Interspersed  between these fun ‘how to’ projects are studio visits with some of Beci’s favourite creative people including Miso, Tin & Ed and Lucas Grogan, which is such a lovely and inspiring addition to the book.

For this book, Beci worked with her  ‘book dream team’ – book designer Michelle Mackintosh, and photographer Chris Middleton, plus the folk at Hardie Grant, as well as an external editor.  ‘Most of the work takes place over a 3 month period – it is a pretty intense process’ explains Beci.  The first 6-8 weeks are spent in the studio gathering materials and testing and making all the projects, taking comprehensive notes along the way.  Once all the projects are finalised, a big photo shoot  happens – where Beci and her team work solidly for around 10 days creating all the photographs for the book.  After the shots are in, Beci finalises the text, and Michelle starts putting all the layout together, and then, Beci says, ‘I just click my fingers and a book is made – if only it was that easy!’.

When she’s not writing books, Beci is also responsible for designing all the homewares at Arro Home, as well as juggling various other freelance projects, and being a hands on Mum.  At the moment she’s pumped about releasing the new Arro Home collection – ‘it’s bigger and better than the first one!’ she says.  She’s also currently working on a children’s picture book with Penguin which will be out in 2015, and has a number of other collabs in the works – and a new website too!  We will be sure to keep you posted on all of the above, but in the meantime, for goodness SAKE Beci, please chill out for like, 20 minutes once you’ve finished promoting  this book, your work ethic is beyond compare!

Nearly every country has their own version of a dumpling – whether it’s ravioli, pierogi or wonton, let’s face it, they’re all extremely delicious. Japanese dumplings, AKA Gyoza, are packed full of our favourite Japanese flavours, like ginger, garlic and soy. We love to make these when we have friends over for dinner as it is a nice social meal to cook together and is perfect with a cold beer when the weather warms up too!

Influenced by the Chinese dumplings, Giaozi, Gyoza are a popular dish in Japan, where you will often find them on the menus at Izakayas and Ramen restaurants. They are great to make ahead of time and freeze to pull out for a quick meal or a late-night snack! Getting the filling right is really important, and you need to make sure the balance of flavours is spot on before you start making the actual gyoza, which I assure you gets easier with practice. My first attempts were pretty dodgy but I can now make one respectable gyoza in the same time Nori can make three (quite a good effort if you ask me)!

Pork these days is often sold with a big ‘Lean’ sticker on it, but when it comes down to it, the fat is going to give your gyoza more flavour and moisture. If it’s too lean the gyoza will be dry, so make sure your mince has a good amount of fat running through it. The gyoza skins are also really important – you want the thin round white type. We buy the ‘Tak On Food Productions PTY LTD’ brand, which are labeled as ‘Gyoza Dumplings’ on the packet. These are sold at most Asian grocers, as are shiso leaves, which are not imperative, but we love to include them in our version of Gyoza, as they add a really interesting depth of flavour to this dish.

For the dipping sauce, pour the soy and vinegar into a small bowl and mix to combine. Add a pinch of the chilli powder and set aside. Note: The amounts given are for one serve, so if serving two or three people, just double or triple the recipe.

For the gyoza, toss the cabbage in a colander with 2 teaspoons of salt and leave to drain for 15 minutes. Squeeze the salted cabbage to drain excess liquid. Combine cabbage and all other gyoza ingredients, except for the skins and vegetable oil, in a large bowl and mix well with your hands or a spoon. You really want to mix this well to make sure the ingredients are well incorporated into the mince.

To assemble the gyoza, have everything ready to go! The room temperature gyoza skins, the filling, a plate or board lined with glad wrap so they don’t stick, and also a small bowl of water to help seal the gyoza.

Hold the gyoza skin in one hand and place a tablespoon of the mixture in the centre of the gyoza skin. Paint the entire edge of the gyoza skin with water and slightly envelope the mixture, as if you were holding a taco. Using both hands, pinch the gyoza edges together and make a small crimp. Continue all the way along until the gyoza is completely sealed. Repeat with remaining gyoza skins and mixture.

In a large, heavy based fry pan, heat the oil over a med-high heat and add the gyoza in a single layer, fairly tightly packed and flat side down. Cook until crispy and golden on the base of the gyoza (approx. 3 minutes). Add 200ml of water to the base of the pan and cover to steam the gyoza. Cook until the liquid has completely evaporated and the gyoza are cooked through. (approximately 7 minutes). Be careful when adding the water as it will bubble and spit as soon as it hits the hot oil.

Serve gyoza hot with the dipping sauce.

It’s a supremely tranquil space, but don’t be fooled, this home is a hive of activity.  If you read Monday’s post, you’ll know Matt and Lentil are the industrious couple behind Grown and Gathered, a project which sees them farm their own organic fruit, vegetables and flowers for a growing community of loyal customers in Melbourne.  Matt and Lentil spend all week farming, foraging and tending to their animals, and then on Saturdays they make the drive into town to sell their popular vegetable boxes, or to trade flowers in Lentil’s ‘Flower Exchange’.  It’s idyllic – but it’s also very busy!

Matt and Lentil live in their sweet little farmhouse cottage on a property which is partitioned off from the Tahbilk Winery estate – owned by Matt’s family.  But, their home wasn’t always this beautiful.  ‘To put it simply, when we first saw the house it was almost falling down’ says Lentil. ‘The winery wanted to bulldoze it, but we loved the location and so decided we could make it work’.  She and Matt renovated their little house together with the help of friends, at the same time as setting up their farm.

‘There were walls falling in, the powerpoints were coming out of the walls, it was super dark, the floors were carpet and lino, and the walls were a turquoise blue and cream’ recalls Lentil. Never afraid of a little elbow grease, the pair set about gutting the house, ripping down crumbling walls and pulling away layers of junk to reveal the bare bones of the home.

‘Matt and I did most of the work ourselves, calling on friends with skills to help. So lucky for friends’ says Lentil. ‘Matt was once a designer, so he drew things up to see if they would work – he designed beautiful spaces like our kitchen. We put in lots of windows, re-did the floors, knocked down a few walls, painted, put in a new kitchen, and built the deck’.  Everything used to build or put in the house was salvaged, re-used, made by hand or traded. There is nothing new here!

It was a totally exhausting, yet amazing experience.  We learnt so much about building, what we liked, what we didn’t, how to make things sustainably. It was an amazing challenge. We are always up for a challenge’

Since moving in a year ago, the pair have continued to chip away at unfinished tasks, also adding a few ‘fun’ things like the outdoor bath, and a greenhouse built from salvaged old doors. As time has passed they’ve also accumulated a few more personal details – treasured gifts, and artworks made by friends, or traded in Lentil’s Flower Exchange.

Though not generally enamoured with material things, Lentil does have a few favourite pieces at home.  ‘We are a bit in love with Carla Fletcher’s prints in our spare room – the kangaroo and koala. These guys were traded for a few buckets of flowers, and she is just so lovely!’.  Lentil is also very fond of the vessels she and Matt have recently made from the clay on their property – ‘we are super happy with how these have worked out!’ she says.

Having each experienced life in the city, (working both in office jobs, believe it or not!) for Matt and Lentil, this home is about much more than just having a beautiful place to live.  The farm really has given them a new lease on life.  They’ve jumped at the chance to craft a unique lifestyle here,  to make their own rules, to invent new ways to earn a living and trade their goods, and to champion a more mindful way of living. In Lentil’s own words, life in Tabilk is ‘Simple. Not shiny’. And that’s just the way they like it.

When this blog was a merely a baby, back in 2010, I visited the showroom and factory of Melbourne based furniture manufacturer Jardan, in Mt Waverly.  It was back in the days when I was a solo blogger, no professional photography or anything like that.  I didn’t know much about Jardan at the time, but I felt rather lucky to be given a personal tour of the showroom and factory by co-director Nick Garnham, and I must say, I was blown away.   Whilst so many other local manufacturing businesses seemed to be struggling to compete with overseas production, here was a family owned local business making an incredible range of designer furniture right here in Melbourne – and they were BUSY.  I must admit, I’ve been a pretty massive Jardan fan ever since (Like you didn’t know that!).

Though they were impressive back then – now, just four years on, Jardan are a force to be reckoned with.  The company is run by brothers Michael (Mike) and Nick Garnham, along with Nick’s wife Renee Brown, and today employs over 100 people.  They have showrooms in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and have just opened their first INCREDIBLE flagship retail store in Richmond, Melbourne. Designed by IF Architecture, and set over two levels on bustling Church st, it is truly epic in scale, and a little bit breathtaking to say the least.

Jardan started in 1987, but was taken over by the Garnham family in 1997.  At that time it had only 8 employees, and was a more traditional manufacturing company, but under the direction of the creative and entrepreneurial Garnham brothers, the business soon grew, and moved into contemporary design.

Nick and Mike are joint Managing Directors at Jardan.  Mike is focused on the Finance, production and HR sides of the business, whilst Nick is the creative one, responsible for Design and Marketing.  Renee joined the company in 2008 as Creative Manager, and heads up creative direction, styling and sourcing for the stores and showrooms.

We recently chatted with Nick and Mike about the challenges and rewards of being in business with family!  Here’s what they had to say –

Mike on Nick

Being Nick’s brother is fun but challenging. I need to try and keep his more ‘out there’ ideas in check, like selling surfboards in a furniture shop, mind you, he got his way on that one!

I look up to Nick’s ability to conceptualise, design and create.  He’s amazing at conceptualising not just products but also future plans for the business. I am a bit more of a details person, so we have a good yin and yang partnership.

Nick has also inspired me in his dress sense, I am yet to become fully Melbourne hipster, but am getting there, will be growing the facial hair soon!  Seriously though Nick has inspired me with his passion for life and Jardan.

Nick on Mike

Mike is a pretty easy going and laid back brother. We are quite complementary with our personalities, we work to each other’s strengths.

I literally look up to Mike as he is a bit taller than me! But seriously, I respect his ability to calmy follow through and resolve complex or difficult projects. He is the rock of Jardan.

Mike has inspired me by just keeping on keeping on through the good and tougher times – as it can do your head in sometimes being a family business! We bounce off each other and can both inspire and frustrate each other, but ultimately I feel we are getting better and better as a partnership the longer we work together.

Jardan Flagship Store 
522 Church St
Richmond
Victoria

Open Monday to Friday,  9am to 5.30pm 
Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 5pm

And don’t forget, we’ll be joining forces with Jardan again in early December for our annual TDF Open House event in Melbourne – all details over here!

I imagine it’s probably quite unusual to find a celebrated artist who started out in the police force.  Queensland based artist Colin Pennock was born in Northern Ireland, where he joined the police at 17, but he always wanted to be an artist.  Sketches he made whilst on patrol eventually led to a scholarship at St Martins School of Art in London (back in 1985!), and since then, Colin has made his living creatively.  He’s also moved house 35 times (!!) and has called many cities home, before settling 13 years ago in the Noosa hinterland.

Though reluctant to label his style of work, when pressed, Colin describes his paintings as ‘abstract landscapes’.   His distinctive ultra thick layers of oil paint create textural works of buzzing intensity – indeed, Colin has used his practise in recent years as a kind of cathartic release after leaving New York in the wake of 9/11, seeking a fresh start, and a new creative direction.

Colin’s upcoming show is called Pioneer - a series inspired by the revelatory feeling of reaching ones’ personal goals.  ‘It is about finding the place that makes you happy, which for me has taken many years’ says Colin below.  ‘A pioneer is someone who goes into the unknown with confidence in what they have inside. This is how I approach painting. It is how I have made my own way’.

Colin is represented by Arthouse Gallery, Sydney, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne, BMG, Adelaide and Serena Morton, London.

Pioneer by Colin Pennock
5th to 22nd November 2014
Arthouse Gallery
66 McLachlan Avenue
Rushcutters Bay, NSW

Opening Wednesday 5th November 2014 from 6.00pm

Tell us a little about your background – what path led you to becoming a fine artist, and to creating the style of work you are currently making?

I joined the police in Northern Ireland when I was 17, but even then I wanted to be an artist. I used to make quick sketches while on foot patrols or standing in doorways at night. It was those sketches that impressed St Martins School of Art London (back in 1985) enough to offer me a four year scholarship in Fine Art Painting. At the time, I thought it was my drawing skills that made an impression but I later was told by one of the tutors that it was the atmospheric quality of the work that had caught their eye.

Up until then I hadn’t really looked at a lot of art in books or galleries, and didn’t really have a lot of knowledge of art, so finding myself at art school in Cambridge Circus was to me as magical as discovering the treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Despite this, I was more at home in the country than the city, and was often overwhelmed by crowds.

My early works were landscapes with figures, but very quickly the figures diminished in the works. It seemed I was always moving, while in London I moved house six times in four years, and I have moved home 35 times in my life. It just seems to happen by way of circumstance. I moved to New York in a similar way, and stayed for six years. I made a living as a story board artist and illustrator working for MTV, Film and advertising agencies. At this point my painting seemed to take a back seat. But it remained a constant, even though I was not showing there until 1998, when I had an exhibition called Conflict and Culture, which included some of those early sketches I had drawn in the police force in Northern Ireland.

I was becoming more discontent with the commercial drawing that was paying my bills, and when 9/11 happened it had a profound effect on me and I decided to leave New York and focus on my painting. My family were living in Sydney, a place I knew well, having spent ten years there from the ages of 1-11 years old when I was a child. I decided to move to Australia and find a studio and work. When I began to draw again I found I had an aversion to illustrating or defining recognisable forms. So in an attempt to break through this block, I began to make marks choosing whatever colour paints or materials, to allow me to meditate away from this block.

I used graphite and oil paint at that time. The graphite formed a structure and the paint gave the work its mood and life. In time the paint would take over completely. At that time I felt I had broken through a wall and become free.

The whole process was cathartic and the abstraction that started as a form of meditation developed into a language which made perfect sense to me.

How would you describe your work?

It’s easier for me to talk about specific works than it is to talk about my work in general. However when someone asks what type of work I do, the simple reply is ‘Abstract Landscape’, although I feel that really only touches the surface.

What can we expect to see in your new exhibition ‘Pioneer’ at Arthouse Gallery next month? What has inspired this body of work?

In 1965 my family left Belfast, Ireland as ‘ten pound poms,’ and we sailed to Australia. I have a clear memory of looking down from the deck to the bow of the ship, and memory of the dusty road as we travelled between Perth to Sydney in an old Morris minor.

In 1976 we returned to Ireland, because my father had a desire to be a farmer. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a ludicrous idea to think of doing this as he had no experience of farming, but again to us it just seemed like an adventure. At that point I was a skate boarding kid living in Manly, Sydney.

None of us knew what to expect when we arrived at the height of the troubles in Belfast, and I remember both the beauty and hardship of farming there.  W.B Yeats described Ireland as a ‘Terrible beauty,’and I found it to be so because of the extreme changes I experienced there.

All these experiences have made me a traveller, following my own ambitions and goals. It left me with the confidence to create new paths to experiment and not be tied or restrained as I saw happen to other people.

My wife and I love our own space in the Hinterland of Noosa, Queensland. We have made our way of life work, with many people wondering how we do it. I know the pioneer spirit. Luckily for me my wife does also. It connects us to immigrants and settlers who are willing to try a new way of life, working hard to achieve their goals. A pioneer is someone who goes into the unknown with confidence in what they have inside. This is how I approach painting. It is how I have made my own way.

Can you give us a little insight into your process? What materials do you use? Is each work pre-planned or created very intuitively? Do you work on multiple canvases at one time?

Usually I begin painting without any reference materials. Not even making linear sketches on the linen. I trust the paint and I begin working. It is like a conversation with the surface, and it goes back and forth until something emerges. It almost sings when you get it right. The energy comes from the surface rather than me trying to transcribe. I feel that to do that is like using a photocopier – something gets lost from the original. That’s why I prefer painters to illustrators, you have to connect to the materials. That’s all a painter needs to do. Materials that I use are Chapman Bailey Stretchers, Belgium Linen and Archival Oil paints.

I do work on multiple canvases and sometimes works are completed several years later, going back and forth to resolve them. Sometimes it’s immediate and I can complete a painting in a matter of hours. Being surrounded by the work is like having a reminder of your thoughts and memories.

What does a typical day at work involve for you?

I like to start the day slowly, and have breakfast with my wife Katrina before going to the studio. My mind is often full of thoughts in the morning, as I dream very vivid dreams so I like to let that dissipate. I may spend hours in the morning doing almost meaningless prep work, cleaning palette knives or stretching canvases. Then quite naturally I just start squeezing paint onto the palette and the conversation begins. I may work several hours before realising I haven’t had a break from my thoughts. I work until I become distracted, then I stop.

If I feel disconnected from what I am doing I stop altogether and do something else, like gardening until I feel drawn again to go back. Often I accomplish something in my mind about how to resolve a problem in my work when I am not even painting.

Which other local artists, designers or creative people are you most inspired by at the moment?

I am aware of the great number of talented painters there are in Australia, like Rick Amor, Robert Malherbe, Guy Maestri, Luke Scibberas, and Ben Quilty. But of those that I know personally I am most inspired by artists who I feel are on their own individual journey, artists including Joshua Yeldham, Lisa Adams, Stefan Dunlop and Kim Guthrie.

What is your proudest career achievement to date?

There is a painting in the exhibition Pioneer titled ‘Just As We Imagined It’ – this work is about reaching your goals. Finding the place that makes you happy, which for me has taken many years.  Finally Katrina and I have found an idyllic lifestyle that has come through lots of determination, commitment and endurance from both of us. So for me the greatest achievement so far is getting to that place.

What would be your dream project?

To paint an en plein air body of work, that connects my Australian and Irish backgrounds.

What are you looking forward to?

Continuing to live and work from our home in the Noosa Hinterland.

NOOSA HINTERLAND QUESTIONS

Your favourite Noosa Hinterland neighbourhood and why?

Cooroy. I like that it’s a small unpretentious country town.

Where and what was the last great meal you ate?

Katrina is such a great cook that it has to be really good for us to want to go out, but as a treat we love going to Dhoms Kitchen in Cooroy. Dhom and her husband Spencer buy local fresh ingredients that they use to create the Thai dishes that they serve.

Where would we find you on a typical Saturday morning?

Most days I have to ask Katrina what day it is. So Saturday is pretty much like any other day to me. I’m not very structured when it comes to things like that.

The hinterland’s best kept secret?

The beauty of the landscape, beaches and surrounds.

In primary school we were all assigned a pen pal from another primary school. We would write letters to this lucky dip friend describing all the important things in an eight-year-old’s life including our favourite thing to order from the tuck shop, which Baby-Sitter’s Club member we would be, and if they had heard the new Spice Girls track. This is how I would describe my relationship with today’s New Kid on the Blog, Sydney-based photographer Rachel Kara. We have never met in person, but I can tell you what HBO comedy show she is currently obsessed with (Veep), what she ate on her recent Tony Parker shoot for TDF (triangle sandwiches) and her husband’s name (Tim).

Rachel has been shooting regularly for TDF as our official Sydney photographer since the start of this year. Despite never having physically met, we email a few times every week, which is why I have dubbed her my professional work pen pal. It is not unusual for us to receive emails after shoots from the creatives we feature, raving about Rachel’s warmth, professionalism and ability to take a painless portrait. Her intuitive talent behind the lens and relaxed shooting style has resulted in some of our favourite recent shoots, featuring James Gordon, Laura Jones and Belynda Henry.

I always walk into a shoot and try let the space or person have a chance to show themselves to me, rather than the other way around’ Rachel says.

While Rachel has spent the last 18 months working full-time as a freelance photographer and shooting for Monocle, Broadsheet, Inez Daily, Universal and Sony Music and local fashion labels, her path to photography wasn’t exactly straightforward. Upon leaving high school Rachel initially enrolled into nursing. ‘I lasted nine months before I found myself routinely sitting in lectures with smuggled fashion magazines hidden in biology text books, but it wasn’t until a few eventful pracs where I passed out (!) that I decided to drop out!’ she recalls.

Rachel then moved into marketing, before realising it was actually the story-making associated with photography that piqued her interest, rather then the clothes themselves. After this epiphany, it was game on for this now 25-year-old, who bought a professional camera, enrolled into a short course at the Australian Centre for Photography, and started working as a photographer’s assistant almost immediately.

‘I recently found my primary school graduation book and apparently I knew what was up as an eleven-year-old. It listed my three dream grown up occupations as an: interior designer, pediatrician and photographer. If only I had found it sooner!’

In her downtime, Rachel enjoys shooting on film, and she considers anything and everything a worthy subject.  ‘I am constantly really, really looking forward to getting back film scans from my photo lab. That feeling never gets old’ she says. Having recently returned from a sojurn in the USA, where she captured everything from waffles and fried chicken to Central Park chess games with infectious enthusiasm (check out her beautiful holiday snaps here), it’s pretty easy to see why Rachel wins so many hearts. It’s really about her outlook on the world.  A sense of wide eyed wonder and optimism is evident in all that she does – at heart, she’s a free spirit.   ‘I have a raging sense of adventure at the moment and I know it’s there for a reason..’ she says, with a twinkle in her eye.  We’re excited to see what’s next…!

Jacqueline Kaytar and Michelle Jones met working together at a luxury lifestyle brand, Jacqueline in creative direction and design, Michelle in product and operational management.  They struck up a close friendship, and their complementary skills soon led them to consider collaboration.

‘After a decade in commercial business we were both exhausted by continually chasing the next ‘big idea’, only to be made obsolete the next season’ explains Jacqueline. Overwhelmed by the endless trends and constant development cycle in their previous roles, the pair found themselves compelled to create a pared back range of accessories that were functional, beautiful but not driven by trends, and designed to last.  Their business, Plus Equals, is founded on a shared belief – ‘that when a product combines design, purpose and craftsmanship, it becomes more than the sum of these elements – it becomes a companion’.

The debut range from Plus Equals includes classic bags, wallets and coin purses, all handcrafted in Italy by  a third generation family of leather manufacturers. The aesthetic is distinctly minimalist, stripped of all embellishment. ‘We’re interested in making classics, finding a beautiful material and working with skilled craftspeople to create something that is designed with purpose, to transcend trends, to endure seasons’ says Jacqueline.’

Having only just launched this month, Jacqueline and Michelle are looking forward to seeing how people wear and use their debut collection!  Always inspired by travel, the pair have also been exploring collaborations with other craftspeople who have traditional skills, for future ranges. ‘We’re planning to do other lifestyle products, its too early to say what as we don’t want to rush the sampling process, but our vision is to create a collection of goods that are refined yet essential’ they say.  We look forward to seeing what comes next from this supremely stylish duo!

The complete debut range from Plus Equals is available to buy online here.  Prices start at $290.

For the last eleven years I have lived in a small house on a windy hilltop in Poowong East, ninety minutes east of Melbourne, surrounded by 113 acres of steep but fertile land. I ended up here by a strange and circuitous route, all because, some 15 years ago now, I asked myself a question that I committed to taking seriously – what would it take to eat the way I really want to eat? Thinking through the answer prompted a whole series of decisions that in hindsight seem nuts, but somehow at the time made perfect sense… such as quitting my well paid job in Sydney, moving interstate (twice) and buying this run down and difficult farm when I had never done a day’s farming in my life.

But now here I am, and I’m very glad that the younger me was crazy enough to do all that. Because now we do eat exactly how we want – from the garden, with the seasons, with no chemicals, by our own hands and hard work, with animals living as they are meant to live. And as far cooking goes, it was the best thing I could ever have done. I have learned what broccoli and asparagus taste like when they have just been picked, that fresh potatoes never need to be peeled, and new season parsnips don’t need to be cored. I’ve learned that hidden away in the need to practice thriftiness and frugality is creativity, and I would go so far as to say joy in cooking, and in eating. And I’ve learned that when you have such beautiful ingredients to work with, the less you do to them the better.

I hope you enjoy these simple but delicious dishes that are all about getting food back to where it seems happiest – on a big platter, in the middle of a shared table, surrounded by people who have come together to celebrate good company, good food well grown, good conversation, and a good laugh.

If you made me choose (but please don’t) these tarts would be right up there as one of my most favourite things to eat – the combination of leek, thyme and plenty of butter is so simple, yet utterly delicious. The secret to their success is long, slow cooking of the leeks (I often leave them for hours, cooking almost imperceptibly on the side of the wood stove) and making sure that when you fill the pastry shells with the custard, that the pastry is hot (otherwise you will end up with the dreaded soggy bottom).

Leeks are easy to grow in the garden and are very low maintenance – if you start with one of the heirloom bulbing varieties (that send up new leek-lets from the base of older plants that can then be separated and replanted) you will have a perpetual supply of the best, most tender, finger thin leeks to use for these tarts, braise in butter or combine with walnuts and beetroot for an unusual and refreshing summer salad. Although at first glance these might seem complicated, once you’re comfortable with making the pastry and custard they are really quite simple, and perfect for lunches and dinner parties, as you can make the pastry, the infused milk and the slow cooked leeks ahead of time, and then casually assemble the components and bake at the last minute, glass of wine in hand!

Method

For the tart filling

In a shallow, wide, heavy bottomed pan, very gently sweat the leeks and two sprigs of thyme in the butter and olive oil with a decent pinch of sea salt, taking care not to let the leeks brown.  Start this well ahead of time so you don’t have to rush them.

Combine the milk and cream in a separate saucepan and add the halved onion and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer for a few minutes, then remove from the heat, season, and set aside to infuse.

Meanwhile make and blind bake your tart cases using the flaky pastry recipe below.
When the tart shells are almost ready, lightly whisk the eggs.  Reheat the milk/cream to just below boiling then strain into to the egg mixture, stirring as you do.  Return the egg / milk mixture to the heat and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens slightly.  Strain back into a clean bowl and check seasoning.  Ladle the custard into the hot tart shells, into which the a few spoonfuls of the leek mixture and a sprig of thyme have been artfully, or otherwise, placed.  Bake at 175 degrees or so until just set.

To remove the tarts from the tins, let cool out of the oven for five or so minutes.  Then, working one tart at a time, place a tart in its tin so that it is standing, centred, over an egg cup or other small cup and gently ease the outside of the tart tin down to expose the edges of the pastry shell.  Now use a spatula to carefully slide between the pastry case and the tin bottom and lift the tart onto your serving plate.  Repeat with remaining tarts.

For the flaky pastry

This is Damien Pignolet’s pate brisee from his French cookbook.  It is the best and most reliable shortcrust pastry I have ever used, and works beautifully for these tarts.

For a simple, flaky shortcrust pastry, toss 180g of cubed cold unsalted butter and with 240g plain flour, a tablespoon or so of water and a pinch of salt. (Good quality butter is important—I recommend using Girgar or Harmonie unsalted butter or similar). Using the heel of your hand, push down onto the flour and butter mix and push your hand away from you through the butter mix, ‘smearing’ the butter as you do so.  How much water you’ll need will vary depending on the flour you’re using – add a little more if you are having trouble bringing it together.

Gather the mixture back together and repeat until the dough comes together (squeeze a handful of the mixture—if it holds its shape you are done.  It is better to under-mix than over-mix, don’t worry if flour and bits of butter are still visible). Gather into a flattened disc, wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.  This resting phase is vital to help prevent shrinkage.

When rested, roll the dough out between two sheets of baking paper until it is 2 or 3 mm thick. Grease six, loose bottomed, 10 cm tart tins with fluted sides (although you don’t strictly need to grease tart tins when using a buttery pastry, I always do when using the small sized tin.  Just. In. Case).  Place one of the tart tins on the rolled out pastry and cut a circle of pastry out around it that is about 1 cm bigger in diameter than the tin itself.  Gently lift the pastry circle and press into the tin, doubling the excess over at the edge to make a slightly thicker crust. Make sure that the edges stick up a little higher than the tin to account for shrinkage when baked.  Don’t be discouraged if you end up with holes here and there during this process– there’s no shame in patching! Just make sure that after patching there are no tears, gaps, holes or places where the pastry is excessively thin, otherwise the custard is more likely to leak out.

Once all the tart tins are filled with pastry, cut squares of alfoil big enough to line the pastry shells and cover the edges.  Fill with rice right to the top of the tarts, place on a baking sheet and freeze for at least an hour (I often make the pastry the day before and then freeze it overnight).

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius and place the frozen tart shells (still on the baking sheet) into the oven on the top shelf.  After about 15 minutes, check to see if the walls of the pastry are set and if so, carefully remove the alfoil and the rice. Check if there are spots where the pastry has shrunk too far down the walls of the tart tins or if holes or cracks have developed—in these areas don’t be afraid to massage the half cooked dough so that the pastry extends back up to the top of the tin / the holes are closed back up. Place the tart shells back into the oven and continue cooking until light golden in colour.

Your pastry cases are now ‘blind baked’ and ready to fill – see method above.

When Eve and I first stepped through the front door of artist Greg Irvine’s incredible South Melbourne home, we were, in short, dumbfounded. We wandered from room to room, mouths open, casting our eyes in disbelief over Greg’s truly remarkable and seemingly endless collections of antique furniture, Victorian ceramics and tableware, glassware, enamelware, tortoiseshell and bakelite objects, vintage fabrics, suitcases, decorative boxes, jewellery and antique purses… the list goes on, and on, and on!  It is a ‘down the rabbit hole’ experience, a truly magical space that feels a little like stumbling absent-mindedly into some kind of alternate universe.  It’s also completely at odds with the comparatively unremarkable exterior of this three bedroom Victorian weatherboard home.

But don’t be deceived.  This is not the home of a hoarder.  Greg’s collections are tightly controlled.  The rule is ‘if I can’t display it, I don’t own it’ – he’s not interested in simply amassing things and squirrelling them away.  Each collection is carefully considered, and artfully displayed.  To Greg, they are installations – curated, and meticulously well kept.  There is not a skerrick of dust to be seen, either, which I know seems unfathomable, but it’s true.  Greg takes ‘house proud’ to new heights.

For Greg, collecting is an extension of his artwork – collecting, displaying and being surrounded by beautiful things is paramount to his practice.  Indeed, there is a great deal of crossover between Greg’s eclectic home and his meticulously detailed paintings.  His favourite household objects often find their way onto his canvases, whilst vintage fabrics often influence the patterns and colours in his works.  If not surrounded by beauty, he reasons, he ‘might as well curl up in a ball and die’.  Passionate words, from a very passionate aesthete!

Greg has lived here for ten years.  The house is heritage listed – a 150 year old weatherboard, and one of the oldest free standing houses built in South Melbourne. Originally, it would have stood on a rural allotment, and was owned by a blacksmith (when renovating, Greg uncovered a mass of various horseshoes beneath the original floorboards!).

When Greg first purchased the home, it was, he says, ‘a dump’.  He engaged a builder to restore the home. and make a few minor updates.  The main living and kitchen area was opened up to form one large living space. The bedrooms and living spaces were painted, but the original hallway and front room were left in original condition with their raw timber panelling and an original iron fireplace.  Greg was keen to retain as many of the original features as could be salvaged – doors, timber floorboards and wall panelling were all retained. Incredibly, the bathroom is also in near-original condition, retaining the original bath, bath surround, shower head and decorative pressed metal ceiling. ‘Every effort was made to maintain the integrity of the house during the modifications’ says Greg.

With such a mind-bogglingly impressive collection of furniture, artwork, antiques and collectibles, it’s not easy for Greg to isolate favourites amongst his possessions.  ‘How long do you have!?’ he says.  He’s particularly fond of his tortoiseshell comb collection, displayed beautifully on his bedroom wall, reaching all the way to the ceiling.  He loves the magnificent antique cobalt blue mirror in the main living area, which he says once adorned an Indian Maharajah’s palace!  The enormous green glass chandelier from India is another treasured favourite –  ‘it miraculously arrived intact as many are damaged en route to Australia, and is a main feature in the dining room’ says Greg.

Having exhibited his work extensively since the early 80’s, and gaining great notoriety in the mid 90’s, Greg’s artwork is recognisable to many Melbournians.  (Who remembers his painted sculptures and mosaics in Acland street, St Kilda back in the mid 90’s!?).  His latest collection of paintings will be exhibited at Hawthorn Studio and Gallery in a show which opens this Saturday, and runs until the end of the month.  Well worth a look!  They are even more amazing in person.

New Paintings by Greg Irvine
November 8th – 29th, 2014

Hawthorn Studio and Gallery
635 Burwood rd
Hawthorn East
Victoria 3123

ALSO.  We are thrilled to launch a brand new VIDEO to accompany today’s story!  We’ve collaborated with talented local filmmaker Paris Thomson of SIRAP once again, to produce this 3 minute motion snapshot of Greg’s home, his collections and his artwork.  You’ll find it just below.  We couldn’t imagine a more entertaining and inspiring subject – and how about that voiceover!?  Thank you for your patience Greg!