Minestrone has always been a winter favourite of mine. That hearty, healthy combination of vegetables, meat and pasta, served piping hot on a freezing day (preferably while it is raining outside). It’s soup but it’s not really soup, is it. Minestrone is nobody’s entrée. It’s the headliner. The star.

I made minestrone for friends on the weekend and you can possibly picture my disappointment when, after tossing fistfuls of carrots, swedes, parsnips, celery, onion, garlic, spinach, bacon and goodness knows what else into a pot on the weekend; searing them all up; (calling various members of my family into the kitchen and demanding “Smell this!” while wafting the fragrant steam towards my nose with my hands like a perfumer); then adding in stock, red wine, tinned tomatoes, cannellini beans, pearl barley, pasta and seasoning; everything simmered down to an end result of…

Bland.

I actually don’t even know how that happens! It’s the same as the mystery of the slow cooker. In goes an abundance of fresh, fragrant and delicious ingredients. Out comes wet cardboard.

About half an hour and a lot of seasoning, dried herbs and a good squeeze of lemon later, I managed to bring the flavour up to “probably tolerable,” just in time for our guests to arrive. But unfortunately, I’d also managed to reduce the liquid down to, well frankly, not liquid anymore.

“It’s goulash!” laughed my dinner-guests. “Hungarian minestrone goulash!”

So that’s what we ate for dinner. We spooned our “goulash” onto warm and crusty bread rolls, topped it with shaved parmesan and cracked pepper, washed it down with red wine, and in the end it wasn’t great but it wasn’t entirely bad, either. Nobody rejected it outright, but nobody was asking for seconds, if you catch my drift.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of leftovers. Maybe I’ll cook up some mince and make a cottage pie? Or maybe a chicken pie with a creamy sauce? What would you do? I’m open to your suggestions…

But my point is this. Sometimes, life feels a little bit like a failed minestrone. So many lovely things go into it, and yet, despite all that abundance and goodness, the flavour is missing.

And my theory in life, as in the kitchen, is that possibly there’s just too much. Too much happening, too much to do, too much on the go. None of it is bad - most of it is very good! - but it’s hard to appreciate the little things when there are a hundred little things and big things and medium things clamouring for your attention, your focus, and your accountability, at the same time.

Perhaps you recognise this feeling? It’s the overwhelm of a big and fully-lived life. The washed-out state of a person stretched so far, and in so many places at once, that they begin to lose their flavour.

I believe there were too many ingredients in my minestrone soup. My real soup, that is. None of them was allowed to sing because they were all in the same big pot fighting for the microphone.

My life is a little bit the same right now: too many ingredients, all competing to shine. It doesn’t matter how sweet the parsnip is: put it into a pot with a couple of cloves of garlic, chopped onions, a tin of tomatoes, fresh herbs, and a heap of other ingredients, and you will never taste the nuance of the parsnip.

Could we be parsnips, you and me? Like parsnips, we’re a little bit sweet, a little bit subtle, and definitely not for everyone. But we’re not going anywhere.

Life won’t always look like this, and I know the true me (and the true you) is still in there somewhere, buried in the minestrone goulash of life. (Case in point: I’ve been making mail art lately! Mail art! Who knew I even still had it in me? I’ll share some photos with you in a future letter.)

Some people turn life’s lemons into lemonade. I make a halfway-decent goulash out of a lacklustre, mostly-evaporated minestrone soup. And if I’m very clever, maybe I’ll have discovered a new recipe for a more-than-decent chicken pie.

I’ll let you know about the pie. Make of the metaphor what you will.

Yours truly,
Naomi x

Soul Cakes for Halloween

A soul cake, also known as a soulmass-cake, is a small round cake although we would see them more as a shortbread-style biscuit than a cake. They are made for Halloween, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day to commemorate the dead in many Christian traditions. They were carried from door to door, mainly by children and the poor and exchanged for money and preayers for the souls of the givers and their friends", especially the souls of deceased relatives, thought to be in Purgatory. The practice in England dates to the medieval period,^[4] and was continued there until the 1930s. In many countries, souling is seen as the tradition from which trick or treating evolved.

Food has played a significant role in Halloween obsesrvances for millenia, often in the form of offerings to fairies and the spirit worlds. Supersitions abound, one of the most common being that bread should never be baked after sunset on Halloween. To accidentally burn a loaf of bread, or drop cumbs or crusts onto the fire brings bad luck and feeds the Devil.

Apples, pumpkin, pork, acorns, corn and hazelnuts are commonly associated with Halloween, (the latter for protection), along with herbs and spices such as allspice, catnip, mugwort and sage. The traditions associated with Souling included Soulers visiting houses with hollowed-out pumpkin lanterns with a candle inside, representing a soul trapped in purgatory. Bonfires were also lit on Halloween and during Hallowtide which may be related to the Purgation of souls by holy fire. The burning of fires on Halloween may also be related to earlier practices. In the English countryside, people lit bonfires to ward off evil spirits

As an alternative to bonfires, in Lancashire, candles were carried between 11 pm and midnight on Halloween in a procession up the hills in a custom known as 'lating the witches'. If the candles continuously burnt then the witches' powers would not affect the candle holder. In other traditions, candles were lit in every window an hour before midnight; if the candle burnt out before midnight, it was believed evil would follow.

Our previous post contains a recipe for Barmbrack - a traditional Irish fruit loaf made for Halloween; in the course of research for this post I have discovered another Irish favourite - Boxty - which I will be trialing in the next few days…Before eating Boxty on Halloween, a single woman in search of a husband was required to repeat the follwing rhyme three times:

‘Boxty on the griddle
Boxty in the pan
If you don’t eat Boxty
You’ll never get a man…”
make of that what you will…

Recipe

Ingredients:

175g unsalted butter (very soft but not melted - see video)

175g caster sugar 

3 large egg yolks

450g self raising flour 

2 tsp mixed spice (not to be confused with allspice!)

50-75ml milk 

100g currants 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190c. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking paper. 

Cream the butter and sugar together until light, fluffy and much paler in colour (see video)

Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition.

Sift together the flour and mixed spice  Add to the creamed mixture along with enough milk to give you a soft dough.  Lastly, stir in the currants.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1cm thickness.  Cut into rounds with a 7cm biscuit cutter.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or overnight if you prefer.  Remove from the fridge and, using the back of a knife, mark crosses into the top of each biscuit.

Bake for approx  15 minutes (set your timer for 10 and check, as every oven is different.) until puffed and golden brown.  

Lift onto a wire rack to cool completely.

If desired, glaze with the juice on one lemon whisked into 100g sifted icing sugar and brush over the top, otherwise dust with icing sugar.

They will keep for at least 3 days in an airtight container; meaning you can make them this weekend and share them on Halloween, if they last that long!

It was a funny old Saturday that started out grumpy but ended up - somewhere between the spiders and the bags of plastic bones - drawing us together. Festivals have the ability to do this, don’t they. I don’t worry about Halloween being commercial, after all, I get to choose how I celebrate. And I choose to decorate my house because it makes people smile: it made a bickering morning a happy afternoon, it sparked conversations with neighbours over the front fence, and it inspired passers-by to stop, remark, and smile.

And of course Halloween traditions run deep (as so many traditions do). Halloween’s history is at once darker, more complex and more beautiful than many of us realise. It was also a night that - if you cared to listen - could reveal your future and fortune.

This Halloween post, recipe and letter-writing prompts is an excerpt from the Meals in the Mail Home, Hearth & Harvest magazine last year.

Midnight has come and the great Christ Church bell

And many a lesser bell sound through the room;

And it is All Souls’ Night.

And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel

Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come;

For it is a ghost’s right

~WB Yeats

Hundreds of years before Cadbury’s, Nestlé or Hershey’s, the 31st of October was a night for making, baking, and the telling of fortunes…

The festival we know as Halloween takes its date and most of its traditions from an infinitely older calendar celebration, Samhain, a Celtic festival marking the transition from summer to winter, and light to dark.

Samhain is what’s known as a “liminal” festival, a transitional time in which the normal order of the universe is suspended. This is the night when the boundaries between this world and the next are fluid and thinner... the souls of the dead are believed to walk the earth, creating a setting for supernatural encounters.

At the beginning of the Christian era in Britain, the practice of gathering around a bonfire for Samhain waned and, instead, night visitors began to venture from house to house. If luck was in their favour, they'd receive a delicious slice of barmbrack, or piping hot soul cakes.

Samhain food-fortunes

Barmbrack

Barmbrack (also spelled báirín breac) is a Celtic fruit-cake that was traditionally baked on Samhain. In a similar tradition to the coin in a Christmas pudding, people would hide non-edible items inside the barmbrack as a means of fortelling their futures.

• Find a pea and you won’t marry this year

• Find a stick and you’re in for an unhappy marriage or a year of disputes

• Find a piece of cloth and bad luck will follow

• Find a coin and you’ll known good fortune

• Find a ring and there’ll be a wedding this year

• Find a bean and your future won't bring money

Soul cakes

Sweet biscuits (cookies) made with raisins, soul cakes were baked to give as gifts on Samhain Eve. But who they were given to depends on which particular tradition you’re exploring.

• Some say the soul cakes were a terrible game of chance. The soul cakes were baked in the bonfire: everybody had to fish one out and if you got the burnt one, you won the grisly lottery of becoming the human sacrifice that would ensure good crops for the coming year.

• Others say soul cakes were tossed around a specific area, to appease evil and hungry spirits who were condemned to wander in animal form.

• By the 8th Century, they were given as gifts to beggers who moved from door to door on All Soul’s Eve (each cake given was equivalent to a soul saved).

• They were handed out as gifts to “mummers,” costumed entertainers who - in complete silence - moved from door to door on Samhain and danced for each householder. Later, this practice became known as the familiar trick-or-treating that we know today.

A soul! a soul! a soul-cake!

Please good Missis, a soul-cake!

An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,

Any good thing to make us all merry.

~ Traditional folklore song, 1891

Dumb supper

To appease their dead, many of the Celts (particularly in Scotland and Ireland) would host a “dumb supper” on Halloween, served in absolute silence. They’d gather together to eat, also setting a place at the head of the table for an ancestor.

The rules:

1. No speaking: absolute silence is required

2. Do not look directly at the ancestor’s seat - to see the dead would bring misfortune

3. Afterwards, take the plate of uneaten food outside and leave it for the hungry ghosts and fairies

Apples

A remnant from an even older (Roman) tradition, apples were seen as the fruit of the Other World, and therefore were often used in magic and foretelling during Samhain.

• Peel an apple all in one paring and throw it over your shoulder on Samhain Eve. The peeling will take the shape of the first initial of the person you will marry

• Eat an apple in front of a mirror while combing your hair: at midnight, your true love's image will appear over your right shoulder

• Fill a tub with water and dunk for apples. When you do this on Samhain Eve, anyone who manages to catch the apple in their teeth will have good fortune in the coming year

Colcannon

A kind of mashed potato with cabbage, colcannon also took on fortune telling properties during Samhain. Put the first and last spoonful of colcannon into your stocking, then hang it from a nail on the door. The first person to enter through that door will be your future husband.

(Part of the spell requires that you cannot speak from the moment you begin eating until the entire family has gone to bed. So it’s possible this particular “spell” was just a handy way of guaranteeing an evening of peace and quiet from teenaged daughters).

“Samhain was a way of marking that ambiguous moment when you didn’t know who you were about to become, or what the future would hold.

It was a celebration of limbo.”

~ Katherine May, Wintering

Kale, cabbages & leeks

Young people in Scotland would make their way blindfolded into the garden to pull up kale, cabbages or leeks. They’d “read” the vegetables for descriptive signs of their future spouse (tall and healthy, odd and lumpy, withered and ancient, and so on). The amount of soil clinging to the roots indicated the fortune or dowry the spouse would bring.

Melanie’s Recipe: traditional Barmbrack

INGREDIENTS

• 225g plain flour

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 375g dried fruit (I used 50/50 sour cherries and raisins)

• 250ml cold tea (French Earl Grey is my choice for its lovely floral notes, but use whatever tea you prefer)

• 50ml whiskey (optional but it does add a smoky depth to the mix)

• 125g soft brown sugar

• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

• 1/2 tsp mixed spice (this blend of coriander, cassia, cinnamon,

• nutmeg, allspice, ginger & cloves packs quite a punch; resist the urge to add more

METHOD

1. Place the fruit into a bowl, brew your choice of tea (strain it if using loose leaf tea) and pour over the fruit along with the whiskey. Cover and leave to sit overnight, by which time the fruit will have plumped up and absorbed a large proportion of the liquid. When ready to make the batter, strain the fruit and retain the leftover soaking liquid as this will provide liquid for the mixture.

2. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius and grease and line a 900-gram loaf tin (I used a premade liner for convenience).

3. Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and mixed spice in a mixing bowl.

4. Spoon the wet dough into the lined tin, place in the middle of the oven and bake for one hour until a rich golden brown (your kitchen will smell amazing…)

5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

6. Once cooled, wrap in cling film and foil and allow the barmbrack to rest for two or three days before cutting and serving; this is possibly the hardest part of this recipe as the fragrance is so enticing, well worth it as the flavour will be even more enhanced.

Naomi’s Samhain letter-writing prompts

Samhain was a liminal festival, a celebration of transition and change. Transition from summer to winter, from light to dark, from harvest to rest, and from adolescence to adulthood.

Change can be both invigorating and frightening, and Samhain is a lovely reminder to be mindful of and show some love to anyone who is going through a period of transition. Who could you write to?

1. A student who is starting a new grade at school or university

2. A loved one who is moving house / city / country

3. A friend who is starting a new job, or has taken a promotion

4. Anyone going through a relationship break-up

5. Someone who's starting up a new business or creative venture

6. A friend on the eve of their wedding

7. Someone who is travelling for the first time in a long time

8. A friend who is about to become a parent for the first time

9. (A child who is about to become a sibling for the first time!)

10. Your former self, at a time when you felt vulnerable or afraid

But first… greetings from Renovation Central!

Where it will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that our building works are not progressing to plan. There’s a long, boring list of things getting in the way of progress, like missing or broken parts, mis-drawn plans, delayed shipments and, most disturbingly, unreliable foundation footings based on some scientific term which I can’t remember but which loosely equates to “dodgy soil.”

My daughter took this photo of me last night, cooking dinner in the hallway by the light of the open front door. It’s certainly not the most flattering portrait I’ve ever had taken, standing awkwardly in the hallway, tongs in hand, stirring up what turned out to be a fairly indifferent stir-fry (the pan was too hot and all of the lovely, fresh vegetables pretty much disappeared. I think they melted.) But I’m happy to have it because in the years to come, I know I’ll look back on this time of our lives with laughter if not fondness.

At least I hope so!

I am sorry to say that I vastly underestimated the sheer amount of time it would take to live the way we are living. How ridiculously long it takes to cook a very simple meal in an electric frying pan (thank you to everyone who recommended getting one of these!) when you have to run up and down stairs carrying buckets of water, don’t have any bench space to chop or prepare, have literally nowhere but the floor on which to put the hot frying-pan lid, and then need to carry everything upstairs in cardboard boxes to wash up in the bathtub.

Everything from clothes washing (and drying and folding and putting away) to cleaning, to cooking – even to eating – takes longer.

This is what our kitchen, dining room, living room and bathroom look like right now. The rest of the house is not much better either.

So I am sorry, to you and to everyone else reading this, for the delay in writing. My breezy assumptions of “Oh, I’m working at an office for four days a week now, so my nights will be my own and I can write Meals in the Mail whenever I like!” has turned into something altogether less free and less enjoyable.

Currently, this is what my daily schedule looks like:

• Work at the office from 7am to 6pm (the work-day being punctuated by multiple calls from various trades, two of whom are in a feud and refusing to talk to each other)

• Walk home (this takes an hour and it’s mostly on a busy road, but still rather lovely to get outside)

• Pick up kids from whatever activity they are at with the Accidental Au Pair (that’s another story!), then go home and cook something mundane but ridiculously time-consuming in the electric frying pan or microwave

• Get the kids showered and into bed (frequently easier said than done)

• Carry all the washing up upstairs and wash up in the bath tub (frequently rinsing, tipping out water, refilling, then stopping to dry up piece by piece, because there is nowhere available to drain it or indeed put it down)

By this point it’s about 9.30 at night, and I sit down (finally!) to go through emails from my other clients, check in on any outstanding work I owe them, and read through and respond to emails from all the trades I’m handling (currently including: builders, a geo-tech engineer, a structural engineer, a plasterer, an electrician, a plumber, someone who pulls up tiles, someone who levels floors, someone who lays parquetry, someone who switches off and on hydronic heating, a carpenter, a tiler, an entire kitchen company, and a painter).

This takes me through to somewhere between 10.30 and 11pm, by which time I am no use to anyone, let alone you and the rest of this beautiful Meals in the Mail community.

Oh and also, we have mice! It’s not surprising, given that both the walls and the ceilings of our 150-year-old house are open and exposed. But they are EVERYWHERE. The children think all the mice are just one mouse, and have called it Patches. I, after spending years weaning my family off as much plastic as possible, should probably now buy shares in the stuff: everything in our hallway kitchen is now sealed away from the mice in 10-litre plastic containers, from food to flatware to cutlery to lunch-boxes.

Only half an hour ago, as I began writing this letter to you, a worryingly-fat mouse walked right past me. Normally mice scurry: Patches was so confident that he practically sauntered, and I’m fairly sure he flipped me the bird. I yelled, “The mouse!” and, in the nanosecond it took me to do so, said mouse moved out of my direct eyeline and vanished. I mean, he pretty much lifted his top-hat, waved a cape in front of his face, and disappeared in a puff of smoke. We searched high and low, but Patches continued to evade us.

The Accidental Au Pair (who is French), declared, “Ze mouse knows ze ‘ouse belong to ‘im now.”

To be continued…

But none of this is why you’re reading this letter, is it. You’re here for Meals in the Mail and are probably wondering, “Where are the meals? Where is the mail?”

I know things have been slow and that is all on me, not Melanie. It has taken me this much time to accept the reality of my situation, and what that means for my capacity to be creative. In response we’re taking a short pause, but not an end.

Here’s what’s happening:

1. Everything is free for now

The first thing we’ve done about this is to turn off paying access to Meals in the Mail. This means that anyone who has already committed to pay won’t be charged over this period, and anyone who has paid up front for a year will have that year extended until I have rediscovered my time and you and I have rediscovered our groove, and we can pick up the pace again. Probably around about the middle of the year, if we’re being realistic.

Melanie and I will continue to pop in from time to time with letters, updates, cooking adventures, and stories from our lives. (Mine most likely renovation-related, hers much more exciting, as she is about to embark on an overseas adventure). These letters will all be free for everyone.

2. We’re working on the first Meals in the Mail book

The second thing we are going to do is gently turn our attention to the first volume of the Meals in the Mail books. This book will share some of the recipes and letters you’ve already seen, and many you haven’t, in a celebration of everything that Meals in the Mail stands for. Once finished, the book will be free for all the contributors, and free to anyone who already has a paying subscription to Meals in the Mail. It will also be available to purchase for everyone else.

3. The mailbox is about to reopen!

The third (and possibly most exciting) thing we are going to do is open up the mailbox – for the first time in six years! – to Meals in the Mail. So while I am renovating and Melanie is globally gallivanting, we would be thrilled if you would like to share your own recipes and stories with us!

There will be some instructions around this, so stay tuned for a separate email about the letterbox reopening, coming very soon.

And in the meantime, finally, behold Kimberlee’s beautifully illustrated letter! Her mouth-watering recipe! (And you’re going to love what Melanie does with it).

Kimberlee’s recipe is a work of art, even before you enter the kitchen. Hand lettered, with a lower border of summer flowers, it’s a joy to look at.

But, as with most recipes, it’s the making of it that truly brings it to life. Not only the taste but the meaning behind it. For Kimberlee, this recipe is confidence, creativity and therapy, all in a biscuit! That’s a pretty impressive outcome from just six ingredients, wouldn’t you agree?

Kimberlee writes in her letter…

“Ah, my raspberry almond shortbread cookies. The first recipe I ever experimented with and made my own (so simple!  I started basic!)

“I pull this recipe out when I am feeling down. I learned with this recipe that baking is therapeutic and creative and such a release and escape for me. Even if the ingredients are simple and the recipe is easy. Great outcomes are possible!!

“Maybe all of our problems are easier to solve than we think?”

Recipe: Raspberry Almond Shortbread Cookies

Yield: 36 cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened

• 2/3 cup sugar

• 1/2 tsp almond extract

• 2 cos flour

• 1/2 cup raspberry jam

• sugar for sprinkling

Method:

1. Beat butter for 30 seconds on medium speed

2. Add the sugar and almond extract, beat until well combined

3. Slowly mix in flour

4. cover and chill for one hour

5. Preheat oven to 350 degres Farenheit (180 Celsius)

6. Shape into 1-inch balls and place on cookie sheet

7. Using your thumb, press an indentation into the centre of each ball

8. Spoon 1/2 tsp jam into each indentation and sprinkle with sugar

9. Bake for 10 minutes

Enjoy!

Things will start to look a little different around here, as we take stock on what worked, and what needed tweaking, since we started this project in October last year. Melanie and I are still ironing out the kinks, so if there’s anything you’d like to see more of, less of, or if you have some other ideas, we’d love to hear from you - either leave a comment below, or simply hit “reply” to this email.

We also have lots of new ideas of our own in the wings, both creative and culinary, that we’ll share with you in the coming weeks. So keep an eye on your Inbox for goodness coming your way.

The kitchen debacle

I am in all kinds of kitchen debacle, and in desperate need of your culinary creativity (details coming below). We have started renovating our 140 year old house, and this is my temporary kitchen:

Last month, we wheeled our old ‘fridge into the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, covered the antique hall-table with a waterproof tablecloth, and that became our “kitchen”.

It’s not exactly practical, but it works a lot better than my original kitchen, which is being gutted as I type. There’s a lot of drilling, banging, cursing, and hard rock music going on in the background, and the power has gone out twice.

(This morning, the man in charge of ripping up the tiles told me the floor sounded hollow underneath the tiles at one point. Which is surprising, given that it was supposed to be a concrete slab. Could we have found a cellar?)

The entire rest of our household furniture has been packed up into the lounge room: tables, chairs, shelves, sofas, carpets, paintings, boxes of books and clothes and cushions and kitchen pots and pans… even the piano. They’re all piled on top of each other and covered in drop-sheets to keep out the dust.

Meanwhile the six of us (three adults, two children and a big, smelly dog) are living upstairs, sharing the three bedrooms and study between us, and I’ve rigged up a kind of table (though it only seats three) and two chairs, on the landing. By night it’s our dining table and by day it’s my office, pictured below.

To wash up, I have to kneel on the floor of the 1980s spa-bath in our upstairs en suite. It’s the least fun part of this entire process.

And this is how we are going to live for the next four-to-six months (fingers crossed it’s only four-to-six months).

Urgently seeking recipes

To get to the point.

My makeshift kitchen is seriously challenged in its culinary capacity, and that’s where I would very much appreciate your help. So: will you send me any recipes or cooking tips you have, that will work in the temporary kitchen?

Here are the limitations:

• I don’t have an oven

• I don’t have any kind of stove-top or burner on which to boil or fry

• I don’t have a sink or taps or running water (but can carry water from upstairs)

• I don’t have a lot of space

Here’s what I do have to work with:

• I have a fridge

• I have a microwave

• I have a two-slice toaster

• I have a small panini press

• I have an electric kettle

It’s a challenge, to be sure! I hope you have some ideas, and that you’re more creative in the kitchen than me…

And as this is “Meals in the Mail,” not “Meals in the Email,” I’d love it if you’d post them to me!

If you write and send me your recipe(s), I promise to write back to you. Maybe Melanie and I could share your recipes and letters on here if you’d like, or even make a mini e-book of them, if enough were sent. A handy kind of “What To Do If You’re Renovating And Don’t Want To Live Off Frozen Microwave Meals For Six Months” guide, for anyone else in a similar position. What do you think?

Please send your recipes to me at:

Love,
Naomi x

ps. Do you want to know about the renovation? Do you want me to share stories and progress and inspiration and photos and befores and afters? I don’t want to bore you, but if this interests you, let me know and I can share the occasional story here on Meals in the Mail.

ps2. Happy New Year!

Wishing you the most wonderful New Year: may it be filled with joy, laughter, good food, and the people you love. (And perhaps a special surprise or two, every now and then, because everyone needs a bend in the road).

We will be taking the month of January off to rest, recuperate, be with the people we love, and cook up a feast of new ideas and content t…

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Dear Naomi

Well, here we are on the other side of Christmas; all that hullabaloo and preparation is now behind us for another year.

As you know, there wasn’t much hullabaloo at our house, as Covid arrived unbidden, just in time to wreck all of our carefully laid plans.  We were due to host family on Christmas Eve, as has become our tradition, but that of course went out the window.  Fortunately, I had organised for someone else to provide the bulk of the food, so it was just a question of reorganising venues.  Anyway, all was well, family jumped in and, I believe, a lovely day was had by all.  Ron tested negative so he was able to see his children and grandchildren; I stayed home with Rosie.

By Christmas Day we were both negative and so with great anticipation took ourselves out to lunch; we went to the recently opened Claribeaux French Restaurant on the Bellarine, and it was perfect.  Beautiful spaces, delicious food and wine, and a warm and happy room filled with friends and families, from babies to grandparents.

Now that I am on the mend, I can finally begin to think about food again; I lost my appetite this time ‘round, and for a frightening couple of days, thought my sense of taste and smell had gone (I find the thought of Anosmia utterly terrifying…) but it has now returned.

How fortunate that this week’s recipe is for Ratatouille, a fresh vibrant melange of the best of summer vegetables, simmering slowly with Greek spices and olive oil.  A lovely, reassuring dish, not least because I can smell all those tantalising aromas once again.

I roast the vegetables for my ratatouille; I’m sure many purists would be shocked, but I love those little sweet crispy edges vegetables get, especially when roasted in a hot oven in olive oil and a little salt.

Ingredients:

1 medium eggplant
1 medium red or orange capsicum
1 red onion
1-2 cloves garlic to taste
1 400g can tomatoes
1 large or 2 smaller zucchini (green or yellow)
2 tablespoons cream
200g grated cheese – parmesan/sharp cheddar
¼ bunch chives
Salt
Pepper
Seasoning mix – I used a pre-prepared bbq rub with oregano, salt and marjoram)

To begin:

Preheat your oven to 180-200c (or pre-heat a barbecue)

Make the tomato base:
Dice the onion to 1-2cm size. 
Finely dice 1-2 cloves of garlic to your taste. 
Put two tablespoons of fragrant olive oil into a shallow pan and slowly brown the onions and garlic (this may take 15 minutes) you want them to slowly colour but not catch or burn.

Add 2 teaspoons sugar, some dried herbs (I used a Greek Seasoning blend) and the can of tomatoes.  It would be even better to use home-grown tomatoes of course but it’s been quite a slow summer so far. Turn down the heat and leave to bubble away quietly for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, adding a little water or stock if it becomes too thick.

Boil your pasta of choice; I used fusilli, but you could use penne, or farfalle, or any short pasta.  As the pasta will cook again in the oven, stop cooking and drain whilst still al dente; firmer than you would normally. (in my case 10 minutes as opposed to the 12-14 minutes recommended on the packet).

Chop the eggplant, zucchini and capsicum into 2-3 cm cubes. Place the eggplant into a bowl and toss with olive oil and spices.  Mix well.  Pour into a medium oven tray lined with baking parchment.

Place the zucchini and capsicum into another bowl and once again mix with oil and spices.  These vegetables will cook more quickly than the eggplant, so I roast them in a separate pan.

Roast vegetables, gently stirring them occasionally; you want them to brown evenly, start to caramelise on the edges and stay together.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain and rinse under cool water to stop it cooking, drain again and set aside.

Toss the drained pasta with the tomato sauce, then add about 2/3 of the grated cheese, cream and chopped chives.  Mix gently but well and tip into your oven dish.  Spread out evenly, mix remaining cheese with the breadcrumbs and sprinkle over the top. Thinly slice the mozzarella (if using) and dot over the top.  **

Bake at 180c for around 40 minutes until golden and bubbling.

** Note:  you can prepare the dish to this stage and store in the fridge for 1-2 days if you prefer.

And that, my dear friend, brings me to the end of this week’s letter, with grateful thanks for Claire for her heartfelt letter and recipe.  As it’s now late in the afternoon, and the need for a Covid Nanna nap is creeping up, I’m glad dinner’s ready!

All the best, as always,
Melanie x

Dear Melanie, we made it! Your household with covid, and mine with a many-miles-long parade of social engagements to attend and dinner parties to host… we both got through Christmas, and I was so happy to hear that yours was joyful.

Ours was a lovely day too, in the end. As we do each year, we hosted family and a few close friends for Christmas breakfast (mangoes, cherries and berries, and warm croissants fresh from the oven. Tea, coffee, and just a little glass of champagne).

Then at lunch, a new group of friends arrived for a more traditional meal: this year I roasted a turkey breast that had been wrapped over dried fruits, served up a beautiful eye fillet, cooked parsnips in nutmeg, baked crispy potatoes, pan-fried then roasted carrots (I made a sweet glaze for them from marmalade and maple syrup, then tossed in some thyme leaves and served them with chopped hazelnuts), and very briefly boiled a combination of green beans and edamame peas, which I then tossed in lime juice and salt, and sprinkled with shaved almonds. There was cranberry sauce for the turkey, a peppercorn sauce for the beef, and, as per my husband’s request, a gravy for anywhere you wanted it to go. I am sorry to say that despite the simple and tasty recipes you shared with me, I did not make the gravy myself. My two usable stovetop burners (it’s a very old stovetop and some don’t work) were already taken up with the green beans and a pudding steaming away, so to packet and microwave I turned. Shh, don’t tell.

All that cooking and eating was punctuated by a lot of present-giving, cracker-breaking, silly-hat-wearing and bad-joke-telling, as well as a rousing sing-along beside the piano (have you ever noticed just how high some Christmas carols go? Yikes!), more washing up than I care to remember, and finally, I poured myself two fingers of my own homemade Baileys Irish cream (so good!) and we all sat down together to watch one last Christmas movie before bed.

It wasn’t half bad for a Christmas Day, and had the added bonus of nothing burning or blowing up.

This last, I am afraid, was by no means a given. We have form. There was the Christmas Eve on which a mini-pudding in the microwave oven ignited, for example, filling our house with disgusting chemical fumes and black stains on the wall that lingered for months. Or the Christmas Eve on which our oven broke. First, it developed what looked for all the world like a small sun where the fan should have been, while I was baking one of many Christmas cakes. The oven refused to turn off and continued getting hotter and hotter, the sun threatening to turn supernova. The next morning I had to cook Christmas turkey on the stove top and let me tell you, broiled turkey is not something I’d recommend trying.

And finally, there was last Christmas. We’d just moved to the house we’re living in now and I was concerned about how well the ancient oven and barely-working stovetop would hold up. Those, it turns out, were merely the diversion. Instead, the main problems arose early on Christmas morning when I turned on a tap, only for water and other stuff that definitely was not water to come bubbling up from every sink, drain and toilet in the house! Our house is 140 years old, and I am fairly certain most of the pipes share the same vintage. I couldn’t cook: I couldn’t even wash my hands, let alone rinse, boil or clean. As the hours ticked by and we tried desperately to find a plumber who would come out on Christmas Day, I told my husband in despair, “We’ll have to order McDonalds!”

I mean we didn’t - the plumbers arrived in the nick of time and I managed to get food on the table, although I didn’t feel particularly glamorous about it, not having had the time to shower.

My (long-winded) point being, the absence of kitchen disasters is not something I take for granted at Christmas, and to get through not only Christmas Day but the enormous amount of hosting we’ve been doing during the past two months, feels like an achievement to be celebrated.

And so, fresh from a Christmas victory and feeling rather desperate for healthy food after all that festive fare, I have decided to pull Claire’s recipe for ratatouille out, to finish Meals in the Mail for the year with a little bit of French flair and flavour.

I want you to imagine the way Claire presented the recipe in her letter, semi-transparent pages layering one over the other with notes and tiny illustrations at each step. She’s drawn a simple pot and, as each page layers over the next, the steps in the recipe grow, and the pot slowly fills with colour and ingredients.

And once the pot is full and bubbling, Claire writes the following:

“When summer is at its finest, the garden starts to give plenty of treats: onions, eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes are its ‘stars’ and ratatouille is just making the best dish out of the best and freshest veggies.”

This feels a little bit like a mic-drop recipe. “the best dish out of the best and freshest veggies” - what else could we need?

I played around with the ingredients only ever-so-slightly. I added a tin of diced tomatoes and some diced yellow and red capsicum to the onion and garlic, and cooked that down a bit.

Then I replaced one of the zucchini with a pale green squash, and arranged them with the eggplant and tomatoes in a colourful swirl a la the movie Ratatouille. This was done for the sake of the children, who found it fun, but I actually preferred Claire’s medley of flavours all mixed in, so after painstakingly creating the pattern, I deliberately ruined it by stirring and letting everything simmer in one, big, messy, fragrant mix.

I stir-fried some pieces of chicken in five-spice and a slice of lightly-toasted sourdough to serve alongside it (and mop up the juices). My original plan was to make chicken schnitzel and top it with the ratatouille, or to mix the chicken in with the veggie stew. But I got too lazy to bother with the former, and I was nervous about the kids not eating the latter, so I separated things out and, while it doesn’t look pretty, it was just what the doctor ordered.

I needn’t have worried about the children rejecting the ratatouille: even Madeleine, who is deeply suspicious of most vegetables, said, “Mum, this is actually quite good.”

Which is about the highest praise I was ever going to get.

Warmly yours,
Naomi x

Recipe: Ratatouille

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 onion, minced

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 egg plant

• 2 zucchini

• 3 tomatoes

• aromatic herbs (thyme, parsley, rosemary)

RECIPES:

1. Fry the garlic and onion in a spoon of olive oil for three minutes

2. Add diced eggplant and zucchini and fry for about five more minutes

3. Add diced tomatoes and herbs and let it simmer for 15 minutes

Serve hot, cold, with meat, or alone.

Here is a last-minute gift idea for lovers of food, story-telling, and the way old-fashioned letter-writing can connect us across oceans and through time.

Well that’s very specific, isn’t it. But do you know somebody who would enjoy this? Us too! Clearly, we all have impeccable taste 😉…

If you are searching for a unique and thoughtful last-minute gift this Christmas, can we humbly suggest a subscription to Meals in the Mail?

Give a gift subscription

A subscription costs you as little as $7 a month and you can stop at any time (or even less if you choose to give them a whole year up-front), and they’ll receive all kind of goodness from us, including:

• All the Weekly Dispatches in which we share the stories, recipes, and photos from Meals in the Mail, make the recipes ourselves, explore fascinating paths in food travel and history, and tell the odd story or two of our own

• Full access to the Meals in the Mail archives (even the locked posts), so they can read, listen and cook through every letter, story and recipe we have ever shared

• Home, Hearth & Harvest, our beautiful online journal, filled with ideas and inspiration for seasonal gardening, cooking, writing, and celebrating

• Invitations to participate in Meals in the Mail with recipes and stories of their own (invitations will be going out to paying subscribers early in the new year, and if we use your recipe, you’ll receive a free printed copy of the book)

• A free copy of the first Meals in the Mail e-book, absolutely packed with recipes, stories and gorgeous mail-art, coming out in the first half of 2023

• And a chatty, personal letter or two from us, posted to them anywhere in the world. (Currently, we are working our way through Naomi’s very pretty collection of vintage pre-stamped envelopes from the 1970s and 1980s, and using these when we write thank-you notes, or to our paying subscribers)

As well as all this goodness, you will be making a genuine difference to the two of us: we are two hard-working writers and cooks with a love of storytelling, and we want to bring these heartwarming stories and fascinating recipes to the rest of the world through our free e-journal, weekly dispatches, free audio dispatches, e-books, printed books, and handwritten letters.

Each and every subscription helps to make this possible, as we are entirely self-funded and currently unpaid.

So, thank you! if you already subscribe, and thank you! if you give a subscription to someone you care about.

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And while we are at it, thank you! to everyone who subscribes, whether paid or free. We truly, deeply appreciate you being here, and hope you enjoy all that we create for you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out via comments on our posts, or chats in the Substack app, to let us know what you’d love to see, hear and read, to ask questions, or to simply tell stories of your own. We love to hear from you.

And finally, we wish you a truly special Christmas, filled with love, laughter, and good food.

Naomi and Melanie xo

Dear Melanie, I was so sorry to learn how sick you were feeling. Covid is just a rotten, rotten grinch of a virus, isn’t it, seeming to attack from all angles and with a malice that is the exact opposite of the seasonal goodwill.

I’m sending you love and best wishes for a speedy return to good health… and extend that to everyone who is unwell or suffering at this time. It was a sad and unintentional coincidence that while I was baking Jane’s cherry streusel cake today in your stead - a cake she said was traditionally taken along to funerals - people we care about were burying a loved-one across town, someone who had died entirely too young and too soon.

It’s a terrible thing, witnessing the suffering of others, isn’t it. The sadness belongs to them and to those nearest to them, it’s not ours. It’s not about us. And yet we are left with the helplessness of seeing somebody else’s sadness and knowing there’s not a single thing we could do to lift the sorrow.

That helplessness leaves a kind of melancholy of its own, and that’s where I am as I write to you today. It’s not about me and it never will be, but neither is the sadness of others something I can ignore and go about my day without it weighing down.

So as I kneaded the dough for the streusel cake, working it over in my hands until it became a soft, silky ball, I thought about the families who were mourning across town. Warm and bitter morello cherries in a thickened syrup, spooned over the dough like a weighted blanket, nestled into the pan, finally topped with a sweet, cinnamon-tinted crumble mixture like the softest of kisses on a forehead.

Jane’s letter told me to let the dough rise a second time while I waited for the oven to warm up, so that’s what I did, and then I popped it in to bake for 25 minutes.

We are all about the comfort food today. I made the children cheesy soldiers for lunch, knowing the heavy dessert that was to come, while they relaxed watching Christmas movies on the TV. Yesterday was a big and busy day for them, and they are in full “recovery mode,” still wearing the clothes they slept in last night.

I pulled the streusel cake out of the oven when the crumble on top (the streusels) had turned golden-brown, let it cool in the tray for about ten minutes, then served it warm with a dollop of cream on top.

Following Jane’s advice, I had reduced the ingredients by two-thirds (which, incidentally, was easier said than done: how does one divide an egg into thirds??), but that still made quite a large cake. Jane says it freezes well but there’s no room in my freezer (it’s two days before Christmas, after all), so I’m going to wrap it up and take it to a friend’s place when I visit her this afternoon.

I wish I could share this comfort-cake with you, too. The three distinct layers are made up of bread (silky and subtle), sour cherries (tart, and pop-in-the-mouth juicy), and crumb (crunchy and sweet - my daughter said, “they taste like Anzac biscuits”), that all seem to melt into each other when you eat it warm from the plate.

There’s a comfort to this cake, a stick-to-your-ribs kind of nurture, that somehow makes sense as a food to eat when you’re sad. Or on an icy winter’s evening.

We of course ate ours on a warm summer’s afternoon, but comfort is comfort, whatever the season.

Yours truly,
Naomi x

Dear Melanie,

I have a clever little hack for pitting cherries. Do you want to know it? You take a soda bottle - we have some antique “Bendigo glass” bottles that my husband picked up at a thrift shop - and sit the cherry, stem facing up, on the mouth of it. Then you take something long and strong - a metal or plastic strayer is perfect - and push it straight through the cherry. The seed and any messy juices drop neatly into the bottle, while the cherry itself is cleanly pitted.

Cherry picking is one of our favourite early-summer activities. We like to go as early as possible in the morning, before the heat of the day. Rows of trees, gently arching over the hills filled with perfectly ripe fruit.

We take it easy, wandering slowly among the fruit-trees and picking from any that take our fancy. Cherries hang in clusters like gemstones from the trees and, if you’re lucky, you’ll find an orchard like the one we visit, that grows a number of varieties. Blood-red, fire-orange, creamy-white, and wine-dark…  it’s a beautiful, sweet medley.

Some of the trees have small step-ladders resting underneath them, and it’s worth making use of these: many of the best and ripest fruits can be found up high.

It’s expected and even encouraged by the orchard owners that we help ourselves to cherries as we go along, so naturally, we oblige. By the time our fruit-baskets are full, the children have ruby-red lips, stained fingernails, and juice running all the way down their arms to their elbows.

We carry a picnic lunch with us (although nobody is particularly hungry after two hours among the fruit trees) and spread a rug under an enormous, ancient pine tree in the centre of the orchard to eat.

Cherry season is as fleeting as it is fruitful. A summer treat that only really appears in early December, and is all-but gone by the New Year, I think cherries are even sweeter for their scarcity.

I’d hoped to take the children cherry-picking again this year, but first the rains and then the sheer volume of social engagements got in our way. It’s as though all of Melbourne is packing every single thing we missed during the past two and a half years into the four months from August to December. Is this happening for you too?

And of course you know the advice about picking cherries after rain: don’t do it. Once the cherries are ripe, moisture tends to crack or split the fruit, so it’s best to go before the weather turns. (Which has been easier said than done this season. This, if you or anyone reading has been wondering, is why cherries are so incredibly expensive right now - the never-ending rain has made un-cracked cherries are rare and precious commodity).

I’ve been holding on to Jane’s recipe all year, waiting for just the right time to share it so we can really appreciate the cherry flavours in her mum’s crumb-cake (even though Jane’s original recipe makes use of tinned cherries).

She sent her letter in a handmade envelope that she had covered, front and back, with stamped cherries. The stamp looks homemade, too. I wonder if she carved it from an eraser? Red cherries hang like double Christmas-baubles all over the envelope, and a little green leaf just out jauntily at one angle or another.

Inside, she’s taped together four small sheets of paper to create a kind of concertina-letter, again, stamped all over with the lovely cherries. The recipe is type-written, as well as a bit of a story telling the history of the cake she shares.

“In my family, whenever there is any kind of family occasion, my mother will bring a Streusel Cake. Everyone else has given up bringing anything else, because there’s just no way to compete with a good Streuselkuchen. Plus my mother’s cakes are big enough to feed a small to medium sized army,” she writes.

“A typical German Streusel Cake has a bread-like and not very sweet base and is topped, of course, with heaps of delicious, crunch Streusels. In between the base and the Streusels a layer of fruit may be included, most commonly cherries.”

There’s a curious tradition here, which I know will pique your food-history interest. Jane writes that streusel cakes are also known as “funeral cakes” in the Rhineland region where she lives.

“After a burial it is traditional around here to gather for a light meal of soup and sandwiches, followed unfailingly by coffee and Streusel Cake,” Jane continues.

“Maybe this means that Streusel Cake can brighten any day. I would suggest trying it for a happier occasion, though!”

Recipe: Kirschstreuselkuchen (cherry streusel cake)

Jane notes that if you don’t want to make a Streusel cake as big as this one, a third of these ingredients should work well for a typical brownie-sized tin, or a round cake tin with a diameter of 10 to 12 inches.

YOU WILL NEED

For the dough:

• 450g plain wheat flour

• 50g sugar

• 220ml luke-warm milk

• 40g fresh yeast (or 15g dried yeast)

• 1 egg

• 1 pinch salt

• 1 tablespoon butter

For the cherry filling:

• 1 jar or can of pitted cherries*

• 1 heaped tablespoon of starch flour

* Preferably sweetened sour cherries, but other types should work, too. In Germany a typical jar of sour cherries contains around 700g, including juice. This is enough for a thin layer of cherries. If you prefer more fruit, you can use up to two jars (or the equivalent available in your country).
* This can be replaced with any other fruit of your choice (popular varieties are apples, rhubarb or apricots). Any fresh fruit - including cherries - will probably need to be cooked before using it in this recipe

For the streusels:

• 250g melted butter

• 400g plain wheat flour

• 200g sugar

• 1 pinch salt

• 1 pinch cinnamon

• 50g grated or shaved almonds

HOW TO MAKE CHERRY STREUSEL CAKE

1. Make the dough by combining all ingredients and kneading until you get a smooth ball of dough (you can do this by hand or mixer, that’s totally up to you). Leave it to rise in a warm place for at least 30 minutes.

2. Place the cherries with any juices contained in the jar and starch flour in a pot on the stove and bring everything to the boil while stirring occasionally. Let it boil briefly, then take the pot off the stove and set it aside to cool (the cherries do not need to be cold before you continue, just cooled down a little).

3. For the Streusels, place all ingredients in a bowl and combine them. You can use a mixer or rub them together by hand. You should get a crumbly texture. Add a little more flour if things are too sticky.

4. Grease a large baking sheet (approx 45 x 35cm) or line it with parchment paper.

5. The dough should have about doubled in size by now. Briefly knead it once more, then press it into the baking sheet - either by hand or using a rolling pin. It should cover the entire sheet.

6. Pour on the cherry filling and spread it over the entire base. Sprinkle on the Streusels so you get a relatively even layer that should cover most of the cherry filling.

7. Now turn on the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. While the oven preheats, the dough has a little time to rise once again.

8. Once the oven is heated, bake on the middle rack for about 25 minutes. The Streusels should be golden brown and crunchy and the base should be fully baked.

Streusel Cake is often served with a little whipped cream on top or on the side.

Because of its bread-like base, Streusel Cake is best eaten on the day it is made as the base will start to get stale very quickly. However, you can also freeze any leftover cake and defrost it when needed.

Dear Naomi

It feels like a while since we’ve written – I’ve missed you!

I must begin by saying how beautiful it was to read your words about Madeleine’s exposure to harsh realities…I was so moved to read the compassion, kindness and love that poured out of you as you wrote, I have no doubt that the letter will be cherished for many years…

I have not had the week I planned; everything went pear-shaped on Friday evening when my little dog rapidly became quite unwell, resulting in us taking her to the animal hospital where she stayed until Sunday.  She is, I’m thrilled to say, doing really well and is home again with us.  What will stay in my mind most profoundly after those few days of sitting in the waiting rooms of emergency vet services is, as I feel so often, affected by the kindness of strangers.  I’m sure the fact that the space is filled with other anxious pet owners reassures us that we  are amongst like-minded people.  Everyone I interacted with was as worried and preoccupied as me, and yet a peculiar camaraderie and bond of kindness developed very quickly.  I met Mac the Westie who’d eaten a chocolate Santa; saw people who were bringing in stray animals to be reunited with their owners, bulldogs who’d jumped off a trailer, a husky who’d jumped from the back of a ute…and yet we were all so kind to one another, and encouraging, and supportive. 

On reflection, given the time of year, it felt like a gentle reminder of what Christmas is really about – and what we found in that space where anxiety is palpable, amongst the posters and tinsel. Kindness, generosity, empathy and connection; but perhaps that’s just my need to find the good in every situation…

And so, finally, to this week’s lovely letter, and of course to Hector…

As I write, the wind is howling, it’s 15 degrees and we’re having what the weather man describes as small hail, so the thought of cooking enchiladas to warm both us and the kitchen is very appealing.

I must confess that I am woefully uninformed about Mexican cuisine, but in the course of reading and learning more, I’m definitely fascinated – there’s a rabbit hole for the New Year, stay tuned…  I added some chicken to the filling and replaced re-fried beans with red kidney beans.  For spicing I used my favourite Aleppo Pepper and Spanish Smoked Sweet Paprika.  And a used a jar of handmade tomato sauce. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a photo or two…

This letter is already too long – I’m off to post Christmas parcels (too late she cried) …

May the days ahead be filled with love laughter and good champagne, until next week, and may we all be as loved and missed as Hector x

Dear Melanie,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of writing a letter during the past few days. It was a funny and sad kind of weekend, and letter-writing played a small part in making it a little bit better.

Christmas is approaching, as you well know. At our place, the Christmas elf has reappeared on our shelf, there’s an oversized tree taking up too much space in the lounge room, and on Friday night we hosted the first of several Christmas gatherings for beloved family and friends.

The next morning, after a very late night and while half-heartedly scrubbing our way through the mountains of washing up, my daughter and I had a difficult conversation.

It started with her asking me a question - possibly the question - about what goes on during the night on Christmas Eve. The children at my daughter’s school had been talking, you see, and some of them had a thing or two to say that gave my little girl cause for concern.

(And I’m going to pause right here and suggest that if there is a small person reading over your shoulder at the moment, you might wish to table this letter for later, when you have some privacy. If you catch my drift).

My little girl looked me in the eye and asked me, point blank, “Mum, do you promise that it’s not you and dad who give us the presents?”

There was nowhere to run, she was waiting expectantly for my answer, and I hesitated. It was an impossible choice: break her heart, or break her trust.

I couldn’t break her trust - I just couldn’t. I need her to know that she can turn to me, trust me, and rely on me, no matter what. So I told her the truth, and the revelation went as badly as it could possibly have gone. It genuinely did break her heart. Her face crumpled inwards, her eyes went as big as saucers, and she burst into tears, racing up to her bedroom.

And that’s where she stayed for the next three hours, sobbing. I felt - still feel - utterly awful. I was witnessing a growing-up moment, a loss of her childlike naivety, the end of magic in her world, and the unravelling of all the anticipation she had felt the season.

With lightening speed, she made all the connections. “That means…” and like pins dropping into balloons, there went the Easter Bunny, the Elf on a Shelf, the Tooth Fairy, even Tatiana the fairy who had lived in our back yard and been my daughter’s pen-pal since she was three. Pop, pop, pop. Pop!

The funny thing is, she didn’t feel deceived by me, that wasn’t the source of her distress. Instead, she told me accusingly, “I needed a few more years.” She wanted me to lie to her, “Just for a few more years.” I tried to comfort her. “Father Christmas was a real person,” I started to say, “Saint Nicholas—” but she interrupted me before I could finish, all the bitterness and loss and hurt in the world packed into in three heartbreaking syllables: “Santa’s dead!”

I retreated downstairs with tears in my own eyes, and contemplated what to do. When there is so much to be said, but the person you love simply cannot hear your words, what is there to do? I made a comforting cup of tea and, after the kettle boiled, sat down in our front room to write my daughter a letter.

In it, I told her how much I loved her, and how sorry I was to have caused her sadness. I told her I hoped that one day she’d find some comfort in the knowledge that her dad and I had worked so hard to bring magic and wonder into her world.

And I told her with honesty (and if nothing else, she knew I would tell her the truth!) that I believed in magic. That real magic was evidenced, for example, in the fact that trees can talk to one another - and even feed their young - via fungus on their roots. Primitive peoples in Peru created stunning - and scientifically accurate - images in the desert that could only be seen from the air, and that is ancient magic. And I wrote about the moment in which the magic of Christmas overcame the evil of war, and inspired soldiers to gather and sing together across enemy lines on Christmas Eve during WWI. That is magic I will believe in forever.

I wrote that while mums and dads may help to make some magic happen, we’re not faking it. There is so much magic in the world that we don’t see or understand, but that we experience every day, if only we are willing to accept it.

My daughter won’t be able to take all these words in right now, she’s just too heartbroken. But I hope that over time, they will bring her some comfort.

There’s power (and magic?) in writing a letter. As I sat by the window and wrote, I felt my own distress lift, ever-so-slightly. I was able tell my little girl how much I loved her, and I was able share these stories about magic without her shutting me down. She might not have been ready to hear my words, but one day, when the time was right, I knew she’d be able to read them. And maybe read them again, if she so desired.

Over time, I hope that my letter will become a harbinger of hope, a realisation that not all magic is lost.

All of this is to say, Melanie, that I am in powerful need of comfort food tonight. Something that is easy to cook, warming to the heart, and feels like a culinary hug.

Something like Hector’s cheese enchiladas, and his homemade red chilli sauce.

Diane shared the recipe for these enchiladas for Meals in the Mail, in memory of her father, Hector. He had passed away only a handful of months before she wrote to me, so this recipe, which was so special to him, had become powerfully special and emotional for her.

The lined index cards on which she’s hand-written the recipe are embellished with little pink hearts drawn in the corners, posted in a tiny envelope the colour that tomatoes go when you combine them with cream to make a delicious pasta sauce. On the front of the envelope, she’s dotted the i in my name with a little star, and carefully gone through all the round letters in the address and coloured them in with a luminous orange pencil.

The love in her letter is palpable.

For my part, I’m hoping that the substantial combination of cheese, chilli sauce, tomatoes and cumin in Diane’s recipe will create one of those meals that sticks to the sides of your insides, holding you together when you feel frail and fragile.

I mean, is there any combination more comforting than carbs and melted cheese?

I might pair it with a refreshing salsa though, to cut through some of that richness, or follow it with a leafy salad dressed very simply with lemon and salt.

The rains have returned as I write to you, soft summer rains that smell like childhood on a holiday. It’s the perfect evening to melt chilli and cheese.

With love,
Naomi x

RECIPE: Hector’s Cheese Enchiladas

For the enchiladas:

• 12-14 white corn tortillas

• 3-6 cups shredded cheddar cheese

• 1 cup of thinly shredded cabbage

• 1 roma tomato, diced

• 1/4 cup of crumbled cotija cheese* for topping, optional

• Sour cream, for topping

• Hector’s homemade red sauce (see below)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit

2. Spread a thin layer of enchilada sauce over the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking pan

3. Fill each corn tortilla with a handful of the cheese, roll up and place seam-side down in the baking dish. You can pack them closely together. Smooth enchilada sauce over the top. Sprinkle a little bit or a lot of extra cheese (shredded) on top of the enchiladas

4. Bake for about 25 minutes or until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly. Top each enchilada with a little shredded cabbage, diced tomatoes, cotija cheese and sour cream

Serve with Spanish rice and refried beans.

For the red sauce:

• 3 Tbsp oil

• 2 Tbsp flour

• 1/4 cup chilli powder

• 1 Tbsp cumin

• 2 cups beef broth

• 2 1/2 cups tomato sauce

• 1/2 tsp oregano

• 1 clove of garlic

• salt to taste

Stir oil, flour, chilli powder and cumin in a saucepan on low heat until bubbly. Add beef broth, tomato sauce, oregano, garlic and salt. Simmer on low for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

* I had to look up what cotija cheese was, and found the answer on gourmetsleuth.com. They said:

“Cotija cheese is a Mexican, dry grating cheese made with cow's milk and is similar to Parmesan. In the U.S., you may find a fresher, softer version, similar to Feta, but in Mexico, this salty cheese is typically aged at least 100 days. Cotija is named after the Mexican city of Cotija, Michoacán.”

Ta da! Issue 3 of our Home, Hearth and Harvest e-journal is here for your reading pleasure, absolutely stuffed full of good things to bake, eat, grow, read and make.

How to read it

There are two ways to read this journal. You can either download it as a pdf, or read it as a flip-book on your screen.

(Note that there are a number of links in the journal this month - such as those to download the colouring templates, or to view and buy the items in the gift guide - and you will need to use the pdf version if you want those links to be clickable).

READ IT AS A PDF FILE

READ AS A FLIP-BOOK

What’s inside

We’ve taken things up a notch or two in this issue, as a holiday gift from us to you. In fact, there are 88 pages of goodness to find inside, so we put a pause on the Weekly Dispatches just for this week, to give you time to relax and read it all.

This month you’ll find:

• What to do and find in the garden and farmers’ market this month

• Seasonal recipes for gifts and entertaining

• A sneak peek at the letters and recipes coming up in the Weekly Dispatch

• Five “Meals in the Mail” Christmas recipes, shared in their original formats

• “Calm Christmas,” a 12-day guide to enjoying the festive season without feeling the chaos (including handmade decorations, tips for hosting Christmas meals, sustainable wrapping, self care, Christmas rituals and more)

• Four festive colouring-templates, to make gift-cards or envelopes

• A letter-lover’s guide to National Thank You Day, InCoWriMo, and a dispatch from the 1914 Christmas Truce

• Eight pages of mindful and marvellous gift ideas

We hope you enjoy reading this journal as much as we enjoyed making it, and as always, welcome your comments, questions and emails. Also, we’d love to know if you make the recipes and mail-art inside - tell us how you get on!

Naomi & Melanie x

Oh and ps. - fabulous news! You might remember we emailed you about a month ago about the new “Chat” feature Substack has created? This feature is now available for both iOS and Android users.

If you don’t know what this is, it’s basically, it’s like a private WhatsApp group where we can chat away together to our hearts’ content (not the whole world, just us, the friendly, like-minded Meals in the Mail family of subscribers and contributors).

Oh, the conversations we can have! To join in, you just need to download the Substack app on your ‘phone. It’s all free of course. Follow the prompts here.

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Dear Melanie, 

I have a collection of recipes for you today. As I write to you, the sun grows ever-warmer (finally!), and the farmers market on the weekend was filled with an abundance of produce: tomorrow is the first day of summer!

To celebrate summer, I’ve been saving up a series of sunny salads and cheerful letters that I thought you might enjoy.

I know that salads sound like a very simple thing to include in a series of recipes. Almost too simple, you might think. But the stories! The stories why these particular salads mean so much to the people who shared them in letters… they are why I want to share them with you today. 

I’m going to make each of these salads for a summer picnic. Melanie, would you like to join me? Shall we picnic together? 

(Rather than ask you to replicate these recipes, I was wondering if you’d be willing to share one or two of your favourite salads?)

Insalata caprese from Asher in Australia 

First is a recipe from Asher in Australia, who writes on a winter’s evening about a summer salad. In her letter, Asher confesses she doesn’t normally like cooking and almost didn’t participate in Meals in the Mail. She also considered submitting a G&T, which wouldn’t have been the worst outcome. 

But she shares, instead, a salad that was the harbinger of true love.

It’s the salad she made on the first meal she would share with her future husband, a classic caprese salad of tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and basil. (This is also one that I used to eat for late supper every night during a week spent in Milan, many moons ago). 

“Sunday night, July 9 2017, In my study with the Kyoto candle burning,” Asher's letter begins. “The recipe I send you this evening is one I made 15 years ago as part of a meal I prepared for friends at a dinner party in Elizabeth Bay Sydney. I had spontaneously invited a workmate to join my friends that evening - little did I know that three years later he would become my husband. The insalata caprese has become a summer go-to recipe for me as it is so simple yet elegant.”

Recipe: Insalata Caprese

INGREDIENTS:

• 250g buffalo mozzarella, sliced 1cm thick

• 2 large vine-ripened room temperature tomatoes, sliced 1cm thick

• 1/4 cup of olive oil

• 1tbsp balsamic vinegar

• 1 cup of fresh basil leaves

• ground salt & pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

On a large serving platter, alternate sliced tomatoes, mozzarella and salad leaves in a circular motion till done. Drizzle with oil and balsamic and top off with salt and pepper.

Caesar salad dressing from Reagan in Canada 

The next letter is not for the salad itself, but the dressing. It’s for caesar salad - another classic. Reagan in Canada sent it to me, in an envelope decorated with a drawing of lettuce, an earthenware salad bowl and a striped linen tea-towel, all of which she said was a united artistic effort from her family. 

What I love about this recipe is that it was the result of a mystery - a treasure-hunt for flavours. Have you ever done this yourself Melanie? Here’s a section of Reagan’s letter: 

“My Mum and Dad used to meet for dinner once every two weeks (pay day!) after work, at a place about half way between their offices, called the 4th Street Rose. They loved their Caesar salad, but no one there would ever hint at the recipe besides saying there was Worcestershire sauce in it. My Mum said she would try to replicate it at home from other recipes’ ingredient lists, but it never tasted right even with her ‘tweaks’.

“They happened to eat at another restaurant one day - Chianti’s - and the Caesar salad was the closest to 4th Street Rose’s that they had tasted. My Mum was able to get some hints on the recipe from their waitress, plus they sold it by the jar - so she got one to take home and continued her experiment!

“This is the salad dressing she settled on - the measurements are kind of guesstimates, as it was one of those things I grew up making with her so regularly. Just kind of throw everything in without measuring! Hers still tastes better, especially when enjoyed with the rest of a home cooked meal, at the table with the whole family!” 

Recipe: The Caesar salad dressing experiment

STEP 1:

• 2 egg. yolks

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Blend this together until the egg yolk is a little “frothy.”

STEP 2:

• 6 drops Worcestershire sauce

• 1 tsp dry mustard

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard

• 1 tsp lemon juice

• 1 inch of anchovy paste*, squeezed from the tube

• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, shredded or grated

Add all these and blend up, the dressing will be like a paste at this point.

STEP 3:

Mild-flavoured oil (I use avocado): no measurement - just until thickened up the way you like it.

Add the oil slowly while blending (if you have an emulsion blender). If not, I’ve thrown about 1/4 cup at a time and lended it like that and it’s been fine.

* (I often don’t have anchovy paste and make this dressing without it - not authentic caesar I guess, but no-one seems to notice!)

Sunny salad from Helene in France 

Helene sent her recipe on a sweet little postcard with an illustration from a children’s book on the front - a woman decorating pink cake in a rustic, oversized kitchen. It’s a hearty salad, featuring rice and chickpeas alongside the surprising but welcome flavours of nectarines, grapefruit and tomatoes. 

Helene says, simply, “Inspired by summertime,” and invites us, “Would you like to taste this?” 

Yes, actually, I would! 

Recipe: Sunny Salad

PREPARE:

• Cold cooked rice

• Cold cooked & peeled chickpeas

• Peeled & diced tomatoes, nectarines & grapefruit

Then gently pour them in your favourite bowl. Add finely chopped leaves of basil and peppermint. Mix smoothly and add a pinch of aromatic table salt and a drop of olive oil. Serve cool and share happy!

Tomato salad from Jackie in Canada 

This salad feels a little Greek in flavours, featuring tomatoes and feta cheese with a mix of herbs to taste: basil, oregano and thyme are suggested, but Jackie says dill and garlic are her favourite herbal accompaniments. 

Her letter is full of sweet puns and cute drawings, tucked into a sunny, yellow envelope. 

Jackie gives her salad a poetic name: “Dad’s ‘Di-Vine’ Tomato Salad" and writes, “This yummy salad is a cherished family favourite! Dad has a ‘green’ thumb. He grows the most flavour-full and di-vine tomatoes. Dad is a super cook/gardener. We ‘grown’ up kids adore Dad’s home-cooked meals! We don’t ever have a complete and proper visit, without this salad being served. If you love tomatoes, especially fresh garden ones - you will love this salad as much as we do!”

Recipe: Dad’s “Di-Vine” Tomato Salad

Step 1:

• 2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

• 1/2 - 1 cup feta (depends how “cheesy” you are!)

Crumble cheese on top of chopped tomatoes

Step 2 (dressing):

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 1/4 cup white vinegar

You can add these herbs to taste:

• 2 tsp basil

• 1 tsp oregano

• 1 tsp thyme

• 4 cloves garlic

Or my favourite version:

• 2 tsp fresh dill

• chopped garlic to taste

Step 3:

Combine oil, vinegar, herbs of choice (dill 😊), garlic to taste in a tight lidded jar. Shake well.

Dressing can be made away or two ahead. Pour dressing over tomatoes / feta. Yummm!

Mustard vinaigrette from Kate in the USA

Kate got this recipe from her mother, who first had it from someone called Claudia. I’ll share Kate’s story about this in a minute but first, I want to talk about what I love so much in her story. It was a simple but powerful moment in which Kate discovered confidence in the kitchen, a trust in her innate ability to know flavours. 

I’ll let Kate tell you the story in her own words. 

“This is the recipe that taught me to trust myself in the kitchen. I would dutifully take out the recipe card every time I made it, scrupulously measuring each ingredient. Then, just before we left for a potluck to which I’d promised to bring this exact design, I misplaced the card. Panic ensued, and I frantically called my mother, who had obtained it in the first place from Claudia herself. 

“Quick aside - Claudia is a chemist and an incredible cook. She throws this ‘recipe’ together all the time and never measures. My mother, God bless her, does not do improvisation, so she asked Claudia to be more specific and include measurements. 

“Well, as I was saying, frantic phone calls ensued, but no one picked up. I was just me and the Grey Poupon…" [Melanie - I had to look up what this was - turns out it’s a brand of Dijon mustard]. "...I took a deep breath and mixed a little bit of this and a little of that together and tasted, adjusted, and tasted again. 

"It worked! I was free from the anxiety of a lost recipe and had gained a newfound confidence in my own abilities. Of course I found the recipe in the end, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it - but don’t be afraid to experiment!"

And one last thing: Kate decorated her recipe with beautiful, vibrant watercolour illustrations of the ingredients. It’s a keeper.

Recipe: Claudia’s mustard vinaigrette

• 1 tbsp dijon mustard

• 1/2 cup raw apple cider vinegar

• 2 heaping tbsp sugar

• salt & pepper

• 1 cup corn on grapeseed oil

• snipped herbs (optional)

Slowly add mustard to the vinegar and whisk together. Add sugar, salt and pepper. Add oil and snipped herbs, if you have them. Store in a small mason jar.

Happy munching,
Naomi x

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Dear Melanie,

I never really thought about having polenta as a meal in itself, before reading Ioana’s letter. I’ve only ever had it in restaurants, as a kind of small accompaniment to protein, or as the stodge in which to trap the sauce: “Eye fillet with roasted heirloom carrots served on a bed of polenta and red wine jus” - that sort of thing.

But in Romania, Ioana paints a picture of her family gathered around the kitchen table in the winter, and polenta is their main meal. I imagine it being wild, wintry and dark outside - a bit like the “arctic blast” we are experiencing in Melbourne at the moment! - cosy indoors, the heaters are on and the windows are partially fogged up. The polenta is brought to the middle of the table in a giant serving-bowl, and everyone simply grabs a spoon each, and digs in.

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Dear Naomi

Thanks for your letter and Lauren’s delightful chatty correspondence taking us into her life and kitchen. This week’s recipe is very familiar to me, satays are one of my favourite foods; everything about them transports me… especially as we are plunged back into wintery greyness in Southern Australia.

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Dear Melanie,

Lauren’s letter is my favourite kind of letter: long and chatty. It’s filled with stories about her family, food splashes, drawings by her children, and the kinds of “nothing much” anecdotes that actually mean ever-so-much, because they are the minutiae on which our days are built.

When historians look back on what was going on in Canada in 2017, Wikipedia (or whatever the 2517 version of Wikipedia will be) can instantly give them a catalogue of all the key “events” of the year. (And to future historians who might be reading this page, this link will save you some trouble).

But what did daily life look like, behind closed doors, in Canada in 2017?

Read more