When the mister and I started looking for an apartment to rent in Brisbane, we had a very specific image in mind.
This city is quite well known for having dramatically different residential architecture than Sydney or Melbourne. While they have the terrace house, we have the Queenslander.
Queenslanders are huge wooden houses raised up on stilts. They were built to breathe in brutal tropical heat and stand above floods from the moody Brisbane river. They are very ornate and often feature scroll ironwork and tons of beautiful details. Apparently for most of the 1980′s and 90′s they were considered totally passe, and were leveled or remodeled out of recognition en mass.
Thankfully, in recent years people have started to value the beauty of these Victorian-era architectural giants.
We wanted to find a home in one of the many Queenslanders that has been split into multiple apartments. Hopefully something with lots of old details and in a very specific neighborhood and price range.

What we found wasn’t quite perfect, but is damn close. Honestly, as close as we can hope to find. Our new home is one of five apartments in a Queenslander owned and maintained by an elderly italian (or maybe greek?) gentleman who undoubedlty bought it 20+ years ago.
He’s one of the best kind of landlords for people who like old details. Incredibly cheap, but incredibly respectful of his investment.
The house has been meticulously maintained, but has only been upgraded where absolutely necessary.

Our love for the place grows as we live in it and get things set up.
Here’s a peek at some details.

At first, I thought the bathroom was the worst room. the 50′s era mint green wall paneling isn’t offensive itself, but the many holes and screws in it aren’t the prettiest. I’m now getting to appreciate it’s character. Perhaps I’m just so in love with the rest of the house that my feelings for the bathroom are like those you have for the underdog. It’s sweet, rough around the edges, and dang it, it has the best light in the house.

yes, that’s the actual key to lock the deadbolt on our front door (!!)

I cannot possibly express how wonderful it is to have a backyard after years and years of living in a 5th floor walkup with the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway outside my bedroom window.

I love New York, but I also love the smell of frangapani just after sunset, the silvery color of weathered wooden shacks, the heavily fruiting mango tree home to a colony of flying foxes (aka HUGE BATS) and iced coffee on the porch.

Although all of my family and friends are freezing their butts off back in North America, it’s hot as all get out here in Queensland (that’s the name of the state Brisbane is in for those challenged by geography).
A couple days ago I had the genius plan to combat it with cold Key Lime Pie. This sounds well and good, but the truth is, Australians eat in a way that’s very British-inspired and certain foods are incredibly difficult to find.

First issue: Key Limes. COME ON DUDES, THIS IS THE TROPICS. Even if Australia doesn’t grow’em, Bali and Fiji are like, an hour away. You KNOW they have Key Limes in Fiji.
How hard is it to find Key Limes in sunny tropical Brisbane? Answer: really hard.
After much searching I gave up on Key Limes and settled on using regular limes and more sugar than I would have preferred. Oh well, thankfully, I’m of half Swedish ancestry and the sweets-eating rumors are true. I can handle some serious sugar. The mister will just have to deal.

My second setback was sourcing ingredients for the crust. Internet, are you aware that the rest of the world does NOT have graham crackers? This means NO s’mores, NO graham cracker piecrusts, and uhhh, what else do you use graham crackers for again?
Regardless of their lack of flexibility, the absence of graham crackers was a complete tragedy in my pie-making plans.
After lamenting my deprivation of honey-flavored crackers to twitter, I got to googling and was pointed in the direction of something with the tantalizing name “digestive biscuits”.
mmmm, sounds digestivy and not delicious at all.
I challenge you dear Internet, to come up with an even more unappetizing name for a sweet cracker. Seriously, let’s hear it.

As luck would have it, the lack of graham crackers/hesitancy over gross-out biscuits did not completely derail my pie-making plans.
Just when I was getting frustrated in the grocery store over the complete absence of cornstarch (the rest of the world uses arrowroot because they don’t have the massive corn subsidies like the US) I remembered that Aussies are huge pie eaters, just of the savory variety. A stroll over to aisle two back to a section housing various sauces for meat pies and what did I behold but instant pie pastry mix! Just add butter! No cooking required! Perfect as our stove is about 80 years old, and lighting the oven with a match scares me.

step one: crust mix

step two: melt an incredible amount of butter (or olive oil-based margarine if you’re a dork like me)

step three: pie crust! brilliant!

With all necessary ingredients for the filling in hand, I went to work.
It came out totally delicious if I do say so myself, and the only change I’ll make on round two will be the addition of a single drop of green food coloring as the pie came out an insipid beige color. Tasty, not pretty.
Without further ado, yikes machine presents to you:

Lime Cream Pie

Ingredients:
1 pie shell of your preference ready to eat (US people: the off the shelf graham cracker crusts need to be baked a couple minutes for no-bake pies like this)

¼ cup lime juice (the juice of 2 large limes was perfect for me)
2 ½ cups milk (I used soy, dork alert!)
1 cup sugar
5 tbsp arrowroot/cornstarch
zest from two limes, chopped fine
1 drop green food dye (optional obviously, and I would love to hear about non-chemical color alternatives that wont affect flavor)

Instructions:
- Pull a chair up to the stove. This takes a minute.
- In a large saucepan whisk together lime juice, milk, sugar, arrowroot, optional food dye, and zest over medium heat.
- Bring it to a boil slowly stirring constantly (hence chair) this will take about 10 minutes.
- Once you feel like your arm is about to fall off it magically starts to thicken.
- Keep stirring it until it’s about the thickness of pudding and you can fold it in the pan.
- Remove it from heat and let it sit in the pan for about 5 minutes.
- Pour it into the crust and put it in the fridge to cool.
- 3 hours in the fridge will firm it up enough to slice it but it’s still fully tasty if you sneak a sloppy early piece.

ACTION SHOTS OF ME TOTALLY MAKING A PIE AND NOT BURNING IT OR CATCHING ANYTHING ON FIRE!

stirring

more stirring

I know your arm is going numb. keep stirring, it’s getting there I promise.

FINALLY!

pie!

After it was done cooling, it darkened considerably to the aforementioned insipid beige, so no photos of that.
Next time I’m making it green, chemicals be damned.

Does anyone know what these rugs are called?

I remember making them as a child, perhaps there were kits?
If anyone knows what they’re called or where I can find a tutorial on making them, I would appreciate it. I’m working on a project were I would like to use similar construction methods.

Thanks!

I just added a new link to my blogroll that everyone should check out.

Kylie Timmins, the author of Flying Ducks is my new internet (soon to be real-life) friend. She wrote a city guide for Design*Sponge giving the lowdown on her town of Brisbane, Australia where I will soon be moving.

I wrote her a thanks and we’ve struck up a conversation that makes me even more amped to start the adventures of the next chapter of my life!

Moving overseas is crazy to think about and it’s even more exciting now that I know I’ve got at least one like-minded lady to hang with.

Check out her blog which chronicles the DIY decoration and remodel of her home, it’s fuel to the fire for us home obsessed!

Vintage flag from Oxycottontail’s Etsy shop
Skull, fire, and X scratch-off decals from Ugly Luggage (need to reframe)
Detritus “S” tile, a gift from the mister, sent from Australia
Vintage candlesticks bought in a Philadelphia thrift shop that I spray painted gloss black.

Dear Basil,
Today, you look OK. I won’t lie, it’s been a struggle.
You certainly had some contention with the last four weeks of extreme heat and humidity. No matter how much water and sunlight I gave you, your leaves were limp and slightly yellow. The ones on the bottom still don’t look too hot.

I honestly don’t know if it’s me, or if it’s you. It’s probably me, but I’m not sure how I can help you best.
I moved you from the bedroom window to the living room with direct but not quite blasting light. I’ve watered you daily and gave you drops of plant food. You’re still obviously not the happiest plants and I’m not sure if things will work out between us in the long run.

I do want to thank you for your contribution to my dinner the other night. I was able to check an item off my life list by preparing a meal made with an ingredient I grew myself. Still, I’d like to take things up a notch. The tomato, mozzarella, and cucumber salad was great with you in it, but I was surprised by how less fragrant your leaves were compared to the farmers market leaves I’ve bought in the past.

I’m not sure what to do Basil, but I hope we can work this out.

Love,
Shilo

~

So things are going ok with windowbox herb gardening 101, but just ok. not great, not really even good.

As you can see from my attached plea to my plants, I don’t know what to give them to make them happy, and suffice it to say, they are not nearly as chatty as the only other houseplant I’ve had in my life – an incredibly melodramatic Dieffenbachia I left on the west coast.

I keep on seeing things like this:

But I know that I have a tendency to throw money at problems which often doesn’t result in anything more than the accumulation of stuff I don’t use.

The Sky Planters pictured above have some sort of internal watering system that promises to make life with plants a billion percent easier, but really I mostly like the idea of never feeling guilty seeing my plants droop because they can’t droop! they’re upside down!

My struggle to grow the most basic of herbs is really messing with the idea of the life I want to build. I really want to be one of those people who grows awesome food and exclaims, Oh! herbs are SO easy! but yeah, not the truth.

So here it is: Give up my imagined future adulthood of herb-growing and bird watching and be content with the reality of buying all of my produce forever, the end? or take a new tack?

Is there really such a thing as a green thumb, or is it just a matter of learning the signals and paying attention?

Mark Bittman wrote this amazing guide, 101 Simple Salads on his NYTimes blog, the Minimalist.
I’ve just started working through the list and wow, what inspiration!
I’ve been purposefully cooking for just over a year now and although salads aren’t actually cooked per say, making these has really taught me a lot about flavor combinations already and I’ve only tried about twelve of them!

My favorite so far, #10: Cook whole grape tomatoes in olive oil over high heat until they brown lightly, sprinkling with curry powder. Cool a bit, then toss with chopped arugula, loads of chopped mint and lime juice.

What are your favorite salads?