Lady Lost... in Melbourne

Garden me good

For such a vibrant cultural city, one that thrives on lane ways, hidden pockets and hipster secrets, the Docklands precinct at the west end of the city is a strange anomaly of Melbourne. New Quay was designed as a food and wine mecca, and yet, now in its eighth year, the precinct is still as lifeless as the plant life in the Yarra River. The apartment towers valiantly resist the buffeting of the wind tunnels for which the region has become known, and the tumbleweeds bouncing down the walkways around the water are mostly undisturbed by human traffic. That is, of course, with the exception of Friday night work crowds desperate for a cold beverage to drown another week. 

But believe it or not, the intention of this post is not to condemn. Because finally, there is a pocket of true joy in this mass of wind, concrete and strange dwellings. Urban Reforestation has created an urban garden, and a charming one at that, at North Wharf in Victoria Harbour. Consider all I said about New Quay relevant to the Victoria Harbour precinct also. 

But back to the garden. This installation is based on something the Docklands as a whole lacks: community. Through a charmingly-developed site, and classes and workshops, UR – the brain-child of 25-year-old environmentalist Emily Ballantyne-Brodie – is campaigning for vibrancy in this pot of soullessness. Good on them! Classes include balcony gardening and worm farming, as well as bread-making and pickling. And in the meantime, you can visit the garden in your lunch break and spend time in the chill out area, the sand pit, see the worm farm or read the community noticeboard. Or visit their shopfront next to Safeway on Merchant St and admire the cute-as-can-be citrus tress, chilli plants and gardening tools, and – if you're anything like me – lament the lack of gardening prowess you possess, but buy a plant anyway (and post reminders around the house: feed and water. prune. shade. feed and water).

Hey, this may just be worth leaving the Paris-end of town for.

LL x

(image above is an artist impression of the community garden).

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake

 The remainder of that nursery rhyme talks about a baker man, baking a cake as fast as he can. Well, I know how that baker man feels. In our kitchen, we were two baker girls, going as fast as we could to get our menu prepared for ThreeThousand's Laneway Market at the Laneway Festival on January 30. This post has taken a little while to come. Mostly because I was still reeling from the flying flour, flicking butter and lines of people waiting to pay good money for our baked goods. 

What started as an eye-opening trip to Costco, ended with a beautiful looking stall, a table full of baked items made from our own hands, and an eventual sell-out, two hours before the market closed for the day. Success, down to which I put our professional signage (thanks to a designer friend, and matching decor. We looked like we had done it all before, even though inside, we were running on instinct and adrenaline rather than experience. The biggest seller was our mint-choc brownies (or Brownzillas, as we called them on the day, an ode to Bridezilla who were playing the festival). The secret to these delicious treats is to use almond meal instead of flour. And a mixture of dark chocolate and mint chip milk chocolate. What results is an incredibly moist and minty chocolate indulgence. Gluten-free too! Just find any brownie recipe and make those adjustments to reap the reward.

I look back on the day with fondness. It was fun. Sitting there, one hand gloved for food hygiene's sake, other hand poised to take people's money, we didn't expect our stall to be so popular. But it was, and we fed on the compliments that ensued as patrons bit into their purchases before they'd even left our table. The free mini donuts was an extra incentive (we called them Dirty Free donuts... after the Dirty Three... see what we've done there?!). But 12 and 36 hours earlier, things were not so easy-going. Baking partner Penny and I didn't trust our respective kitchens (and ovens), so we trotted off to our mothers' homes instead. Penny's first. Her mum floated around the kitchen, interested in what we were doing, wanting to chat about work and boys as we tried to measure cups of flour, tablespoons of lemond and grams of sugar. So we sat her down with a plate of peanuts to shell as we got on with lemon slices and nutty biscuits. Quiches, brownies, lemon slice and nutties complete after a few hours of solid toil, we headed home. I took corners like an 80-year-old with severe anxiety so as not to disturb the baked beauties on the drive home. Night two at my mum's. Her housemate (is it a little wrong to call 56-year-old friends sharing a house, housemates?) and housemate's boyfriend (again, is it wrong to refer to girlfriends and boyfriends when they've been through menopause?) were hovering with intensity, asking question after question, offering advice (that we didn't want nor take) and angling for taste-tests. So, we gave them a burnt pastry and sent them off to drink a bottle of wine and fall asleep in a drunken pastry stupor. My Mum passed on her recipe for delicious, tried-and-true club sandwiches (we decided would be called Eddy Club Sandwich Ring for the day), we finished our pastries and blueberry muffins (that were delicious, thanks to the addition of sour cream in the recipe), and headed home – exhausted, and over the sight of flour and sugar. But done, and ready for the day ahead. 

As I said, we sold out, the crowd open and appreciative of homemade goods. We would not have been so successful had we been sitting at the Big Day Out or Good Vibrations. I think we may have ended up in the middle of a 'keepings off' game with blueberry muffins, or a utensil fight with our tongs and spatulas. But at the Laneway Fest we found a polite and discerning crowd, preferring to pay $5 for home-made spanakopita than a greasy burger, or bucket of chips and sauce. And for that we are grateful. It made the shopping trip to Costco seem worth it.

 Melbourne has a plethora of markets at which ordinary people (like us) can try their hand at selling home-made goods. Whether it be food, clothing, badges, art or the like. Here are a few less intimidating ones to get started (don't get drowned out in the Rose St Artist Market or St Kilda Esplanade Market before you've established your product and brand!):

Blackbird summer market, Fitzroy Indoor at Newtown Worker's Club. An intimate setting that won't be affected by the weather.

Fitzroy market A new community market looking for stallholders. 

Craft Hatch Become a member of Craft Victoria, and enjoy their support, as well as their incubator market in the heart of the city.

Sisters' market in the Brunswick Town Hall. 

Thread Den's North Melbourne Market  Relatively new, but has been so popular it is now a permanent, regular event.

If you have any more suggestions, please comment.

Happy baking, crafting, buying or selling!

LL x

Heigh Ho Heigh Ho, off to Costco we go.

Alarm bells should have started ringing as soon as I got out of my small hatchback, surrounded by station wagons, four-wheel drives and shuddering Falcons from the ’90s, to grab a trolley wider than anything I had ever had to steer before. With my hummer-like shopping wagon, I waited patiently at the double-door elevator until the doors parted, and it was like they had let the cows out of the transport vehicle. That is not a direct comparison between the people who shop at Costco and cows. It is merely a visual aid. Maybe. I closed my eyes while the packed trolleys stampeded past and then let me and my wide eyes roll into the elevator and be taken to the entrance of a new world. 

Costco is like being transported directly into a middle-of-America Walmart that has been injecting steroids into its bulk-buy arms to within an inch of its life. As I wheeled the hummer around the aisles – often taking the corners too close, mind you, and collecting a stack of bulk-buy biscuits, or a lost small child in the process – I could hardly remember for what I was there. We – no, I wasn't alone. If I was, I may have never found the clarity of mind to get out alive. We, my best friend and I, are about to hold a baked goods stall at the upcoming Laneway Festival in Melbourne, and we were in Costco to save money on essential ingredients such as flour, sugar, puff pastry, blueberries, eggs, butter and milk. Anything more specific would have to wait for the supermarket (*sigh*, the modest, easily navigable supermarket). 

Past the brown-painted tin gazebo on sale, left at the DVDs, right at the yellow and green canoes. We found the produce section and got down to business (with eyes still wide as if held with toothpicks). Lemons, tick. Spinach, tick – 1kg bucket of such, double tick. Tomatoes, tick. 

To the flour and sugar section... through the flat-screen TVs, past the appliances and beyond the diamond counter and to the... Wait. Diamond counter? In Costco? "Will you marry me honey? Yes? Great. Now, if this ring doesn't fit, we need to take it back to Costco and have it adjusted. Yes, love of my life, I bought your ring at Costco. I just happened to be there looking for that 10kg sack of rice we have in our cupboard, and I couldn't help but think of you and our future. You (and our sack of rice) make me so happy." Ridiculous, no? Oh no... that pales into insignificance as you peer into the counter and see, among many sparkling treats with hefty price-tags, one oversized piece of bling on a ring for.... wait for it... $169,999! That's right. You'd receive only one dollar change out of one-hundred-and-seventy-thousand dollars. Not even the hideously oversized square diamond would ease the pain of knowing my future husband bought my ring at Costco.

So my shopping/baking partner and I got what we could (which was actually not much. There were so many items for sale, yet nothing we actually needed or wanted. Funny that.) and headed out. Alive and emotionally intact. Just.

I recommend a visit to Costco (you can peruse without buying a membership) if you enjoy people watching (you may get lucky enough to see a family arguing over which box-of-100 to buy: Bounty or Cherry Ripe?) or buying in bulk – for whatever reason one needs to purchase 10 kilos of something rather than one. Don't go there for the architecture, flattering lighting, boutique groceries or modest package weights. Nothing of the sort exists in Costco. And if it all gets too much for your widened eyes and you start seeing stars, never fear. You can head to the Optometrist counter and have them checked. You think I'm joking? 

Once our thundering hearts have calmed down from this experience, we shall begin baking for Saturday's Laneway Festival (come and say hi if you are there!). I shall report on those adventures next week.

Love. 

LL x 

Friands are your Friend (and so are lemons).

There is so much to love about lemon. The juice adds refreshing tang to any recipe. The colour looks great on a bronzed bod in summer. They make a Calippo what it is. A slice will transform your vodka+soda. They are free if you have a tree. And they'll even help you clean greasy pots and pans! 

I know this post is a little out of blog-character for me, but these were such a baking WIN that I had to share it with you. I love the citrus tang of lemon in summer. That, combined with the tartness of raspberries make these friands feel refreshing and even (kinda) healthy! The recipe is adapted from something I found on cuisine.com.au. I decided to make mine slightly moister and with extra tang by upping the almond meal and lemon inclusions. They were moist, tangy, sweet and filling. All at the same time. Delicious. And my house guests loved them!

Raspberry and Lemon Friands

6 egg whites

3/4 cup plain flour, sifted (I used White Wings gluten-free plain flour, which worked a treat, and gluten-eaters were none the wiser!)

1 cup icing sugar

1 1/4 cup almond meal

lemon rind of 2 lemons

juice and pulp of one lemon

180g melted butter

1 cup raspberries (frozen or fresh; I used frozen, as they hold their shape better when mixing)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Whisk egg whites until foamy. Set aside. Combine flour, icing sugar almond meal, and lemon rind and juice/pulp. Mix in butter and egg whites with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add raspberries and gently fold into mixture. Grease friand tins and spoon mixture into tins (fill almost to top). Bake for 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in tins for five minutes, then on a wire rack. Serve cool. Don't store in the fridge, as they would dry out.

Note: You can use a friand tin if you wish to be traditional, but I used a flat tray spooned the mixture into mini-muffin patty pans to create a bit-sized nibble. The mixture holds its shape in the patty pans quite well. You could also use a mini muffin tray.

This mixture made approximately 20 mini friands.

Enjoy, and impress!

LL x

(image courtesy Tribal Photography)

New Year. New Wardrobe. New lease on life.

Happy New Year, and all that jazz. With the end of 2009 came a bit of a hectic schedule for me, and a general lack of interest in the beast that is the internet. I focused more on the things in my life I could touch, taste, do. I baked, I sewed, I worked... I pretty much became a 1950s housewife, minus the hair rollers and floral swing dress.

Now, with the start of a new year and new decade, I feel awake enough to fit everything in within the 24 hour tick-tock. The catalyst for this new lease on life? A freshly sorted and culled wardrobe. Yes, I figure if my clothes can now fit in my 'robe without busting through the cracks, and crawling into my boyfriend's (small) section, I too can organise myself to fit everything.

The wardrobe cleanse is a must for all of us who think we never have anything good to wear, yet who can't close the drawers or doors on their bulging clothes piles.

Benefits:
1. You'll discover items you'd forgotten about at the bottom of your piles, and look on them with fresh eyes, and a renewed appreciation. If that fails to occur, those items belong in the Salvos bag.
2. You'll be able to see your outfit options in one glance, as long as you have folded and organised properly in the cleanse. 
3. Everything in your life will seem more manageable, somehow. Like magic.

What to do with your discards:
1. Bag them and drop at your local Salvos or Brotherhood. Then smile each time you walk past the op shop and see you trash in the window, ready to become someone else's treasure for approximately $8.
2. Sell designer items on eBay, or on CocoLee's fashion marketplace (cocolee.com.au) if they are relatively new and in good condition. 
3. Organise a swap event with some friends of similar size and style. You may pick up a new staple item in exchange for your discards.
4. Stuff everything into suitcases, and your boot and hit the Camberwell market in Melbourne (or equivalent). A stall will cost you a small fee, and you'll have to get up with the sparrows on a Sunday morning, but there's always a crowd willing to pay a few bucks for your moth-eaten jumper, or last season's jeans. See sundaymarket.com.au
5. For the home-sewer, try turning your unwanted pieces into something new. Old jeans into a bag, or cut-off shorts? An old skirt into a tank etc. You've got nothing to lose if it turns out worse than something Brynne Gordon would wear to church. The item was trash to begin with!

Get cleansing, you hoarders. It is perfect catharsis for the new year, and the summer months.

LL x

WIN Tessuti Treasure

I have never been so excited about a fabric store. I mean, Spotlight is just that: bright, invasive lights that make any bolt of material, button or accessory seem cheap and tacky. And, for the most part, that's exactly what you're getting in a superstore like that. And then the independent fabric shops remind me of my problem with op shops (as much as I would love to be one of those treasure hunters who finds vintage Chanel for a dollar from the neighbour's grandmother) – crowded, musty, dark and hard to distinguish between a fabric bolt and a table leg. As much as I try to support the local fabric merchants, I just never find the quality I am looking for. Until Tessuti entered my life. The picture to the left of this article really says it all. This place (now located in Flinders lane, Melbourne) is a haven of wooden interior, young knowledgeable staff and beeeeeeautiful fabrics. They stock sublime things from Japan, and even designer fabrics from Italy (Armani linen, anyone?). There is a loyalty shopper discount, and always a bargain to be found. That, my fashion-focused friends, is my kind of store. 

Now to the good stuff. You can WIN A $200 VOUCHER FOR TESSUTI FABRICS!

This month is October, or, as I am now referring to it, Frocktober. To see how the Frocktober kids are working to raise money for Ovarian Cancer research, click here. I encourage you to get involved in any way possible. This is my way, and I hope it helps some.

The competition: Design a dress for Frocktober. There is a Frock Party in Geelong on the 31st to which you can wear your special Frocktober dress if you want to show it off. That part is up to you. But to be in the running to win the $200 gift voucher (that's a lot of Armani linen right there!), design, style or sew a dress and send the evidence to me at lady@ladylost.com. If you can't draw too well, can't sew too well, or don't have the funds to buy all the materials, just BE CREATIVE, and you'll soon have $200 to spend on fabrics, patterns, books or notions at Tessuti. Be inventive and you'll be fine – if you can't sketch, just create a collage of the dress you want using magazine cut-outs. Or create a mood board of your inspiration. Then scan what you have and send it on over. I live for the 'ding' of an email popping into my inbox from all of you, so please don't let me down.

Entries close midday October 30. And when you enter, I implore you to go to Frocktober.org and support in any way you can.

Good luck, creative petals. 

LL x

Italian for 'beautiful treasures'. True dat.

I love Melbourne. And when I get to walk down Brunswick's Sydney Rd, turn left through a heavy sliding door and be faced with a tiny fake grass runway lined with miniature wooden stools, it just affirms it even further. Tesori Bellini has long been a favourite store of mine (I think the owner, Marisa, knows me by my dreamy-eyed looks of pining through the window from the footpath as I try to stumble to the local cafe for my Saturday morning coffee – I'm always too embarrassed to go into this gorgeous store in my hungover hobo state). Last week, the label launched a leather range, and it is gorgeous. Think purples, pinks and oranges with gold, silver, pewter, in a range of small to large, fashionable to practical. More practical than the fake grass runway, anyway. 

                

Pic credits: 1. No credit 2. Prisma Clutch 3. Roman Holiday Clutch worn by Emily @ Giant 4. Lucida Tote worn by Mia @ Giant 5. Danza Tote worn by Natasha @ Scene 6. Seradai Messenger Bag with Petali Feature 

A flat sat on the mat.

As Spring Racing Carnival gallops towards us (see what I've done there?), fear is awakened in me. I wear flats on 29 days out of 30, and on the occasion I do wear heels, I have to plan my route from the car to the door, around my desk and back to the car with minimal movement so I don't end up crippled with pain and blisters and walking like I have a pebbled beach in my shoes. Last year, I embraced the maxi dress with both arms (actually, with all limbs, really) and used a blue chiffon to-the-floor number by Merle & Maude to hide the fact that I was wearing flat silver gladiator sandals. It also meant I remained shorter than my boyfriend, which I find imperative to feel feminine. I was like a kid who knew she'd done something naughty, and hoped her parents wouldn't catch on. I couldn't help but smile guiltily at all the girls straining under the pressure of sweaty feet in new heels. 

But this year, my dress isn't to-the-floor, and my legs are not long enough to pass as glamorous in flats. So, imagine my delight this year, when I stumbled across Melbourne-based FlexiFlats. Comfy flats small enough to fit in the clutch, and stylish enough to slip on the feet when everyone has had enough bubbled liquid to not notice the difference. They say they are going to be hanging around the race days to appear, guardian angel-style (or fairy godmother if you see yourself as more of a Cinderella) when they see the first sign of a hobble. They won't see me hobbling. I already have them packed. Alongside the 'Party Feet' and blister packs. So many lessons are learned the hard way, but you can just learn vicariously through my mistakes if you're a Spring Racing virgin. FlexiFlats: better than having heels hanging from your intoxicated arm. That's too catchy not to be their slogan. Buy FlexiFlats here.

I wore one when I was eight.

It was black, neck to ankle, with leopard print lapel and sleeves. Yes, it was a jumpsuit. And a fleecy one at that. I wore it to bed. And I wore it until the ankle elastic was sitting mid-calf, and I couldn't button up the front for fear of cutting myself in half. Gee, I loved that thing. I hadn't thought about it since my stuffed toys were packed away for good, and the books I was reading reached 100 pages long. But thanks to an agile feline, my love has been renewed. Prancing Leopard is a US-based yoga and fitness clothing label, offering threads that'll induce a sigh of complete comfort pleasure, and inspire you to bend instantly into Downward Dog. Pink organic cotton in support of breast cancer research; for that you deserve to feel eight again. Jumpsuits, hoodies and cocoon shrugs. Is there any better reason to take up yoga? You'll be the envy of Bikram himself.

Buy online here.

Spring in my step

There is something about Spring air that holds a certain freshness, it brings smiles to the faces of Melburnians sick of Jack Frost in the morning, and makes the prospect of al fresco lunches appealing again. And, I have cherry blossoms on my street! Sigh...

Pump air back into those Spacebags full of your summer clothes, and let them breathe life into your wardrobe! Another fine piece of freshness to come to life this spring is this here, my blog. The idea of Lady Lost is to overwhelm myself in the city whose pavements I am currently pounding, to bring you what’s fresh, what’s street, what’s gorgeous, funny, interesting or just plain bizarre. And even better, what’s BARGAIN-tastic. Keep an eye out here, I will be offering cool prizes every now and again, but more than that, I’ll be offering priceless bits of info from the recesses of my mind, the closet and the shopping strip.

P.S. I am so shopping strip over shopping centre. Especially in spring.

Tips for spring:

-       The one-piece swimsuit. Get it NOW before eeeeeeveryone jumps on board and buys out every one-piece from here to Broome. There are some amazing Zimmermann one-piece creations on their way (and if you buy online you can get them on the cheap).

www.zimmermannwear.com

-        Maxi dress. Nope, the maxi didn’t disappear in the winter fog, it was just curled up in a tree trunk for hibernation, or something. The maxi dress is perfect for spring, as it keeps your legs warm and the winter whiteness covered. Teamed with a cropped blazer jacket it will serve the still chilly spring nights too.

-       The structured jacket. See above for its perfect purpose. Eager to get into your summer clothes? That’s OK, as long as you have a jacket to keep you warm on the street. Witchery has some great ones right now. But, for something nice and different, check this one out from local label Trimapee. It's chunky and heavy, and not really 'spring', but at least it's cropped, I love it, and it's available online at their website. 

Happy days,

LL

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