Creswick: museum, farmers market, pizza and the American Hotel

Creswick was chosen for overnight accommodation as a convenient location between our visits to Beaufort and Clunes in August.  Surprisingly, it was so much more than a place to sleep.  We spent more time than we expected with visits to the farmers market, splendid heritage buildings, the local history museum and the shops.  The town has a rich goldrush history and a vibrant active community.  In fact, we were could have spent much more time there if we had not had plans to visit Clunes before we drove home.  

The American Hotel Creswick

 90 Albert Street, Creswick

 

By the time we arrived to check in for our accommodation at the American Hotel, it was late afternoon.  The hotel dates back to the gold rush in Creswick in the 1850s and has seen the population deccrease from 250,000 in its heyday to 3170 in the most recent census.  Patrons included the artistic Lindsay family and it is part of the Lindsday trail.  It was the Cobb & Co depot for stage coaches, the setting for political meetings and hosted the local community bank.  
 

The bar had a great ambience with pea soup green walls and an assortment of historic photos as you would expect.  I wanted time to look around and have a drink if we were staying longer than a night.

Our bedrooms were basic with a shared bathroom.  We weren't there too long so we didn't need much.  I was happy with a comfy bed and the tea and coffee making facilities in a cupboard.  

I peeked into the function room. because it looked rather grand  It is called the Lindsay Room in honor of the local artists.  It has an ornate mirrored fireplace and pictures around the wall

Less fancy but cosy is the dining room.  I went through around dinner time and was surprised how busy it was.

A walk about town! 

 

Before we went out for dinner I had a walk.  I always like to see the place where I am staying and I had decided to go get some herbal tea bags so we could have a cuppa tea.

I headed for the IGA supermarket.  We were impressed at how much vegan food could be found there.  This is is a sign of a country town full of tree-changers!

 

I also passed the Odessa at Leavers restaurant where we planned to eat.  It was built in 1856 and is the oldest building in town.  I didn't book and when we entered the place was heaving with not a spare seat in the house.  Ella Hooper of the band Killing Heidi was performing so it was booked out.  And the kitchen closed at 6.30pm.  It made me sad to be unable to eat in the cosy space with sparkly fairy lights strung around the rich red curtains, lamps and stone walls.  We really need to return to Creswick just to eat here.  And of course next time I will book!

Raffas

84 Albert Street, Creswick 

Fortunately Sylvia had read that Raffas pizza joint had vegan cheese.  It did not have the ambience of Odessa but the pizza was great.  I was pleased with the August special: a Spinach and Ricotta pizza that was drizzled with hot honey!  The hot honey took a fairy ordinary pizza to new heights.  Sylvia enjoyed her vegan Margherita pizza.  

Creswick Market

19-21 Victoria Street, Creswick

By good luck, we were at Creswick on the 3rd Saturday of the month when the Creswick Market was being held at the neighbourhood house.  It was lovely with lots of stalls, great artwork on the water tank and buskers.  I only wished I had some coins to put in the buskers's basket when they sang Whole of the Moon by the Waterboys.
 

Firstly we check out the food to go, having not have breakfast.  We settled on Pierogi Darling.  Who could resist a cute name and gorgeous set up with swirly orange tablecloth.  It was interesting chatting to the friendly owner who said she had been selling different meals and found that pierogi was the most popular.  

So we have pierogi for breakfast.  It was excellent.  Mine were fried potato and farmers cheese pierogi with sour cream, sauerkraut, a pickle spear, herbs and a drizzle of paprika oil.  Sylvia had the vegan buttery potato and chives pierogi with the sides.  It was a great way to start our day!

Another stall I really loved was Gypsy Weaver.  They made soft toys with recycled yarn, fillings and buttons.  Every toy was different with a name and backstory on a little card.  It was great fun to read the cards and look at all the different designs.  They also set up a loom at their stall so we could watch the weaving.

We enjoyed checking out the plant stall.  In the background is some gorgeous butterfly wall art on a shed.  I really liked how it was in the grounds of the neighbourhood house with the community artwork.

A good farmers market always has an amazing baker.  We bought a loaf of pumpkin and onion sourdough to take home.  A good loaf of bread is the best souvenir!  To keep us going we also had a bread stick (batard?) with lovely fried onions baked on as a topping.

There was lots more to see.  We had a taster of a warm alcoholic spiced apple cider from Daylesford Cider.  It was the perfect drink for a winter's day.  I told the stallholder that I would buy it if it was non alcoholic.  He miraculously produced a non alcoholic version and I bought a six pack of the cans.  I was amused by the neurodivergent fridge magnets and stickers and made a purchase.  One  that resonated with me was one saying "I am multi-tasking.  I can listen, ignore and forget all the same time".  They didn't have a fridge magnet so I bought one saying "My computer must be broken.  I keep hitting the escape key but I am still at work."  I also loved that one stall had lots of heat packs in different shapes to ease pain in knees, forarms and necks.  

Creswick Museum

70 Albert Street, Creswick

I hadn't planned to go to Creswick Museum but once I saw it, I was keen to visit.  It is in the former municipal chambers.  It was built in 1876 when the Borough of Creswick was wealthy with gold rush money.  This imposing Victorian two story building is built to impress with a loggia entrance, rows of arched windows and a balustrade around the roof and a grand spiral staircase in the middle of the interior.

The reception counter has a giant Alfred, the eponymous pudding from Norman Lindsay's classic children's book, The Magic Pudding.  He is a cantankerous character and perhaps put there to glare at anyone who is unhappy that the museum will only take an entrance fee in cash.  Not because the staff are behind the times but because their previous EFTPOS machine had problems that has sent them looking for a new system to take electronic payments.  I had a chat to the women at the counter who were very friendly and helpful.  With our local museum considering new designs while it is renovated, it is interesting to hear about others' experiences.

Modern museum theory is that clutter makes it too hard to take in anything so they are discerning with choosing less objects for more attention.  I confess that I didn't have much time and was so tired after leaving home the morning after finishing up at my old job that I still didn't do a great job of taking it all in.  But I did leave with a few highlights, which is all that the museum curators expect.  The photo above is of the Colonial Art Room

 

I really loved the Creswick School's Roll of Honour in tribute to students who served in World War I.  I have seen many honor rolls but ones with photos are unusual.  To see all the faces of those young men who went to war is quite touching.  (Our history society has so many donated to them because no one wants them any more.  However they are too large to be easy to store or display many so they are a constant challenge.) 

 

The most memorable item was the Clifton Billy.  Creswick holds the unenviable record for having the worst gold mining disaster in Australia.  A sudden flooded mine trapped 27 men on Monday 11 December 1882.  When the rescuers reached them on the Thursday, only 5 men were still alive and survived to tell the tale. Some of the dead had written messages to their families on their "crib pails" (in which they took their meals down the mine.)   This is the only known artifact from the disaster.  It is inscribed "Goodbye dear mother, sisters and brothers: Philippa my dear girl. John Tom Clifton".  The words are written behind it because it is difficult to read it almost 150 years later.

I almost gave a cursory glance at this room but was glad I had a paper guide for each room and found it was the Lindsay room.  On display is some of Lionel and Darrly Lindsay's artworks as well as some family photos and an ornate vintage organ.

Then it was time to go upstairs via the grand spiral staircase.  On the landing were letters from the goldfields.  If I had had the time, I would have loved to stop and read them but time was tight by now.   The letter that included a  lovely landscape sketch was the one I appreciated most.

 

I took this photo because I loved the huge painting hung above the door and the lovely wooden display cases but I didn't stay long enough to take much in. There seemed to be lots of rooms to wonder through if I had the time.

My eye was caught by this portrait of John Curtin who was a great Australia's prime minister during World War II.  I had been aware that he had lived in Brunswick but had not known that he was born in Creswick.

I liked the way the notices were arranged in this display case.  The one that attracted my eye was was the notice on water restrictions in 1930.  Watering the garden was restricted to 3 hours from 7pm on three nights a week.

The final room I came to was the former Council Chambers.  When the building had been converted from the municipal offices into a museum, this room was preserved.  Most of the furniture dates back to the end of the 19th Century and was used for decades in this room.  On the walls are photos of early councillors and a couple of large portraits.

 

Sylvia was not interested in the museum so she went down the main street (Albert Street) to browse in a vintage shop (55 Albert St) and then on to Il Bello cafe for a latte.  I met her there after I had dragged myself away from the museum.  It was time to leave Creswick and get the car to head to Clunes.

You can read more about our trip on my post about our visit to the Cyril Callister Vegemite Museum, Beaufort and I plan to soon write about our Clunes visit.

My Monthly Chronicles: August 2026

In August life got really crazy with ending one job and starting another.  In between we had an overnight trip to the Goldfields region in Western Victoria and I was busy writing up some research on my great grandfather.   I had less time for getting out and about but we had a few amazing meals as well as our travels.  I hope to write more about the places we visited but in this post is a taster of a few places we stopped.  You can read more about my month at In My Kitchen August 2026 post.

I made a trip into the State Library which had a magnificent 19th Century domed reading room.  I am so often the tourist in these sort of places but I was there to find information on my great grandfather.  I looked up ancestry.com to find the date he moved to his home where my dad lived as a kid.  The website disappointed me by being even further from the date than me.  I then went to look at a book that mentioned my grandfather and tried to avoid all the rubbernecks taking photos. As I left I could not resist a photo or two.  See above doorway to the dome!

Collage workshop, Balam Balam Place
33 Saxon Street, Brunswick

I accompanied Sylvia to another collage workshop - Sylvia made two collages but I was pleased I managed to finish my collage in the workshop.  Everyone was very friendly and there was a lot of swapping magazines for scraps of pictures!

Big Elma: Rice Table Night
138 Nicholson Street, Coburg 

 

We went to the special Rice Table night at Big Elma's.  One of the owners has a grandmother who used to make this Indonesian style meal for her.  She held this night in tribute to her grandmother.  The tables were pushed together and it felt like a wonderful intimate community meal.  I spoke to a couple who said they had been to other rice table meals but they are not held often in the cafe.  You can see the chunks of rice on a plate, corn fritters and a tofu dish in the picture.  Great food and great ambience.  (I hope to find time to write more about this cafe soon.)

My office corridor

 

I am sneaking in a photo of one of the corridors at my job I have just left.  I really loved the archival photos of people at work that adorned the interior office walls.  These offices did not have a view out the window but they had these photos that gave them privacy but were transparent enough to let the light in.  (I was in an open plan office with a great view of the gum trees and occasional birds.)

Super 8 Cafe
305 Grattan Street, (Peter Mac) Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Parkville

I had a few work lunches from Super 8 in August.  They have such great salads.  My lunch above was Roquette and Pear Salad, Roasted Vegetable Salad, and a Beetroot Salad.  I was most impressed with the beetroot salad which had peach, strawberries, goats cheese and walnuts. 

The Pancake Parlour
2 Grenville Street S Central Ballarat

We stopped at Ballarat on the way to Beaufort.  Our favourite place to have a lunch break is the Pancake Kitchen and we were interested to try the vegan menu.  The vegan versions of Cheese and potato pancake with salad and the Alice pancake with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and sprinkles were found to be nice but not as good as the originals.  However Sylvia was wowed by the Swiss Mountain Shake which she judged to be far better than the diary version.  I got tempted by the non-vegan Dubai Chocolate pancake which had too much marscapone and not enough creamy katafi in the filling but had great fudge chocolate sauce.  Sylvia had tried this before and said her one had much more katafi filling.  

Cyrill Callister Vegemite Museum
23 Neill St, Beaufort

One of the reasons we went to our our road trip was to visit the Vegemite museum.  Who could resist such a niche collection.  I've eaten vegemite since I can remember and I found the museum quite nostalgic - all those old vegemite jars, including the ones that we reused for drinking glasses.  I also loved some of the fascinating Vegemite art including school kids painting pictures of local buildings using just vegemite and water.

The American Hotel
90 Albert Street, Creswick

We stayed the night at The American Hotel in Creswick.  This town has a rich gold rush history.  I enjoyed seeing the splendid heritage buildings, including a museum in the former municipal offices.  It was fortuitous that we were there on a weekend that the farmers market was held.  We wanted to have dinner at the lovely Odessa in one of the oldest buildings in town but it was sold out because Ella Hooper was performing there but found a fine pizzeria.

Clunes, Victoria 

Clunes was the other place I really wanted to go.  It is the town where gold was first discovered in our state of Victoria in the 19th Century.  My great great grandfather come there from Wales as one of the miners and my great grandfather was born there.  The heritage main street was amazingly intact with some great vintage shops and a little further away is the bottle museum which we really enjoyed (far more than I expected).  We had a great lunch at Cafe 52.
 

Better Now Bakes 
130 Lygon Street, Brunswick East

On the same weekend of our trip out of town, Better Now Bakes  made the move from farmers market stalls to opening their own vegan bakery cafe in Brunswick East.  We love their bakes - all vegan - and were excited to visit soon after we returned home.  We heard that the opening weekend had been really busy but it was quieter on a week day.  It was so exciting to check out the set up and purchase potato and crispy chilli oil focaccia, pickle chive and dill scone, pecan pie, choc chip cookie to eat in.

And Bodega
340 St Georges Road, North Fitzroy

Another new vegan cafe is And Bodega in North Fitzroy much further north on St Georges Road then where we usually go.  We had an amazing meal served by an enthusiastic and friendly couple.  The price for 2 meals, 2 drinks and 2 baked items came to a very reasonable $59.  We loved the food, the drinks and the vibe of this unassuming cafe.

Sylvia had the Ollieflower toastie with a great name.  It was a crispy baked buffalo cauliflower, seasonal greens, housemade ranch on a 'Baked for Sofia' brioche, which was the only sandwich left after 1pm on a Saturday.  It wouldn't have been her first choice but she was pleasantly surprised by how amazing it was.  I had the Seasonal Bowl of quinoa, sautéed kale, tofu puffs drizzled with chilli sauce and a creamy ginger peanut dressing.  This was a great healthy bowl, a bit spicy for me with the chilli dressing but I loved the sate-style sauce.  

Sylvia was delighted with her birthday iced matcha latte that came with vegan cream and sprinkled.  It was not on the menu but she requested it because she had seen it online.  I had really good Natural Cola from the Ordinary Beverage Company.  These low calorie soft drinnks are getting better.  As well as a lovely flavour without the cloying sweetness of the big brands, I was interested that it was lo-cal without any artificial sweeteners in the ingredients.

We also had a fantastic lamington which came with a generous dollop of wonderful raspberry jam on top of the little cake with cream piped around the edges.  It looked very attractive.  I was interested how the vegan cream held its shape so well and asked about it.  The secret was to add custard to the cream.  Sounds simple but if you know vegan cream, you know it can be very soft so it seemed like alchemy to get it right.  And we had a superb Vegemite tomato & cheese escargot to take home.  It was such fantastic soft pastry that demonstrated their fine baking skills.  Apologies for all the superlatives but it was really good food and a great discovery in a month where I mostly visited known cafes.

Green Man's Arms
418 Lygon Street, Carlton 

It has been too long since I have got out to the cinema so I was really happy to see Colours of Time at the Nova with Heather.  Afterwards we went to Green Man's Arms, after the alarm at hearing they pub was to be sold.  It was reassuring to hear the pub is for sale but the lease of the Green Man's Arms will continue.  I was delighted that the special was a vegan Roast dinner of nut and lentil loaf, roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, roast carrots, peas, yorkshire pudding, gravy and mint sauce.  It was a really lovely meal with the highlight perhaps being how light and fluffy they made the vegan Yorkie.  I was a bit unsure about the mint sauce but loved the generous amount of gravy over a lovely soft slice of nut and lentil roast.  The serving of peas as the green veg made me very happy because I love how my mum always serves them with a roast but it is less common in roast dinners I have when dining out.  I washed it down with a very pleasant Willie Smith's Tasmanian non-alcoholic cider and Heather enjoyed her Massaman Curry.

Sylvia's corner 

Some of the best (all-vegan) food Sylvia has eaten around Melbourne.  Unlike me, she visited quite a few new places with other people as well as a few faves.  She finds lots of the amazing meals we eat out but these are her favourite cafes in August. 

Top row: Beautiful Jim Key, Brunswick: Mushroom Congee, Masses Bagels, Fitzroy: Pickled Green Tomato Bagel, All Day Donuts, Brunswick: Blackberry Lime Glaze Donut.

Middle row: Smith & Deli, Collingwood: Gingerbread Latte, Gong De Lin, CBD, Sweet'n'Sour Vegan Pork, Smashed Cucumber, Marinated Tofu, Green Tea, Miss Moses, Brunswick: Vegan Chicken Burrito Bowl.

Bottom Row: Lui Boss, Brunswick: Japchae,  Tyler's Milkbar, Preston: Blueberry Crumble Cake, Eat Cannoli, Preston: Vegan Pistachio Cannoli and Cheesecake Cannoli.

In the News

Died: Johnny Young Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, Yayoi Kusama

Power, distraction and the price of political failure: From the antisemitism Royal Commission, Trump’s political theatre and Victoria’s new Premier to ICAC, in New Politics, 3 August 2026

Petition to save Roy Grounds building amasses over 1,400 signatures, in Architecture,Au, 13 August 2026. (Melbourne University's plans to demolish the John Medley Building where I studied as an undergrad.)

Clacton byelection: Farage's pyrrhic victory convinces no-one by Ian Dunt on his Striking 13 Substack, 14 August 2026.  

Jason Arday, ex-Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism, found dead a week after resigning, NBC News, 15 August 2026. (aAso see reflections by Nature editorial and Toyin Falola: When a black scholar becomes a symbol)

Hundreds of the Albanian Diaspora Expected in Tirana for Day 76 of Flamingo Revolution Protest, Pressenza, 15 August 2026.

Labor is facing an insurgent One Nation. The path it takes on immigration will define its identity for years to come, Frank Bongiorno, The Guardian, 16 August

Long‑awaited gambling reform bill is an improvement, but does not go nearly far enough to reduce harm, The Conversation, 18 August 202

NSW judge says anti-Israel graffiti case went ‘haywire’ when vandalism was labelled antisemitic, The Guardian, 18 August 2026.

Australian football must reckon with its culture of entitlement (about the Sydney Swans sexual assault case), by Tarang Chawla in DeepCut, 22 August 2026. 

Political cartoonist Cathy Wilcox leaves the Sydney Morning Herald, “She has cocked her skeptical eyebrow and poked her inky nib at pretty much any subject you care to name.” MediaWeek, 23 August 2026.  (Her insightful cartoons will be missed!)

Head teacher evacuated 900 children minutes before Nepal floods hit school, BBC News, 30 August 2026.

Listening, Reading, Watching 

Listening to Set list by the Frames.  It is ages since I listened to this brilliant live album but with the recent death of frontman Glen Hansard.  When I listened to it often I would like to sing along loudly to the line "I want my life to make more sense" in the song Pavement tune.  It always resonated but years later I am trying to accept and embrace the chaos that is my life.  Mostly!

Another return to a different period in my life is watching tv series Malcolm in the Middle.  (Have not got to the new episodes yet.)  This tv family is complete chaos and hilarious.  I find that the mother is seen through a different lens now I am a mother than when I watched a couple of decades ago.

The Colours of Time that I saw at the Cinema Nova was a charming film set with a bit of bizarre comedy mostly set in 1890s Paris at a time when art and photography were changing rapidly.  It is the story of present day descendants discovering their ancestor who as a young woman left her rural life for the city in the late 19th Century to search for her mother and finds herself making friends with young artists.

Clue was another show we watched after a celebrity death - this time Tim Curry!  It is based on the game Cluedo (that is called Clue in the USA) and involves a classic situation of various characters in a stately manor house and a series of murders.  Tim Curry is hilarious as the manic butler and the film gets so silly at times but is a good laugh.  It was interesting to read that when it came out in cinemas, they had different endings so people seeing it in different cinemas saw different characters as the murderer!

Of course my daughter Sylvia bought Oh Dear Silvia by Dawn French because of the name.  I had high expectations of the novel given Dawn French's hilarious comedy on tv but it was less rollicking than I expected.  All I could think was Oh Dear Dawn, as I made my way through quite a plodding text despite the good characters and an interesting plot twist.  Leading up to the twist, and after, I just found it so slow as it meandered through the reminiscing and updates of family and friends at the bedside of a woman in a coma reminiscing and updating her on their lives. 

Thanks to Nupur, I discovered The Bombing of Pan Am 103 on Netflix.  It was a fascinating series that started with Lockerbie in 1986 as the plane fell on the town after the bomb exploded.  It followed the advocacy and mourning by the victims families, and the forensic work of a team of investigators into how it happened.  It ended with the 2001 conviction of the Libyan terrorist, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi who was found guilty on 270 counts of murder.  It made sense of the story for me.  I had heard news reports about it over the years but never put it all together into a coherent narrative,

In My Kitchen: July 2026

July was a crazy cold month!  It was puffer jacket weather, especially when we were told that the heating at work was out of order until the end of winter.  The month started with school holidays and it just never returned to routine: Sylvia got sick, my bike had a flat tyre and there were lots of changes at work.  We had some good news with the work heating getting fixed earlier plus the pleasure of new armchair and some family history research.  Not much time or energy for new dinner recipes but lots of good food nevertheless.  I will soon write more about our outings in My Monthly Chronicles: July 2026.

Changes in technology drives me batty.  Too many websites are suddenly inaccessible without a login.  I usually just check my GoodReads books without logging in when I am at the shops so I know if I have read a book (I find it hard to keep up with what I have read in a series).  A few weeks ago in an op shop I found I could only see my books by logging in.  So I winged it and bought the book anyway and then got home and found I had read it!  Argh! On the same day I was not impressed to discover that Yahoo suddenly reduced the free emails cap from 1 terrabyte to 15 gigabytes.  It was painful but also liberating to reduce my yahoo emails from 17GB to 12GB.  Now I just need to keep them down and try and delete more photos off my phone!  It is neverending keeping up with technology.

My siblings have recently had quite a bit of travel between them.  My brother Dave was in China and brought us back a brilliant hot pot fridge magnet that you can see above with our foodie fridge magnets.

We didn't make many new meals this month but I enjoyed revisiting a few favourites.  Clockwise from top left:

• Our version of Minestrone is on our weekly meals a lot.  This one included parsnip and fennel
• Samosa pie - this is like an Indian style pot pie and tastes so good - why has it been so long since I made it!  (It had a lot of liquid so I added a spoonful of cornflour.)
• Meera Sodha's Vegan Broccoli, Fennel, Chickpea and Orzo Stew was one of the meals we made again after loving it the previous month.
• And Fried rice with tofu scramble - but a little different to usual with Sylvia making her tofu scramble separately so we could add it at the end of the fried rice instead of cooked in it.  One big advantage of this was the the turmeric only coloured the scramble so it contrasted with the pale rice.
   

I have posted about my Vegan roast dinner pizza using short cuts.  One of the shortcuts was making roast potatoes in the air fryer.  It only works with a small batch with our small air fryer.  I got tired of either wiping up a greasy air fryer tray or using paper inserts so I have purchased a silicone air fryer insert that be easily washed.  I first bought a nicer more expensive one but it did not fit so I gifted it to my mum who loves it.  Ours is cheaper and brighter and does the trick!
 

These frozen samosa pastizzi are a new favourite.  We buy thim in FOY next to the Coburg Woolworths at $11 for 12.  They take between 15-20 minutes in the air fryer at 220 C.  The crispy pastry and spicy vegeie filling are so delicious to pull apart.  It is a challenge to try and wait for the steaming heat to subside.  This is the only pastizzi there that are vegan.  While not that cheap, they are better value at 850g than the vegan samoa packet in the next door supermarket that is $12 for 500g.

A favourite from my childhood is is curried sausages.  I figured out how to do a tray bake of vegetarian baked curried sausages a while back and revisited the recipes when we needed warming food.  Sylvia is starting to really enjoy some curried meals so it was good to see her enjoy it.

I bookmarked a recipe for a one banana banana cake quite some time ago.  As I am now eating a few more of them I put one aside to get old and soft to try this banana bread.  It was a vegan banana bread with a crumble topping.  We loved it.  There is another old banana in the fridge right now so perhaps the universe is telling me I need to make this again!  Well, who dares to say no to the universe!

We are also having more sauerkraut in our kitchen on rice bowls and sandwiches.  The Gaga's gut loving Raw dill pickle kraut is a favourite.

While on Smith street to have lunch at Not so sushi,we had a wander down the street to browse some of the foode shops: Friends of the Earth, Soul Foods, Alimentari and Hinoki.  We mostly resisted temptation but at Hinoki we bought a couple of Daifuku (a strawberry and a green tea) and a packet of frozen edamame.  We use edamame quite a bit and needed some, but I think I was also swayed by the cute red checked packet.

 

I am a fan of these salt and vinegar sweet potato nibbles which are a pleasing light snack.  Sylvia enjoys them because they are vegan unlike a lot of flavoured crisps.  We just can't work out why a flavouring like lime and black pepper needs to have milk in the ingredients.  

We went to the Coburg Farmers Market because it was the last market appearance by the always amazing vegan Better Now Bakes before they open their new shop in Brunswick East.  As usual we were too tempted and came away with so much fantastic baking: the richest best tahini brownie, the piquant pickle chive and dill scone, a fluffy tasty Japanese curry focaccia (with potato, furikake and seaweed?), a pleasing yuzu white choc and coconut cake and a scrumptious and gorgeous apple maple and pecan cake.  We will miss them at the market but can't wait to visit their new shop which is set to open very soon.

We bought some beige food from KFL - soy chunks, potato curry puffs and vegan eggs - that made the vegan ham from the supermarket look colourful!  The curry puffs weren't anywhere near as good as the samosa pastizzi's above but Sylvia loved them.  She has also been enjoying vegan ham and cheese sandwiches.  There are some plans for the soy chunks but we have no idea how to pry apart the frozen vegan fried eggs.

Here are some vegan supermarket purchases: iced matcha latte with oat milk, hearty mushroom and lentil pies, vanilla rice puds, packaged tofu scramble, the tea collection of iced mochi (hojicha, genmaicha and matcha), and a frozen mango sticky rice with coconut milk.  We have had most of these - the pies were really good with a pre-chopped kale slaw pack, the scramble was nice enough in a taco bowl, Sylvia was excited about the sticky rice with mango and the mochi.  There is a wee box of panadol to signal there there was pain too but not enough to stop Sylvia eating good food.

When I asked my sister Fran to surprise me when she had me in my family KK gift giving I knew she would find something interesting.  With the cold weather we finally got to try the Ground Pleasures original hot chocolate powder that she gave us.  It was amazing.  I am pretty fussy with hot chocolate powder but this was so good that we finished it within weeks.  Sylvia gave it a dash of pizazz with her hand held milk frother and a sprinkle of hot chocolate powder on top.  It is not the cheapest and is not in supermarkets but we might need another box before the end of winter.

Life is chaotic and busy so it is wonderful when we can slow down and create collages.  This is one I made in the kitchen in July.  You can see the mess it makes in the background of the hot chocolate photo but even with the cleaning up, it is a relaxing activity.

 

It is a year since we had our house painting.  Two of the outstanding things to do over that time were to buy a new chair for the loungeroom and to find a green teacup for the glass kitchen cabinet.  In July we managed to achieve both.  We have looked at so many photos of chairs on FaceBook market place and found it really hard to find the right one.  This floral chair was not my ideal but it is close enough for jazz!

In June I bought a green teapot and tea cup set that I really love.  More recently Sylvia fell in love with another green teapot set, this time at the Salvos op shop where we bought our chair.  It has not been easy to fit both tea sets into the cabinet but Sylvia was determined and made it work.  I have compared the three iterations of our cabinet above.  In July 2025 I organised a fairly spacious cabinet after quite a few items were sent to the op shop.  The following month Sylvia reorganised with some of the op shop pieces she loved.  Then in July 2026 the cabinet is now full with lots of lovely green.

Finally here is a close up of the cabinet so you can admire some of the detail on the new green sugar bowl with a few sentimental items including a gnome salt and pepper shaker I bought as a child and a green decanter I bought when living in student share houses,

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her delightful seasonal hand drawn header.  Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this event that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.