Easter in Autumn

Firstly, I just wanted to say thank you so much for your incredibly lovely comments about the new lookbook! After putting so much thought, work and time into making the collection itself and then putting the shoot together with Hannah and the girls it was pretty nerve racking waiting to see how it would be received. I can't tell you how exciting it is to get feedback on something you've worked on and put so much into, just to know people are interested in what I have done! Thank you for reading this! Seriously, I am so incredibly greatful :)

I am glad I put the lookbook out this week because it has been feeling quite appropriately Autumnal here in Melbourne. I do sometimes find it very strange the way that in Australia, the majority of the holidays that break up our year are based on the seasonal traditions of the northern hemisphere. While our Christmas cards feature pictures of pine trees, snow flakes and sleighs, we sit out and drink wine in the summer sun. Though Halloween is not particularly big here, the occasional Halloween party that does crop up in October doesn't quite have the spooky feel in Spring as I imagine it would have in Autumn. Correspondingly, as a celebration of life and Spring and such, it does seem a bit funny celebrating Easter in the middle of Autumn.

That said, I think traditions and meanings are really established in childhood, and whatever you have experienced before will tend to feel right. The last few weeks we have been enjoying the most beautiful, crisp, sunny Autumn weather here in Melbourne, and it is crazy just how much Autumn leaves, hazy light and dew on the grass in the mornings makes me feel like Easter time! I associate the Easter weekend with a chestnut festival we used to go to growing up, which was held at the local football oval and had pony rides, and of course lots of roasted chestnuts (I asked mum about this today and she said it isn't actually held on Easter weekend, I guess the all the long weekends that take place in Autumn must just run together in my head as one long season of treat eating festivals, or something)


Anyway, the point of all this is that I wanted this Easter weekend to talk about some things to cook that are appropriate for a Southern Hemisphere Easter, the Easter of my youth! The above photo is of a delicious Autumnal meal that Sarah and I cooked up last weekend for a pot luck. It is a beautiful jewelled rice, which we made from Sarah Britton's recipe from My New Roots- my absolute favourite food blog at the moment! I have been saving up this recipe, just waiting for the right time of year to roll around.

For dessert we tried out this amazing pumpkin spice cake with coconut vanilla icing, also courtesy of My New Roots. It's an awesome recipe, it turned out great, and so very seasonally appropriate! Pumpkins are going crazy right now. I definitely recommend checking out the photo of Sarah Britton's original cake, so much prettier than ours!

To keep with the Australian/local Easter cooking theme of this post, I will suggest you take a peek at raspberri cupcakes; a very indulgent Sydney baking blog. For Easter Steph made cheesecake filled chocolate Easter eggs. Yep. I don't really know what more to say than that!

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend full of lots of yummy things, wherever you are!