Good + Simple

In this hefty (350 page) book, these two sisters have developed over 140 recipes which they say make use of ingredients that are readily available and which are ‘delicious, nourishing home-cooked foods made with love.’ Their focus is on healthy food. One breakfast dish which caught my eye was butternut and almond butter porridge, made with squash, which can be served with fruit such as blueberries -- certainly different and ideal for anyone wishing to eliminate grain from their diet!

Advocating ‘mindful eating’, the Hemsleys outline 15 principles for eating well which includes ‘forget calories, think nutrients,’ ‘fat is your friend’ and ‘prepare, chew and combine.’ The book’s first pages really establish the theory behind the recipes.

In the contents pages are listed the various types of meals, including soups and stews, and sides and snacks which too often seem left out in cooking books.

There are also notes for readers on how to plan ahead, stocking the kitchen and eating on the go, while there are two weekly menu plans (complete with shopping lists). Checking over the meals offered, one can see the following for a one-day meal plan: breakfast – leftover cinnamon, raisin and quinoa muffins; lunch – leftover flaxseed bun with leftover squash and ginger soup, and dinner – slow-cooked no-fry chicken curry with cauliflower rice. Certainly nutritious and healthy foods!

The book is beautifully designed with frequent, brightly coloured photographs that make all of the dishes sing with appeal. As I flicked through the pages, I came to a double-page spread introduction to vegetable mains. The dishes all sound delicious – beetroot feta cake, green goddess noodle salad, easy cheesy broccoli risotto, simple and spiced mung bean salad to name a few of the 15 dishes.

Good + Simple has inspired me to work from it when guests come next weekend. The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding (and the entrée and mains)!

Reviewed by Dianne Bates

Title: Good and Simple

Author: Jasmine Hemsley and Melissa Hemsley

Publisher:  Random House Australia (Ebury Press)

Publication Date: 1 March 2016

Cost: $55.00 RRP

Format: Hardback

Type: Non-fiction

Fairytales for Wilde Girls

This multi award-winning book is an eclectic mix of gothic fairytale, contemporary teenage issues and genuinely spooky stuff.

It only took two pages before I was deliciously disorientated and permanently hooked. I wasn’t just looking through Isola Wilde’s eyes, I was experiencing her world.

What a wonderful world it was, both strange and familiar, meshing reality and fantasy in a believable way. Isola has trouble with boys, school and home, ghosts, fairies and gargoyles.

She has human friends she can rely on and trust – her best friend Grape, her companion James and Edgar, the new boy next door. But these friends can’t help with the trouble she’s in. There’s a dead girl in a birdcage in Wilde Wood and her ghost won’t rest until Isola is dead.

Isola has other friends, equally as real, even though they are drawn from the pages of her mother’s book of fairytales, the Pardieu Fables and Fairytales by Lileo Pardieu. These, like Isola, are the children of Nimue– a fury, a fairy, a ghost boy, a mermaid and an old friend of spiders. Along with James, they are her six protector princes and she is their princess.

They all want to protect her but they can’t. At a time when they should pull together, they pull apart.

Fairytales for Wilde Girls is a book to be read slowly. There are nuances of plot and language that are easily missed. I admit to going back and rereading large chunks – just to make sure I had all the pieces.

The narrative is filled with wonderful words and phrases that sit seamlessly in the storytelling. I can flip open anywhere and find a visually evocative image:

She had a great oil spill of a cloak

Or this glorious piece of description:

The sky was a burnt sepia of autumn; a paper lantern moon hung aloft and the palette of the forest was bitten and bloody.

Or the fairytales book itself:

The enormous book was leather-bound and gold-gilded. It looked as if it had been knocked from a wild woman’s bookshelf as the raging townsfolk ransacked her cottage and dragged her by her hair to the oil-doused stake in the village square.

A truly amazing debut novel which has no doubt left many readers like me, waiting to see what follows.

Reviewed by Sandy Fussell

Title:  Fairytales for Wilde Girls

Author: Allyse Near

Publisher:  Random House Australia

Publication Date: $19.99 RRP

A Song for Issy Bradley

When four year old Issy Bradley dies of meningitis, her close Mormon family struggles to cope. Before Issy’s death, faith had all the answers but not any more. Issy’s death challenges what each family member believes and is destined to change their lives in ways they never expected.

Claire cannot forgive herself for concentrating on Jacob’s party while Issy was dying. She hides under a blanket in Issy’s bed and longs for God to give her a sign, while the family wait for her to come back to them. Issy is dead but Claire is lost.

Her husband, Ian, is a church bishop. His faith sustains him and he can’t understand why Claire doesn’t feel the same. He tries to hide her failure to cope from the church members and is determined to pull the family together and revitalise their faith.

Seventeen-year-old Zippy is falling in love and making difficult decisions. Fourteen-year-old Alma is growing up and trying to do the right thing. It’s hard being a Mormon teenager, even harder when God takes Issy away.

The youngest Bradley, seven-year-old Jacob, believes God will bring Issy back.  After all, God brought his goldfish back to life. If he has enough faith  - and he knows he does -  a miracle will happen.

This quote is all over the Internet but it's beautiful, poignant and pertinent - like the story -  so I don't feel guilty about quoting it too.

"Miracles are like birds, they zip through the gap between heaven and earth on hollow-boned wings. You can't catch them with traps or nets or special glue, you have to use words."

A Song for Issy Bradley is an exploration of faith and family and all the ties that bind. I loved it.

Title: A Song for Issy Bradley

Author: Carys Bray

Publisher: Random House Australia RRP $29.99

Publication Date: July 2014

Format: Paperback

ISBN: 9780091954376

Type: Adult Fiction