This week, I’ve felt a little bit tired—I have no idea why—but I’ve managed to get my workouts done. I’m now up to 30 minutes of 1 minute run and 1 minute walk. Since I don’t want to add intensity too soon, I’m still doing my sprint intervals on the bike to try to maintain some cardio fitness. I’m so glad I can go to the gym to do that. While I’m there, I do some strength training. There’s nothing like not being able to run to make you appreciate being able to run! So I’m thankful for generally good health.

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Saturday, my parents took my siblings and me, with our partners, out to Chauncy for lunch. It’s been booked for a few months, and I’ve been looking forward to it. It’s a very popular regional dining destination (click the link to read one of the glowing reviews). Louis and Tess lived down near Mum and Dad’s place at Point Lonsdale for a few years, and that’s where we got to know them. They catered a few fancy lunches for Mum and Dad back in the day, including a New Year’s Eve lunch and a joint 21st for H and her cousin, both of which featured Louis’ glorious fish pies.

Enough reminiscing … back to Saturday’s lunch. G and I picked up my sister and her husband, and then we all drove to Heathcote, which is a couple of hours from home. We arrived a little before 12:30 p.m. when the restaurant opened, so we had some time to look around the veggie garden. I love looking at other people’s veggie gardens, especially those from which we will shortly be eating the produce. One of the staff was out in the garden cutting herbs just before we went inside.

Lunch is a four-course set menu. You can add wine pairings and dessert, which we did. The wine pairing comes in a half-serve if you want, which makes it more accessible for people who don’t want to drink four glasses of wine. The meal begins with small dishes to share: Leeks, vinaigrette, shallot; Artichoke, lovage, borage; and Chicken liver parfait with pickles. This was followed by: Asparagus, ajo blanco, nettle and guanciale; Duck and morrel tortellini with broad beans; and finally Bundarra pork, soubise, carrot, apple cider jus and a garden salad. I chose the tarte tartin for dessert, and it was excellent, with the apple taking centre stage.

It was a wonderful afternoon. The food and wine were fabulous, and the company was pretty good, too. We finished up at about 5 p.m., drove home, took Riley for an evening walk, and then flopped on the couch to watch some TV.

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Our current puzzle has a difficult blue sky area. The pieces in an area have a similar shape, which increases the difficulty level when they’re all the same colour—which keeps H occupied. She prefers tricky puzzles and always does the sky when we work on puzzles together. I’ve been doing the sand and water and had to pull out and redo several sections because of the similar-shaped pieces. S is working on the palm trees. I picked up this puzzle and another 2000 piece at the Kew Opshop a couple of weeks ago when we had a few minutes to kill and decided to pop in.

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And a quick list:

• I made some decisions—the broad beans are harvested, and my woman of faith will be Mary Magdalene.
• After being away working at the Hosier concert over the weekend, E has been home for a few days now, and it has been good to catch up with him and his girlfriend.
• The forecast for tomorrow is 34C. If all goes well, I’ll head down to the beach for a swim.
• I’ve been reading Les Miserables. It was one of the books I bought at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. It’s a tome, but he had a sense of humour. It’s not laugh out loud, but he has a biting wit that appeals to me. Last night, when I was reading it before bed, there may have been a few chuckles. I may need to switch to reading a few chapters of this, along with something a bit less dense, so I don’t get bogged down with the lack of action.
• I got some happy feedback at family dinner this week when I cooked Oven Roasted Chicken Shawarma. I served it on shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes and cucumber with hummus. Yum!
• I also made garlicky sauteed prawns with creamy white beans and blistered tomatoes
• Avocados. I remember hating the combination of taste and texture when I first tried them as a teenager, but they’ve grown on me.

If you haven’t already, you can fill out this form with any questions you have for me for an upcoming AMA post. Also, I realised I hadn’t asked for names, so now I don’t know who has asked me what. If you have already asked me a question, can you leave a comment here with a clue as to your question so I can link it to you? Thanks!

Have you had some good things in your week? Is there a food that you used to hate but love now?