Every now and then I see something so beautiful in a shop front that makes me do a total double take and compel me impulsively press my face right up against the window so I can get a better look. Jardine Hansen’s pop up shop at High Tea with Mrs Woo was definitely one of those times. Two thoughts immediately came to mind, first (as always) was that I HAD to photograph it.  Secondly, if I gave this to my mum for mother’s day it’d surely go a long way to paying her back for my embarrassingly angsty ‘catcher in the rye’ teenager years.

As if picking up this extraordinary floral sculpture wasn’t exciting enough, I also got to meet the lovely Jardine Hansen herself and she is just as awesome as her designs. She has the kind of passion and enthusiasm about her work that is immediately contagious. This is one lady that LOVES what she does and is obviously incredible at it.

If you haven’t sorted out Mother’s day yet, a visit to High Tea with Mrs Woo in Paddington is probably your best bet for some serious brownie points from mum.

 Hi friends! Boy it’s been such a long time since I’ve shared a post on Wander and Scout so I wanted to make sure that this was a good one. Things have been super hectic with lots of awesome And a Day shoots happening so sadly Wander had to take a back seat for a while. Buuuuut I’m back and ready to share a post about the recently opened Boat house at Balmoral Beach. I used to happily trek all the way out to Palm Beach to visit the original Boat house because it would always immediately put me into vacation mode every single time I visited. Imagine how thrilled I was when I heard through the grapevine that the Boat house expanded much closer to my home and set up shop in Balmoral Beach. Yay! I met up on a spectacular sunny (winter you can stay away a bit longer thanks) Sydney morning with the lovely Emma to share ideas about grand creative plans. When you put a yummy breakfast and perfectly brewed coffee in front of me and let me laze around next to the beach, I’m guaranteed to be the happiest person ever. 

How stunning is the whole venue!? That’s even before we get to the food which is equally amazing. Granola, fruit and yogurt is is always my fav. Also, how cute is my mocha!?

HAPPY EASTER everyone! I hope you are all having a lovely day with family and friends eating lots of chocolate. Since easter can be a bit of a chocolate overload I thought I’d bring you a recipe today that isn’t a super rich chocolatefest. These meringues are light, a bit chewy in the centres and have little bits of yummy milk chocolate through it.

INGREDIENTS

Meringue
1 teaspoon cornflour
1 1/2 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
100g milk chocolate finely chopped (I used lindt milk chocolate)
6 free-range egg whites
180g caster sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar

Filling
250ml thickened cream
2 tablespoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 punnet raspberries

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 150^oC
2. Sift and mix together cornflour, cream of tartar, cocoa powder and milk chocolate into a bowl
3. Place the egg whites in another bowl that has been thoroughly cleaned and dried. Beat the egg whites until it thickens and turns white. Slowly add sugar as you continue to beat the egg whites until it turns glossy and stiff peaks can be formed.
4. Working quickly, gently fold the chocolate mixture into the egg whites with a large spoon.
5. Line 2 large baking trays with baking paper.
6. Spoon the mixture onto the lined trays. 2 tablespoons for each meringue.
7. Bake in oven for 1 hour or until the meringues are crisp. Turn off the oven and allow the meringues to cool in the oven.
8. Whisk together double cream, caster sugar and vanilla

Assembling meringue

9. With one meringue as a base, spread cream mixture and place 2 or 3 raspberries on top.
10. Repeat with alternating meringue and cream mixture until you have either a 3 meringue stack
11. Top with the cream mixture and several raspberries.

For the first time in quite a while we had a weekend! Wow! *insert multiple fist pumps towards the sky* Ok, well sort of. These days, my idea of a weekend is at least 6 hours on a Saturday or Sunday where I’m not on a shoot or in front of the computer processing photos.

So we set out on a picnic with our arms loaded with favourite magazines, gozleme (that was originally hot at some point) and every possible type of croissant under the sun.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend as well!

For some reason whenever we are processing photos we  always have a whole bunch of drinks and snacks scattered across our desks. Sometimes I think we need a full time staff member just to clear the mugs, teapots and glasses off our desks. One thing I just can’t get enough of is freshly brewed chai with all the mix of tea and spices. I can probably finish a whole pot off all by myself. My preference is to brew it with soy milk and lots of honey.

Here are some ingredients you can start with to make your own chai at home:

Loose leaf black tea
Star anise
Cinnamon
Cardamom pods
Cloves
Ginger
Peppercorns
Nutmeg

Most days are pretty awesome but today I was having a bit of a cranky pants morning. Starting with our dog pancakes imitating Houdini and escaping from her harness then bolting towards a busy road. But you know what, somehow by 8.30am Pete had me all cheered up again and we were having a very very silly and hilariously good time. So today’s post is dedicated to the most awesome guy that I know.

There are countless reasons why he’s just the best, but here are just a few for now:

He makes me a yummy coffee with lots of froth (that’s totally the best bit) in the morning
He’ll leave me all of the pickled ginger when we eat sushi because I like it HEAPS
He has awesome music taste which makes road trips all the more fun
He has accepted that I will never be good at ironing….ever (and even helps me iron my super crinkly dresses)
He cleans the miscellaneous gross stuff stuck in our vacuum cleaner (yuck)
Pretty much always looks super dashing dressed up or dressed down (how is that even possible? I’m so jealous)
He doesn’t judge my  eternally tragic ‘floordrobe’ situation
He’s very calm when I am very NOT CALM…then somehow he’ll manage to make me laugh..a lot
He’ll randomly break into song with me, usually substituting lyrics to songs (weird al yankovic style)…yes we are a bit strange

Best guy ever? Yep.

This weekend I’ll be shooting a wedding at one of my favourite venues in Sydney, The Grounds in Alexandria. A few weeks ago I managed to combine location scouting with an awesome brunch while I was there. The bacon and egg sandwich is my go to breakfast order at the moment. Every single time I visit this The Grounds I am completely blown away by the work and care that they have put into every element of this place. From the gardens to the coffee and the of course the food.

It’s going to be an awesome weekend!

Sometimes I wonder if in my past life I was Italian. I’m absolutely terrible at cooking Asian food (my stir fries always end up more like soupy slop) and I’m always craving pizza, pasta or gelato.

Recently we had a few friends over for dinner so I made this ricotta and spinach stuffed pasta shells dish. This recipe is ridiculously easy and perfect for the family or serving large groups.

Ingredients:

1 large packet of large pasta shells
500g Ricotta
½ cup finely grated parmesan
1 packet of frozen chopped spinach defrosted
1 lemon zest finely grated
1 Tbls lemon juice
4 sprigs of Thyme (leaves removed from stem)
1 loosely packed cup of basil
1 Tbls dry mixed herbs
½ onion finely diced
2 cloves garlic finely minced
1 large jar of your favourite tomato pasta sauce
2 tomatoes diced

Let’s cook:

1. Preheat oven to 220^oC
2. Boil your pasta shells till just before al dente. They will continue cooking in the oven and you want them to retain their shape for stuffing. Run the shells under cold water to stop them cooking. Drain and set aside to cool separately so the shells don’t stick together
3. In a large bowl mix together ricotta, parmesan, spinach, lemon zest and juice
4. In a saucepan on medium heat gently cook the garlic and onion until the onion goes translucent
5. Add the pasta sauce, tomatoes and herbs and gently simmer for 10mins
6. Pour the pasta sauce into an oven proof dish
7. Carefully fill the cooled pasta shells with the ricotta mix and place gently on top of the pasta sauce. Continue this until the whole dish is filled
8. Cover will foil and bake in oven for 20mins. Remove foil to bake for last 5-10mins
9. Serve immediately with grated parmesan

I love the idea of hosting brunches and dinners at my house. Every single time I start with epic Martha Stewart-esque plans but ultimately I always end up just winging it with generally limited success and lots of last minute freaking out (usually hollering things like “where the hell are you stupid bread knife!?”).

At our last brunch the lovely Claire generously brought us these super pretty red roses with bright golden flecks through them. Our house has never looked prettier. Thanks Claire!! All that hollering at missing utensils was totally worth it to spend a morning with awesome friends.

Apologies for all this jumping back and forth but here we are back in New York again. We also did a post over at And a Day here recently in case you need even more of a New York photography fix.

Woah this is one epic post. I have crammed in all the highlights of our visit to New York so it doesn’t end up being another 20 more weeks of playing catch up with the travel posts. It’s absolutely true what everyone says, it really is such an incredibly photogenic city. It was impossible for us to barely walk a few metres before we had to stop and take another photo. One of the best parts was definitely catching up with our friends Jen and Alice who took us around to some really cool places like Barcade. I already miss you guys!!!

New York you are just too awesome and we’ll be back soon.