Eggs on toast for dinner?

I can't wait for Tony to return.  I'm sick of having to make dinner.
     The problem is I've become so used to him doing all the shopping and cooking, I've not only forgotten I need to do it, I can't be bothered.  In the pantry, there are still quite a few cans of baked beans, red kidney beans and chick peas, at least a month worth of dinners.  We have greens in the garden and a steady supply of chook and duck eggs.  
     Food doesn't interest me except insofar as the kids need a healthy diet ... or a tantalising Italian experience!
     In Tony's absence, dinner had mostly been eggs on toast for the kids, preceded by some chick peas or carrot sticks or frozen peas (courtesy of the ducks).  Add a glass of milk and choc-hazelnut spread on rice thins for dessert and I've created a delicious meal of all five food groups.
     My culinary short-cuts have been wearing thin with the children.  Friday night was eggs on toast.  Saturday night's gnocchi was a disaster, granted.  I then saved the day with eggs on toast.  Sunday night, more eggs on toast.  Monday night. 
     Well, I forgot dinner on Monday night.  I remembered at nine when I was making the kids' lunches and was light-headed and shaky (hypoglycaemic?).  Kibby had been home sick and we'd had lunch, eggs on toast, just before Seffy came home. She'd had nothing since lunch.
     I rushed into Seffy's dark room and asked if she wanted some eggs on toast.
     'It's okay, Mum,' she said, her voice thick with sleep, 'I had a carrot.'
     I was relieved, She had eaten something since lunch.
     The following morning Seffy and I were making a cup of tea.
     'I like it when Dad's here,' she said.
     'Why?' 
     'He makes us dinner.'

Lost: Parenting manual

If anyone has borrowed my parenting manual, please return it.  I actually don’t remember what it looks like, but I must have had one because I use all the right instructions and for the most part, issue them in a calm and controlled voice. 

     Things are spiralling out of control without Tony here and last night’s episode reminded me I need some help.  It was like this:

     Seffy was sitting on the floor reading a greeting card.  An altercation broke out between her and Kibby, nothing unusual, but Kibby kicked at the card, knocking it from Seffy’s hands.

     “That’s not okay,” I said in my stern parenting-manual voice.  “Go to your room.”    Sage advice also from the parenting manual; time-out diffuses emotionally charged situations.

     Kibby pursed his lips and delivered another kick to Seffy’s card.

     “Right, that means no Minecraft tomorrow.”  An immediate and relevant consequence according to the manual.

     Kibby sneered, not unlike those gangsters on movie ads and bellowed.  

     “I DON'T GIVE A SHIT, MOTHER FUCKER.” 

     I waited for the pistol.  Instead Kibby marched to his room and slammed the door, the crack of splintering wood echoing off the plaster walls.

     “Mum," said Seffy when all was silent.  "He’s got anger management issues. He needs to see someone.”

     So if anyone has my parenting manual or a spare copy, I’d really appreciate it.

Through the stomach to the heart

Seffy and Kibby have weathered a few changes lately and it’s showed in their behaviour. Seffy has been extra short-tempered with Kibbim and me. Kibbim has been full of anger which is what happens when his father is away for too long. Tony was visiting Grandma a fair bit before she passed.  He is now in Townsville supporting TK, who is devastated about Grandma, through his exams. 

     I wanted to do something special for the kids on the weekend and everyone knows reaching someone’s heart is best done through their stomach.  What better way to say ‘I love you’ than cooking them a delicious meal, pesto gnocchi, made from scratch.  I can do foodie food.  I went through a foodie stage in the early 2000s.  In fact I own original editions of Stephanie Alexander’s, A Cook’s Companion and Madhur Jaffrey’s, Indian Cookery.  

      I should confess that Steph and Maddie’s tomes spent more supporting my pastel painting boards than being used for recipes, but I did put them to their proper use for a while.  In fact, I made my first and only batch of gnocchi from Steph’s recipe back in 2001.  A Cook’s Companion is still downstairs, with Indian Cookery amongst five cubic metres of boxed-up stuff and I had no intention of finding them.  This time round I Googled ‘gnocchi’ and scribbled the first recipe that flashed on the screen.

     In the glare of the early afternoon sun, I scrubbed (no time for peeling) and steamed the potato.  I used a bit more potato than the kilo the recipe advised, but I wasn’t sure how many kilos more.  I wanted more than just one meal, maybe two. 

     I was ready to spend the next hour with my darlings and I called the kids in.  However, Kibby was riding with his friend, Leroy from down the street and Seffy was reading on the back deck.  I have dreamed for years about my kids reading without being threatened so I wasn’t going to disturb her ...  unless there was an emergency. 

     While I waited for the spuds to steam, I made the pesto from memory of Stephanie Alexander's recipe.  It wasn’t ideal, but I’d run out of Home Brand parmesan and it was a bit heavy on the cashews so I had to make do with the resulting green substance.  Apparently, pesto is Italian for paste and I had a paste.

     Next I blended the locally grown potato and fresh duck eggs (what an earth mother, am I!) and sifted in flour ... a lot more than the one and a half cups the recipe called for, but again, I was making a couple of meals.  I know I used a one kilogram packet plus more than half of a three kilo packet which wasn’t really enough to make a kneadable dough, but I’d run out of flour.

     Still, I had something that resembled dough.  I started rolling it into sausages then cut and squashed the pieces with a fork.

Gnocchi snags.

     I don’t know how many hours I had spent getting to the point where the gnocchi could be boiled, but there wasn’t much natural light left in the day.

     After I boiled a few loads (and yes, they first sank then rose to the surface as the recipe proclaimed), I called for Seffy.  This was an emergency.  My lower back and legs were aching.  And there was a lot of dough left to be sausaged.

     I rolled and chopped and squashed, Seffy boiled and scooped.  This went on like a bad dream.  She kept disappearing to paint her nails (???), play with Pippa, check Pepper’s new baby.  I kept screaming at her to come back and help.  From the front deck I hollered a few times for Kibby, but he must have been at Leroy’s.  He knows when to vanish.

Enough for a month's meals!

     Kibby and Leroy and his sister came in after dark just as Seffy scooped the last batch of gnocchi from the bubbling boil.  Kibby and co settled in front of the computer and played Minecraft.  Seffy abandoned her kitchen duties, fitted the earphones and switched on the flat screen for New Tricks.  All was quiet on the home front.

     I proudly presented everyone with a piece of gnocchi and offered them dinner.

     “Yuck!”  Kibby spat into his hand and hurled the sticky lump out the window.

     “It’s nice,” Leroy’s sister said in a monotone.  “But no thank you, I’m not hungry.”

     “I’m not hungry either, thank you,” said Leroy.

      Seffy kindly accepted my offer.

The green paste is not unlike Pepper's waste after her nightly bowl of peas.

     As I was serving Seffy’s pesto gnocchi, Kibby started laughing.

     “Mum, Leroy started eating and then spat it in his hand and chucked it out the window.”

     It turns out his sister did the same.  I offered Kibby and his friends eggs on toast which they wolfed down.  Dessert was Home Brand choc hazelnut paste on four day old bread.  Later, I found Seffy's bowl on the bench, my labour of love untouched, cold and congealed.  All four children were content before the two screens.

     The way to my children’s hearts is through their screens.

Pepper Zen's new baby!

The stork arrived with this adorable, fluffy bundle. Wondering where the orange bill and webbed feet are?  It is an Austrolorp chick, hatched from fertilised eggs.  Mother and chick doing well.

Ina Titasey: Farewelled 1 November, St Monica's Cathedral, Cairns

Eulogy
Ina Titasey (nee Mills) 

6 September, 1927, Poruma (Coconut Island) – 24 October, 2014, Cairns

Ina Mills made a surprise entry into the world when she was delivered by Aka Alala shortly after the birth of her twin, Cessa on Poruma, 6 September, 1927.  Ina’s parents, Frank and Masalgi Mills (nee Paiwain) returned home to Naghir Island and to older brother, Alfie.  Over the years, the Mills brood grew to include Wrench, Sammy, Laura, nicknamed Lala, Rita, Benny and Ruth known as Neneh.  Sadly, a daughter, Ruth was stillborn in about 1941.

     Ina led an idyllic life on Naghir, surrounded by the large Mills family.  Although Cessa was raised by her Aka Neru, the twins were close.  Ina spent her earliest days gardening, fishing and playing with her cousins and siblings.  Cessa was always by her side.

     In her memoir, Ina’s Story, Ina recalled a treasured memory.  “After gardening, we’d go back to the house and sit with Mama, with the young ones like Lala and Sammy on her lap.  I loved resting my head on Mama’s lap for her to comb my hair.  Then it was Cessa’s turn for get her hair combed.  Then Lala would crawl up for some susu before falling asleep at the breast, the rest of us leaning against Mama.  Mama’s lap was big enough to take all of us, and her arms seemed long enough to reach around us all.”

At five and a half, Ina couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t involve her island, her family and her Mama’s warm embrace and loving hands.  But in March, 1933, Ina, Cessa and Alfie, found themselves, quite suddenly on Thursday Island after sailing with their father in the family lugger, Cessa.  What Ina thought was going to be a short adventure to TI became a nightmare when her father left and then Alfie was taken away.

     In an instant, Ina’s world was transformed.  Where there had been blue skies, there were ceilings.  Where there had been rainforest and coconut palms, there were walls of plaster and concrete.  What had been reef and sand was now polished wood and stone.  Garden produce like maniotha (cassava) and kumula (sweet potato) and seafood like fish, shellfish and sugu (octopus) was replaced with stale bread and tasteless soup.

     Ina recounted a life of hard work and starvation and conditions that today would amount to abuse and neglect such as bed bugs, kerosene tin chamber pots, once-weekly baths and  constant chores such as polishing the wooden floors, cooking and washing clothes.  At all times, Cessa was with her.

Yet at no time is Ina critical of the hardship she endured for nine years.  On the contrary, she was thankful to the nuns for her education, the discipline and the skills they taught her such as sewing and drafting, cleaning, music and cooking.  What could have been a lifelong source of resentment was a treasure trove of opportunities for Ina to learn.

     Ina says, “I came to love learning and school and I wanted to learn, to know all kinds of things.  I was big eye, excited, hungry for learn.  I came to see learning as an escape from the trap that the convent was.  I might have been stuck inside the convent grounds, but in my mind I could imagine anything.”

Few people know that Ina Mills was a talented writer who won a cup for the John Batman essay writing competition and this was reported in The Courier Mail on Friday, 6 June, 1941.

     Ina welcomed the invasion of Pearl Harbour in 1941 for it meant the evacuation of all civilians from TI.  Ina and Cessa and the Mills girls at the convent on TI (sisters, Lala and Rita and cousins, Thelma and Elsie) and her brothers, Alfie, Wrench and Sammy on Hammond Island sailed for Naghir on 16 December, 1941.

     The threat of the Japanese bombing inhabited islands was so great the Mills family abandoned the village and established new dwellings in the bush, unseen by air.  Between 1942 and 1943 Horn Island was bombed eight times.  Ina remembers seeing Japanese and American planes overhead and being able to differentiate between the sounds of the engines; the oo-oo-oo of the plane with the red circle  and the mosquito-like buzz of the plane with the stars and stripes.  It was about two years before the family returned to the village and during that time, Ina went to Mabuiag Island with her heavily pregnant, Mama.  Ina remembers this time fondly, her mother’s company and the birth of her youngest sister, Ruth, nicknamed Neneh.

     Ina’s father sent her to Badu in early 1945 to train as a nurse.  However, months later, he insisted she return to Naghir months  to care for her ailing mother.

     Tragically, Ina’s mother passed away in September, 1945 and Ina threw herself into working for her father in the store and caring for her younger siblings, especially young Neneh whom she adored. 

     Not long after Mama’s death, Ina remembers pausing during her chores and sitting near her mother’s grave.  Ina felt her mother next to her and her hand stroking her head, “the way she used to when I laid my head in her lap.” Then Ina heard Mama talking.

     “Never mind. Somebody from long way go come take yu.”

     Ina was confused.  Hearing her mother’s voice was one thing, but Ina didn’t know anyone who’d come from afar and she forgot about her mother’s prediction.  All she knew was that, as the oldest daughter, her duty was to look after her father and her siblings.

     In early 1948 Ina’s father married a young woman, Gebi Blanket from Badu and Gebi became a mother-figure for Neneh which pleased Ina.  This also meant Ina had more time to work in the store doing the books and maintaining the stores.  Ina then had a different life: a life that wasn’t bound by the duty to care for her father and family.

     At this time, Ina began corresponding with the Malay skipper of the lugger, Kestrel, Henry Titasey.  She wrote letters to him through her sister-in-law, Ella, Alfie’s wife and then Ella wrote letters in reply for Henry because he didn’t speak English.

     Ina finally met Henry on Naghir in 1948.

     “He was Malay and very handsome with his straight hair slicked back.  He looked even more handsome all dressed up in his grey suit.”

     Henry and Ina met later that night, in secret, so Ina’s father didn’t know.

     “Yu go stop here,” whispered Henry, “and I go get yu.”

Soon after, Frank Mills sent his twin daughters to TI and they started working at See Hops.  At this time, Ina and Henry began courting and they were married on Naghir in May, 1949.

     It wasn’t until Ina was settled back on TI and Henry had gone to sea for the neap that Ina remembered her mother’s words.

     “She was right. Somebody from Indonesia came and took me to TI.”

     After giving birth to Ellie Joan, Ina and Henry bought 10 Pearl Street and then Martha and Tinus were born.  In late 1952, Henry was struck down with tuberculosis and was quarantined at the TB hospital, the present site of Star of the Sea Aged Home.  Ina had no income and had to support three children and maintain a house.

     The Department of Native Affairs noted on Ina’s file she was “destitute” and the Director appealed to the authorities for help.  However, as a non-Australian, Henry was not entitled to a Tuberculosis Allowance or an Invalid Pension. 

     In 1956, Ina’s younger brother, Benny died tragically when diving for kabar (trochus) off Bowen.  Later that year, Cathy Ella was born.  A few years later, Tony were born then Margaret and Ann-Maree joined the family.  It wasn’t complete until Ricky arrived in 1972.

     At all times, Cessa was living at the other end of town with husband, Tommy Nakata and their children and the twins saw each other daily.

      In the early seventies, Ina’s father suffered a stroke on Entrance Island where he and Mama Gebi lived.  The couple then moved into the flat under 10 Pearl Street.

     By this time, Ina, Cessa and Rita had started singing at the Grand Hotel and that led to nights at the Torres Hotel.  They were a popular attraction for their songs and their trademark colourful island dresses, bead necklaces and flowers in their hair.  They sang country and western, golden oldies, war time tunes and island songs, music to appeal to all people. 

     They started out as The Singing Grandmas and became The Mills Sisters when scouted at the Brisbane Expo in 1988, the same year Frank Mills died, aged 88.  Rita’s husband, Brett Tyrell became their manager and they sang at folk festivals and even toured New Zealand, England and France.  In 1995, The Mills Sisters retired, the same year they won the Red Ochre Award.

     Always, Ina supported herself earning an income sewing island dresses. She was known as one of the best dressmakers in the Torres Strait.  She sewed her sisters’, daughters’ and friends’ wedding and bridesmaids’ dresses along with those of many other women.  Ina had a special ability to see a dress or shirt and create it without a pattern. 

     Ina lost her sister, Rita in December, 2005, brothers Alfie in January, 2005, Sammy in May, 2012 and Wrench in January, 2014.

     Ina has always been grateful to Mama Gebi for enabling her the freedom to marry and raise her own family rather than remaining on Naghir caring for her father.

     For years, Ina wanted her story to be written.  In late 2010, daughter-in-law, Cate, applied for a grant to record Ina’s memoir.  Before Ina and Cate knew about the grant decision, Ina was rushed to Townsville for heart surgery and for a few days, her prognosis was uncertain.  Her fighting spirit pulled her through and as soon as she was transferred back to TI hospital, Cate, with her computer, was waiting in the ward to start typing her story.  The result, Ina’s Story: The Memoir of a Torres Strait Islander, was published in April 2012, fulfilling Ina’s dream.

     Ina lived a quiet life at 10 Pearl Street till September, 2013 when she moved to Cairns and lived with her best friend, Geraldine Kirk.  After six months Ina moved into her own villa at Coral Sea Gardens, Westcourt and really appreciated the time she spent with her grand daughters, Ashlea and Nikki.  She loved having visitors, especially her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

     Sadly, Ina was diagnosed with secondary lung cancer on 20 August and immediately her family, from near and far, were by her side.  Ina was initially in a share ward, but the laughing and singing from her visiting family prompted the nurses to move her into her own ward.  Ina was in hospital for almost six weeks before being transferred to the Mary Potter Nursing Home and then settling in the Bethlehem Home for the Aged.

Since Ina fell ill, Cessa visited her every day and younger sisters, Lala and Ruth (Neneh) visited when possible.  Her daughter Ann-Maree was a huge support for       Ina, attending to all administrative matters while working full-time and caring for her youngest children, Lachlan and Chey, all while partner Greg Kirk negotiated work on TI and visits to Cairns to see his family.  Nikki was always by her grandmother’s side, attending to her needs, yarning with her, being there.

      Ina - mother, sister, aunty, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother and friend -  passed away on 24 October, 2014.

     She was a great woman who will be missed always and remembered forever. 

      In the same way as Ina’s mother’s lap was large enough to hold all her children and her arms long enough to embrace them all, Ina’s smile touched everyone she and her enthusiasm for life and her love for her family and friends had no limits. 

Please vote for My Island Homicide

Good news!  My Island Homicide has been short-listed in the Courier Mail People's Choice Awards.  Please follow the link and cast your vote for the yellow book ... and feel free to pass on to everyone you know and don't know!

My great big amazing island family!

Here we are after the most beautiful funeral of the most wonderful lady.  And this is only some of the immediate family!