Reading, Eating, Repeating.

The wind persists. Is this a journal entry or weather report? Perhaps a mid-life tell. Between sun and wind, feisty rosellas and bossy cockatoos, we’re harvesting peaches—slightly premature—and respectably sized Granny Smiths, bearing the odd inquisitive peck. Bellinis are on the weekend agenda.

This week we’ve been revisiting Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. Italian food, Italian landscapes, Stanley himself—delizioso. The shared devotion to pasta feels good.

Leafy greens dominate the menu. Sunday’s visit to the Castlemaine Farmers Market yielded generous bundles of rainbow chard, kale and spinach. First up: chard stems sautéed slowly in garlicky olive oil, the leaves to follow later, served with basmati rice cooked in chicken stock, tamari-soaked tofu and chickpeas scattered over the top. Restorative, and exactly what a warm evening required.

I’ve been waking early and delighting the household (sarcasm intended) with my new summer breakfast: the Compost Smoothie—named for its earthiness rather than its glamour. Spinach, frozen blueberries, chia and flax, avocado, goat’s yoghurt, almond milk and fresh ginger. Potent. Despite my expectations of a swift and polite refusal, the new ensemble has been embraced. It seems compost, in cup form, has its charms.

In a deliberate effort to avoid my phone, I’ve been reading and writing—regularly. Over summer I reread Peter Mayle’s Bon Appétit! (for the third time), preceded by Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun. Now I’m well into Diana Henry’s Around the Table - an impulse purchase made while seeking refuge in an air-conditioned bookshop.

Food, France, food, Italy. On repeat.

Photograph: Kirsty Davey