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This episode is all about Christmas cooking, feasting and sharing, and is the perfect thing to listen to while you travel from here to there, make a dozen or so mince pies, walk them off, wrap presents or just sit and have a cup of coffee and stare at the twinkling lights of your tree. Either way, this last week or so before Christmas is our favourite of the year so in this episode we are talking to some of Australia’s top food writers about what they are planning to cook and share for Christmas day. From Valli Little to Hetty McKinnon, Emiko Davies, Michele Crawford and Charlotte Ree there’s some GOOOOOOD Christmas cooking inspiration in here.

Plus the lovely lovely Annabelle Hickson tells us a Christmas story and as always Skye and I share our favourite things to listen to, read, do and think about. And speaking of my lovely co-host, she is due to have her third bubba any day now so gets the ultimate Christmas-cooking-leave-pass, and I know you are all with me when I say we wish you all the very best for the arrival of your new little person and can’t wait to meet him or her.

And as always, thank you so very very much to our podcast partner Country Style magazine.

[Read more…] about Series 2, Episode 2 – show notes

Hello lovely listeners! So happy to be chatting with you again and we are just as excited for you to meet our guest for Episode 7 of My Open Kitchen, cake maker Gillian Bell.

It’s hard not to get wrapped up in the warmth of this incredible lady. Once you meet her (via our podcast) you will understand why she gets flown all over the world just to bake her ‘bespoke’ wedding cakes. Her heartfelt connection with food, family eating and intrepid adventure left us in utter adoration. I hope she has the same affect on you!

And also in this episode; our Top 5 list of things we’re loving at the moment (lots of good podcasts this time around), some yummy Summer inspired honey popsicles and sweet tunes too.

As always, you can listen to this episode by clicking on the green button above or finding us in i-tunes (just search My Open Kitchen).

Enjoy! Skye and Soph xx

PS – We had a lot of lovely feedback from our last podcast with the beautiful Skye McAlpine, thank you!! If you missed it you can download here.

Skye’s Top 5 

1. Instagram’s The Weekend Hashtag Project. #WHP and whatever the topic is. In-fact Instagram is a good one to follow as they have suggestions for some beautiful photographers and community minded people to follow.The weekend hashtag project is an enjoyable little assignment, that can bring you into contact with a whole new community of instagrammers all over the globe.

2. Podcast, Art for your Ear by The Jealous Curator.  How often do you find yourself saying, ‘gosh I wish I had thought of that,’ – that’s who Danielle Krysa interviews. Amazing contemporary creative, many of them Australian, who are yes, amazing people but also just normal people, going through the same boring, tedious things that we do. I especially love this episode with Aussie, Rachel Castle.

3.A new App for Mac’s called Flowstate. For writers, or journalists – like me, who get far too distracted web browsing. There is a small cost, but it helps with productivity. You set a timer, and unless you keep writing for the designated time, all your work is lost and not saved. So it stops you the distraction (aka ‘seeking inspiration’) mid-article! Totally the kind of help I need.

4.Female Farmer Project by Audra Mulkern is launching a new podcast soon which is exciting. I have followed Audra for some time, often thinking ‘gosh I wish I had thought of that,’ as she documents farmers who are women in the US. Here is a good post of hers about how to tell a farm or ‘ranch’ story. 

5.Lilac. As I write this, I have a slowly wilting yet, delicious smelling bunch of neighbourhood foraged Lilac. Somehow it grabs me and spurts me into action. It inspired me to start designing my floral stationery; I wanted my wedding bouquet to feature lilac picked from childhood garden and the smell will forever remind me of my grandmother and the local fete in our small village, where we used to try and win a blue ribbon for our flower arrangements. They provide so many beautiful photo opportunities and I will never tire of it’s perfectly bunched flowers.

Photo credit; The Female Farmer Project

Sophie’s Top 5

1. Number one is the Blogtacula podcast. Born of the conference of the same name held every July in the UK, this podcast hosted by Kate Molesworth, interviews some of my all-time favourite bloggers about social media, how they have grown their audiences, running a business online and all sorts of other goodies.

2. How to look at a painting; My Mum Annie Herron is an artist and is always reminding me to think about composition and perspective when I’m snapping away on my phone or camera for the blog. And truly, thinking about the rule of thirds, tone, angles and lines can make a huge difference. She recently introduced me to this book by justin Paton, and it’s an absolute winner – how to really look at art, basic elements of composition etc and written really beautifully in laymans terms.

3. Note to Self; Is your phone watching you? Can wexting make you smarter? Are your kids real? These and other essential quandaries are the stuff of podcast Note to Self, designed, as host Mannish Zomorodi says, “for anyone trying to preserve their humanity in the digital age”. Skye and I had the great pleasure of listening to Manoush speak at OzPod 2016 at the ABC studios a couple of weeks ago. I love her approach to using tech in a meaningful way.

4. Lucky Dip Club; I adore the idea of this online business which invites people to take up a monthly subscription and then receive a box of super cute goodies every month. Lucky Dip monthly boxes are themed and the woman behind it all, Leona, collaborates with artists and creatives from around the world to make each one quite special. This is all about bringing the internet to life and I discovered it thanks to an episode of the Blogtacula podcast which features a great interview with Leona where she shares some great ideas about growing an online business in a very sustainable way. Subscriptions are opened on the first of each month and sell out within hours so you have to be fast, I can’t wait to get my first box in the post!

5. Here’s the Thing; I love Alec Bladwin – so much more now after seeing him as Trump on Saturday Night Live recently – and his podcast Here’s the Thing is an exercise in classy podcasting. From his rich meliflous voice to the wonderful actors, politicians and activists he interviews you can just imagine him sitting back in a chesterfield lounge with a glass of single malt in his hand and some jazz playing in the background. It’s a winner guys.