Courtyard garden for dinner

The Desjardins Family cook up lunch at Cecilia's

Last week I got an impromteau 'Vengance Visit' from the Desjardin's family, who I WWOOFed with in November, and found myself asking the courtyard garden to help with lunch ingredients. Being in the city means you get unexpected guests, and having an edible garden means you can fancy up whatever is in the fridge with something fresh and maybe exotic.

Juju picked some chives, mint and 'cats paw' for the Vietnamese carrot salad, a mix of grated carrots with butter-fried nuts, with a sauce of brown sugar, fish sauce, lime and garlic. For a motherless waif, he is a great stylish cook. The pansies in the rocket salad looked extremely gourmet.

Stephan found my sushi-chef housemates knife, and chopped everything in the Samurai spirit that's part of his package - accurate, careful and with rhythm (he is french as well).

Fabian was generally faboulous, as usual, with the angel-rays peeping though the tiredness.

Which got all of us in the end.

We played with the cats, got out the massage bed (best use of time ever), and Cecilia went wild with the hairdryer and 'curls rock' on Stephan. If he grew that mane long and sold it on his 18th brithday, it would pay his way backpacking Europe, I've calculated.

It was wonderful to meet Angelica, the WWOOFer from heaven (via Italy) who was there to soothe and cook for the family in the days after Yukari passed away, in the warm sunny way that have Italians seem put on this planet to do.
Now she is back in Italy, the Desjardins are back in their Sunshine Coast Paradise, waiting for the next lovely wwoofers to come and for a dose of being amazed, amazing, and cooking up love and family. If you go and stay, expect a tropical supermarket of a garden, lots of puppy-like moments of subduing, tussling and being inspired by these beautiful, resiliant boys, and their marvelous Dad.