Today one of my lady loves and I adventured into the countryside for a utopic spring picnic surrounded by big trees and trickling streams.

There were baby animals hopping excitedly around us, fascinated by their new surroundings. We got really lost on a windy dirt road, but we didn’t even care.

We ate coconut damper and salted caramel, apple and haloumi salad while sipping fresh pineapple and beetroot juice. 

I am somewhat of a cuisine discriminator and I blame it nearly entirely on my uncle.

He is tall, wears excellent shirts and takes lovely photographs. He is funny and caring. Sounds like a good guy right?

Wrong! He is a downright arrogant food monarchist! I found this out after once sharing with him my utter infatuation with Greek food  - after a holiday in Corfu saw me sailing around the islands eating olives and fresh caught sardines. 

I know it happens all the time, but it really stinks.

You are happily committed and then something, somewhere changes. You develop feelings, a magnetic attraction. You know you shouldn’t, but you can’t fight it.

It may have just started with their smell, a few sheepish glances and yearning eyes. You have come this close before, yet have always been able to tell yourself it isn’t worth it. But before you know it you are having some pretty deceitful thoughts. 

I promise you this recipe I dreamt up on the weekend is 100 per cent worthy of such an obnoxiously long title.

I have been politely declining beetroot’s renaissance for some time now.

To me the ‘humble beetroot’ is somewhat of a deceiving mistress. Hiding behind that vibrant magenta façade is in fact a rock hard, earthy-tasting carrot/potato lovechild. 

Originally used for clothes dyes, winter road salt and animal fodder, you can hardly blame a gal for taking a wide berth.

I am one of those rare breeds of people who absolutely ADORE winter.

Albeit only for a few fleeting months in Queensland, winter means it is time to dust off the boots and snuggle up by a fire on the beach. 

Equally as exciting is the abundance of winter fruit and veggies that slowly start trickling into supermarkets. My all time favourite of these - rhubarb. 

Having been raised on a farm in reasonably remote Central Queensland, I understand the importance, even necessity, of eating seasonal produce. 

The amount of miles our food travels these days is truly abhorrent, and so even though I now live in the big city, I am very conscious of buying local, in-season, food. 

For me, there is nothing like a healthy dish disguised as something naughty. 

Hence, a pancake that tastes like sweet delicious bananas, but is actually stealthily harbouring loads of spinach, is in my opinion the ultimate breakfast food. 

Also, eating psychedelic food makes me very happy. 

Cześć!

While I was growing up, I literally thought that borscht was a word my Polish grandma made up. 

Don't start thinking that I am a crazy racist or anything, my grandma, as lovely as she is, has some of the worst English I have come across - despite having been in Australia for over 50 years. 

Essentially, this means she coins a lot of her words and phrases into a kind of pigeon Polish. So when she told me the bright red soup she was ladling into my bowl was called borscht, I did my usual smile and nod response.