A beautiful new year

This is the January page of my new beautiful diary from the State Library of Victoria. I think it's stunning. Sorry about the line down the middle but it's a double-page spread, that never looks good really.

The first thing I thought of when I opened it was that it reminded me of a pair of trousers that I nearly bought just before Christmas. I was attracted by the fabric - it was shiny and silky and had all of those colours in it. It also was stunning. I saw it in Ishka which has ethnic kind of clothes, hippy even. But I wasn't sure what it was. Was it a dress with one of those elasticated sort of tops that have to stay in place over your boobs? I wasn't sure about that. Or was it a skirt - in which case good, if it fitted? And then I saw that it was actually trousers. Sort of super baggy ones, and I didn't really fancy that, so I put them back on the rack somewhat reluctantly. Not that I usually wear yellow, but the mix of colours was so magical. In my younger days I might have bought it anyway and tried to convert it to a skirt. It probably wouldn't have been too hard.

The design above is also magical - to me anyway. For design it is, made up from a composite of parts of three different items. Below is the most insignificant of them - a plan of a park made in 1812. It is represented on the January page by the lines at the bottom. Very small, hardly there even, but it draws the design together somehow.

Then there is the drawing of the embroidered merops , from a book dated 1793. The embroidered merops is actually the Regent honeyeater and I think it is rather rare. And very beautiful too. Again apologies about the lines down the middle. It looks large and imposing but I suspect it is rather small. Honeyeaters usually are.

And finally we have a botanical drawing of a sunflower from the period 1750-72. All beautiful things in their own right but when combined together they are truly stunning. So I just wanted to share it with you.

Now how can I tie that in with food?

Well I guess a beautiful dish, or meal is in itself made up of a combination of beautiful ingredients, some more beautiful than others, but when brought together they can combine to create something truly great.

Then there is the importance of detail. The tiny bit extracted from the park plan to bring the whole together. Like the one 'secret' ingredient that makes the others shine. Maybe I should try concocting something with sunflower seeds and chicken instead of an embroidered merops - but what should be the plainer, but vital 'secret ingredient'? Ideas please.

The diary itself continues to make use of detail in the weekly pages. Each week is a double spread. On one side is the week laid out, in which you can write your appointments. The other is blank. In this I write what I aim to achieve that week. And on both sides you will find a small detail from an art work.

This one again uses the bird - it's wing this time, turned to fit the line of the page - and on the opposite page a small insect flies away in the top corner.

Beauty gives me such pleasure and we are surrounded by it every day. There is grand beauty in art and landscape and everyday beauty in everything we do, sometimes in the most unexpected places - even in our kitchens. Next time you are chopping up a vegetable or peeling some fruit, admire the colour and nature's design.

I just wish I could design like the person or persons who designed this book. I think design is one of the underrated arts really - for art it is. And so much of it is about the detail - the font, the colour, the placement, the choice of illustration ... and then merging all those things together into a perfect combination. Like cooking.

The credits for this diary go to a company - Pfisterer and Freeman which I looked up, and found that it is basically two people - Klarissa Pfisterer and Hamish Freeman. If you go to their website you can see other examples of their work. They have even done a cookbook - Turkish Fire about Turkish street food. I must keep an eye out for it. They've won lots of awards.

As you know I am a sucker for design when it comes to cookbooks. It's an art form - both the design of the book as a whole and the design of the dishes on the plate. I shall have more to say on this sometime I have no doubt.

In the meantime, it's just a case of 'I wish'. Something else I cannot do.