Duty FreeLiving

When we decided to head off on our journey of self-discovery, we had no idea where it would take us.  We did know that we wanted to do some travel, we wanted to discover and explore our passions and live a different kind of life to that we had before. A more deliberate one. We’re [...]

Whenever people ask us what we do for a living and we respond that we don’t have jobs, the next line of discussion always tends towards money. If we don’t work, how do we afford to live? And it’s a valid question. In 2006 we took 6 weeks off from our 9-5 jobs and visited [...]

I know. It’s Dhal. I can almost hear you saying – “Do we really need ANOTHER recipe for Dhal? Who eats this stuff anyway!?” I secretly love Dhal and happily eat it for breakfast. I make a few versions and this one has an especially sunny colour which is visually appealing when presented as part [...]

There is a man with a beard and joyful eyes who sells Popiah every Saturday evening on Lorong Tuanku Abdul Rahman, when the night markets come to life in this part of Kuala Lumpur. We first met him in July 2009 when we tried what was about our third Popiah and realised that we hadn’t had [...]

It’s not often that Melbourne gets praise for the weather but it has been superb in the last two weeks, especially for vegetable growing. We’ve had very warm days followed by a little rain which has meant that the garden is flourishing and we have plenty of produce for the kitchen. We’ve managed to keep [...]

I’ve always loved to take photographs whilst traveling and have over the years migrated from more basic point and shoot cameras to a dSLR. With the point and shoot models, it was always easy to transport the camera and pull it out whenever I wanted to take a snapshot. But as the size of my [...]

I’ve never been a big eater of Indian food.  Not because I didn’t love the flavours – I love spice – but the large amount of ghee, coconut and meat I’d come to expect had in the past turned me off eating it regularly. After being exposed to a wider variety of styles of Indian [...]

The Tyranny of Routine Wake, eat, work, eat, sleep….wake, eat, work, eat, sleep…..repeat this routine again and again until you are ready to poke your eyes out with a blunt instrument. When you’re stuck in a monotonous work-life routine, it’s common to dream about holidays, winning the lottery, telling your boss to get lost or running away [...]

It’s been over eight months since I last had to wake up and go to work.  It’s incredibly likely that this will continue to be the case for a long time to come and yet it’s not exactly the easiest lifestyle to slip into.  Before Adam and I embarked on this journey of Duty Free [...]

One of the loveliest things about having a kitchen garden is the way in which it provides joy to the entire family. My Dad will come inside after watering the garden in the morning (we have lots of tank water) and proclaim that the potatoes are ready or that some rogue broad beans have sprouted. [...]