Don’t worry, it’s not Tuesday! We’re squeezing in A SECOND recipe this week because we just have too much awesome stuff to fit in before the holidays kick in!

Today our darling Partnerships Manager Alice Johnson and her partner, landscape architect Marlon Ziebell, leave us with their final recipe, a super tasty and endlessly versatile recipe for (slightly boozy) preserved pears.

What do you do with preserved pears, we hear you ask? Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, tip them on a pavlova or rich chocolate cake, or add them to muesli and yoghurt for a deliciously decadent breakfast – the options are endless!

Our Partnerships Manager Alice Johnson is no fairweather foodie! She’s the real thing, rain, hail… and even when she has an intolerance to the key ingredient! Yep, she’s that devoted to the age-old art of pickling and preserving – a pesky onion allergy wouldn’t prevent her from sharing this recipe with us!

Today Alice and her partner, landscape architect Marlon Ziebell, show you how to make perfectly pickled onions. It’s just the addition you’ve been looking for to take your summer cheese platter to the next level!

Summer has arrived in Victoria! Though it’s been a strange week of unseasonal downpours, on Victoria’s coast, the water temp has risen over 18-degrees, and it’s looking like sunshine all the way to Christmas! It couldn’t be a better time for us to share our take on Australia’s most famous drive: the Great Ocean Road!

We’ve enlisted part-time Skenes Creek local, and much-loved renovator (who you may know from The Block!) Jenna Densten of design studio Bicker Design and Design School. She showcases her favourite stops for exploring, eating and a spot of shopping, from Torquay to Apollo Bay.

‘What should I get so and so for Christmas?’ has been the talk of the office this week. Not wanting to break the bank (and also sticking to many of our own buy-local and eco-conscious goals) has made this already-challenging task even harder than usual, especially when thoughtful and useful are chief criteria!

Happily, our partnerships manager Alice Johnson and her partner, landscape architect Marlon Ziebell, are back today with the second serving in their make-yourself menu of preserves. Perfect for Kris Kringle/co-worker/extended-family gift giving!

We advise you make a double quantity of this wholegrain mustard, because you just won’t want to part with it all!

I was incredibly lucky last month to escape Melbourne for a blissful weekend, to stay at Victoria’s newest boutique accommodation offering.

Today, I’m sharing a tour of the remarkable Mitchelton estate in Central Victoria, which comprises a Hecker Guthrie designed hotel and pool, day spa, The Muse restaurant overlooking the Goulburn River, winery cellar door, and the largest indigenous art gallery in regional Victoria.

You can also WIN a stay yourself – scroll down to enter!

We’ve been waiting MONTHS to share this very special Tasty Tuesday series with you – a series of simple yet brilliantly inspiring recipes, from two of our favourite people!

Alice Johnson is The Design Files’ partnerships manager, and one of the sweetest girls we know, whilst her partner, Marlon Ziebell is a talented landscape architect. These two are a match made in heaven. They spend every spare moment at Marlon’s family property in South Gippsland, and when they’re not in the great outdoors, they’re preserving, pickling and fermenting an incredible array of food together, using mostly homegrown produce.

This month, this industrious pair will share a little of their passion with us, kicking off today with a deceptively simple yet intensely flavoursome ginger-spiked sauerkraut.

The holiday season is the time when people are most frequently sick and most frequently traveling. Talk about a bad combination.
If you’re planning on doing som

We feature a host of architecturally extended homes, so it’s a joy to highlight a designed garden that responds so thoughtfully to a renovation.

Not overdone, nor too sparing, this outdoor oasis Ian Barker has created to complement a family home in Camberwell is just perfect!