Sunday, July 05, 2009
Tasklist: get a life.
Remarking that I have never watched an episode (does reality television have episodes?) of Masterchef gets a similar response to when I let drop that I have never seen any Star Wars, James Bond or Quentin Tarantino movie (or in the latter case, film). The second admission covers most movie audience types, so there's always a falling jaw.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Layers of meaning.
If you visit a place called The Tofu Shop you kind of know what you are going to eat.
I used to eat there when I worked near Bridge Road, in that old red brick building that used to be a shirt factory and became an office block in the late eighties, when Australia was busy exporting manufacturing. The old red brick building had a neon sign on its roof that read 'PELACO' and I worked directly beneath the 'E'.
I used to go to The Tofu Shop ('The' was part of its name, hence the capital T, although it looks wrong) because I liked the way they layered their dishes. You didn't just get a slab of soy curd, slippery and shaking like a jellyfish, on a plate. Instead, they used to layer textures and tastes in a way that kept you interested, like reading a thriller. Frameworks of steamed vegetables, grains of various kinds and legumes were built over with salads, the starring home-made tofu, or a combination of ingredients; and then topped with yogurt, or garlic or chilli sauces. Or both. Or neither. Or all three. Higher and higher. Then a vortex of pickled ginger, or maybe some tabbouleh. As a garnish? Why not? Or a wafer of crisped pita. You had to eat for about ten minutes before you got to see the view if you sat in a window seat overlooking Bridge Road.
And I wasn't even vegetarian.
Since then, I have tried to do the same kind of layering at home. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The highs are high and the lows go in the bin, but only because we don't have dogs any more. This one was a high:
Warm salad of rice, pesto and chick peas.
I picked a heap of rocket and parsley and processed it with walnuts, olive oil, garlic and parmesan cheese. (The combination of ingredients is forgiving; it just needs to be silky smooth and very slightly 'wet' when done.)
Then I cooked some brown rice, enough to make up two cupfuls; folded two tablespoons of the pesto through the rice, and added a can of chick peas, heated and drained, and half a cup of fresh cooked green peas. (You can use frozen.) The brown rice adds a robustness to the taste and texture of the whole dish. It's not just a health thing. Or try barley.
The warm salad was served on a bed of fluffy couscous, and topped with sour cream and a dash of chilli sauce.
With food like that, I could turn vegetarian. For a while, anyway. A week?
I used to eat there when I worked near Bridge Road, in that old red brick building that used to be a shirt factory and became an office block in the late eighties, when Australia was busy exporting manufacturing. The old red brick building had a neon sign on its roof that read 'PELACO' and I worked directly beneath the 'E'.
I used to go to The Tofu Shop ('The' was part of its name, hence the capital T, although it looks wrong) because I liked the way they layered their dishes. You didn't just get a slab of soy curd, slippery and shaking like a jellyfish, on a plate. Instead, they used to layer textures and tastes in a way that kept you interested, like reading a thriller. Frameworks of steamed vegetables, grains of various kinds and legumes were built over with salads, the starring home-made tofu, or a combination of ingredients; and then topped with yogurt, or garlic or chilli sauces. Or both. Or neither. Or all three. Higher and higher. Then a vortex of pickled ginger, or maybe some tabbouleh. As a garnish? Why not? Or a wafer of crisped pita. You had to eat for about ten minutes before you got to see the view if you sat in a window seat overlooking Bridge Road.
And I wasn't even vegetarian.
Since then, I have tried to do the same kind of layering at home. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The highs are high and the lows go in the bin, but only because we don't have dogs any more. This one was a high:
Warm salad of rice, pesto and chick peas.
I picked a heap of rocket and parsley and processed it with walnuts, olive oil, garlic and parmesan cheese. (The combination of ingredients is forgiving; it just needs to be silky smooth and very slightly 'wet' when done.)
Then I cooked some brown rice, enough to make up two cupfuls; folded two tablespoons of the pesto through the rice, and added a can of chick peas, heated and drained, and half a cup of fresh cooked green peas. (You can use frozen.) The brown rice adds a robustness to the taste and texture of the whole dish. It's not just a health thing. Or try barley.
The warm salad was served on a bed of fluffy couscous, and topped with sour cream and a dash of chilli sauce.
With food like that, I could turn vegetarian. For a while, anyway. A week?
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
The house on the hill.
Of course, we used to visit relatives there. Still do.
The new freeways have cut the trip to the Dandenongs by about 45 minutes. My father used to take Elgin, Johnson, Studley Park, Barkers, Canterbury and Burwood; a tour of Melbourne’s Victorian and Edwardian streetscape and architecture. On the freeway, you get to look at these.
*
I took the Monash freeway to Eastlink, ignored the faux art, hooked off and under at Ferntree Gully Road and then up into the hills. Within twenty minutes, we were curving into the narrow main street of Belgrave, where the shops seem to lean into the road like eager spruikers trying to shoulder each other out of the way.
Past the strip, we turned south across the railway bridge, coasted down the hill into a long gully and turned into an unmade road that followed the bank of a creek towards a forest.
We were visiting a relative. I had had to consult a map, because the relative had recently moved house. We found the house on the high side of the gravel road, on a west-facing slope that dropped down to the street and Belgrave Creek beyond it. Behind the house, a 1960s timber cottage, the slope rose at an impossible angle through a terraced garden, overgrown with rhododendron, camellia, photinia and any number of natives. At the top of it all, along a high ridge, was a line of eucalypts and bare poplars. These would be invisible on a foggy day.
The car crunched to a stop on a gravel forecourt and we climbed the timber steps to a verandah. The front door opened. The relative smiled us in. “Like the house? It’s a bit of a mess. I haven’t finished unpacking yet.”
Does anyone ever finish unpacking? I’ve moved four times in ten years and I still haven’t opened boxes from the first move.
“It’s great. And the view!”
The relative smiled again. Happy in a kind of tired, relieved way. She looked around as if she couldn’t believe she was in a new house. Maybe she couldn’t.
They were divorced a year or so ago. Now the children travel to and from their father's house in a kind of a daze, and not just from being teenagers.
*
A lot of people in this situation. Careening through their thirties and forties, carrying the baggage of their lives, and several hundred books, and a brand new mortgage for a couple of hundred thousand dollars, to a new place; a bit quieter and a bit lonelier. Don't think about the mortgage. It will look after itself. Or not. But never leave the books behind.
*
We sat on chairs on the veranda at the front with cups of coffee and watched the kookaburras in the treetops, beyond the gravel road and the trickling water. A small valley with a stream running through it. Later, we walked along the pathway that follows the creek into the State forest where coloured birds – crimson rosellas – swooped raggedly, in groups but no real formation, through the clearings in stands of eucalypts. There were bellbirds as well. Their call is unmistakable. It whips and echoes. I remember the sound from years ago, climbing up a block in forested Selby, when there were no houses, just dreams.
*
The boys and I looked down from a ridge edged with treeferns. Down below, two women - sisters - chatting, out of earshot, at the edge of the trees. Laughing like the teenagers they were then, when they lived in the draughty house in the Dandenongs.
The new freeways have cut the trip to the Dandenongs by about 45 minutes. My father used to take Elgin, Johnson, Studley Park, Barkers, Canterbury and Burwood; a tour of Melbourne’s Victorian and Edwardian streetscape and architecture. On the freeway, you get to look at these.
*
I took the Monash freeway to Eastlink, ignored the faux art, hooked off and under at Ferntree Gully Road and then up into the hills. Within twenty minutes, we were curving into the narrow main street of Belgrave, where the shops seem to lean into the road like eager spruikers trying to shoulder each other out of the way.
Past the strip, we turned south across the railway bridge, coasted down the hill into a long gully and turned into an unmade road that followed the bank of a creek towards a forest.
We were visiting a relative. I had had to consult a map, because the relative had recently moved house. We found the house on the high side of the gravel road, on a west-facing slope that dropped down to the street and Belgrave Creek beyond it. Behind the house, a 1960s timber cottage, the slope rose at an impossible angle through a terraced garden, overgrown with rhododendron, camellia, photinia and any number of natives. At the top of it all, along a high ridge, was a line of eucalypts and bare poplars. These would be invisible on a foggy day.
The car crunched to a stop on a gravel forecourt and we climbed the timber steps to a verandah. The front door opened. The relative smiled us in. “Like the house? It’s a bit of a mess. I haven’t finished unpacking yet.”
Does anyone ever finish unpacking? I’ve moved four times in ten years and I still haven’t opened boxes from the first move.
“It’s great. And the view!”
The relative smiled again. Happy in a kind of tired, relieved way. She looked around as if she couldn’t believe she was in a new house. Maybe she couldn’t.
They were divorced a year or so ago. Now the children travel to and from their father's house in a kind of a daze, and not just from being teenagers.
*
A lot of people in this situation. Careening through their thirties and forties, carrying the baggage of their lives, and several hundred books, and a brand new mortgage for a couple of hundred thousand dollars, to a new place; a bit quieter and a bit lonelier. Don't think about the mortgage. It will look after itself. Or not. But never leave the books behind.
*
We sat on chairs on the veranda at the front with cups of coffee and watched the kookaburras in the treetops, beyond the gravel road and the trickling water. A small valley with a stream running through it. Later, we walked along the pathway that follows the creek into the State forest where coloured birds – crimson rosellas – swooped raggedly, in groups but no real formation, through the clearings in stands of eucalypts. There were bellbirds as well. Their call is unmistakable. It whips and echoes. I remember the sound from years ago, climbing up a block in forested Selby, when there were no houses, just dreams.
*
The boys and I looked down from a ridge edged with treeferns. Down below, two women - sisters - chatting, out of earshot, at the edge of the trees. Laughing like the teenagers they were then, when they lived in the draughty house in the Dandenongs.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Selby.
Melbourne is a bowl and the Dandenong Ranges sit on its the eastern rim. From where I grew up, you could see the Dandenongs clear and blue and serene above the smoke and dust of Collingwood and Fitzroy.
The Dandenongs were a frequent weekend destination, with fern gullies full of lyrebirds and wombats, quaint cafes full of lace and hot scones and villages hanging off the slopes at every turn. After years of day trips, my parents bought a block of land in then semi-rural Selby. The block, on a steep slope, was covered in blackberry and you strode up the hill almost knee-deep in fallen bark from the gum trees. We never got around to building on the block and eventually my parents sold it to buy an old farmhouse at Birregurra instead.
But I never lost my fascination for the hills at the eastern end of Melbourne. During my supposedly bohemian student years, which were about as bohemian as a weak cappuccino, I knew poets and actors who retreated up to Olinda and Emerald on frozen winter weekends to sit in front of blazing log fires and drink red wine and write verse or rehearse lines for their next play at La Mama or the Playbox while gazing out windows at gently falling snow and the twinkling lights of Melbourne below, a carpet of stars.
I used to visit the hills often. During the 1980s, I took my older two children on day trips to the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens, to the National Rhododendron Gardens, to the narrow gauge railway that runs - whistle shrieking through the eucalypts - out to Emerald; and sometimes, at night, to one high point or other, just to gaze down at that carpet of light. And then home again to the cosy inner suburbs.
*
Tracy, on the other hand, spent part of her childhood in the Dandenongs. She lived in a house in the hills, beneath a canopy of mountain ash and fern, and hated it. She found it dank, cold and boring. It was incessantly wet. If it wasn’t raining, the fog was heavy enough to soak you anyway. You don’t notice this when you are able to return to your wide-streeted suburb on Sunday night. My romance of winter was her slog of seasonal survival; trudging to school in fog or rain and loaded down with backpack and textbooks and coat and scarf and hat. Later, Tracy moved far away from the mountains, first to buzzing Fitzroy where warm cafes and restaurants line the streets just as gum trees do in the Dandenongs; and then to Brunswick, where we met, and I found myself not visiting the Dandenongs all that much any more.
I suppose it’s all about perception. And how much your house leaks.
The Dandenongs were a frequent weekend destination, with fern gullies full of lyrebirds and wombats, quaint cafes full of lace and hot scones and villages hanging off the slopes at every turn. After years of day trips, my parents bought a block of land in then semi-rural Selby. The block, on a steep slope, was covered in blackberry and you strode up the hill almost knee-deep in fallen bark from the gum trees. We never got around to building on the block and eventually my parents sold it to buy an old farmhouse at Birregurra instead.
But I never lost my fascination for the hills at the eastern end of Melbourne. During my supposedly bohemian student years, which were about as bohemian as a weak cappuccino, I knew poets and actors who retreated up to Olinda and Emerald on frozen winter weekends to sit in front of blazing log fires and drink red wine and write verse or rehearse lines for their next play at La Mama or the Playbox while gazing out windows at gently falling snow and the twinkling lights of Melbourne below, a carpet of stars.
I used to visit the hills often. During the 1980s, I took my older two children on day trips to the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens, to the National Rhododendron Gardens, to the narrow gauge railway that runs - whistle shrieking through the eucalypts - out to Emerald; and sometimes, at night, to one high point or other, just to gaze down at that carpet of light. And then home again to the cosy inner suburbs.
*
Tracy, on the other hand, spent part of her childhood in the Dandenongs. She lived in a house in the hills, beneath a canopy of mountain ash and fern, and hated it. She found it dank, cold and boring. It was incessantly wet. If it wasn’t raining, the fog was heavy enough to soak you anyway. You don’t notice this when you are able to return to your wide-streeted suburb on Sunday night. My romance of winter was her slog of seasonal survival; trudging to school in fog or rain and loaded down with backpack and textbooks and coat and scarf and hat. Later, Tracy moved far away from the mountains, first to buzzing Fitzroy where warm cafes and restaurants line the streets just as gum trees do in the Dandenongs; and then to Brunswick, where we met, and I found myself not visiting the Dandenongs all that much any more.
I suppose it’s all about perception. And how much your house leaks.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Nice bright colours/dreams of summers/all the world's a sunny day.
My brother recently found some old slide photographs taken by my father in the early 1970s and posted them on his weblog. The colours are unearthly: golds you can almost feel, unearthly greens; even the shadows have a tangible depth. I remember the day. I was there, but not in the shots. The pictures are nothing special, just family and friends fooling around in the back yard at a beach house at Somers. But those colours!
So that was Kodachrome? I shot some slides once. I'll look for them. They are in a box somewhere.
So that was Kodachrome? I shot some slides once. I'll look for them. They are in a box somewhere.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Pea and ham soup in an era of cultural change: some critical insights.
The heavy pot lives under the sink, off to the side, next to the wok and in front of a rotary food mill that I have never used. Lifting the pot out requires a manoeuvre straight out of an Eastern stretching guide, but putting up with the complicated move has two advantages: I get to the keep the $100,000 for a new kitchen and the $40 for an Iyengar yoga class.
The heavy pot in question no longer has its lid handle. When I cook with it, I have to kind of flip the lid up with one hand - gauntleted with a tea towel, catch it with the other hand and try not to sustain steam burns. Apart from all that, the pot is in perfect condition. Why throw it out?
I dragged it out for the annual mid-winter pea and ham soup ritual. Imagining I had posted a recipe for this at least once a year on this web log, I searched the archive but couldn’t seem to find one more recent than 2005; in any case this new recipe is probably a better one.
Pea and ham soup for the winter solstice.
I sliced the end – about a tablespoon’s worth - off a stick of butter, paper and all, peeled off the paper and threw the butter into the pot. The butter melted lazily, barely bubbling, barely hissing, as if going to sleep. Then I crept up on it and threw in – all at once – two large onions, two medium carrots, two sticks of celery and one parsnip; all in small dice.
Then the broken lid went on and the vegetables steamed in the butter on a low heat for ten minutes, or enough time to drink a cup of coffee and read The Weekend Australian in which an article was suggesting that ‘social media’ (sixty billion people huddled, alone, over sixty billion computer screens is ‘social’?) such as Twitter was changing the face of business:
*
The vegetables were sweating. I rinsed one and three-quarter cups of green split peas and added them to the pot along with half a kilo of bacon bones (excellent butcher’s own from the Blairgowrie butcher; very aromatically smoky and no fake red colour) and ten cups of water.
When it came to the boil, I turned it down, threw in a sprig of thyme from the garden, put the lid back on and left it for two hours.
Later, I chopped and fried some pieces of bread the boys had left and made crunchy, garlicky croutons. The soup was served in large bowls and garnished with the croutons along with fresh parsley and pepper. No salt; the bacon is salt enough.
So that was it. No better dinner on a cold winter solstice Sunday night.
*
“I found her notebook underneath a tree/she’d been twittering all about me/the words she’d written took me by surprise/you’d never read them in her eyes.”
(Apologies to David Gates.)
The heavy pot in question no longer has its lid handle. When I cook with it, I have to kind of flip the lid up with one hand - gauntleted with a tea towel, catch it with the other hand and try not to sustain steam burns. Apart from all that, the pot is in perfect condition. Why throw it out?
I dragged it out for the annual mid-winter pea and ham soup ritual. Imagining I had posted a recipe for this at least once a year on this web log, I searched the archive but couldn’t seem to find one more recent than 2005; in any case this new recipe is probably a better one.
Pea and ham soup for the winter solstice.
I sliced the end – about a tablespoon’s worth - off a stick of butter, paper and all, peeled off the paper and threw the butter into the pot. The butter melted lazily, barely bubbling, barely hissing, as if going to sleep. Then I crept up on it and threw in – all at once – two large onions, two medium carrots, two sticks of celery and one parsnip; all in small dice.
Then the broken lid went on and the vegetables steamed in the butter on a low heat for ten minutes, or enough time to drink a cup of coffee and read The Weekend Australian in which an article was suggesting that ‘social media’ (sixty billion people huddled, alone, over sixty billion computer screens is ‘social’?) such as Twitter was changing the face of business:
“ ‘Plenty of smart companies are using [Twitter] to build a brand, turn their customers into a community and cement the names of their products in the minds of their market.’ ”One Tweet and you’re cemented. Academia is jumping onto the bandwagon as well, bringing with it, in a satchel over its shoulder, its unique brand of jargon:
“... the Digital Cultures program in the faculty of arts at Sydney University ... encourages an understanding of the ‘crucial connections between technical innovation and cultural change’. Director Chris Chesher sees social media as ‘part of cultural literacy’. He says employers will be looking for people who combine technical skills ‘with that broader critical insight of an arts education’.”As against the oafs who come out of the sciences building? My personal critical insight is that employers are not currently looking for people at all; let alone those enhanced by broader critical insights and the ability to send diary messages of no more than 140 characters.
*
The vegetables were sweating. I rinsed one and three-quarter cups of green split peas and added them to the pot along with half a kilo of bacon bones (excellent butcher’s own from the Blairgowrie butcher; very aromatically smoky and no fake red colour) and ten cups of water.
When it came to the boil, I turned it down, threw in a sprig of thyme from the garden, put the lid back on and left it for two hours.
Later, I chopped and fried some pieces of bread the boys had left and made crunchy, garlicky croutons. The soup was served in large bowls and garnished with the croutons along with fresh parsley and pepper. No salt; the bacon is salt enough.
So that was it. No better dinner on a cold winter solstice Sunday night.
*
“I found her notebook underneath a tree/she’d been twittering all about me/the words she’d written took me by surprise/you’d never read them in her eyes.”
(Apologies to David Gates.)
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Recession-busting tips # 2157: get your children to make their own birthday cake.
Happy birthday, William. And a glance back at 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
(Car spotters' note: the toy in Thomas's hand is the original 1960s Matchbox 'Models of Yesteryear' 1929 4.5L Bentley I was given at age ten; currently his favourite toy. William plays with its companion, a pale green 1907 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. Here's a Bentley in closer detail.)
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Newspaper sub-editor likes pizza.
This story from yesterday's paper is headlined: Thai tops pizza as fattiest takeaway.
As a generalisation, that takes some beating.
So let's go along with it and generalise. Generally, Thai food is packed with vitamin-dense vegetables, herbs and spices. Generally, in terms of mass sales at major pizza outlets, pizza is packed with ham that was scraped off the abattoir floor, compacted and then shot out of a mulching machine. Generally, Thai food is fiery and flavourful and is accompanied with and balanced by healthy, non-fat steamed rice. Generally, pizza's key flavour drivers are fat-dense ingredients such as cheese, and it is accompanied by z-grade television and beer. Generally, Thai food is served in moderation. Generally, pizza comes in a box the size of your DVD player, but squarer.
So how do we arrive at Thai tops pizza as fattiest takeaway? By extrapolating the contents of one Thai dish - Pad Thai - across the whole cuisine. The only way pizza - generally speaking - is healthier than Thai is if you eat the box and give the contents to the dog. (And since pizza is accompanied by z-grade television and beer-drinking, I'm sure it has happened and no-one has noticed except the dog.)
But no, consumer group Choice is sure Thai food is out to kill us:
Not a whole lot of Pad Thai being sent out by that lot.
As a generalisation, that takes some beating.
So let's go along with it and generalise. Generally, Thai food is packed with vitamin-dense vegetables, herbs and spices. Generally, in terms of mass sales at major pizza outlets, pizza is packed with ham that was scraped off the abattoir floor, compacted and then shot out of a mulching machine. Generally, Thai food is fiery and flavourful and is accompanied with and balanced by healthy, non-fat steamed rice. Generally, pizza's key flavour drivers are fat-dense ingredients such as cheese, and it is accompanied by z-grade television and beer. Generally, Thai food is served in moderation. Generally, pizza comes in a box the size of your DVD player, but squarer.
So how do we arrive at Thai tops pizza as fattiest takeaway? By extrapolating the contents of one Thai dish - Pad Thai - across the whole cuisine. The only way pizza - generally speaking - is healthier than Thai is if you eat the box and give the contents to the dog. (And since pizza is accompanied by z-grade television and beer-drinking, I'm sure it has happened and no-one has noticed except the dog.)
But no, consumer group Choice is sure Thai food is out to kill us:
"Pad Thai, which is probably one of Australia's favourite takeaway meals, tops the list of all the Thai dishes both because of the fat content - it's a noodle dish so it's energy dense - and also the sodium involved," Choice spokeswoman Elise Davidson said.Ignoring the 'fat content/noodle dish/energy dense non sequitur, is Pad Thai really 'one of Australia's favourite takeaways? Maybe in Elise's neighbourhood. But let's look at some Australia-wide facts. According to IBISWorld, which provides high-quality industry market research analysis and reports to people who want facts instead of spin or some spokesperson's jaundiced opinion, Australia's top five takeaway food companies are (1) McDonald's; (2) Yum! Foods Asutralia (KFC, Pizza Hut, etc); (3) Competitive Foods Australia (Hungry Jack's, Domino's Pizza, Fasta Pasta, etc; (4) Quick Service Restaurants Holdings Pty Limited (Red Rooster, Chicken Treat, Oporto, etc) and (5) Domino's Pizza Enterprises (the part not owned by Jack Cowin of Competitive Foods above).
Not a whole lot of Pad Thai being sent out by that lot.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Email me your email address and I'll email you a recipe.
Recipes were flying through cyberspace between Tracy and her mother. Mother is not great with email and took three goes to get the message through. Kept putting spaces or capitals or @ signs where spaces or capitals or @ signs should not go. A letter in the mail used to be such a beautiful thing. Now you have to telephone someone three times to get their correct email address because the telling of it does not flow like normal human communication; i.e., words. What is all that underscore and backslash rubbish anyway?
Then they go and change their email address on you.
The recipe could have been described over the telephone. But mother had to go off and find it in a book somewhere, and she has six million cookbooks. It must be in one of them, she said, as if that meant looking through six million books were not a great deal.
Potato scones.
A month later, an email arrived with the recipe. We could have googled it, but that's just cheating and, furthermore, it would have rendered the complicated email interchange a complete waste of time. Just be patient and wait. You haven't eaten a potato scone in your life; what's the hurry now? Potato scones are not scones in the sense of pumpkin scones; they are more like potato pancakes. Aside from that, our 'scones' are known as 'biscuits' in some places.
The recipe involved a few boiled potatoes mashed with either bacon fat or butter (not margarine, the use of which is a capital offence in Scotland, and oil goes in your car's engine) and quite a lot of salt, and then combined with just enough flour that it does not become too dry. The mixture is then rolled and flattened into discs and these are quartered and pricked all over, for air when cooking, and then fried on a griddle dusted with flour.
Why don't you just squash a gnocchi, I ventured. It's much the same thing, isn't it?
Tracy glanced at me a look that could have darkened Culloden.
They were tasty. You can grill two of them together with cheese in the middle as a variation, and they can be eaten hot or cold. I wouldn't want them cold, especially in this weather. Perhaps I could add a scrape of vegemite in the cheese variation. The combination is all the rage right now, but it's nothing new; I've been eating cheese and vegemite sandwiches for years.
Then they go and change their email address on you.
The recipe could have been described over the telephone. But mother had to go off and find it in a book somewhere, and she has six million cookbooks. It must be in one of them, she said, as if that meant looking through six million books were not a great deal.
Potato scones.
A month later, an email arrived with the recipe. We could have googled it, but that's just cheating and, furthermore, it would have rendered the complicated email interchange a complete waste of time. Just be patient and wait. You haven't eaten a potato scone in your life; what's the hurry now? Potato scones are not scones in the sense of pumpkin scones; they are more like potato pancakes. Aside from that, our 'scones' are known as 'biscuits' in some places.
The recipe involved a few boiled potatoes mashed with either bacon fat or butter (not margarine, the use of which is a capital offence in Scotland, and oil goes in your car's engine) and quite a lot of salt, and then combined with just enough flour that it does not become too dry. The mixture is then rolled and flattened into discs and these are quartered and pricked all over, for air when cooking, and then fried on a griddle dusted with flour.
Why don't you just squash a gnocchi, I ventured. It's much the same thing, isn't it?
Tracy glanced at me a look that could have darkened Culloden.
They were tasty. You can grill two of them together with cheese in the middle as a variation, and they can be eaten hot or cold. I wouldn't want them cold, especially in this weather. Perhaps I could add a scrape of vegemite in the cheese variation. The combination is all the rage right now, but it's nothing new; I've been eating cheese and vegemite sandwiches for years.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Cook your own takeaways.
You won't starve on the five-kilometre walk along Sydney Road from Glenlyon Road to Bell Street - one I have completed many times, both ways - especially if you like Turkish food. It's grilled meat lover's heaven and the quality is generally high, especially after the temporary closure of Alasya some years ago.
A favourite of mine is adana - kebabs of minced lamb generously spiced with chilli and wrapped in bread. But now I like to make my own and avoid the queues. Anyway, I prefer adana in Lebanese flat bread - available fresh every day for $1 a pack at every second ethnic grocery shop along the strip (the supermarkets charge $2.20 and the bread is usually a day older).
To make your own adana, simply combine minced lamb - or a combination of veal and lamb - with chilli powder or hot or sweet red pepper flakes and salt to taste: this is sheer trial and error. (Some recipes variously use cummin and other spices.) I used a ground pepper from a sampler pack of chilli peppers grown in North Fitzroy by my green-thumbed friend Hamish. The only problem was I had forgotten which pepper was which. It was, however, hot; but one man's hot is another man's mild so that is no clue.
After adding pepper flakes and salt, form the meat into cylinders, flatten slightly and grill. When done, throw a round of bread over the meat for a few seconds to warm it and to take up some of the smoky flavour; then wrap your kebabs in the bread along with some sliced onion, grilled or fresh tomato wedges and lettuce if you wish, or grilled red pepper strips. Or the lot.
Add yogurt, and chilli sauce to crank up the heat even further if you dare. It was a cold night, winter's coldest yet. I added more chilli sauce.
A favourite of mine is adana - kebabs of minced lamb generously spiced with chilli and wrapped in bread. But now I like to make my own and avoid the queues. Anyway, I prefer adana in Lebanese flat bread - available fresh every day for $1 a pack at every second ethnic grocery shop along the strip (the supermarkets charge $2.20 and the bread is usually a day older).
To make your own adana, simply combine minced lamb - or a combination of veal and lamb - with chilli powder or hot or sweet red pepper flakes and salt to taste: this is sheer trial and error. (Some recipes variously use cummin and other spices.) I used a ground pepper from a sampler pack of chilli peppers grown in North Fitzroy by my green-thumbed friend Hamish. The only problem was I had forgotten which pepper was which. It was, however, hot; but one man's hot is another man's mild so that is no clue.
After adding pepper flakes and salt, form the meat into cylinders, flatten slightly and grill. When done, throw a round of bread over the meat for a few seconds to warm it and to take up some of the smoky flavour; then wrap your kebabs in the bread along with some sliced onion, grilled or fresh tomato wedges and lettuce if you wish, or grilled red pepper strips. Or the lot.
Add yogurt, and chilli sauce to crank up the heat even further if you dare. It was a cold night, winter's coldest yet. I added more chilli sauce.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Rocket fuel.
So far this winter, the weather has offered a sullen series of half-hearted south-westerlies delivering slow-moving patches of rain in between teasing sun.
Today, it hauled off and hurled a frozen blast at us, straight from the north and right off the alps, where snow has just fallen. The icy blast rode in on the same north wind that destroyed half the state by fire just four months - 16 weeks - ago.
I put on a coat. That fixed it. Then I went for a long walk.
*
Last night I cooked - with a little assistance - comfort food, fuel for a cold winter: home-made gnocchi with rocket from the new vegetable garden (that is, so far, a major success thanks to its northerly aspect).
To five old potatoes, boiled and mashed, I added - in a large bowl - a cup of plain flour, 30 grams of melted butter, cracked peppercorns and half a cup of grated parmesan. Any parmesan will do - if you have to have the imported stuff, save it for the top of the dish. Then I threw in seven or eight rocket leaves finely snipped.
Mix and knead four minutes. Turn out on a floured board. (William and Thomas were watching me and trying to help. During the afternoon, they had been making playdoh models with their mother, and they thought this was the continuation of the game.)
We rolled up the dough into cylinders the diameter of a spark plug's thickest part. (I use Champion.) Then I cut the cylinders into one-inch sectors and lined them up on another floured board like small, fat, green-flecked Formula One racing cars on the grid.
Boil water, carefully, on the back burner. Add a few drops of olive oil and some salt. Drop the gnocchi in once the water is boiling and retrieve and drain them two minutes after they return to the surface.
Sauce: more rocket and parsley from the garden (yes, the parsley is back; not quite as prolific as the late jasmine, which amounted to two large green waste-bin loads) thrown into the processor with unmeasured quantities of pine nuts, parmesan, garlic clove and olive oil. Whizz, whizz and it's ready. Toss the steaming gnocchi in the sauce and eat. More parmesan on top.
*
Later: "Daddy, why are you eating playdoh racing cars?"
Today, it hauled off and hurled a frozen blast at us, straight from the north and right off the alps, where snow has just fallen. The icy blast rode in on the same north wind that destroyed half the state by fire just four months - 16 weeks - ago.
I put on a coat. That fixed it. Then I went for a long walk.
*
Last night I cooked - with a little assistance - comfort food, fuel for a cold winter: home-made gnocchi with rocket from the new vegetable garden (that is, so far, a major success thanks to its northerly aspect).
To five old potatoes, boiled and mashed, I added - in a large bowl - a cup of plain flour, 30 grams of melted butter, cracked peppercorns and half a cup of grated parmesan. Any parmesan will do - if you have to have the imported stuff, save it for the top of the dish. Then I threw in seven or eight rocket leaves finely snipped.
Mix and knead four minutes. Turn out on a floured board. (William and Thomas were watching me and trying to help. During the afternoon, they had been making playdoh models with their mother, and they thought this was the continuation of the game.)
We rolled up the dough into cylinders the diameter of a spark plug's thickest part. (I use Champion.) Then I cut the cylinders into one-inch sectors and lined them up on another floured board like small, fat, green-flecked Formula One racing cars on the grid.
Boil water, carefully, on the back burner. Add a few drops of olive oil and some salt. Drop the gnocchi in once the water is boiling and retrieve and drain them two minutes after they return to the surface.
Sauce: more rocket and parsley from the garden (yes, the parsley is back; not quite as prolific as the late jasmine, which amounted to two large green waste-bin loads) thrown into the processor with unmeasured quantities of pine nuts, parmesan, garlic clove and olive oil. Whizz, whizz and it's ready. Toss the steaming gnocchi in the sauce and eat. More parmesan on top.
*
Later: "Daddy, why are you eating playdoh racing cars?"
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Letter of the day.
From one of this morning's dailies:
Well said, M/s. Sims-Ellis. I like the parenthesised crack about the dictionary in the last sentence. Talk about dripping with sarcasm. And perhaps a little unfair, but in keeping with the tone of the letter.
My favourites were the collectors' cards from Shell (transportation, flowers and trees, animals); stamp packs from AMPOL petroleum; 45 r.p.m. popular records from Golden Fleece service stations; moulded plastic train engines and carriages from Kellogg cereals and the Twisties football cards, which never quite lost the Twisties aroma, or the slightly orange hue.
Geographical note: Invermay is a suburb of Launceston, surely one of Australia's prettiest cities. (That is apropos of nothing. Just thinking out loud.)
To parents whining about fast food outlets offering toys with food, the word you are looking for is "no". These tactics are not new. In the '40s and '50s football cards were were offered with chewing gum, and toys were put into cereal packets. Our parents knew the word "no", and we respected that word. Fast food once in a while will never hurt anyone. It's about moderation - another word modern parents may like to look up in a dictionary (if they have one).- Glenyse Sims-Ellis, Invermay
Well said, M/s. Sims-Ellis. I like the parenthesised crack about the dictionary in the last sentence. Talk about dripping with sarcasm. And perhaps a little unfair, but in keeping with the tone of the letter.
My favourites were the collectors' cards from Shell (transportation, flowers and trees, animals); stamp packs from AMPOL petroleum; 45 r.p.m. popular records from Golden Fleece service stations; moulded plastic train engines and carriages from Kellogg cereals and the Twisties football cards, which never quite lost the Twisties aroma, or the slightly orange hue.
Geographical note: Invermay is a suburb of Launceston, surely one of Australia's prettiest cities. (That is apropos of nothing. Just thinking out loud.)
Friday, June 05, 2009
Product of the Month: No. 1 in a new series.
Victoria is no longer The Garden State, The Place to Be, On the Move or even the People's Republic of.
Instead, it is now the swine flu capital of Australia. If you read newspapers, you will have noticed that at the political level, the swine flu epidemic has moved from 'contain' to 'sustain' (or vice versa - I have no idea what they mean) to 'high farce', with Victorian bureaucrats accusing New South Wales and Queensland of 'retaliating' for stealing their citizens as tourists. The level of the discourse could not sink any lower, but it just did:
JOHN BRUMBY (PREMIER OF VICTORIA): I do know that we launched a very successful tourism campaign in New South Wales just a little while ago. I do know that there are lots of New South Wales citizens who are being attracted to Victoria and maybe it's a bit of a retaliation for a successful tourism campaign.
Victoria has also given up on testing people for swine flu and is, instead, hoping it will all go away, like the drought and crime in the city.
So forget Tamiflu and Relenza. Now is the perfect time to return to one of mankind's most ancient cure-alls: garlic. Down the ages, garlic has been suggested as a cure for just about any ailment you care to name.
The garlic pickle above will keep more than swine flu at bay. It is one of Mrs Fernandes' best products, packing a powerful flavour punch with a little simmering background heat, a perfect sour pickle-to-sweet balance and a finish that lasts and lasts. Until morning.
Ferns' products come all the way from the town of Pune in India, so there are plenty of food miles involved, but with 85 million jars of Ferns pastes and pickles riding the boat across the Indian Ocean (plus remember the boat took a load of stuff there in the first place), you may actually be 'wasting' less carbon than a sanctimonious Prius owner driving across the suburb to get The Age. So to hell with food miles.
Try Ferns' Garlic Pickle on any mild curry with yogurt and a swathe of chopped coriander.
Available from Desi Needs, Waterfield Street, Coburg. (I walked.)
Thursday, June 04, 2009
How to make gravy.
Item on supermarket shelf: Continental Bangers and Mash (recipe base).
Instructions: Just add sausages and potatoes.
Instructions: Just add sausages and potatoes.
