Monday, May 12, 2008
Another Saturday night.
I parked in Franklin and walked four blocks through the city. It was Saturday night and early queues were gathering outside the nightspots in Queen Street.
Around the corner into quieter Collins Street and up the hill. The entrance to the club was between two columns almost the size of the ones holding up the Parthenon. I expected a guy with gold braid on his shoulders to greet me but instead two glass doors slid apart with a soft humming sound.
I walked on carpet through to a plush timber-lined room with display cabinets around the walls containing ceramic artefacts. The room was half-filled with people wearing dinner suits and black dresses. A waiter was weaving around them with a drinks tray. Yes, thank you.
More people arrived and after about half an hour, waiters opened a curtain and started the seating process, which is not too far away from how a kelpie rounds up merino lambs. They circle and make shooing gestures with their arms. Nicely, of course. It is a club.
By now it was close to 8.30 p.m. The first announcement after we were seated was that the bar would close at 10.30, the music would stop at 11 and all out at 11.15. Well, let's get on with it then.
It was the annual awards night for the university athletics club. Clubs attached to universities always like to celebrate their occasions with a kind of bohemian formality, in a slightly eccentric and even raffish air. The next nhalf-hour was spent getting up and down from the table and drinking toasts to absent friends, deceased members and assorted persons no-one had ever heard of. It's called tradition.
The first course came out during the toasts. It was a scrabble of peppered calamari pieces all going one way, scattered through with ribbons of lettuce all going the other. It looked like a snakes and ladders board. It was fine if you like calamari with lettuce.
The first actual speech after the toasts was given by a spectacled old-timer in a dinner suit and an out of shape bowtie who had been a sprinter of some note in the '60s. His subject was how great the athletes were in that decade. The speech sounded like he made it to himself every night, but it was over in five minutes, so he received thunderous applause anyway.
Then he climbed radiantly off the stage, like an Olympic medallist descending the dais; and as he returned to his chair, waiters with plates up their arms started dealing the main courses around the tables.
It was a set menu and the main course was roast beef. Each plate bore a circle of meat of compact disc diameter and about half an inch thick. On closer inspection there appeared to be vegetables on the plate, but the chefs had cleverly tucked them underneath the beef, as if to comfort them or keep them warm or something. The habit of placing the meat on top of the vegetables is one chefs just can't seem to shake, like Gordon Ramsay's speech problem.
The beef was fine. I would have preferred it rarer, but then others would have sent it back. They weren't cooking them to individual order of done-ness. Over the beef and dripping down past the hidden vegetables (a split kipfler, some sticks of zucchini and a few shards of mushroom) was a gravy known in the trade as a red wine jus reduction, which is three words too many.
More speeches followed with a background of clink-clinking cutlery: the sound of a hundred people eating. A restaurant never sounds like this because the meals never come out all at once. Then the trophies were handed out in record time; either because of inferior performances over the past year or because time was running out. I'm not sure which. It was just after ten.
Dessert followed. There was only one choice: a triangular slab of chocolate pudding with an almost fudge-like density and that bitter-sweet flavour that characterises very good chocolate. There was a curl of real cream and a strawberry on the side. Only a few diners swooned.
Coffee was percolated. At $70 a head, there probably should have been an espresso machine, but what the hell. Half of Asia is under water or blown away and I'm complaining about coffee. Get a grip.
The younger members were champing at the bit to get to the afterparty at a dive in Flinders Lane. What is it with afterparties? The very concept is some kind of weird entertaining attention deficit disorder. You've just paid $70 a head. Wouldn't you prefer to stay where you are for an hour or two and talk about the year gone by with a quiet drink in the comfort of leather, timber, compliant waiters and ceramic artefacts? Obviously not. They want crowds, vodka shots and unintelligible music in some concrete basement bunker.
I walked back up Queen Street to Franklin. The queues outside the nightclubs were longer. Near the corner of Little Collins, two police horses stood at the ready, their riders in riot gear.
Around the corner into quieter Collins Street and up the hill. The entrance to the club was between two columns almost the size of the ones holding up the Parthenon. I expected a guy with gold braid on his shoulders to greet me but instead two glass doors slid apart with a soft humming sound.
I walked on carpet through to a plush timber-lined room with display cabinets around the walls containing ceramic artefacts. The room was half-filled with people wearing dinner suits and black dresses. A waiter was weaving around them with a drinks tray. Yes, thank you.
More people arrived and after about half an hour, waiters opened a curtain and started the seating process, which is not too far away from how a kelpie rounds up merino lambs. They circle and make shooing gestures with their arms. Nicely, of course. It is a club.
By now it was close to 8.30 p.m. The first announcement after we were seated was that the bar would close at 10.30, the music would stop at 11 and all out at 11.15. Well, let's get on with it then.
It was the annual awards night for the university athletics club. Clubs attached to universities always like to celebrate their occasions with a kind of bohemian formality, in a slightly eccentric and even raffish air. The next nhalf-hour was spent getting up and down from the table and drinking toasts to absent friends, deceased members and assorted persons no-one had ever heard of. It's called tradition.
The first course came out during the toasts. It was a scrabble of peppered calamari pieces all going one way, scattered through with ribbons of lettuce all going the other. It looked like a snakes and ladders board. It was fine if you like calamari with lettuce.
The first actual speech after the toasts was given by a spectacled old-timer in a dinner suit and an out of shape bowtie who had been a sprinter of some note in the '60s. His subject was how great the athletes were in that decade. The speech sounded like he made it to himself every night, but it was over in five minutes, so he received thunderous applause anyway.
Then he climbed radiantly off the stage, like an Olympic medallist descending the dais; and as he returned to his chair, waiters with plates up their arms started dealing the main courses around the tables.
It was a set menu and the main course was roast beef. Each plate bore a circle of meat of compact disc diameter and about half an inch thick. On closer inspection there appeared to be vegetables on the plate, but the chefs had cleverly tucked them underneath the beef, as if to comfort them or keep them warm or something. The habit of placing the meat on top of the vegetables is one chefs just can't seem to shake, like Gordon Ramsay's speech problem.
The beef was fine. I would have preferred it rarer, but then others would have sent it back. They weren't cooking them to individual order of done-ness. Over the beef and dripping down past the hidden vegetables (a split kipfler, some sticks of zucchini and a few shards of mushroom) was a gravy known in the trade as a red wine jus reduction, which is three words too many.
More speeches followed with a background of clink-clinking cutlery: the sound of a hundred people eating. A restaurant never sounds like this because the meals never come out all at once. Then the trophies were handed out in record time; either because of inferior performances over the past year or because time was running out. I'm not sure which. It was just after ten.
Dessert followed. There was only one choice: a triangular slab of chocolate pudding with an almost fudge-like density and that bitter-sweet flavour that characterises very good chocolate. There was a curl of real cream and a strawberry on the side. Only a few diners swooned.
Coffee was percolated. At $70 a head, there probably should have been an espresso machine, but what the hell. Half of Asia is under water or blown away and I'm complaining about coffee. Get a grip.
The younger members were champing at the bit to get to the afterparty at a dive in Flinders Lane. What is it with afterparties? The very concept is some kind of weird entertaining attention deficit disorder. You've just paid $70 a head. Wouldn't you prefer to stay where you are for an hour or two and talk about the year gone by with a quiet drink in the comfort of leather, timber, compliant waiters and ceramic artefacts? Obviously not. They want crowds, vodka shots and unintelligible music in some concrete basement bunker.
I walked back up Queen Street to Franklin. The queues outside the nightclubs were longer. Near the corner of Little Collins, two police horses stood at the ready, their riders in riot gear.
Friday, May 09, 2008
A long-winded preface and a recipe for rigatoni with chicken, ricotta and herb sausage and butter beans.
And here we slide, headlong into the colder months. Again. The drought means it is no longer socially acceptable to complain about the rain, but I don't have to like it, do I? Especially when it kind of just drips all day. I'd rather a good downpour and then be done with it.
I don't understand why people even like cold weather. I've never met a heatwave I didn't like. What's there to like about grey, dripping skies, a howling southerly direct from Antarctica via King Island and shivering and catching cold for five months of the year? Ah, they say, it's all about snuggling up in front of the fire. So you do like heat, I reply. I prefer my heat in its natural environment: summer.
The only good thing about winter is the food. In colder months good eating seems homelier, more robust, stronger of flavour. I grew to like winter food as a schoolboy fortunate enough to be able to go home for lunch. I would still be halfway up the street at one o'clock on a freezing, grey Melbourne day when I would catch the aroma of a freshly concocted batch of vegetable, lamb shank and barley soup or some chicken and vegetable soup or an oxtail stew or whatever my mother happened to be making that day. I'd be salivating by the time I walked in the door.
Quite frankly, even the occasional bowl of hot Rosella tomato soup with a slice of cheese on top and buttered toast on the side was a treat compared with chewing on a rainbow-lunchwrapped cheese sandwich in a glacial concrete schoolyard.
The only problem was I never wanted to go back to school.
*
Rigatoni with chicken and ricotta sausage and butter beans.
I cooked this the other night and it was delicious.
Gourmet sausages from Jonathan of Collingwood are now stocked in independent supermarkets and I found some chicken, ricotta and herb ones at Piedimonte's.
I had some fresh rigatoni from Donnini's in Lygon Street left over; the first batch I had cooked with a sauce of onions and tomato puree flecked with chopped black olives, anchovies and capers. Puttanesca, I suppose, if you want to give it a name.
I boiled the sausages, peeled away their casings, sliced them into discs the size of $2 coins, opened a tin of butter beans, cooked the rigatoni, drained it, combined it with the sausage and the beans and gently bound it all with a swirl of home-made pesto. I didn't bother with any cheese because of the ricotta in the sausage and the parmesan in the pesto.
Pour a red. Here's one of the best I've tried for a long time: a Munari Beauregard Shiraz from Heathcote. To think I used to drive past the cellar door six times a week when we lived in the country and I never called in.
I don't understand why people even like cold weather. I've never met a heatwave I didn't like. What's there to like about grey, dripping skies, a howling southerly direct from Antarctica via King Island and shivering and catching cold for five months of the year? Ah, they say, it's all about snuggling up in front of the fire. So you do like heat, I reply. I prefer my heat in its natural environment: summer.
The only good thing about winter is the food. In colder months good eating seems homelier, more robust, stronger of flavour. I grew to like winter food as a schoolboy fortunate enough to be able to go home for lunch. I would still be halfway up the street at one o'clock on a freezing, grey Melbourne day when I would catch the aroma of a freshly concocted batch of vegetable, lamb shank and barley soup or some chicken and vegetable soup or an oxtail stew or whatever my mother happened to be making that day. I'd be salivating by the time I walked in the door.
Quite frankly, even the occasional bowl of hot Rosella tomato soup with a slice of cheese on top and buttered toast on the side was a treat compared with chewing on a rainbow-lunchwrapped cheese sandwich in a glacial concrete schoolyard.
The only problem was I never wanted to go back to school.
*
Rigatoni with chicken and ricotta sausage and butter beans.
I cooked this the other night and it was delicious.
Gourmet sausages from Jonathan of Collingwood are now stocked in independent supermarkets and I found some chicken, ricotta and herb ones at Piedimonte's.
I had some fresh rigatoni from Donnini's in Lygon Street left over; the first batch I had cooked with a sauce of onions and tomato puree flecked with chopped black olives, anchovies and capers. Puttanesca, I suppose, if you want to give it a name.
I boiled the sausages, peeled away their casings, sliced them into discs the size of $2 coins, opened a tin of butter beans, cooked the rigatoni, drained it, combined it with the sausage and the beans and gently bound it all with a swirl of home-made pesto. I didn't bother with any cheese because of the ricotta in the sausage and the parmesan in the pesto.
Pour a red. Here's one of the best I've tried for a long time: a Munari Beauregard Shiraz from Heathcote. To think I used to drive past the cellar door six times a week when we lived in the country and I never called in.
Torch climbs mountain; goats unimpressed.
So the Chinese took the Olympic torch to the top of Mt Everest.
Big deal. Before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the torch was carried the entire length of Bell Street. Mt Everest would be a cakewalk compared with Bell Street.
Seriously, this whole Olympic torch relay nonsense is completely out of hand. Next they'll be flying it to the moon or past Venus and making it do a space walk. Just get on with the Olympics and the hell with torch relays.
Big deal. Before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the torch was carried the entire length of Bell Street. Mt Everest would be a cakewalk compared with Bell Street.
Seriously, this whole Olympic torch relay nonsense is completely out of hand. Next they'll be flying it to the moon or past Venus and making it do a space walk. Just get on with the Olympics and the hell with torch relays.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Twenty Years After.
I spent 20 minutes of most mornings in 1988 standing at the bar in University Cafe. Ham, cheese, tomato croissant or sandwich; strong latte. Maybe two, if a really busy day was in store. This was after dropping my children - William and Thomas's much older sister and brother - at school and before hitting the office. They were busy days. It was a good time. And we were younger then.
*
No, I was never a fan of eighties mainstream pop music, much of which was complete rubbish. But sadly and somewhat ironically, amidst the Stock Waterman Aitken dross there was some great stuff.
And so this year is the 20th anniversary of Under the Milky Way by The Church. If there is a better pop song ever recorded, let me know. Or at least wait for the bagpipes solo. You'll never sneer at bagpipes again.
The Saints' Grain of Sand and Just Like Fire Would came out around the same time, maybe a year earlier. And 'golden oldies' radio plays Farnham and Barnes ad nauseam?
*
A review appeared in the paper this morning, prompting this post. The review is of a new album by Robert Forster, one half of the Go-Betweens. Grant McLennan died a year or so ago. Their song, Streets of Your Town, was recorded in 1988; a sad, haunting, melodic pop confection that has that uncanny ability to strip the years away and recreate, just for three or four minutes, the place where you were then. Place being more than geographic.
*
And so, back to Lygon Street. These days I hang out more often at Brunetti but University Cafe is still there and the same as it ever was. Here's Lygon at Faraday on Friday, just prior to lunchtime. We had had coffee at Brunetti and were browsing some new books, first in Readings and then in Borders. Thunder boomed, lightning crashed and we came out to almost flooded street. Rain was pouring through a downlight just inside the sushi bar next to STA Travel. I haven't seen a rainstorm like it for years.
*
No, I was never a fan of eighties mainstream pop music, much of which was complete rubbish. But sadly and somewhat ironically, amidst the Stock Waterman Aitken dross there was some great stuff.
And so this year is the 20th anniversary of Under the Milky Way by The Church. If there is a better pop song ever recorded, let me know. Or at least wait for the bagpipes solo. You'll never sneer at bagpipes again.
The Saints' Grain of Sand and Just Like Fire Would came out around the same time, maybe a year earlier. And 'golden oldies' radio plays Farnham and Barnes ad nauseam?
*
A review appeared in the paper this morning, prompting this post. The review is of a new album by Robert Forster, one half of the Go-Betweens. Grant McLennan died a year or so ago. Their song, Streets of Your Town, was recorded in 1988; a sad, haunting, melodic pop confection that has that uncanny ability to strip the years away and recreate, just for three or four minutes, the place where you were then. Place being more than geographic.
*
And so, back to Lygon Street. These days I hang out more often at Brunetti but University Cafe is still there and the same as it ever was. Here's Lygon at Faraday on Friday, just prior to lunchtime. We had had coffee at Brunetti and were browsing some new books, first in Readings and then in Borders. Thunder boomed, lightning crashed and we came out to almost flooded street. Rain was pouring through a downlight just inside the sushi bar next to STA Travel. I haven't seen a rainstorm like it for years.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Autumn enters home straight; cold, wet snap hits Melbourne.
It doesn't help that it was 40 degrees six weeks ago. I like autumn. Let's have some. I'm not ready for winter. Where are the balmy days, the golden skies?
I can't control the weather, but I can continue the great Kitchen Hand Grain Clearing Program in which the scores of jars and containers clogging the larder are cleared to make way for winter provisions.
Oh look, here's some brown rice in this jar and wild rice in that one. Both at least least a year old, maybe two. Maybe three.
I took the jar down and thumbed through some old recipe books to find something to do with brown rice. (Maybe I should stockpile it. It might double in value in the time it takes to cook.)
No. That would be avaricious. Let's just cook the stuff.
Wild and brown rice salad with almonds.
Cook half a cup of wild rice (which is apparently not really rice but a seed or grain or something. Who decides these things?) and one cup of brown rice separately until just tender. Drain, rinse under cold water and drain again. Refrigerate to chill before assembling salad.
Bake a quarter cup of slivered almonds on foil until golden.
Chop a tablespoon each of parsley, basil and chives. Combine rices with the chopped herbs, fold through a dressing of up to three tablespoons of light oil mixed with two teaspoons of white wine vinegar. Top with almonds and serve.
*
Just to be on the safe side, I might slip up to Desi Needs and pick up a ten kilogram sack of best basmati.
I can't control the weather, but I can continue the great Kitchen Hand Grain Clearing Program in which the scores of jars and containers clogging the larder are cleared to make way for winter provisions.
Oh look, here's some brown rice in this jar and wild rice in that one. Both at least least a year old, maybe two. Maybe three.
I took the jar down and thumbed through some old recipe books to find something to do with brown rice. (Maybe I should stockpile it. It might double in value in the time it takes to cook.)
No. That would be avaricious. Let's just cook the stuff.
Wild and brown rice salad with almonds.
Cook half a cup of wild rice (which is apparently not really rice but a seed or grain or something. Who decides these things?) and one cup of brown rice separately until just tender. Drain, rinse under cold water and drain again. Refrigerate to chill before assembling salad.
Bake a quarter cup of slivered almonds on foil until golden.
Chop a tablespoon each of parsley, basil and chives. Combine rices with the chopped herbs, fold through a dressing of up to three tablespoons of light oil mixed with two teaspoons of white wine vinegar. Top with almonds and serve.
*
Just to be on the safe side, I might slip up to Desi Needs and pick up a ten kilogram sack of best basmati.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Roadblocked.
Local authorities have a game. They vie with each other to see who can take longest to perform a task. There are degrees of difficulty: extra points are scored for inconveniencing the greatest number of people for the longest time.
O'Hea Street is currently rubble. It has been for a while. O'Hea's Bakery is accessible behind the rubble. No worries: just climb over it to get to the front door. What's the problem? Complain, always they complain. What's the matter with you people? It's only rocks, Madam; your pram could do with some off-road work. Park up the road, Sir; there's a vacant spot somewhere north of Gaffney Street. It will do your legs the world of good.
I thought it was VicRoads. I should have known better. It's Moreland Council, from Clown Hall on Bell Street. The crowd behind 1999's great Sydney Road Six-Month Footpath Reconstruction which saw several retailers almost go under; and the Victoria Mall rebuilding project of the early 2000s, a 'project' that saw a couple of concrete benches, some bumpy paving and a bunch of gum trees earn the architects an award for excellence in public space design.
Smile as you pay your rates. And watch the kerb. There isn't one.
*
O'Hea's (the spelling of this name varies but that is the correct way) Bakery has been there since 1956. Now it's a deli. I go there when I need cakes, cured meats, a can of tomatoes or beans for the minestrone, some great parmesan cheese, a bouncy, chewy, sesame-encrusted Vienna loaf ... or an eat-in toasted sandwich and a nice coffee sitting in mid-autumn sunshine at one of the little tables in the window. Overlooking the rubble.
O'Hea Street is currently rubble. It has been for a while. O'Hea's Bakery is accessible behind the rubble. No worries: just climb over it to get to the front door. What's the problem? Complain, always they complain. What's the matter with you people? It's only rocks, Madam; your pram could do with some off-road work. Park up the road, Sir; there's a vacant spot somewhere north of Gaffney Street. It will do your legs the world of good.
I thought it was VicRoads. I should have known better. It's Moreland Council, from Clown Hall on Bell Street. The crowd behind 1999's great Sydney Road Six-Month Footpath Reconstruction which saw several retailers almost go under; and the Victoria Mall rebuilding project of the early 2000s, a 'project' that saw a couple of concrete benches, some bumpy paving and a bunch of gum trees earn the architects an award for excellence in public space design.
Smile as you pay your rates. And watch the kerb. There isn't one.
*
O'Hea's (the spelling of this name varies but that is the correct way) Bakery has been there since 1956. Now it's a deli. I go there when I need cakes, cured meats, a can of tomatoes or beans for the minestrone, some great parmesan cheese, a bouncy, chewy, sesame-encrusted Vienna loaf ... or an eat-in toasted sandwich and a nice coffee sitting in mid-autumn sunshine at one of the little tables in the window. Overlooking the rubble.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Coffee in St Kilda.
Another warm autumn day, the air completely still. CFA burn-offs continue on the ciy's fringes. Geographically (or is it topographically?), Melbourne is a bowl with a lip, a circle ringed by low mountain range. The smoke has dropped into the bowl and the sky is a haze.
I drove down Beaconsfield Parade towards St Kilda and you couldn't see where bay met sky, an optical illusion in which the view to items in the water - boats, depth markers, buoys - was foreshortened and they seemed to hang in the haze like small pictures in oil on a grey wall. Coffee at Scheherezade, strong and bitter and necessary.
Late in the day the sun was deep gold, then red. It slipped down the sky and disappeared through a slit in the cloudy murk like a coin dropping into an envelope.
ANZAC Day tomorrow: the dawn march and service will take place under more haze unless an April wind whips up tonight. I doubt it. We'll remember all of them of course, and especially my unknown uncle, lost in Malaya in 1942 and never found.
*
To Neerim South in the morning for a picnic at my mother-in-law's, perhaps by the Tarago River. There will be too much food. Saturday will be my mother's 80th birthday dinner. Someone will distract her in the afternoon and she will be returned to a house full of friends and relations and even a neighbour or two. She has a strong heart. There will again be too much food.
Sunday? Rest, of course. No wait, we have children.
I drove down Beaconsfield Parade towards St Kilda and you couldn't see where bay met sky, an optical illusion in which the view to items in the water - boats, depth markers, buoys - was foreshortened and they seemed to hang in the haze like small pictures in oil on a grey wall. Coffee at Scheherezade, strong and bitter and necessary.
Late in the day the sun was deep gold, then red. It slipped down the sky and disappeared through a slit in the cloudy murk like a coin dropping into an envelope.
ANZAC Day tomorrow: the dawn march and service will take place under more haze unless an April wind whips up tonight. I doubt it. We'll remember all of them of course, and especially my unknown uncle, lost in Malaya in 1942 and never found.
*
To Neerim South in the morning for a picnic at my mother-in-law's, perhaps by the Tarago River. There will be too much food. Saturday will be my mother's 80th birthday dinner. Someone will distract her in the afternoon and she will be returned to a house full of friends and relations and even a neighbour or two. She has a strong heart. There will again be too much food.
Sunday? Rest, of course. No wait, we have children.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Lentil rice with cardamom and fried onions.
Well, that was nice. I do like a lamb shank, hanging off the bone and fragrant with herbs.
Now let’s get to work on those stockpiles of rice and lentils. I did an official tour of the Wimmera wheat belt once – during the mice-plagued summer of ’84-’85 - and I guarantee there’s more grain in this larder than the Dunolly wheat silo. (No mice though, thank goodness.)
Lentils. How many lentils does one household need? There are red lentils, green lentils and lentils that I am not even sure are lentils at all. Toor dhal. Chana dhal. Urad dhal. Too many shopping trips to Desi Needs and not enough cooking.
Lentil rice with cardamom and fried onions.
A wonderfully fragrant dish, of which you’ll catch the aroma halfway down the hill if you happen to be trudging home from the train at the time, which was about six p.m. on a golden-skied April evening with a fresh southerly stirring the upper leaves of the yellow-tipped poplars at the end of the street.
The first time I made this dish its simplicity and ease of preparation astounded me.
You’ll need: one cup each of red lentils and long grain rice, two large onions, 2½ tablespoons ghee, 2½ teaspoons salt, ¼ teaspoon each ground black pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg and 3½ cups boiling water.
Wash the lentils, removing any that float. Drain thoroughly.
Heat the ghee in a largish lidded pot or pan. Slice the onions into thin rounds and fry them until golden brown, stirring. Remove half the onions and set aside.
Add lentils and rice to pan and stir for a minute or two to coat in hot ghee.
Add water and spices, stir well, bring to boil, turn down to a very low simmer, lid the pan tightly and walk away. Have a drink and read the paper.
Come back in twenty minutes exactly and dinner’s ready. The just-softened lentils give the dish a creamy unctuousness that takes an otherwise ordinary rice dish into another dimension, a higher plane.
Serve immediately and garnish with the extra onions. Accompany with fenugreek roti (my personal favourite; spinach, garlic or plain will suffice), yogurt and coriander chutney - I used Laziza brand: its deep green colour looks innocent but it has a kick like a mule.
Now let’s get to work on those stockpiles of rice and lentils. I did an official tour of the Wimmera wheat belt once – during the mice-plagued summer of ’84-’85 - and I guarantee there’s more grain in this larder than the Dunolly wheat silo. (No mice though, thank goodness.)
Lentils. How many lentils does one household need? There are red lentils, green lentils and lentils that I am not even sure are lentils at all. Toor dhal. Chana dhal. Urad dhal. Too many shopping trips to Desi Needs and not enough cooking.
Lentil rice with cardamom and fried onions.
A wonderfully fragrant dish, of which you’ll catch the aroma halfway down the hill if you happen to be trudging home from the train at the time, which was about six p.m. on a golden-skied April evening with a fresh southerly stirring the upper leaves of the yellow-tipped poplars at the end of the street.
The first time I made this dish its simplicity and ease of preparation astounded me.
You’ll need: one cup each of red lentils and long grain rice, two large onions, 2½ tablespoons ghee, 2½ teaspoons salt, ¼ teaspoon each ground black pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg and 3½ cups boiling water.
Wash the lentils, removing any that float. Drain thoroughly.
Heat the ghee in a largish lidded pot or pan. Slice the onions into thin rounds and fry them until golden brown, stirring. Remove half the onions and set aside.
Add lentils and rice to pan and stir for a minute or two to coat in hot ghee.
Add water and spices, stir well, bring to boil, turn down to a very low simmer, lid the pan tightly and walk away. Have a drink and read the paper.
Come back in twenty minutes exactly and dinner’s ready. The just-softened lentils give the dish a creamy unctuousness that takes an otherwise ordinary rice dish into another dimension, a higher plane.
Serve immediately and garnish with the extra onions. Accompany with fenugreek roti (my personal favourite; spinach, garlic or plain will suffice), yogurt and coriander chutney - I used Laziza brand: its deep green colour looks innocent but it has a kick like a mule.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
White pepper.
The days are gold and warm but late in the afternoon a cold something materialises in the air and it whispers: cook comfort food and make it steam with the aromas of slow cooking and herbs.
So I do. It’s a good time of year to haul out all those jars of grains and legumes and nuts that have remained untouched over summer, abandoned for the seductions of summer's fresh salads, vegetables and grills.
I opened the cupboard, creak. Rice of about six different kinds, lentils - the same, barley, polenta – instant and not instant. Let's get cooking.
I started with a simple lamb shank stew, taking two lamb shanks, two carrots cut into rounds, three potatoes cut into thick discs, two onions cut into quarters, a sprig of rosemary, lots of white pepper and a dash of worcestershire sauce.
It couldn’t be easier. I just simmered the lot, covered with water, for two hours, adding a scant cup of barley and quite a lot of finely chopped parsley with three-quarters of an hour to go.
Meanwhile I boiled some more potatoes and whipped them to creamy smoothness with butter, white pepper and more chopped parsley. I think I’m entering a white pepper phase. I find it hotter yet more subtle than black, with a cleaner heat that suits winter foods. After all, white pepper is just the seed of black pepper. The latter includes the fruit of the berry.
*
I placed a hill of mash on the plates, placed a lamb shank astride each and the stewed vegetables and barley around, drizzling some of the stew juices over the shank. Salt, more white pepper and a further dash of Worcestershire sauce.
Red wine made a welcome return. Well, what a coincidence: check the the final tasting note.
So I do. It’s a good time of year to haul out all those jars of grains and legumes and nuts that have remained untouched over summer, abandoned for the seductions of summer's fresh salads, vegetables and grills.
I opened the cupboard, creak. Rice of about six different kinds, lentils - the same, barley, polenta – instant and not instant. Let's get cooking.
I started with a simple lamb shank stew, taking two lamb shanks, two carrots cut into rounds, three potatoes cut into thick discs, two onions cut into quarters, a sprig of rosemary, lots of white pepper and a dash of worcestershire sauce.
It couldn’t be easier. I just simmered the lot, covered with water, for two hours, adding a scant cup of barley and quite a lot of finely chopped parsley with three-quarters of an hour to go.
Meanwhile I boiled some more potatoes and whipped them to creamy smoothness with butter, white pepper and more chopped parsley. I think I’m entering a white pepper phase. I find it hotter yet more subtle than black, with a cleaner heat that suits winter foods. After all, white pepper is just the seed of black pepper. The latter includes the fruit of the berry.
*
I placed a hill of mash on the plates, placed a lamb shank astride each and the stewed vegetables and barley around, drizzling some of the stew juices over the shank. Salt, more white pepper and a further dash of Worcestershire sauce.
Red wine made a welcome return. Well, what a coincidence: check the the final tasting note.
Friday, April 11, 2008
The café in history, part one.
Is there a Melbourne milk bar, greengrocer, post office, bootmaker’s shop or haberdashery (is the word even used any more?) that hasn’t been turned into a café?
They spring up like mushrooms after a week of rain. Every time a café opens, local property-for-sale boards exhort buyers to 'live the latte lifestyle' and house prices leap 50% overnight. Suburbs like Seddon and Yarraville surely now have more places to eat out than houses.
What did people do before there were cafés? The short answer is that they went to other, earlier cafés, just not as often. And they weren’t called cafés. Eons ago, I’m not sure when, probably in the Middle Ages or the Dark Ages or even as long ago as the 1970s, cafés went under another name. They were called coffee lounges.
Like the dinosaur, most coffee lounges died out due to major genetic faults that included lace in the windows, embossed plastic tablecloths, toasted sandwiches sitting upright like the Pyramids in wicker baskets and appalling coffee. Some survived against the odds and live on to this day, serving grey insipid cappuccino at scalding temperatures in bad cups at outer suburban shopping malls like Mountain Gate or Fountain Gate or whatever the hell it's called.
However, one particular 1960s artefact of early Melbourne coffee culture - one of the better ones - remains unchanged to this day. While it wasn't until the mid-eighties that cutting-edge places such as Baker's and Mario's served coffee in glasses, Moonee Ponds cafe Bruno's (above) had been setting the Vetravirs and Duralexes up on the bar in front of the espresso machine since 1961.
It hasn't changed. Bruno's menu is vintage '60s. The open grilled chicken, avocado and cheese with coleslaw and potato salad on the side is the thing to go for. Or try the ravioli bolognese or the grilled whiting or the lasagne, all under ten dollars. The sandwiches are classic toasted with not a ciabatta or foccaccia in sight. Not that there's anything wrong with ciabatta or foccaccia but on a bleary Saturday morning there's also nothing wrong with a classic steaming toasted ham, cheese and tomato or crisped bacon and egg sandwich in white bread with butter on top.
The coffee glasses sit in vintage tooled leather holders. The only part of the 1960s missing from the picture above would be the ashtray overflowing with Viscount and Turf cigarette butts. The TAB was once next door in the arcade in Puckle Street and on Saturday mornings Bruno's was packed to the rafters with chain-smoking punters clutching pink form guides from the Sporting Globe. The TAB, the cigarettes and the Sporting Globe are long gone but everything else about Bruno's is the same. I took the photo on Friday. Then I had a toasted egg, cheese and tomato sandwich.
And the coffee is still good. You can tell by the colour.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Well, there's a milestone. Tracy has returned to work for two days a week - consecutive - and guess who's minding the boys on Mondays and Tuesdays? Sure, I can write when they're asleep.
We used to have dogs. Feeding small children (William is two years and nine months; Thomas is one year and five months) is rather more difficult. And you can't do it outside in inclement weather.
I always wanted a kitchen that you could hose out; a kind of medieval flagstoned affair. That would help. Where's the broom?
We used to have dogs. Feeding small children (William is two years and nine months; Thomas is one year and five months) is rather more difficult. And you can't do it outside in inclement weather.
I always wanted a kitchen that you could hose out; a kind of medieval flagstoned affair. That would help. Where's the broom?
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Changing highways.
I was sitting under a 1950 Harley Davidson. It was on a display stand at head height, hanging over the table at which I was sitting. I was hoping like hell it wouldn’t fall on me. It was the night after the storms and a Harley breaking its moorings would have made a shocking mess of my head. And my dinner, which was Cajun fish.
Sometimes, fish is so tender you hardly need a knife. The flesh of this fish was moist and just opaque and it came away in quivering flakes with a touch of the fork. The whole thing was held together by a faint, sheeny crispness flecked with warm, dark Cajun spices. Someone in the kitchen knew exactly how to grill fish. The accompanying salad was robust and had enough variety and colour and interest to last the whole meal. Some salads are boring after the first crunch and you start looking at what everyone else is eating.
I looked anyway. There were gumbos - the prawn and okra gumbo looked good - and grilled steaks and fried chicken and burgers and chilli and even pasta and pizza. There was a thing called Idaho wedges and a four-cheese lasagne. This place does it all with a degree of finesse rarely found in theme restaurants. And the staff are nice.
Except it is not really a theme restaurant. Highway 31 is run by Harley enthusiasts, like a fraternity. A kind of Returned Services Club with bikes, not just a tacked-on theme. It is adjacent to Harley City, one of the largest Harley dealerships in the world. Harley owners come into Highway 31 for drinks on their own or dinner with their families or to talk to other Harley people. Outside in the street there are Harleys everywhere. Purely by chance, when we arrived, enough Harleys had vacated the space directly out front to back in a Volvo. I parked without knocking over any hogs or softails or v-rods.
*
It’s a funny thing about Harley Davidson motor cycles. No-one ever buys one until they’re fifty. How ironic: you finally get to feel the wind in your hair and there isn’t any.
It’s not about attitude. When men have mid-life crises, they buy crass things like red sports cars. You buy a Harley for a different reason: because it’s a machine. Other bikes are just devices. Harleys groan and roar and use oil and are built from nuts and bolts. Other bikes just whiz you somewhere else fast and have computers and coffee holders and GPS and air conditioning and are about as exciting as a Toyota Camry.
*
No, I didn't buy one. But I thought about it while I ate my Cajun fish and drained the last of my white wine. The small wine list is somewhat overpriced, but bikers generally don’t sip chardonnay with their steak so I suppose the wine subsidises the beer.
It was about nine o'clock now. The traffic growl on Sydney Road rose and fell in waves and the flashing coloured lights on the verandah outside Highway 31 shone in the window and turned my empty white plate a different colour every few seconds. A band had set up in the corner near the bar and started playing a Neil Young song, Changing Highways from Broken Arrow.
Sometimes, fish is so tender you hardly need a knife. The flesh of this fish was moist and just opaque and it came away in quivering flakes with a touch of the fork. The whole thing was held together by a faint, sheeny crispness flecked with warm, dark Cajun spices. Someone in the kitchen knew exactly how to grill fish. The accompanying salad was robust and had enough variety and colour and interest to last the whole meal. Some salads are boring after the first crunch and you start looking at what everyone else is eating.
I looked anyway. There were gumbos - the prawn and okra gumbo looked good - and grilled steaks and fried chicken and burgers and chilli and even pasta and pizza. There was a thing called Idaho wedges and a four-cheese lasagne. This place does it all with a degree of finesse rarely found in theme restaurants. And the staff are nice.
Except it is not really a theme restaurant. Highway 31 is run by Harley enthusiasts, like a fraternity. A kind of Returned Services Club with bikes, not just a tacked-on theme. It is adjacent to Harley City, one of the largest Harley dealerships in the world. Harley owners come into Highway 31 for drinks on their own or dinner with their families or to talk to other Harley people. Outside in the street there are Harleys everywhere. Purely by chance, when we arrived, enough Harleys had vacated the space directly out front to back in a Volvo. I parked without knocking over any hogs or softails or v-rods.
*
It’s a funny thing about Harley Davidson motor cycles. No-one ever buys one until they’re fifty. How ironic: you finally get to feel the wind in your hair and there isn’t any.
It’s not about attitude. When men have mid-life crises, they buy crass things like red sports cars. You buy a Harley for a different reason: because it’s a machine. Other bikes are just devices. Harleys groan and roar and use oil and are built from nuts and bolts. Other bikes just whiz you somewhere else fast and have computers and coffee holders and GPS and air conditioning and are about as exciting as a Toyota Camry.
*
No, I didn't buy one. But I thought about it while I ate my Cajun fish and drained the last of my white wine. The small wine list is somewhat overpriced, but bikers generally don’t sip chardonnay with their steak so I suppose the wine subsidises the beer.
It was about nine o'clock now. The traffic growl on Sydney Road rose and fell in waves and the flashing coloured lights on the verandah outside Highway 31 shone in the window and turned my empty white plate a different colour every few seconds. A band had set up in the corner near the bar and started playing a Neil Young song, Changing Highways from Broken Arrow.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
The last tomatoes.
The roof stayed on, but half the dirt up at the top of the state near Mildura blew down and landed on the car and the other half landed on the washing line. Now the car is red and so is the washing. Yes, it's like 1982 again. No wonder they have to dredge the bay. Most of Victoria ends up in it over time.
*
Speaking of red, I picked the last tomatoes for the year. It was a disappointingly small crop, but they were good. They had that abundance of juice instead of pulp and that almost overpoweringly sweet aroma with the acid in perfect balance. In this condition they need neither salt nor pepper. I sliced them thinly, scattered them with chopped, marinated green olives and served them as a kind of bruschetta on lightly toasted and buttered Potts Swiss white bread.
*
And the basil continues to come. Plenty of parsley as well, so I made a pesto with equal measures of the two herbs with garlic, cheese and walnuts and used this as an ingredient in one of my favourite pasta dishes:
Pasta with chicken, avocado, red pepper and pesto.
Cube a chicken breast and poach the pieces very gently in a little white wine and water with a sliced garlic clove in a tightly covered pan. Add slices of red pepper. These will soften in the poaching fluid. Add slices of avocado. Cook until chicken is done. It won't take long. Have pasta cooking meanwhile - linguine works well.
Place drained linguine on serving plates. Top with chicken, red pepper and avocado, retaining pan juices. Add a good spoonful or two of pesto to pan, swirl around over high heat, add a dash of cream if you wish and pour over pasta.
*
Speaking of red, I picked the last tomatoes for the year. It was a disappointingly small crop, but they were good. They had that abundance of juice instead of pulp and that almost overpoweringly sweet aroma with the acid in perfect balance. In this condition they need neither salt nor pepper. I sliced them thinly, scattered them with chopped, marinated green olives and served them as a kind of bruschetta on lightly toasted and buttered Potts Swiss white bread.
*
And the basil continues to come. Plenty of parsley as well, so I made a pesto with equal measures of the two herbs with garlic, cheese and walnuts and used this as an ingredient in one of my favourite pasta dishes:
Pasta with chicken, avocado, red pepper and pesto.
Cube a chicken breast and poach the pieces very gently in a little white wine and water with a sliced garlic clove in a tightly covered pan. Add slices of red pepper. These will soften in the poaching fluid. Add slices of avocado. Cook until chicken is done. It won't take long. Have pasta cooking meanwhile - linguine works well.
Place drained linguine on serving plates. Top with chicken, red pepper and avocado, retaining pan juices. Add a good spoonful or two of pesto to pan, swirl around over high heat, add a dash of cream if you wish and pour over pasta.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Who'd be a food writer?
David Herbert's excellent food column in the March 15 edition of The Weekend Australian colour magazine (March15) featured seasonal lamb recipes. Mr Herbert wrote:
Lamb is a great dish at this time of year; I much prefer lamb at the end of summer when it has more age to the meat and a better depth of flavour. If you are lucky you may even find some hogget (two teeth or about 12 months old) or some of the delicious milk-fed lamb that is starting to appear. Be guided by your butcher and try to buy the best quality you can afford.
Good advice. One of the featured recipes was a variation on lamb souvlaki. Two weeks later, the following letter to the editor appeared in the same magazine:
David Herbert's Lamb Souvlaki is a trendy lamb parcel. Traditional souvlaki is simply skewered cubes of lamb marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, oregano and pepper, cooked over a barbecue and given a squeeze of lemon while cooking. I have never seen cumin in a Greek recipe and there is no place for Spanish onion, cayenne pepper, yoghurt or spring onions. His dish may be tasty but please do not insult the Greeks by calling it souvlaki.
Rhett Senior
Kings Point NSW.
Nonsense, Mr Senior. The recipe is merely a variation; it still comprises the basic building blocks of seasonal lamb and pitta bread. You'd think Mr Herbert had recommended using the Greek flag to strain feta.
Here's David Herbert's recipe:
Lamb souvlaki
225g lamb fillet
1 small red onion, finely sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 large pitta breads
4 tablespoons plain natural yoghurt
1 teaspoon chopped, flat-leaf parsley or fresh oregano
3 spring onions, sliced
1 lemon, quartered
Combine lamb, onion, garlic, cumin, cayenne pepper and olive oil in a mixing bowl. Season with plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, longer if time permits. Place a heavy-based frying pan or ribbed grill pan over medium heat until very hot. Add lamb to pan and cook 3-4 minutes each side (alternately, char-grill or barbecue lamb). Allow to rest 5 minutes, then cut lamb into 1cm slices. Meanwhile, warm pitta breads in a low oven and halve them to form four pockets. Fill pitta pockets with freshly cooked lamb, yoghurt, herbs and spring onion. Serve each with a lemon quarter. Serves 4.
Mix & Max
A good Greek red such as a robust, blackberry-fruited agiorgitiko or leathery, tannic xynomavro would be perfect – but if you have trouble finding either of these (and, let’s face it, you will) – an excellent alternative would be the classic Aussie souvo match, the shiraz cabernet blend.
I don't normally post other people's recipes, so to thank the author here's a link to his book. Buy it. It's good.
Lamb is a great dish at this time of year; I much prefer lamb at the end of summer when it has more age to the meat and a better depth of flavour. If you are lucky you may even find some hogget (two teeth or about 12 months old) or some of the delicious milk-fed lamb that is starting to appear. Be guided by your butcher and try to buy the best quality you can afford.
Good advice. One of the featured recipes was a variation on lamb souvlaki. Two weeks later, the following letter to the editor appeared in the same magazine:
David Herbert's Lamb Souvlaki is a trendy lamb parcel. Traditional souvlaki is simply skewered cubes of lamb marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, oregano and pepper, cooked over a barbecue and given a squeeze of lemon while cooking. I have never seen cumin in a Greek recipe and there is no place for Spanish onion, cayenne pepper, yoghurt or spring onions. His dish may be tasty but please do not insult the Greeks by calling it souvlaki.
Rhett Senior
Kings Point NSW.
Nonsense, Mr Senior. The recipe is merely a variation; it still comprises the basic building blocks of seasonal lamb and pitta bread. You'd think Mr Herbert had recommended using the Greek flag to strain feta.
Here's David Herbert's recipe:
Lamb souvlaki
225g lamb fillet
1 small red onion, finely sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 large pitta breads
4 tablespoons plain natural yoghurt
1 teaspoon chopped, flat-leaf parsley or fresh oregano
3 spring onions, sliced
1 lemon, quartered
Combine lamb, onion, garlic, cumin, cayenne pepper and olive oil in a mixing bowl. Season with plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, longer if time permits. Place a heavy-based frying pan or ribbed grill pan over medium heat until very hot. Add lamb to pan and cook 3-4 minutes each side (alternately, char-grill or barbecue lamb). Allow to rest 5 minutes, then cut lamb into 1cm slices. Meanwhile, warm pitta breads in a low oven and halve them to form four pockets. Fill pitta pockets with freshly cooked lamb, yoghurt, herbs and spring onion. Serve each with a lemon quarter. Serves 4.
Mix & Max
A good Greek red such as a robust, blackberry-fruited agiorgitiko or leathery, tannic xynomavro would be perfect – but if you have trouble finding either of these (and, let’s face it, you will) – an excellent alternative would be the classic Aussie souvo match, the shiraz cabernet blend.
I don't normally post other people's recipes, so to thank the author here's a link to his book. Buy it. It's good.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The first St Paul's church was built here in 1850, right on the bend in Sydney Road. The current building shown above dates from about 1897.
I first visited twenty years ago when my oldest son - William and Thomas' Much Older Brother - sang there as a member of the visiting St Patrick's Cathedral Choir.
Later we moved into the parish. William was baptised here in 2005; Thomas in 2006.
Just last Sunday morning, after the service, I carried William up to the bell tower for the first time (small window beneath the shuttered arch windows in the picture) and he watched a bellringer heave the massive rope to ring out Easter Day.
The bell will not ring again soon. Three nights ago, someone set two fires in the church. One succeeded.
