The Elegant Sufficiency

Back, Briefly

Is anybody out there? Yes, I know this post has been a long time coming. Life got in the way of blogging. And then came the happiest thing: my company, Fairfax Media, where I've been working for the past few years as deputy editor of the(sydney)magazine, asked me to write a blog for its new women-focused site, Daily Life. I started last week with my thoughts on why women who like sex are good in bed, followed that with something on 'Desperation Dinners', and then gave a quick summary of the food truck revolution in Australia. Today I've just posted a general rant about bad food.

The blog doesn't have its name yet and isn't yet set up in a proper blog format, but I believe that's to come. Hope you'll pop across and have a look, and start following my thoughts there. At some point soon I plan to take Elegant Sufficiency down and archive it on some sort of personal/about me page. Just have to get round to doing it.

The Brisbane Floods: The Aftermath

A friend in Brisbane emailed me this week, painting a vivid picture of the city post-flood. It’s the best piece of writing I’ve seen on the volunteer army, and the aftermath.

 

By Kim Broadfoot*

I don't know the name for the colour that is between gray and brown, but that is the colour of the sludge caked on the roads, the footpath, every blade of grass and shrub, walls, doors, abandoned cars, and especially on the small mountains of ruins forming on the foothpaths — things that were useful and valuable when they sat in their homes on Wednesday. It is not until you look up, to the green canopy of poincianas and blue sky, that you remember where you are. Brisbane.

On one side of William Parade, Fairfield, is a park. It's the best of playgrounds: quiet, the kind with climbable trees, a fort, and long swathes of soft grass. Now it's knee deep in debris, and sludge that is baking and emulsifying on every surface. Dozens of gum-booted volunteers attack it with shovels. “It's got to be done right,” one says with determination, “kids play here”. Thank you, mine often do.

On the other side of the road are houses. A mix of Queenslanders, post-war bungalows, and modest brick and tile homes that were probably built after '74. One smart new villa. All of them inundated on the high tide in the early hours of Thursday morning. Now, there is an industrious, determined chaos. The highly competent, in their work boots and high-vis shirts, command cooperation with their utes, bobcats, gurneys, compressors. Teams of big guys take charge. Newbie volunteers with their straw hats, brooms, buckets and rubber gloves quietly work out what to do, and just start. There's no power, the water pressure is lousy and the street is clogged with a traffic jam of good intentions, but somehow, it is all working. 

I'm inside at number 54. I've just met Jill and her husband, John — friends of a friend. The clean up crew from yesterday has made great progress; the walls and floors have emerged, and the house will be habitable. Great care is being taken to salvage anything that can be cleaned. Outside, everyone complains of the smell of mud, but in Jill's kitchen cupboards, I am engulfed by lavender pine-o-clean. Incredibly, Jill is cheery, "ohhh, it smells good in here," she says, but I worry about how long that will last, with the mud trapped where we can't reach under cupboards, and a long wait likely before there's a new kitchen. People beaver away good-naturedly in every room of the house. “Look, Jill,” says one coming in from the bathroom, holding one of the four-minute shower timers issued to all Brisbane residents a few years back, when we were all in the grip of a crushing drought, “glad you saved all the water up in Wivenhoe so it could come down and flood you!” There's laughter and instant camaraderie, but you can see the exhaustion, worry about the days ahead, and the strain that comes from having to manage a houseful of near-strangers with their hands on everything you own. 

At lunch time, thousands of sausages sizzle around the suburb on gas barbecues, and the conversation up and down the street is all insurance. No-one seems to have any.  “They quoted us $10 grand a year”; “We just didn't think you could get it, so we never tried”; “We should have been with Suncorp” [who have offered automatic flood coverage since 2008]. In the weeks ahead, this will be a source of much bitterness and regret. Compared to some, Jill and John are lucky — the damage can be repaired, even if it takes time, and they rescued many important possessions in the hours before the waters rose. A friend comes in from a house down the road, shaking his head. The ceiling has collapsed, and the gyprock walls have had to be pulled away in sodden clumps. Soon, the house is gutted — just like its owners. 

As we leave, car packed with muddy things to take home and wash, we crawl through streets brimming with goodwill. People later complain that there were too many idle rubberneckers, but I actually think that every single one of the thousands of people in Fairfield has been there to do something. Cheery teenagers in short-shorts and cute pink gumboots hand out iced water, canopies shelter makeshift cafes. Utes are parked with chalkboard signs offering to give away everything from ice and face masks, to garbage bags. Bands of helpers in matching shirts represent corporates, church groups, clubs, or sporting teams. Officials door-knock, handing out forms about emergency assistance. The army is there, patiently directly the impossible traffic, while the heavy equipment waits at the side-lines to swing in tomorrow. 

And it is hard not to feel good about this community. To feel proud of the humanity of the helpers and the good grace of the helped. But it is important not to dwell too long in self-congratulation. The frantic, friendly activity in Fairfield will slow. We will return to our suburbs over the hill, where lawns need to be mown, back-to-school gear assembled, and newspapers need to be scanned for the amazing photos of the day it has been. While in William Parade, and in thousands of other streets across Queensland, the ruined homes, the grief and the hardship will remain. 

What is needed most then, I suppose, is money. Helping hands and donated goods are great, but cash is what will pay for a new kitchen, re-wiring, carpet, and painting. This is what to do, when you are watching the coverage, whether from far away or high and dry in the next street, and wishing there was a way to make a difference. Please give to the Queensland Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal.

* Kim Broadfoot, my oldest friend, has shared her words here before. Read her wonderful eulogy for her grandmother here. (You'll find it past my rantings about blogging...!)

All I Want for Christmas Is ...

Herewith, the unexpurgated, uncensored, unredacted Christmas wishes of some of my favourite Twitter people. And my Christmas wish(es)? That my mother will somehow, somewhere find joy in her second year of widowhood; that my nieces and nephew grow up wise and happy and healthy; that my brother and his partner catch their dreams; that I learn how not to procrastinate (and how to fix the wonky masthead on this blog...)

Merry Christmas!

@clembastow I'd like a six-figure screenplay deal. Failing that, some crystals, a good book, and a packet of spekulaas

@GeoffSlattery A pro pizza oven installed and fired in the backyard

@Colvinius I should say: a kidney. But I won't because it's too much like asking for a high roadtoll. Anyway journalists have already got their Christmas present: Wikileaks

@johnbirmingham A pre-release iPad2

@crazybrave I have already asked for my partner to pave under my gardening bench for my Christmas present :)

@julieposetti A languid lie-in on Christmas morning; an ability to capture & memorise my 16 month old's giggle & contentment; a round of ashen chevre; a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauv Blanc

@blues_junkie Dreaming of an unlimited caviar Christmas Eve + finding a Swiss Speake-Marin Piccadilly watch under the tree the next day=perfect Christmas

@DanMISSIONBEAT For Christmas I would love to see an end to homelessness and that the 12,000 kids that are homeless across Australia are found by Santa

@EatingAsia A bottomless stomach and a 10,000 cal/day metabolism

@SimonThomsen simply seeing my children laughing, happy, delighted & playing & sharing with their cousins 

@rockpoolgroup I really don't want anything but world peace & an end to poverty, I really think you only need certain things in life before it is wasteful

@elissablake I want Steve Jobs to come down the chimney dressed as Santa and hand over as many Apple toys as possible.

@AnitaHeiss I would love Santa to put Mr Right in my stocking! I would like those with plenty to share with those who have little.

@thefoodblog a few acres full of fruit trees, olives, grape vines and a small house with a veggie patch

@JulieManfredi I would like Clover Moore, with her carbon offsets from the Bourke St bike track, to air condition the SCG for the NY Ashes test

@wolfinkitchen Javier Badrem would be nice — there's still life in the old girl yet & besides we have plenty in common — "jamon,jamon". Can Picture us both in gum boots at a local organic farm

@tomdoorley One stinky truffle (ideally white) and a bottle of Cheval-Blanc '59. Failing this (!), local chanterelles and my sole bottle of Grange '82!

@KathrynElliott a new sun-hat that suits me, a bottle of Tetsuya's *amazing* rice wine vinegar. Plus, we're going to Adelaide next year & I want tix to see the Giant Pandas up close.

@chubbeehubbee a Thermomix. Oh, the dream of pureeing, cooking, grinding, steaming, etc, all with one machine

@ganga108 Always happy with good food and my family home for good after 5 yrs in London

@charlotteshucks I'd like my garden to triple in size and for AMP to forget its development plans to introduce more rubbish, noise & traffic to my street from Marrickville Metro rebuild

@miss_om an ice cream maker, a TARDIS cookie jar, and someone to pay for the 6 months of yoga for me :)

Work in Progress

To Whom It May Concern:

This blog is currently a maintenance zone. Beware pit-holes, dangerous verges and slippery edges. Maintenance worker is technically deficient. Please have patience while work is completed.

How Not to Open a Sea Urchin

So there's this bloke at work. I could tell he was special from the start. Tall and dark, yes, but it was the ginger and fig jam that first made me sit up straighter in my swivel-chair. He’d made it himself from a Sean Moran recipe we’d published. Brought it into the office for me — a little Vegemite jar of jam stashed in his bike-courier bag.
When he brought in his homemade lime pickles in a red-lidded honey jar I didn’t know what to say, where to look, so I straightened my Post-it note pile instead and sharpened some pencils.
I knew then that there would be pain ahead.
It arrived yesterday.

This time, there were two old Tupperware boxes in a supermarket plastic bag. Six sea urchins. Glistening black spiky creatures that set my heart racing. Gathered the day before from rockpools at a south-eastern beach. How did he know that I’d sell my soul and more for a sea urchin.
Mr Rockpool himself offered advice via Twitter. “take sharp scissors & cut about 2 inch circle around the opening. tip the water out and remove tongues and devour. Yum!” he wrote. “it is the bottom with what I call the mouth. it is the only place were the spines aren't covering. The bum i guess..ha ha”.
Two tweets, and I had a plan. Seemed straightforward enough.

The credits were rolling on Four Corners and my kitchen was strewn with broken black sea urchin spikes by the time I had worked out how best to thank Mr Perry for his advice.
Can I tell you a few home truths, Mr Perry: pink rubber washing-up gloves don’t ease the pain. Regular kitchen scissors won’t do the job. How-to-open-sea-urchin videos on YouTube, even playing on a laptop perched on the dish drainer as you tackle your urchin, won’t illuminate the process. You are courting disaster if you try to use your biggest and best chef's knife. Small sea urchins, less-than-palm-sized urchins, don’t have any roe. Even if you manage to crack the hard urchin shell to which the spikes are attached you will have made a god-awful mess — and those intoxicating little slivers of ochreish, tongue-shaped roe are still impossible to get at.

I persisted (by now, Q&A had started; I was briefly distracted by the glory of Malcolm Turnbull’s black leather jacket) and, slowly, with much prising and swearing, the two largest yielded up their treasures. Covered in gunk. Then, a painstaking process to wipe away sand and grit and other unpleasantness.

It wasn’t much but certainly enough to make a little pasta dish. Tomato, lemon zest, chilli, garlic, roughly following a New York Times recipe. Divine.
And the bloke at work? He’s let me in on this urchin-hunting-ground location. I don’t need him anymore.

Silverbeet: a Superfood (and Some Other Stuff)

Can I share my new obsession? (Not forgetting my other new obsessions — knitting, following hashtag #masterchef as the show screens, pears, Phillippa's spiced nut mix, shelter magazine porn, Single Origin's Mexican blend...) It's called Hipstamatic and it's the first app I downloaded when, as a very late adopter, I got an iPhone a month or so back. (How did I live without it?) As if there weren't enough grainy, crapola pics clogging up cyberspace, I'm throwing a few more in. "Digital photography never looked so analog," boasts Hipstamatic, which has given anyone with an iPhone the capacity to shoot pics that look like they've been dug out of a shoebox from the back of your mother's closet. Indulge me:

Haymarket, Friday, 6 o'clock, winter, rubbish weather, soup for supper.

Niece, a child who knows how to work a camera.

Sunshine Beach; Japanese surfer girls.

Staying at Mum's place.

'A Plate of British Charcuterie' at Arras. Bloody brilliant meal.

Buddha head with candles, pretentious still-life, circa 2010.

Surry Hills lane. Yet another rainy night. Sun's out now but won't last.

Silverbeet segueway.

The gardening gene might not be in me: Exhibit A: years ago, my mother read about the health-giving properties of pawpaw and, ever since, a creature of habit, she's eaten a bowl of the stuff every morning. Imagine her surprise and delight when she discovered that Carica papaya will self-sow in her Sunshine Coast sand-soil. Imagine her delight when her tree grew tall and strong and developed fruit. Fifty or 60 sturdy little pawpaws. Breakfast for a year. Imagine her pangs when my father said "I won’t be here when your pawpaws ripen". Imagine her mixed feelings when she plucked the first pawpaw from her tree and ate it for breakfast, alone. Imagine her horror the day, not so long ago, when she goes into her garden to discover that her precious tree has toppled in the night under the weight of all those pawpaws. As if things aren't tough enough for her already. Exhibit B: My rosemary. Can't remember how many pots of the stuff I've bought and how many have died. The last one seemed to develop some sort of white mouldy problem. The one on my balcony now is drying out — yes, I do water it — its leaves steadily falling. Exhibit C: My dwarf lemon tree. Every year it develops a profusion of heavenly blossoms which turn into tiny fruit. Then all those tiny fruit buds drop off. Exhibit D: My basil. Withers and dies, withers and dies. Exhibit E: The caterpillars. They suck the life out of anything that hasn't already died

I consider ringing ABC 702's Saturday morning gardening program. I consider giving it all up and using the balcony as a storage space instead. I consider becoming buddies with broadcaster Indira Naidoo, who evidently does have the gardening gene: her productive-garden-with-a-harbour-view is something to behold. (See her blog, Saucy Onion, if you don't believe me.) I consider talking to Meredith Kirton, one of four women behind the beautifully photographed grow*harvest*cook.
But I'm forgetting my silverbeet.
A friend who turned the backyard of her rented Annandale house into an edible wonderland persuaded me of the merits of silverbeet in an email last year: “If you grow only one vegetable in your garden, make it silverbeet. It's the vegetable equivalent of an old friend: it's generous, easy-going and prolific, and the more time you spend with it, the better you feel.”
And, she’s right. Sometime after that email came late last year I hastily planted some silverbeet seeds. They're still going. I was away for two months over Christmas. Came back, the silverbeet was still alive. Caterpillars ate into it. It survived. I cut all the leaves back, use them in a stir-fry or a soup or a Japanese rice dish, they regrow. It just keeps coming back for more pain. Sharing a recipe for chickpeas and silverbeet, my friend wrote: “This recipe happens to contain a whole lot of superfoods. It's low in fat and very high in nutrition, but that's not why I like it. I like it a lot for its texture: the brown rice and the chickpeas become quite starchy, almost creamy, when they're cooked together, so they're deeply satisfying. Just quietly, I use Vegeta vegetable stock powder in place of the salt. It's cheating, I know, but oh how delicious it is. The almonds give a lovely crunch and the taste of toasted goodness, and the yoghurt transforms the whole thing from hippy slops into really quite photogenic, on a good day.”
I’ve been cooking a bit of Japanese at home — simple, ad-libbed stuff … perhaps genmai rice with teriyaki-sauced chicken, or soba noodles in broth with an egg. I’ve found that a snipping a few stalks of silverbeet off just before serving and throwing them into the rice pot or soba broth at the last minute results in lovely wilted greens. Other silverbeet recipes I’m keen to try include Tea’s Chard Tzatziki (her soba recipe is one I’ve used a bit for my version); Gourmet Traveller’s Baked Eggs with Chickpeas and Spinach; Stephanie Alexander’s Silverbeet and Potato Torte; and Gabriel Gate’s Silverbeet Gratin.
And perhaps this weekend I’ll even give my silverbeet a bit of water…


Kerryn's Chickpeas with Silverbeet

Serves 4

1 cup chickpeas, soaked overnight in cold water, then cooked until tender in salted water
1 cup brown rice
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 bunch silverbeet (about large 12 leaves), stalks removed, coarsely chopped
Juice and finely grated rind of 1 lemon
1/4 cup natural almonds, toasted in the microwave on high for 2 minutes, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup parsley, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup natural yoghurt

Combine chickpeas, rice and salt in a saucepan and add enough cold water to cover by about 3cm. Bring to the boil over high heat, then cover, reduce heat as low as possible, and cook until rice is tender (about 1 hour). Meanwhile, combine olive oil and garlic in a frying pan over medium heat and saute for 1 minute. Add silverbeet and saute until tender (1-2 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in lemon rind and juice, almonds and parsley. Serve rice and chickpeas topped with silverbeet and a large dollop of yoghurt.

Why I Love MasterChef

Quick response to an email I received tonight complaining about MasterChef... my thoughts so far:

Hi J... I guess I’m not approaching it with such a critical eye. Right now, I need light entertainment and it’s providing me with that in spades.
You have to remember how much money this is making Ten. It’s a completely commercial project and the producers’ aim is to thrash rival networks with astonishing viewer numbers, not create a food culture of integrity and knowledge. And they’re achieving that for sure — apparently it was the top program nationally on four weeknights last week. If I were to be a pragmatist, and there are many food people who have been pragmatic so far about the series, a positive is that it’s bringing information about food to many people who probably know very little about the subject. And that has to be a good thing. (On the negative side, it’s creating a whole new generation of posing celebrity chefs. It’s also running a marvellous line in hypocrisy: eg, the episode in which the contestants were sent out into Sydney’s food bowl to source produce for a dish and, during which, the message was ‘fresh’, ‘seasonal’, ‘fresh’, ‘straight-from-farm’, was spliced with ads for Campbell’s stock.)
Your criticisms about the mousy contestants’ simpering and fawning as they receive positive comments from the judges, the lack of real instruction about basic technique, the faux dramatic moments, and the fact that there are three male judges who unwittingly but frequently patronise female contestants — well, I agree with those criticisms completely.
But here’s something else: Last night I made a soup from the dregs of my vegetable drawer. I decided I wasn’t going to go out and buy more fresh produce until I had used up what I had. Most people would have thrown out the aged ingredients I used — and without a second look. It occurred to me as I made my soup, and watched MasterChef at the same time, that that is a very important element of cooking — the capacity to make do with very little, to be thrifty and frugal, to use up everything without wasting a thing. For both financial reasons and for environmental reasons. That ethos is something that our ancestors, whether English, Scottish, Chinese, Lebanese, Italian or Greek, took for granted.
When I was a child, my mother, frugal to her bones, would seek out cheap damaged boxes of fruit and vegetables at the local greengrocer and poach the fruit and make soups and stews from the damaged vegetables. Even when I studied at Le Cordon Bleu in London in the dark ages of the early ‘90s, that ethos was emphasised — don’t throw food away. Keep scraps for stocks, etc. I’d guess that almost every successful restaurant — and most of the MasterChef contestants seem to aspire to work in a restaurant or have their own restaurant — watches its food costs and food waste with the eye of an eagle. Margins in restaurants are so tight that they simply can’t afford to do otherwise.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think one episode of MasterChef has challenged contestants to make something from nothing, to use their food scraps in some way, to study an empty fridge and bare pantry and come up with a meal. Nor have I seen basic techniques — how to make a stock, a soup, a stew, an omelette — demonstrated. (Perhaps I am wrong — happy to be corrected.)
But nevertheless, I’m letting all of that wash over me. I’m loving Alvin’s glasses and the rolls of his eyes; the cement mixer from the Central Coast, well I’m rooting for him. The Melbourne laywer ... she may turn out to be too intense, too much of a goody-goody two-shoes. It’s great television, great entertainment and, if you take it as that, and not much else, you’ll be joining a Matt Preston fan-club in a flash.

Tentative Steps Back Into the Kitchen

Tentative steps back into this space and into the kitchen, although, yes I confess, tonight, dinner is the only pasta I could find in the cupboard — fusilli — and bottled pesto sauce. (You would wrongly attribute the dearth of pasta in my pantry to sloppy shopping or mediocre eating habits; the truth is that if I buy it, I eat it, and that is to be avoided — seconds? I go for thirds! You would accurately attribute the bottled pesto — and the fusilli/pesto combination — to laziness and exhaustion.)
Nevertheless, after so many months largely eating for fuel, and steering clear of turning on a stovefor much more than to boil a kettle, I am thinking that there might be a time soon when I feel enthusiastic about cooking again.
In a Korean grocer in Chinatown yesterday I started to twitch, just a bit, over a luxuriant pile of shiso leaves, and bought them. $1.50's worth now waiting in the fridge for inspiration to strike. (In a confessional mood, as I am, I'll confess too that I thought I was buying betel leaves and dragged David Thompson's books out to study miang recipes. Is there a Korean/Japanese food scholar out there who could tell me if there are miang-style Korean or Japanese dishes?)
And I've been twitching a bit too over recipes I'm seeing online. So much so that I'm ready to reprise Elegant Sufficiency's long-forgotten Recipe Scout. So here's a selection of what I've found lately. I'm thinking I might make some nut butter this weekend. Tentatively.

1. Dahi Aloo Curry to celebrate Holi on America's National Public Radio site.
2. To satisfy my frequent cravings for Korean food, David Lebovitz's Korean Scallion Pancake.
3. Cream of cauliflower soup from the elegant Table & Spoon’s Ann and Meg.
4. A fabulous pasta dish from the beautiful Syrie at Taste Buddies — Sicilian Anchovy Pasta with Toasted Breadcrumbs.
5. From Heidi, at 101 Cookbooks, Seeded Flatbread.
6. How to make Nut Butter, from A Life (Time) of Cooking — for cashews, walnuts, peanuts, macadamias, pinenuts, pistachios, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, almonds.
7. From Denise Santoro Lincoln on Bay Area Bites — Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes.
8. A simple Tahini Sauce with fresh herbs for steamed vegetables from Clothilde at Chocolate & Zucchini.
9. From Gourmet Traveller — an adaptation of Simon Hopkinson’s Chicken Kiev recipe, from his book The Prawn Cocktail Years.
10. A fine Fig Tart from Chez Pim.

A Tribute to my Father

The last meal my father enjoyed was lemon delicious. On a humid, mid-January day he came home from Noosa hospital for lunch, lugging with him a Niki T34 Syringe Driver connected to his abdomen and the knowledge that it might be the last day he would sit on his deck and look at the ocean.
The syringe driver, or pump, which Daddy carried in a supermarket green-bag during his visit home, delivered an unforgiving cocktail of morphine, Maxolon (for nausea) and Haloperidol (an anti-delirium medication) through sub-cutaneous needles. “Sub-cut”, the expression that became so familiar to us through his last dreadful days, left his distended belly horrifyingly stained with blue-purple bruises.
But those bruises were the least and most superficial of his problems. His kidneys were failing; finally, after a four-year battle with prostate cancer, a series of doctors had told us that there were no options left, and Daddy’s advanced health directive, insisting that there should be no attempts to prolong his life, nor resuscitate him, was soon to be invoked.
We talk idly about last meals; food sections glibly ask celebrity chefs what they’d eat for their last meal; in Hollywood movies, prisoners always get the chance to nominate one … deep-dish supreme pizzas, double cheeseburgers followed by cherry cheesecake, fried chicken (I promise you, there is a website that will give you this information). But if you want to really enjoy a last meal when you know your hours are numbered, you would be advised not to let your kidneys fail, nor carry a pump delivering such a horrid drug combination into your bloodstream.
A few hours after Daddy returned to the hospital from his lunch on the deck, after wolfing down his favourite pudding, he threw it up. He threw up, violently, for the next week even though he ate nothing more than drops of clear soup and flat lemonade. When he was first diagnosed with cancer, I had cooked for him with a degree of desperation. The tofu, the salmon, the broccoli, the tomatoes, the pomegranate juice — all those prescribed ingredients that I’d urged evangelically that he eat — none mattered anymore. The lemon cakes and orange-marmelade cakes and chocolate puddings that I’d cooked to comfort him (and, most likely, me) … now they were useless too.
On Saturday, January 16, my father, my best friend, went into a coma. Eight days later, about 9pm on January 24, Daddy died. 

And how are we doing, my mother, brother and I? We are getting out of bed and somehow placing one foot in front of the other. Various experts have told us what to expect — grief is a journey, they say. Others have drawn Venn diagrams to explain the intersection of emotions that we might feel at this time. But I feel as though my emotions are as blocked as my father’s kidneys were. An explosion must be coming and it won’t be pretty.
But for now, I want to tell you about my very special father. I want to share the eulogy I managed to give for him at what was a beautiful ceremony celebrating his life. I want you to read to the end and hear his message which, I’m proud to say, was celebrated in the Queensland Parliament on Tuesday, February 9 in a lengthy condolence motion, as well as in the Senate in a speech by Queensland Senator Claire Moore who attended the funeral as a representative of the Rudd Government. And my only regret is that the joys of lemon delicious as a last meal weren't debated in the Upper House of the Australian Parliament.

Peter Wood, A Love Story

I’d like to tell you a great love story. It’s the swinging 60s. London. Carnaby Street, the Rolling Stones, free love, the Summer of Love, the Sexual Revolution, Sex and the Single Girl. Girls’ skirts are getting shorter, boys are chasing those girls with ever-increasing ardour.
Over the past few years, Daddy wrote dozens of stories for me about his life and, in one of those stories, he mapped out his love life. You might like to hear of his playboy escapades, of bikini-clad Bardot-esque young women draped over him from Brighton to Biarritz, of the broken hearts strewn in his wake.
I’m afraid, though, I can’t tell you that story. You see, in the tale about his love life that Daddy wrote for me, he announces a shocking truth. 

Blogging: What's It All For?

Yes, it has been some months now since I stopped by. A busy, difficult, distracting few months during which much has been on my mind and in my diary, and blogging — well, it has not been much of a priority. In the past few days I’ve had cause to reflect on blogging, and why I do it (occasionally), and what it’s for because, this afternoon, I’m moderating a panel at the Sydney International Food Festival about food online with Aun Koh (Chubby Hubby), Andrea Nguyen (Viet World Kitchen) and Singaporean food writer and photographer Christopher Tan.
Much will be said this afternoon about the way of the future of food media, and it will be all heightened in poignancy given this week’s demise of the venerable American Gourmet magazine. (An institution in the world of what’s coming to be called “legacy media”, an expression which makes me both wistful and worried, given that I draw my salary from an Australian “legacy media” company.)
But in the brief time I have now before slapping on some lipstick and rushing out the door, these are my thoughts:

• We cannot even begin to imagine how the media world, and the food media world, is going to change in the next decade or so. Blogging and bloggers will be just one element of a vastly altered media landscape.
• Cream will mostly rise to the top: those who upend convention, and present information in exciting, surprising, sassy and provocative new ways will be the winners; those who create poor digital replications of what has been endlessly recycled in the legacy media will go nowhere.
• Those who also incorporate the most fundamental elements of high-quality journalism — accuracy, objectivity and ethicism — in their online endeavours will also win out.
• For my part, I hope that, when I have time to be filling this space, I can fill it with new thoughts, ideas. It’s not about restaurant reviews, it’s not about recipes, for lord knows there are quite enough of those out there already. (Although from time to time they will appear.) I can’t quite tell you what it is. Let’s just say it’s a glimpse inside the often-muddled head of just one person who loves to eat — someone who eats too much, doesn’t cook enough, despairs at how time is passing, rushes from one thing to the next, has a million projects on the go at any one time, loves her family to distraction, and likes to share beautiful things of all description. (How’s that for waffle!?)

And so to share a beautiful thing. The following was written by my oldest friend, Kim, a striking, brilliant, wise woman with whom I climbed trees and finger-painted in a Toowoomba kindergarten. I still tell her she should have been a writer rather than a lawyer and I think her writing here carries some rather delicious and subtle messages that we could all benefit from heeding:

"My jam drop baking Nana passed away unexpectedly two weeks ago and, in her honour, I had the sudden urge to cook jam drops.
I took the first online recipe I could find (not having actually managed to ever write her recipe down — despite cooking it every weekend from the age of 11), and ended up with jam splats. The second one, which I know is not kosher, contained custard powder and coconut and was much yummier than I remember the original ever having been. Nana was a terrific old-style baker — jam drops, pusher biscuits, walnut slices with lemon icing, anzacs, peanut crisps, and ginger fluff sponge.  Any visit would include proper china and an assortment of cake tins covered with roses being produced from the green kitchen dresser — the sound of them being opened so much more appealing than Tupperware. 
I thought you might like to see the eulogy I gave for Nana":

Elaine Box – reflections on my Nana

88 years is a long time, and on these occasions it is possible to reflect on all that has changed in the world in that time. Today, I want to think about what has not changed. Because what was special about Elaine Box were qualities that are timeless, and a way of life that has endured. 
Nana loved her home, and her family.  She was a kind and gentle woman, whose greatest worries in life were always for the health and happiness of her husband and offspring. “You look pale/tired/skinny,” she would reprimand – and over more serious problems she had many sleepless nights. Her family may have sometimes made her cross, but she tended to acceptance rather than judgment, and though she offered an opinion, was restrained in her criticism.  Even on Saturday, when Rodney appeared at the hospital with hair that was thought a trifle long, she observed wryly “needs a bow in it”, and left it at that.
Throughout her life, she worked hard, thrived on being busy, and took pleasure in doing things for other people.  Simple pastimes were valued – a cup of tea in the shade house in the back garden, a walk to the shops to post a letter she had written that morning, a trip on Mt Kynoch coaches to a local museum. Nana had the capacity to find joy and fun in everyday things – something that was captured playfully in the poetry she wrote – one poem described the washing dancing on the line, while another wondered at the mystery of the missing ice brick.
The house at 13 Jenkins Street was, as Andrew has mentioned, always a happy place to be and visit.  She would note your arrival out of the little kitchen window, and be waiting with open arms and a soft cheek, with Granddad, on the top step of the back veranda.  Within minutes the kettle would be on, a floral cloth flung over the table, and the china tea cups taken down, with careful thought for which one you had said was the prettiest last time you’d been.   Oh, and the biscuits – walnut slice with lemon icing, yo yos, pusher biscuits, and jam drops. All the while, Nana would be chatting — ever interested in the details of your life, up to date with the latest magazine gossip, tennis results, and full of news of her own. From the kitchen dresser she would produce a clipping from the Downs Star of a Spinners’ exhibition, a postcard from one of David and Flo’s trips, a photograph of someone’s new baby. For Elaine was a proud mother and grandmother, and kept track of the details of everything from first steps, sporting selection, report cards, eisteddfod results, job interviews. You would leave feeling loved and special – if a little overfed — with a bouquet of camellias in a twist of alfoil, some green beans from the garden, wrapped in newspaper and, if you were looking particularly needy, $5 tucked into your bag while you were not looking. 
Nana was a most thoughtful person.  She was guaranteed to remember your birthday (often, with towels!), took note of your favourite things (“now Derek, it’s caramel tart for dessert”) and, with her quiet insight, had a knack of knowing when something was needed, or even somehow “deserved”. She had neither the means nor inclination to extravagant gestures, but was generous with the egg money she would save for rainy days in that little ceramic pineapple up on the kitchen shelf.
Nana never learnt to drive – something that women of my generation would think quite a disadvantage. But she happily walked where she needed to go, even if it was halfway across Toowoomba to help out with sick grandchildren. Despite living a few kilometres from North State School, if it ever looked like rain in the afternoon, she would appear at the school gate with raincoats for the boys, and to see that Jan, with her bad chest, was safely on the bus.
Ron and Elaine did not have a phone at home until the 1980s. But she took care to maintain close relationships through faithful and lively correspondence with her sisters, sons and daughters-in-law, grandchildren, friends. Her letters were usually cheery and conversational – never leaving out the details of what had been on the menu when she went out – and her busy life gave her no shortage of subject matter. Indeed, after Ron retired, he and Elaine maintained a hectic social life, out at bowls, their various clubs, and visiting friends most days and several nights a week. 
Elaine was married to Ron for an extraordinary 69 and a half years – I think she was rather miffed really to have missed the landmark of 70 years! They were fond and loving companions, suited in their intelligent interest in the people and places they encountered and gracious consideration of one another. They also shared many skills and hobbies, which made them in many ways the ultimate “two for one” deal in any group.
I don’t believe that Nana ever thought of herself as wanting for anything, as she simply “made do” with what she had. Of her many accomplishments, quite a few were formed through the necessity of resourcefulness – however as her life progressed, she quietly persevered and mastered an impressive range of new skills – as diverse as sewing, tatting, spinning, crocheting, weaving, needlework, playing indoor bowls, and writing poetry.  She was a versatile and talented craftswoman, and generous both in sharing her skills with others, and in the gifts of beautiful rugs, jumpers, slippers, doilies, coat hangers. It would bring her much pleasure, I think, to know that some of these items will still be used for many years to come.
If you were to visit Freestone, the small farming hamlet where Nana lived as a girl, you would find it largely the same today as it was in the 1920s.  And on a sunny, cloudless August day like today, you could almost see a young Elaine, with her curls and her skinny arms and legs, (for her Dad nicknamed her “skinny”) racing home from school with her sister Audrey, through the long dry grass in the Owens’ paddock, careless of the snakes that might have been there, arriving home to gather the eggs, slide in the haystack, chat to her dear Grannie Shelly, or to cheerfully put on a sugar bag apron and help her big sisters, Beattie and Haidie with the cooking and sewing. That young girl’s sweet and gentle nature, her kindness and energetic interest in life, remained the essence of Elaine always, and it is what we will all remember when we think of her.                                                                                            —Kim Broadfoot

Porridge: By an Expert

With the temperature still at a ridiculous single-digit, and me sulkily eating Weetbix (urggh!), thought I'd share an email I got yesterday from an old colleague and dear friend, whose food advice I trust implicitly. Here, Roslyn shares her porridge technique:

"Purists will tell you to soak your oats overnight and cook it on the stovetop, but while that probably gives a better result, it does involve a whole lot more effort (and dishes).
I use whole rolled oats (not quick-cook) and put them in a big microwave-proof bowl — a third of a cup of oats for each person and twice that volume of liquid. You can use either water or a mixture of water and a few tablespoons of milk (the latter is better, I reckon).
Stir the oats and liquid together, chuck in raisins or sultanas (not to everyone's taste but that's what I like) and cook on high for 3 mins, take it out, give it a good stir, then cook for another 2 mins, or a little longer if it's really sloppy. (And if it's seriously sloppy, spoon off some of the liquid after the first cooking time).
Serve with brown sugar and milk or any of the other fancy embellishments (jam, toasted coconut shreds etc) you like."

Would love to hear any other ideas, additions, embellishments, opinions, thoughts on other winter breakfasts.

Memories of a Japanese Breakfast

Porridge with soy milk and honey for breakfast this morning and smh.com is telling me it’s 6 degrees outside. My (microwave) porridge-making technique leaves a lot to be desired (any tips?) and, as I dipped into my bowl of glug my thoughts turned to a better breakfast. The best breakfast in fact, that I’ve ever had. It’s a year since I was in Japan and the memory isn’t fading: staying at the Claska Hotel in Meguro I discovered the joys of a Japanese breakfast.

Each morning, a black laquer tray of six-plus bowls were brought to us. My inadequate notes are perhaps a reflection of morning grogginess, enthusiasm for the eating task at hand, and communication difficulties between us and the utterly divine waiter, who could answer few of our questions. Nonetheless, there’s enough in my scrawls to make me wish that an entrepreneurial Japanese chef would start a Japanese breakfast café here.

The stalwarts on the tray were always a tremblingly good poached egg (served at room temperature). A little square glass jug of dashi broth was at the side and, poured over the egg, a miraculous combination emerged. There was always a brown rice (genmai) porridge with slivers of ginger and a pool of dashi broth, miso soup, pickles, and one other changing dish, perhaps grated potato with seaweed, cucumber and sesame seeds. But it was the tofu dish that had me in raptures each morning: a neat cube of tofu, crowned with perfectly julienned ginger, a sprinkling of chopped chives, a paste that I believe was yuzu zest and green chilli, all served with warmed rice and soy milk. The waiter brought out the brand of milk for us to see: a tetra pack of “EdenBlend” rice and soy milk — “combines amazake, a very sweet traditional porridge made of koji fermented organic brown rice with organic soybeans”. It was a luscious, heavenly combination but one all but impossible to recreate with any authenticity at home here I reckon.
At Macro I found the EdenBlend brand, but they seemed not to have the particular blend we were served at the Claska. And where I’d find tofu to equal what they served us is anyone’s guess. But in Tokyo Mart in Northbridge, I did find genmai rice — one remaining pack of Sukoyaka Genmai “easy cooking whole grain brown rice”. As with EdenBlend, it’s a Californian product, so not exactly local food, but I’m prepared to ignore that fact. And, coming upon this article in Saveur recently, I'm starting to think it's time to start plotting my next trip to Japan.

Quinces and a Song from Cléo 5 à 7

Just a teaser for now... will be back soon with something a little more substantial. In the meantime, take this divine little song as an offering of sorts. Been flitting between a million projects and between films at the Sydney International Film Festival. Adored the Valentino doco, mentioned in a previous post. Today, loved Cleo from 5 to 7, less enthused by Meet Me at the Mango Tree. Rich and poignant material but, I thought, poor camera-work, odd segueways, clumsy moments.
Meanwhile, hope the quince successes have been many — please share! I'm tempted to go out foraging for more (am I too late?) but have a fridge full of food as it is and chronic cooking inertia.

A Quince Tart

Can I direct your attention to page 613 (in the first edition) of Stephanie Alexander's The Cooks Companion ... for Stephanie's Quince Tart. A magnificent thing. From the pastry recipe to the poached quinces, I'm in love. Still carrying the wounds from peeling and coring those impenetrable, beastly fruit, but the rewards are there in spades. If I could add anything to her method, it would be not to overfill the pastry case with the filling, as any spillage will burn nastily. And, even if the filling feels a little wobbly at the 25-30 minute mark, take the tart out of the oven... it will continue to set as it cools.
Australians at least should find quinces here and there at the moment. Go forth and bake. Add ice-cream.

(Not much of a shot, I know... but there's not much natural light in my kitchen at 6 o'clock on an autumn day I'm afraid.)

Consider also:

• Martha Stewart's Quince Tarte Tatin
• Maggie Beer's Quince Tarts with Sour Cream Pastry
• Quince Jelly on Elise's Simply Recipes
• Eliza Acton's Quince Marmalade on BBC Food.

Vintage Mags 1: Normal Teens Watch Horror Movies

I've mentioned my parents' obsessive-compulsive hoarding issues here, here and here... (Happy Mother's Day Mum!). And here, more evidence of the problem.

Found in the bottom of a silverfish-infested box of old Women's Weeklies from the '30s and '40s that they must have picked up at an auction years ago. I'm keeping all the old Weeklies, but think this one deserves a home that will love it more than I can. (Ebay listing here.) Actually, I'm starting to struggle with the idea of parting with it (Trying to throw off genetically inherited hoarding tendencies by shifting out as much stuff as I shift in). But perhaps no one will buy it... (can you delist ebay items?) ...

Parents of 21st Century teenagers might wish that horror movies were all they had to contend with. Meanwhile, they don't make advertising copywriters like this anymore... Gaultier's inspiration for Madonna's iconic conical bra becomes clear. And the text that may be too small for you to read: "The unique Floating Action bra... the bra that stays in place all day giving you perfect comfort. The secret's in the tangent straps — completely tension free! They hold up the whole bra not just the cups ... and there is no pressure on your shoulders. That's why Floating Action is the favourite of American Women."

And this one... "This super player ... comes in gay colours that will go with the furnishings in your 'den'." I want one! A den, that is...

And ladies, do make sure not to let yourselves go...

The Story of India and a Garden of Paradise

"Across the river was a walled paradise garden. In it were night-scented trees and flowers; red cedars and magnolias; there were fruits and nuts and jujubes, mangos, sugar palms, churundjus whose sweet kernel tastes like pistachios; here the great Mughal could sit in his pavilion in the moonlight and look at his creation."

—Michael Wood, The Story of India

Loved the above poetic, impassioned commentary from The Story of India host Michael Wood talking about the Taj Mahal and its now-vanished garden. Am sure "churundjus" is the wrong spelling for this mystery food; Googling hasn't helped — can anyone shed any light? (Last episode of the series tonight, ABC1, 7.30pm.)
Spurred me to dig back through photos from my brief trip to Rajasthan a while back (above street scenes in Agra, below the Taj Mahal). Funny — I had remembered being pleased with my pics of the trip, but going through them just now, very disappointed with them. Was learning to use my old film SLR and it shows. Exposures are all wrong, too much dark, too much light. My Photoshop skills are poorly and not up to the masking required to address the problem. Still, was fascinating to look back.
In the absence of any Indian recipe to share here, I should link to two bloggers I follow who have an abundance of them — A Life Time of Cooking and Delhi-based Anita, whose Paneer Tikka on A Mad Tea Party looks extraordinary.
To get into the mood you could listen to Browneyes mix — Endorphins from South Asia — on 8 Tracks.

8 Tracks and Carrot Cake

Have to tell you about two important things:

• 8 Tracks. More importantly, Sydney's Flop Eared Mule on 8 Tracks. 8 Tracks is a site that allows you, me, anyone to “create or listen to a mix, a short playlist containing at least 30 minutes — roughly 8 tracks — of music”. Flop Eared Mule is a Sydney blogger who seems to favour a bit of country and alt-country. Right now, I’m listening to his/her Thursday 8 Mix and discovering Willie Nelson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down. Search 8 Tracks by genre (hip-hop, jazz, electro, dubstep, chill etc) if you choose, but I’d rather search it based on the recommendations of someone I trust, and I’m trusting Flop Eared Mule. His/her Funk and Soul for a Sunday Morning is especially fine (now have farewelled Willie and moved on to Freddie McGregor). Once you’ve travelled through his/her mixes, move on to who she/he is “Following” (right-hand column, low down). I’m tempted by the mixes created by “Exhausted Writer”, “Half Giraffe” and “What Is Tiger Balm”.

• Carrot cake. I’ve loved you so long. But for the first time over Easter, for my father, who has spent 40 days since January 1 in hospital, I cooked one. And so damn good it was. From BBC Australian Good Food magazine. Healthful and moist and simple. What more could you want? I’ve done something here I don’t usually do: published the recipe straight from the magazine. Normally, if I followed another’s recipe to the letter without adaptation I’d simply link to the recipe out of respect. But I’m buggered if I can find BBC Australian Good Food’s Carrot and Walnut Cake recipe anywhere online and, because it was so bloody good, I’m reprinting it here. If anyone has any issues with such a flagrant abuse of copyright, please let me know, or let me know a URL for the recipe and I’ll immediately take down the text below. Oh, and if the BBC recipe doesn’t appeal, you might want to look at Bon Appetit’s version — triple-layered with cream-cheese frosting. Oh my.

Carrot and Walnut Cake
(From BBC Australian Good Food, September 2008)

½ cup (80g) sultanas
juice of 1 orange
2/3 cup (160ml) milk
2 tsp lemon juice
2 cups (320g) wholemeal self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp mixed spice
1 ½ cups (330g) raw sugar
½ cup (50g) walnuts, chopped
3 medium carrots, grated
1 granny smith apple, peeled, grated
grated rind of 1 lemon
½ cup (125ml) rice bran oil
3 eggs, lightly beaten
Cream cheese frosting:
250g cream cheese, at room temperature
1 ½ cups (240g) icing sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 180C or 160C fan. Grease and line a 25cm springform pan.
Combine sultanas and orange juice in a small bowl and set aside for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, combine milk and lemon juice in a separate bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to sour.
Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice and ¼ tsp salt into a large bowl. Stir in raw sugar, walnuts, carrot, apple, lemon rind and sultana mixture. Pour in combined sour milk, oil and beaten eggs and stir until well combined. Spoon into prepared pan and bake for 50-55 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
To make cream cheese frosting, place cream cheese in a large bowl and gradually beat in icing sugar until fluffy. Spread over cooled cake.

The New Yorker: My Idea of Heaven

My idea of heaven — an uninterrupted day or five to go through my father’s pile of The New Yorker magazines. Through a Queensland Easter, interrupted days as they were with querulous nephew, hovering, endlessly amusing niece, cooking duties, demanding mother, I managed to hide in a deck chair and skim a few to discover these treasures:
Noah Baumbach, the very definitely sexy writer of The Squid and the Whale, and Margot at the Wedding, and husband of actor Jennifer Jason Leigh, embarks on new research, hilarious new research, looking at the longevity properties of red wine.
A profile of über-blogger Arianna Huffington who, apparently, twice-weekly leads “a highly curated cast of friends on a hike. ‘She’s an inspiration to me,’ Lynda Resnick, the pomegranate juice magnate said. ‘It was Laurie David’s birthday, in 2006. We were up in the Santa Monica mountains, and there was a vista, and we were sipping champagne out of splits with straws and eating soft cheese and hard salami. Laurie had just started to produce An Inconvenient Truth, Arianna’s Web site was going gangbusters, Rita Wilson [Tom Hanks’s wife] was about to appear in Chicago on Broadway. “What are you doing outside of your comfort zone?” Arianna asked me.” (Just the question you want to ponder during a nice hike in the mountains... I would have pushed her into the nearest ravine...)
One back issue of the magazine alerted me to the Broadway debut of 9-5 the Musical. Is it terribly naff to admit that 9-5 the film rocked my teenage world?

Another back issue told me about Valentino, the movie … Valentino, the Last Emperor … oh my God, looks fabulous. “I’m a disaster in everything else,” the maestro says in the trailer, Delibes’ divine Lakmé trilling in the background. “How was I? Tell me the truth,” he asks his lifelong lover and partner Giancarlo Giammetti, “OK, I’ll tell you,” Giammetti replies. “You look a little bit too tan.”

I found a review of our Geoffrey Rush’s Broadway debut, in Exit the King (“Brilliantly directed by Neil Armfield,” according to New Yorker theatre critic Hilton Als). A piece about Isabella Rossellini’s latest project — a series of short films about animal reproduction called Green Porno (with gleeful lasciviousness,  Rossellini explains the wonder of compatible vaginas and penises). And Simon Rich's entertaining piece headed “Animal Tales”. It’s worth reading beyond the first frog’s question — “Hey, can I ask you something? Why do human children dissect us?”
And, more seriously, Edwidge Danticat’s piece on growing up in Haiti — and on hunger; imagination; sweet plantains swimming in a codfish-and-onion stew; and on a big bowl of crabs, stewed with crushed eggplants and garlic cloves that answers a little girl’s prayers.

Homemade Smoked Salmon and More

Yes, no doubt, time for a post... would like to tell you that it's fish for dinner tonight, but nah, no such religious observance in this household. The fish supper was last night — salmon for five, an experimental endeavour. Used a "Savu smoking bag imported from Finland" bought a while back at the Noosa fish shop (recall it was around $13). Remaining cardboard packaging beside me still reeking of "natural alder wood chips, hardwood syrup and natural sugars. The secret of this aluminium foil bag is the patented 3-ply design that keeps the smoke in the bag and provides a separate bottom layer that contains the wood chips".
With a drizzle of herby burnt butter, all agreed it was very fine, very smoky. A Malouf spinach, mint and parsley pilaf at the side — and how's this ... Gourmet Traveller has a version of it here.
And tonight's dinner? My Mum's famous braised oxtail.

Recipe Scout 15

The number of recipe links I've accumulated in a folder on my desktop these weeks/months of barely-there-posting... a ridiculous number ... my hard drive's about to expire. Meantime, Heidi at 101 Cookbooks has gone live with her very smart Super Natural Recipe Search — "a custom search engine that will help you find recipes made primarily from minimally processed, natural, sustainable, whole foods. I cherry-picked the recipes by hand ..."
I too cherry-pick the recipes I include in this — my very irregular "Recipe Scout" — but the technology is a little less sophisticated than Heidi's. If you want to look at the recipes I've highlighted over the past year or so, take your cursor down the left-hand column here and, under "Categories", settle it on "Recipe Scout". There you'll find a bunch of recipes I've found in the ridiculous number of hours I've spent online in the past couple of years. Promise you, there are some great ones there, and here are some more:

1. Walnut Bread on Tiny Banquet Committee.
2. Gourmet Traveller's Watermelon Slushie with Mint and Ginger Syrup
3. Jacques Pepin's Greek Hand Pies with Greens, Dill, Mint and Feta on Food & Wine.
4. Bourbon Peach Hand Pies on Smitten Kitchen.
5. Chicken in a Pot from Walter Wells (aka husband of Patricia Wells) on Dorie Greenspan.
6. Taste Buddies' Thai Fried Rice with Crab (Kao Pat Boo).
7. Carrot, Pumpkin, Almond Tea Cakes with Quince on Cook and Eat.
8. The Japanese Food Report's Steamed Sea Bass, Japanese Style.
9. Pumpkin gnocchi on Delicious Days.
10. Chocolate & Zucchini's Orange and Rosemary Pork Tenderloin.