The Elegant Sufficiency

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.

Zucchini Flowers and the Weekend That Was

Washing; ebay obsession; emails; bills; babysitting and pop-up Alice in Wonderland (after some hysterics the one-year-old on his first separation from his mother fell asleep on my shoulder; the three-year-old an angel); Pizzini Sangiovese; computer-tied; writing project; Novaplanet.com; Marrickville exploration (the city of butchers); decent rice noodles with seafood at Nhat Tan; counting points (um, see here); mysterious mounting coriander aversion; reading; loafing; worrying chats with parents in northern state; DVD; thinking about yoga, not going; lazy, sleep; writing project; Paddy’s Markets, $16.50=4 fine red capsicum, 1 fine eggplant (look for elongated stem shape at base for best eggplant according to G.M.), quarter watermelon (is this my favourite fruit?), $2 box of baby pak choi, 4kg tomatoes at $1.30/kg, bag of carrots, 1 cos lettuce; fine inspired dinner: mix brown rice (used Japanese genmai), lemon zest, crushed garlic, anchovies, mint, lemon juice, bit of crumbled fetta, bit of grated Jarlsberg, bit of olive oil, ground pepper, sea salt, then stuff mix with fingers into zucchini flowers, brush with olive oil, bloody wonderful, no batter, no deep-frying and fine filling will travel (into capsicum, tomatoes … anything that needs stuffing…)

Sourcing Table Napkins: Can you Help?

Can anyone help? I've Googled and Googled 'til I'm blue in the face: looking for a source of fine quality, plain white, untextured linen or cotton table napkins — at a wholesale price — for my screenprinting experiments. Hitting brick walls everywhere.

Poor Martha

A lazy "post"... but hilarious don't you think ... Martha's daughter putting the boot in (she's the blonde) ... And, for a non North-American, it explains what s'mores are finally ...

Happy Chinese New Year

Kung Hei Fat Choi! Welcome to the Year of the Ox. May it be a year in which you are as strong and resilient as bamboo. Digging through my files, I came upon an article I wrote for the last Year of the Ox — in 1997 — focusing on the symbolism of food during the celebrations (the writing style perhaps a little more flowery than I would employ now!). To help me write it, Gilbert Lau, the former owner of the esteemed Melbourne restaurant the Flower Drum, threw an extraordinary Chinese New Year banquet. I can still remember the taste and texture of the suckling pig...

A FLOWER DRUM FEAST

AT THE beginning, there is a pig, a grinning little suckling pig on its belly on a big silver tray on a trolley. Lustrous and red, it is surrounded by carrots and radishes carved into roses, and a flurry of men in black suits wielding knives like surgeons. This little pig is called Fortune Ahead and the crackling on its back has been carved into perfect little squares.
Fortune Ahead makes a heavenly sandwich: take a little square white pancake, place pork on top and smear with hoisin sauce to taste. All at once, it's soft and sweet, crisp and unctuous. This is the start of our Chinese New Year feast at the Flower Drum in Melbourne. This is how our Year of the Ox is to begin.
There are layers of symbolism. Flower Drum supremo Gilbert Lau insists the whole pig must be on that trolley. Even if it can't all be eaten, to serve the whole pig is a mighty good omen for the year ahead, the harmony of the whole. It's lucky too, because red is the Chinese lucky color, a royal color, and our pig, which tastes so good, is the color of a burning sunset.
Jimmy Khong remembers the ang-pow, the little red envelopes holding gifts of money that children receive at new year. "It's a custom — everyone gives them in place of presents," says the owner of Fortuna Village Restaurant. "It's a wish for the future year that wealth and prosperity will come their way."
The gifts that people give for new year are laden with symbolism. If you are going visiting and wonder what to take, pack eight oranges or eight mandarins. "The name of it, 'kum', [orange] sounds like the Chinese word for 'gold'," says Malaysian-born Khong.

A Spaghetti Western

How amazing!...

A Retrospective

A retrospective is called for…make yourself a cup of tea and settle in. (My next post will be briefer, you can be sure of that!)

Home for the Holidays

Crostini with revived roasted peppers, Patrice Newell garlic (I included a glorious box of that as part of my garlic-addicted mother’s Christmas present), mint from the garden, capers and Gympie Farm chevre, served on the eve of Christmas Eve. Sound slightly glam? Not a bit.
The routine on arriving at my parents’ place: first, open fridge and despair at multitude of past-its-use-by-date food (an eccentric with obsessive-compulsive-hoarding tendencies is in charge of the kitchen); second, surreptitiously discard the worst of it without being observed; third, deploy remaining ageing food (the shrivelled capsicum/peppers went into the oven, were roasted for an hour or so, then peeled; I was inclined to tie my mother down and make her read Mark Bittman's pantry suggestions).
There’s a part of me that feels embarrassed that I used capsicum that most people would have discarded; that my mother makes a beeline for the display of reduced-to-clear produce items in every supermarket she ever visits. But perhaps it’s time for a rethink. For an ever-increasing number of people in Australia, and elsewhere, frugality, bargain-hunting, or worse, is going to become essential, if it’s not already. My mother’s habits have not changed in my lifetime, through her and my father’s increasing affluence and into a comfortable retirement. No doubt it’s why they have a comfortable retirement. She has been frugal forever. Hours spent in the kitchen turning $1 boxes of damaged fruit into compotes or bargain-basement vegetables into soups or stews using cheap cuts of meat. Always comparing prices in the supermarket, watching for bargains. And not wasting food. Little is thrown away. I’ll take advice now on other frugal ideas…

Cooking Ennui and the Food Show-offs
In this forum, I’m feeling a little uncomfortable admitting yet another travesty but my heart simply hasn’t been in the kitchen — not over the holidays, not now.
The crostini weren’t the only less-than-astonishing creation of the holiday period. Our Christmas meal was a decidedly unglamorous, un-gourmet affair (dare I admit that a pudding that came free with a new appliance and supermarket custard were on the table — my father told me to avert my aghast gaze). There were also the humblest of hamburgers on Boxing Day, a very wonky summer trifle, about which, the less said the better, and a night when Dad cooked supermarket sausages.

But is this all a crime? Should I feel so sheepish about it? Should I feel the need to keep up food appearances no matter what other stresses, pressures and factors there might be? I think not.
Egged on by glossy magazines, lavish cookbooks, television chefs and slick blogs, food snobbery has become endemic and we’ve lost our grip on reality. And Christmas is peak hour for this plague. Among a certain set of the affluenza-stricken in Australia at least, where climate has largely cold-shouldered the generally egalitarian and accessible roast-bird-and-vegetable-plum-pudding tradition of Christmas, food has become an opportunity to show off. Hark, the food magazines and their lobster-lavished spreads, and whole-roasted-stuffed-suckling pigs and stress-inducing, multi-layered dessert extravaganzas and single-origin this, and line-caught or paddock-to-plate that. Of course while in most cultures, a religious festival such as Christmas is an occasion to go nuts, show off a little, get those copecks out from under the mattress, few cultures have embraced such outrageous hedonism and excess and keeping-up-with-the-gourmet-Joneses as Christmassing Westerners.
I’d like to say that I planned our humble Christmas as a rebellion against all the excess but, for one unfortunate reason and another, circumstances dictated it. And you know, it wasn’t too bad.

The Benefits of Being Part of a Family of Hoarders 1
Digging through boxes at the old family home, looking for Auntie Amy’s wedding dress, some wondrous things uncovered (no wedding dress came to light … it’s there somewhere). This dated 14 September, 1972, typed on thin notepaper.

Hello my darling Stephanie,
I do wish I could be with you on Monday when you turn six years old. One, two, three, four, five, six years. My! My! That is a lot of years! There are twelve months in each year so that makes it seventytwo months. There are fiftytwo weeks in a year so that makes it three hundred and twelve weeks and if we go to days. Well! Three hundred and sixty-five days in every year with an extra day thrown in now and again for “Leap Year” that makes it that you have ben here with us for about two thousand one hundred and ninety-one days. That’s an awful lot of days for a small lass like you but they have been wonderful days for Mummy and Daddy and all the people who love you so dearly and I hope they have been happy days for you, my darling, and I hope that as the years go by each day that comes will be just wonderfully happy for you. Man, many, many Happy Returns darling Stephanie.
Do you know what happened the day you left us to return home? As you know the schools in Sydney commenced their vacation on Friday, that was the day you left here — Early in the morning I heard a knock on the front door and when I went to the door — who do you think was there? I give you three guesses! It was Ruby and she had come up to ask me if Stephanie could come and play with her. She looked quite sad when I had to tell her that you had just gone home because you had to go back to school on the Monday.
Grandma hasn’t been doing very much since you left because she caught some wog that was going the rounds and was very sorry for herself for some weeks; however, I’m beginning to pick up again. You can tell Mummy I haven’t written because I thought I may pass on the wog to her and that would not be kind. Tell her, when I feel hale and hearty again I will writer her, but you might also mention that a letter from her now and again wouldn’t go amiss.
Have a wonderful birthday and lots of fun. Give David a hug and kiss for me and a thousand kisses for you my darling and the sort of hug you would get from a polar bear — and that would about squash you.
Love, love, love! Grandma

The Benefits of Being Part of a Family of Hoarders 2
My grandmother’s cooking notebook. A tussle ensued when I tried to claim it — Mum won that battle — but I claimed a few others: The Merrie-Christmas Cook Book (love the little rhyme on the dedication page, verse 4 of which goes — “Father’s in the pantry, Sampling Yuletide rum, Full of inner happiness, Can’t you hear him hum?”), and two ‘50s gems, the Joys of Jell-O (Molded Chef’s Salad, Ring-Around-the-Tuna) and How You Can Give Hawaiian Parties (Pineapple-Cottage Cheese Salad Mold and Honolulu Punch, with tips for making a Hawaiian costume, a pineapple pot holder and a paper plate fish).

The Benefits of Being Part of a Family of Hoarders 3
The discovery of what I guess must have been a hat box, which travelled with Auntie Amy on one of her trips home to Australia from San Francisco.

Finding Religion
When you’re hanging around in the emergency room at St Vincent’s hospital, Toowoomba, on New Year’s Eve, waiting to discover why your father has a temperature of 39.9 degrees (it was pneumonia), reading matter is limited. I had no idea there were so many food references in the Bible (I blame my parents for my practically non-existent religious education!). Never imagined I'd be quoting the Bible here, but nor did I imagine I'd spend New Year's Eve in an emergency room...

 “Now John himself was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.” (Matthew 3:4)

He can keep his locusts, but the wild honey… mmm… late at night I’ve been finding my way to the pantry with a spoon and raiding the jar of Tasmanian leatherwood honey. I think I’m addicted.

Home Again and a Kayaking Excursion to Remember

Shoulders and back are aching from Saturday’s outing on Cowan Creek, a tidal subcatchment of the Hawkesbury River. From Apple Tree Bay, a leisurely paddle downstream towards Houseboat Bay, then back upstream past the Halvorsen marina. If I were rich, well, I'd buy myself a fine houseboat, and a fine captain and moor it along here somewhere and catch fish, and read books, and daydream, and live happily ever after.

Australian Childhoods

Have just stumbled upon this in my files... a friend emailed it to me a while back... when I asked the question in my previous post about Australian childhood expressions, I knew I had this somewhere... It's apparently been around the block and pops up on a few blogs, but its source seems unknown. Please let me know if you know who it should be attributed to.

LIFE WAS FUN!!!!
GROWING UP IN AUSTRALIA.................

I'm talking about hide and seek in the park. The corner milk bar, hopscotch, billy carts, cricket in front of the garbage bin, skipping, handstands, footy on the best lawn in the street.
British bulldog 1-2-3, go home stay home, slip'n'slide, the trampoline with water on it, hula hoops, pogo sticks, stepping in enormous puddles,mud pies and building dams in the gutter. The smell of the sun and fresh cut grass. 'Big bubbles no troubles' with Hubba Bubba bubble gum. A choc-top Mr Whippy cone on a warm summer night after you've chased him round the block. When 20 cents worth of mixed lollies was a meal and smoking fags was really cool. Wait....... Watching Saturday morning cartoons...short commercials, The Thunderbirds (if you got up reeeeeally early), the Smurfs, AstroBoy, He-Man, Captain Caveman, Archie, and heeeey heeeeey heeeeeeey it's faaaaaaat albert. Or staying up late and sneaking a look at the "AO" on the second telly. When around the corner seemed far away, and going into town seemed like going somewhere. A million mozzie bites, wasp and bee stings. Sticky fingers. Cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, riding bikes and catching tadpoles. Marco polo in the neighbours' pool ("fish outta water?!""NOOOO"), drawing all over the road with chalk. Climbing trees and building cubbies out of every sheet your mum had in the cupboard. Walking to school, no matter what the weather. Running till you were out of breath. Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt. Rolling down grassy hills Jumping on the bed. Pillow fights. Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for the giggles. Being tired from playing... Remember that?????? The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team. Water balloons were the ultimate weapon. Cricket cards in the spokes transformed any bi ke into a motorcycle... eating raw jelly, making homemade lemonade and sucking on a Funny Face or red Freeza. Remember when... There were only two types of sneakers girls and boys. Dunlop volleys with the green 'n' gold or blue and the only time you wore them at school was for "sports day." You knew everyone in your street — and so did your parents! It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends. You didn't sleep a wink on Christmas Eve. When nobody owned a pure-bred dog. When 50c was decent pocket money. When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for 10c. When nearly everyone's mum was at home when the kids got there from school. It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb. When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at the local Chinese restaurant with your parents. When any parent could discipline any kid, or feed her or use him to carry groceries and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it. When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!
Didn't that feel good? Just to go back and say, yeah, I remember that! Remember when... Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo" or scissors, paper, rock. "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest. Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly". The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was boy/girl germs, and the worst thing in your day was having to sit next to one. Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a slingshot. Nobody was prettier than your Mum. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better. Taking drugs meant orange-flavoured chewable vitamin C's. Ice cream was considered a basic food group. Going to the beach and catching a wave was a dream come true. Abilities were discovered because of a "double-dare". Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors. If you can remember most of these, then you have LIVED!!! Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown up" life...

Scaredy-cat: Childhood Memories

I'll come back, I promise, Happy New Year, may your '09 be divine, have started a dozen posts and finished none of them, too much to say, not enough time, for now, hoping very much for contributions ... can you remember the games you played when you were a child? The rhymes you sang, the taunts you jeered? Scraping my memory and not coming up with much. Can someone remind me how the "one-potato, two-potato" thing worked? At the end of it, did the child doing it say "you're it!"? What was the worst of insults? I can't remember much beyond "scaredy-cat" ... a bit lame really... so help much appreciated!

Elegant Sufficiency’s Alternative Gift Guide

I wanted to tell you about my Christmas Wish List (it’s long and starts with a Holga camera, runs through a top-quality frying pan that can go from stovetop to oven, some soufflé dishes, and a copy of The Golden Age of Couture, and finishes with an Artemides Tolomeo task lamp) but this, this list below, is probably a much better idea, a great balm for someone submerged in Sunday self-pity as I am. Here’s the Elegant Sufficiency Alternative Gift Guide:

1. Support, care about, people who are doing it hard. It’s not rocket science to work out who they are. The elderly man who lives alone at the end of your street. The homeless woman you pass on the way to pick up your morning coffee. The Big Issue seller. The child who seems always to be the outsider. The person who wants to talk, incessantly (of course, there’s likely to be a reason).
2. Forgiveness. I read, utterly absorbed, a story in the paper a week or so ago about a woman who had been in and out of jail over two decades — throughout her daughter’s childhood, teenage years and young adulthood. Drug addiction, drug dealing and armed robberies — her daughter is the last thing on her mind. Eventually, she started studying while in jail, she was released and now is clean, working, functioning. The daughter, in and out of foster care over the years and now in her 20s, has embraced her. The mother is awed by the daughter’s forgiveness and compassion. “She could be so cold, so cruel, instead she is warm and loving,” the mother said. “It is my greatest joy, my greatest pride.” When you feel that you can’t forgive or forget, try and put the slights, the hard words, the transgressions of those you are holding at arm’s length, or further, aside. How important are those transgressions? Should the relationship matter more?
3. Add one or two items to your shopping trolley every day you buy something between now and Christmas and drop it off to your local charity. In Australia: Anglicare, the Smith Family, the Salvos, Wesley Mission, Hanover, the Wayside Chapel.
4. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and try and feel how those shoes fit.
5. Choose an alternative gift through Tear Australia’s The World’s Most Useful Gift Catalogue: supplies for a school in Zambia ($5); help train Cambodian villagers to build a fish-pond and an aquaculture endeavour ($5); contribute to a Nepalese family’s skills in increasing the yield from their fields and improving their diet ($30); train struggling Burmese to create sustainable, organic vegetable gardens ($25); buy a goat for a family in India ($50); help create a rice bank in Laos ($150).
6. Suspend your judgments: Self-explanatory. There but for the grace of God go I and all that.
7. Through Oxfam Unwrapped, buy a piglet ($35) for a family in the Solomon Islands: “this gift will help train communities to care for our little pink friends. In return, these little piggies can give families the opportunity to earn a much-needed income, when the pigs are taken to market.”
8. Listen: How often do we do that? Really, really listen to someone. Ask them questions, look at them as they talk, really engage with them, care about what they’re saying, and set aside that innate desire we all have to respond with our own story, our own anecdote. Instead, hear and respond to their story and forget your own.
9. Give the Planet a present — Reduce, reuse, recycle: since I can remember, the ritual in my family has been that, after presents have been unwrapped and exclaimed over, my Dad starts collecting and folding the discarded wrapping paper to keep for the following year, a budgetary measure. And, of course, for years, I scorned that, my brother scorned that. There’s nothing to scorn in that. And don't buy silly crappy plastic presents.
10. Welcome a new member of the family: World Vision’s Sponsor A Child Program is an institution — and what a talking point that fridge-magnet-stuck photo is when visitors stop by — but you can also contribute to the organisation’s Global Food Crisis appeal — more than 12 million people (TWELVE MILLION) across the Horn of Africa are urgently in need of food. Stick that in your keeping-up-with-the-Joneses gourmet Christmas pipe and smoke it.

No, I don’t know for sure that your money gets through to some of these overseas places, but sometimes, trust and compassion and hope have to triumph.

Comfort Food: Macaroni Cheese

“It is pretty clear we are living in times that call for desperate measures. No mere $700 billion bailout will do, and neither will any ordinary comfort food,” trumpeted the New York magazine in an October edition. And that out-of-the-ordinary comfort food they’re talking about? Deep-fried lumps of macaroni cheese — seven to an order for $6 from the Dram Shop bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The bar that ordinarily specialises in “scotches, fine bourbons … and Tex-Mex-influenced pub grub” has joined the western world’s apparent march towards budget eating, comfort food, cheap cuts, waste-not-want-not.
In the UK, a parsimonious Delia Smith told Daily Mail readers last weekend how to “survive the credit crunch … (and) create a three-course meal for four people for less than £10 (about $AUD23).” Spotted dick (just what is that?) was her dessert suggestion.
Meanwhile, The New York Times posted a Savoury Mince recipe from the English chef Simon Hopkinson, while Food & Wine magazine has offered a sexy slideshow of “Hearty Stews”, including Kale and White Bean Stew, Scottish Beef Stew, Short Rib Stew, and Iraqi Lamb and Eggplant Stew. I’m not sure the word “stew” is one that any self-respecting food magazine would have dared uttered seriously until this year.
"Expense accounts are disappearing and three-martini lunches are dead for a while; people are looking for nostalgic, homemade food at a reasonable price," says the manager of the Wall Street Burger Shoppe, who’s now selling up to 1,000 $4.50 cheeseburgers a day, according to a New York Daily News article. “Meatloaf and mashed potatoes never go out of style,” says the owner of Junior’s, a “comfort food empire”, in the same article.
In the Times of London, Robert Opie, an author, “nostalgia expert” and the curator of the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising, opined “nostalgia for the past has always been heightened by economic shift. In earlier periods of economic uncertainty — the 1930s, for example — people and brands responded as a number are today.” Does that mean we’ll be seeking out Aeroplane Jelly?
My contribution to all this, the comfort food I fed my father two nights ago during his stay with me when we both decided we couldn’t be bothered going out to dinner, was macaroni cheese. We consumed an alarming proportion of a large casserole dish between us and I’ve had the leftovers for the past two nights. Two nights too many. But that first night? Magic.

Macaroni Cheese with a Little Extra Something
(serves 4)

I reckon mac ‘n’ cheese is a dish that benefits from a bit of extra oomph in the form of mushrooms (I’ve used dried porcini here), or slivers of terrific smoky ham, or cubes of pre-roasted pumpkin. Please yourself.

40g dried porcini
1tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 small onion, thinly sliced
250g macaroni
40g butter
1tsp Dijon mustard
40g flour
600ml milk
200g good cheddar cheese, grated
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
50g Parmesan Reggiano, grated
50g breadcrumbs

Soak porcini in warm water for about 30 minutes. Get a big pot of water boiling for the macaroni.
Heat olive oil in a medium-sized saucepan and sweat garlic and onion until soft. Strain porcini and squeeze as much water out of it as you can. Add to onion and garlic and cook for five minutes. Remove onion, garlic and porcini from saucepan and set aside. Now might be the time to get your macaroni cooking, with some salt. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
To make the white sauce, melt butter in the saucepan. Take it off the heat and stir in mustard and flour until it starts to blend with the butter. Add 100ml or so of the milk, still off the heat, and stir with a wooden spoon, pressing floury bits against the side of the saucepan with the back of the spoon until lumps have disappeared. Return saucepan to heat and add the remainder of the milk. Stir continuously over low to medium heat until the sauce starts to simmer. Cook for another five minutes — and don’t stop stirring. Turn off the heat and stir in about 170g of the cheddar as well as the onion, garlic and porcini. Season to taste.
Drain the macaroni and combine with the sauce. Tip into a large greased casserole dish, sprinkle with remaining cheddar, parmesan and breadcrumbs, and bake for 15-20 minutes until the top is golden and melted.