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Could there be a more extraordinary, obscene irony than the fact that one of the first ads in the ad break between installations of America's Next Top Model is a World Vision ad about starving African children? Why is World Vision spending their money with this channel?
I'm watching, embarrassed to say so, the finals of America's Next Top Model. Can't believe how morally corrupt this show is. Has anyone seen this appalling thing that a million or more teenagers must be watching right now?
Discovered a bunch of things online this week ... normally I'd stick them in my right-hand column here and you'd probably never notice them... but I'm generally wondering about the worthwhile-ness of that labour-intensive component of my blog (what do you reckon?), so today, this is what's going to happen: I'm going to give you them en masse in a post (and also, with some weariness, eventually link to them in their categories at right).
First, Australians among you should know that my favourite Radio Station (one of my very young colleagues today suggested I might not be very groovy, so I'm giving up on any pretence of grooviness and outing myself here and now and telling you that my favourite radio station is Radio National — I suppose that’s an NPR equivalent), um, what was I saying … my favourite radio station’s religion and spirituality program, The Spirit of Things, this Sunday (6pm) features “celebrity chef” Kylie Kwong cooking a special Chinese New Year banquet in the kitchen of her Sydney restaurant Billy Kwong. I like the program's presenter, Rachael Kohn, so hopefully it’ll be something a little more substantial than celebrity-chef-waffle. (The same program also features Tony Ayres, director of the award-winning Australian film, The Home Song Stories (click through for great trailer), talking about the importance of New Year in Chinese culture). Non-Australians among you should know that Radio National podcasts most of its programs.
Among the other things I can tell you:
Now here's a fascinating thing — a food timeline compiled by Lynne Olver, an American food historian, reference librarian and former New York Times librarian of the year who has a passion for food history.
Did you know that almonds were one of the first foodstuffs to appear — in about 10,000BC? That cows were domesticated in 6,500BC? That wine appeared in 6,000BC — about 4,000 years after beer? That "until about 2200BC the Egyptians perservered with attempts to domesticate a number of animals like the ibex, oryx, antelope and gazelle, and then, abandoning this fruitless occupation, turned to the more entertaining pursuits of hunting in the marshland preserves, collecting exotic vegetables like wild celery, papyrus stalks and lotus roots, trapping birds and going fishing". That french toast, omelettes and foie gras were around in the first century AD and sushi arrived in the following century? That fruit salad and Tabasco sauce made their entrances in 1863 and 1868 respectively? And that 2007 was the year we were blessed with Kool-Aid pickles?
Hours of amusement here. Perhaps it's time for a Food Lover's Trivial Pursuit?
Australia Day long weekend and an outing to my new favourite place: the McIver's Ladies Baths at Coogee. Throw 20 cents through the caretaker's security-grilled doors and it's yours for the day. A few hours here and you can solve the problems of the world.
My blue heaven.
Caffe latte, made by a Melburnian, praise be, at Wall Cafe in Surry Hills.
Celebrity sighting 1: Hugo Weaving, scruffy, bearded.
Toasted pide with ham, cheese and tomato.
We caught the Watson’s Bay ferry from Circular Quay to Rose Bay.
Teasing her about her pushy New York habits as she elbows her way to the top deck.
Smoothed out our wind-crazed hair on the walk from pier to Pier.
At home in Victoria for Christmas, she wanted to smell the eucalpyts again; here it’s the frangipani.
I always want to smell frangipani.
Veuve Clicquot to start.
Oysters, from Camden Haven, astonishing, silencing.
Gossip: What was she thinking? Does she know what she looks like? Did you here about X? Someone’s pregnant and someone else has a new girlfriend and we just can’t understand why he’s still single.
She talks about New York. Gasps, and laughter, and mock-shock at her lifestyle, the stuff of movies. She tells me about the restaurants, her local diner, her favourite bar and favourite restaurant. Craft, We’ll go there when I visit later this year, she says. (She’s eaten ferns there — had never heard such a thing, could it be fiddlehead fern?)
I talk about oh, you know, stuff. So bloody good to tell it to someone who understands, cares.
Celebrity sighting 2: a tanned and very very svelte Mikey Robins.
How many French waiters does an Australian restaurant need?
A seaplane swings in to land, clouds gather.
The era of the $50 main course is well and truly upon us and we’re pushing towards $60. A bother when the marron is forgettable and the dory and the blue eye are overcooked, fractionally, and this is your favourite restaurant in Sydney.
But I haven’t seen her for a year and I’ve forgotten a tedious, common thing called credit-card debt and I understand that fish can be a bugger of a thing and it doesn’t take much to tip us over the edge, from a Chablis to the loveliest Vallebelbo Moscati d’Asti.
And the lychee sorbet and green mango+coconut salad is divine and disappears too fast, as does the afternoon that leaves me thinking that I could come to like this city.
If I get a second job.
I'm on a roll, don't stop me, I may take another 10 years to write another post... offline, I sent George Biron (see blog spotlight at right) a cooking question. In a comment on my flounder post he suggested how to cook the fish, suggesting skinning it, putting it on a bed of fennel, and grilling it under a hot overhead grill. I quizzed him about the "skinning" bit... I cooked mine with skin on and loved it. His offline response to me, republished below, proved two things: 1. George responds very quickly if you use his "Ask the Chef" email link and, 2. He is a mine of information. When are you going to write that book George?
From George:
"I eat my ripe figs skin and all, so only rule is no rule.
But with flounders I find that the skin is a bit tough and the fillets a bit thin to crisp them without over-cooking the fish. Flounder also has two skins, inner and outer.
Quite easy to skin starting at the tail with a knife then slipping a finger under the skin until you have enough to grab then you can pull it off in one piece.
But as with the figs each to his own method."
I've taken my time to catch up with this, but Variety magazine reported late last year that Meryl Streep will star as Julia Child in the film version Julia and Julia — the book that emerged from blogger Julia Powell's attempt to cook all 524 recipes in Child's classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, recording her year-long vigil on her blog. (Can't find the blog online now, maybe it's been pulled down so it doesn't cannibalise sales of the book and box office takings in the future?)
Julia Powell is the envy of the blog world over: so that's how you make money out of a blog. Smart idea+blogger in at the outset of the technology+American legend+romantic backstory (Powell is apparently trying to rekindle the dying embers of her marriage through her cooking endeavours)=commercial triumph.
Call me a cynic, call me a bitch, call me an embittered failed publisher (those who know me know that at least one of those adjectives is true...), but I'm buggered if I know what all the fuss is about. I picked the book up in a bookshop, skimmed it, struggled to find one engaging passage. Seemed just chick-lit concealed behind a semi-smart premise. Am I wrong? Has anyone read it, and found something in it?
Lovely dinner on Saturday night at the home of an old university friend who is married to a rather lovely Frenchman. I have some wonderful memories of staying with them in Paris, before they moved to Sydney, and the markets we visited, the baguettes Franck ate with his café in the morning, the croissants that seemed to have tumbled down from heaven, the cheeses we ate, oh my, the cheeses we ate …
Cheese, and bread, served after the savoury courses, of course, is the least I would have expected of them and, on Saturday night, they surpassed themselves, trotting out Pyengana cheddar and Taleggio and this lovely thing that I'd not had before — the feisty, complex Saint Marcellin from the Rhône-Alpes region.
It seemed to be a goat’s milk cheese to me, but I was wrong — it’s actually made of cow’s milk. This site seems to illuminate the matter, but I’ll have to hope that some of you read French, because I’m buggered if I know what it says.
In any case, I think the Saint Marcellin will make it on to the first cheese plate of my first Sydney dinner for friends and new acquaintances and colleagues in the next few weeks. Any other suggestions?
Australian television viewers: documentary on Elizabeth David tomorrow night Monday, January 14) on ABC — Elizabeth David: A Life in Recipes, starring British actress Catherine McCormack. Some reviews here.
This post could go in one of several directions.
1. It could explore my timid return to the fish markets at Pyrmont.
2. It could talk about the fact that, against all expectations, salted little capers have use-by dates.
3. It could be yet another grumble about the profoundly dissatisfying state of 21st century tomatoes.
4. Or, it could be an exposition on my belief that the century of the recipe book is over.
(It could even be an album review: Listening, and loving, right now, Missy Higgins’s 2007, On a Clear Night, especially the track Sugarcane. On to fourth replay now.)
But to Point 1: Ventured back to Pyrmont during my lunch hour last week. Discovered a reasonable sushi train with fabulous unagi (grilled eel) sushi. At another outlet, an $11 takeaway container of uni (sea urchin roe). I’m going back for that. I'm helpless in the face of it. Fled De Costi Seafoods after being asked, for a 10th time by yet another sales assistant, whether I needed help. Although very dazzled by their range of squid/calamari/cuttlefish/octopus.
Finally settled on a whole flounder at, I think, Peter’s Seafoods. It was caught in New Zealand waters, and that bothers me, but I set my environmental/air miles concerns to one side, as I wanted something on the bone, not a fillet, to feed one, and that seemed the best option.
No idea what to do with a whole flounder but I’m finding my confidence with fish. Heat+Flesh=Result. I’m looking at the thickness of the fillet or the size of the fish and drawing logical conclusions. That worked on Christmas Day with a whole ocean trout and, last night, like a dream, with my flounder.
Which leads to Points 2 and 3, which can be dealt with quickly. Pulling a little plastic container of capers out of the pantry — Zuccato Capperi Al Sale (product of Italy), it was clear pretty quickly that they don’t last forever, as perhaps I think I imagined they might. Hard little pellets they were, although nothing a little water couldn’t fix. And I ignored the use-by date. What? 2006? That couldn’t possibly be right! I can’t possibly be turning into my mother?!
As for the tomatoes. … well, what more needs to be said. Seems to me that, in this city, unless you have the time to travel half way across town to an overpriced fruit and vegetable merchant, or you’re a restaurant chef with access to the best suppliers, you’ll struggle to find a decent tomato. I’m increasingly using cherry tomatoes, or those little grape tomatoes, as I did with my flounder. Perhaps the tomato story is the same in every city?
Point 4 though, is the one worth spending some time on. My confidence with fish may be increasing, but I still needed some inspiration. And, on the day I came home with a whole flounder, poor sad ugly little thing it was, my books were still in boxes, waiting for new shelves to be delivered. In any case, it would have taken me half an hour or more to wade through umpteen book indexes looking for flounder ideas. Two minutes on Google turned this up (but I really didn’t need the butter); three minutes and I’d come upon this — Michael Lomonaco of Porter House New York demonstrating a recipe for whole roasted flounder (he calls it “fluke”) with caper and tomato dressing (I guess the olive oil could do as much damage?).
Took me about 10 minutes to pull it all together with a little green salad at the side. Just brilliant. And the fish was superb, coming away from the bone without a murmur.
Given the resources online — especially those from many of you — and given my already considerable collection of food books, and clipped recipes, it’s a rare cookbook that entices me enough to spend money these days. It needs to offer something very special, a very clear point of difference: I’d hoped to find it in Kylie Kwong’s latest, My China, but was disappointed by the lightweight text. Movida: Spanish Culinary Adventures has caught my interest more; partly because I love the restaurant, partly because the recipes are so very appealing and accessible, partly because each recipe is prefaced with a small introduction that explains an element of the dish, or an associated tradition or memory. Beyond Nose to Tail, by British chef Fergus Henderson, has that X factor thanks to its considerable eccentricity and humour (“toss with conviction” is the suggestion in one recipe). And, offal lover that I am, it’s impossible not to be persuaded by recipes such as Confit Pig’s Cheek and Dandelion, and Chicken and Ox Tongue Pie.
But all that said, I find it fairly easy these days to avoid cookbook purchases. Am I the only one to feel this way? What new releases have lured you to part with $$?
Meanwhile, I’d love to be in a position to build on my semi-regular "Recipe Scout" — and to find a way to more effectively search it. I’m working on it.
Some interesting videos to be found here of British chef Heston Blumenthal's new series of In Search of Perfection. Take a look at the Behind-the-Scenes video, which shows what goes into a food show of this nature. Eat your heart out Jamie Oliver!
Bloody hell. Too long between posts, and apologies for the lack of Christmas and New Year’s cheer in my last rant. I have to say, it’s a time of year that, if you ask me, is vastly overrated. A high-pressure system waiting to explode.
On the eve of Christmas Eve I nearly belted a couple of carollers in a food court. Their’s would have been a silent night indeed if I’d let my bad temper out of the bag.
On Christmas Eve, as I have previously ranted, I joined the unseemly, gluttonous riot at the seafood markets.
On Boxing Day I discovered one of the city’s most exquisite and uncrowded beaches, Lady Bay Beach (or Lady Jane Beach) near Watsons Bay, a beach I should like to spend a great deal of time on — but for the leathery, wobbly naked men dangling their willies left, right and centre. The miserable, outrageously overpriced fish and chips my parents and I had at the Palace Hotel beer garden after our walk were not that much less off-putting.
On New Year’s Eve I collapsed with exhaustion and was in bed by 9.
On New Year’s Day I discovered the extent of my Christmas over-spending. I’ll be discovering it for some months to come.
But then there was Christmas Day. The first I’ve hosted. A palm tree with a few last-minute red and silver balls subbed in for an elaborately decorated conifer. A corked bottle of Billecart-Salmon laughed off with some good Australian riesling. A chaotic, rebelliously untraditional series of dishes through the day (my brother’s latest favourite recipe — his wonderful stuffed and fried zucchini flowers; a huge bowl of prawns with my mother’s special dressing; a whole baked ocean trout; salads; Aunt Mabel's Christmas pudding; my sister-in-law’s wicked Cherry-Ripe-style slice). Afternoon naps for all (but me toiling in the kitchen). A two-year-old niece who especially loved her aunt’s present: a miniature baking set of quiche pan, rolling pin and cookie cutters. A new nephew who nestled for an age in his grandfather’s arms.
And then there was New Year’s Day. A picnic in a park overlooking the Tasman Sea. My parents’ last day in town before heading home. A fine bottle of Billecart-Salmon and barbecued chicken torn off with our fingers and stuffed into white rolls with aioli. A grandfather walking hand-in-hand towards the sea with his granddaughter. ‘Pa,’ she calls him, really the designated term for her other grandfather, but no one’s arguing that point with her. And next year, the nephew will be getting to know more about him than simply the warmth of his heart.
And so to 2008: I hope to be here this year often — with thoughts, recipes, photographs, rants, whatever. I’ll do my best to be here often because doing this gives me nourishment I could never have imagined it would. But for me, it’s going to be a big, busier year and I hope you’ll keep stopping by to check up on me if I'm silent for a while.
As for you — I hope 2008 is your finest, rich with family and friendships, for those are the most important things, and full of triumphs large and small, stimulation and challenges, and good health, good deeds and, of course, good food.
