Everything Goes With Cream

Coffee (prices) in Brisbane

2011-10-14T13:49:00.004+11:00

I'm not particularly a snob or aficionado when it comes to coffee. I do drink soy, primarily because it doesn't make me feel sick, secondly because I like the taste (and I don't like the taste of milk), and also, it uses the processing of beans, rather than cows. But I do like and eat cheese and ice cream, and cream, with stuff (hello, everything goes with cream), so I'm not going to attempt a moral highground.

Anyway, in Brisbane, coffee and food is expensive compared to Melbourne, and when you are a soy drinker it's generally more so. To find a soy coffee for under $4 is a rarity, so, this post is one of a few that will tell you where I find coffees to be drinkable, good value, and such.

My #1 coffee in Brisbane right now, of the places my life takes me:

Cup 2 Go, coffee cart at Central station: $3.50 (takeaway only).

'no extra charge for soy, decaf or marshmallows!'

They have a cute sign out the front. They use merlo beans, which are probably my favourite beans in Brisbane, and they use the red/original Vitasoy, which these days has added calcium, yay. Most importantly, I really like their coffee, which is $3.50 for a normal size, or for a large keep cup, which I have. If you get a large paper cup it's $3.75. (Did you know you can get a medium coffee in a giant keep cup? The blue ones, anyway, have an 8oz line. I often use that.)

They also have a cute guy behind the counter, at least on Mondays (ahem, just the one, not like at the Frisky Goat). And a lovely girl who seems to be there most days. The staff are all really good, they know what they're doing and they are always pleasant. And, they are open reasonable hours, like, til, 4 or something, I don't know, but I once tried to get coffee with a friend at about 3:30pm, and everywhere in the city was closing. Wt.

Leavain Bakery

2011-09-07T12:07:00.000+10:00

I haven't actually been there yet, but this post is basically an ad for Leavain and their wonderful wonderful bread (and brownies). I really particularly enjoyed a spelt and walnut roll.

I've discovered Leavain through Jan Power's Farmers Markets in the city on Wednesdays. If you go there, you might see the Russian-seeming man that preaches something that sounds a bit like communism. I've also seen him at Central station.

Anyway, here's a link to a decent post on an interesting site - by someone that has actually been to Leavain. With a photo. :)

Just discovered

2011-08-23T23:02:00.000+10:00

Green & Black's, 85%.

Best chocolate ever.

(Someone told me something recently about the ownership of Green & Black's? something not good?)

Stanthorpe

2011-08-15T09:57:00.005+10:00

Stanthorpe is home to the Big Apple.

And dogs and cats, resident at wineries, cidery, cheese place, Jamworks, a lavender farm, a Bramble Patch, and such.

Most of these photos speak for themselves, I think, and maybe tell the story as well, of my weekend there a few weeks ago.

Sutton's cidery was the first place we went on a bright Saturday morning. Plenty of juices, apple brandy, as well as a dry and a semi sweet cider. I bought a bottle of semi sweet.

Those are real apples.

My favourite thing I bought in the whole weekend might have been the wooden board I got at the cheese place. Actually I wasn't blown away by the cheeses generally, and thought them a bit on the steep side, but that's probably just me. I did quite like cheese no. 2, Pepato, and bought a chunk of that.

After cheesing, we went to this liqueurs place, Castle Glen, which had about a billion kinds of liqueurs. To be honest I was a bit put off by the outside of the place. Look at it.

Summit wines (they had a restaurant and a cat. I saw neither)

Summit also have a delicious merlot and an insane chocolate port 'Cocovino' that tastes incredibly like Cottee's chocolate topping (too much for my taste).

I really do want to recommend, though, that you go to Felsberg. For the food and the view, even if you're not into wine. The haloumi was beautiful. The burger looked great, and the pizza did too.. and I sTILL want that cake. (One of our party was still full from breakfast, and didn't want to spend too much money, so decided on cake for lunch. Worked out well for her!)

The wine is great though. We got 6 bottles between a few of us, and were given a free bonus bottle. We chose the Gewürtztraminer because it was wonderful :) and drank it with lunch.

LOOK at that Ganache. Yes, with a capital G.

We thought it was pretty cute that when Miss S picked up her fork and spoon there was a stencilled... space.

In the garden at Felsberg

At Tobin you learn a lot from a passionate winemaker. I think you appreciate the wine all the more for it. It's a bit of a boutique place, where the grapes are handpicked and the merlot is intense. The wines are named after grandchildren :) I bought a bottle of the Luella Plum Cabernet for cellaring (or cupboarding).

The Jamworks bear. (Jamworks: relishes, chutneys, jams, curds everywhere. They didn't have their Apple Butter out for tasting but I bought some anyway on recommendation from a veteran Stanthorpe foodie tourist.)

The Bramble Patch.

In the rain. It was very beautiful, especially after what I felt had been a hectic weekend really. Trying to get to everywhere before they closed.

Below - Symphony Hill. I think they have wines there, too. Their sparkling chardonnay would certainly suggest so. They also had a great gewürztraminer.

Not sure I even got photos of the olive place (with the fudge place). By the way, this dog is not the dog from the top photo - the top photo's one was at the lavender farm, the bottom's is from Symphony Hill wines.

That box in the pic is half full compared to when I brought it home, by the way.

Stanthorpe is highly recommended.

P.S. Just saw a post from Deb on Smitten Kitchen about fruit butters - hers being peach butter - check it out, especially if you haven't met a fruit 'butter' before. I hadn't. (It has no butter, egg, or any opaque thing in it. More like a jam.) This peach butter looks rather good.
The thing about apple butter not having butter IN it is that you can have butter WITH it. Or, as I have yet to do, put it on a crepe with some icecream and fold the thing up. Mmm, would not mind some of that right now.

Calcium has two allotropes, says Wiki

2011-08-07T16:26:00.000+10:00

I've been thinking more about a few things, including propaganda of various kinds, particularly since the other day - we were standing at the bus stop and I made a joke about how a particularly plump bird nearby (not sure what kind it was) looked good to eat. Then I remembered that one of the friends I was with was vegan, and said sorry.

And he laughed, and said why should I be sorry, and something about being sorry for me because I was going to get bowel cancer from having rotting meat sitting in my bowel for 6 days at a time; a remark that sounded extremely like something out of Skinny Bitch. I was - maybe unreasonably - gobsmacked. I gave a shocked laugh and said I get plenty of fibre, water and exercise, thankyou very much, and I can't believe you just said that.

That was the best I could do at the time. But he seemed so AGGRESSIVE in that moment, and it actually really freaked me out.

This got me thinking about some value things. On my friend's blog, he has a recent post about some things that bother him about other vegans, and some omnivores' attitudes towards veganism. In another post, he also mentions not wanting to kill and maltreat animals 'just so I can eat'.
I want to make it clear that I have no problem with veganism - there are many things about it that I admire. And I hate the idea of 'factory farming'. But I take issue with the implication that people's eating is not important. I believe that whatever kind of diet you eat, and lifestyle you lead, somewhere high on the list of priorities should be health. Your own as well as the planet's and all the creatures on it. (And I mean HEALTH, not being skinny, which is popularly marketed as health.) And of course part of health is wellbeing, which doesn't come about by obsessing to the point of getting stressed and ranting at people.

Sometimes considering the ethics of eating, it occurs to me and other thinkers/writers that eating meat/animal products - and also eating plants - has shaped our evolution in some ways, such as the use vs. disuse of our appendix, the length of our intestines, and as the meat ads on TV say, something or other about the brain. But maybe if we are designed to eat meat, we need the nutrients we get from it, like B12 and heme iron? Of course it seems there are other ways of getting most things. For ages now, though, the dairy issue has fascinated me. Especially as more meat and dairy is consumed in countries where it hasn't previously been such a part of the culture.

And I am somewhat lactose intolerant, which has also contributed to investigations about this. (Ironic on a blog named as this is, I know.)

Anyway, I've read dairy propaganda and vegan propaganda. Everyone wants you to buy what they're selling. And it may be the academic in me, but when I see a reference from a journal called 'AnimaLife' or similar, it seems a little bit dubious. As is a reference from a meat or dairy association. And nearly all of them are, because if you've got a vested interest, you're going to do the research, aren't you, but you're also going to talk about the evidence that makes your point look good and the other irrelevant.

The cry goes round my mind, again and again, 'Are there no objective investigations into this?'

I have found a couple of pieces with a pretty neutral tone, that also make it possible to feel you understand the principle of the thing, because attempting to Wiki calcium just makes me wish I'd kept doing chemistry past year 11. Anyway, thank goodness for LiveStrong. Have a look. And also the tone of a level-headed Singaporean vegan, whose thoughts on the issue (of calcium and bones) make sense and are beautifully written and, actually, who has just posted today on why some vegans are so angry, which I'm not writing on today, but have been thinking about.

Also, can anyone else put the science of this calcium-leaching issue into a clear light? Or got a reference that explains it slowly and clearly?

P.S. My attitude, from my mum, remains 'everything in moderation.'

P.P.S Phrased differently, from my dad: 'The best diet is a good vegetarian diet. Plus meat.'

winter comes to an end again

2011-08-03T23:08:00.000+10:00

Not that I have anything seasonal to write about really.

Except I LOVE navel oranges in season.

This post, by the way, has no larger coherence. (Local coherence it has got. I know about this because of a doubly interesting talk I attended last year in a Research Methods class. But that is a tale for another time and place.)

Aaaand here is a goat.

My mum and dad came up to Brisbane, and we went to Childers for a visit. The dirt is red and amazing. It grows anything. (below see flowering.. peas?)

SUPER anything.

They've got macadamias, bananas, avocadoes, pineapples, pawpaws, mangoes, vegetables all over the place, and beautiful oranges and mandarins and enormous lemons. But check out the carrot. We took another photo of one next to my head - think that's on Mum's camera - and it was quite a thing to behold.

In other news, I am reading P.G. Wodehouse, and not just because Stephen Fry has also read him. I recommend! It has also got me almost interested in cricket. (Ha, that just put off any friend of mine who is reading. I mean it though... ) It's great writing and thoroughly enjoyable. Not that I know what 'good writing' is. But that is far too philosophical a topic for this blog, because you and I aren't at a table with a cup of tea and something comforting that I would need to stave off the headache that this topic would bring on. (I stand by my belief that Harry Potter is well written. The end.)

In other other news, I finally tried Campos coffee. It's so attractively presented that I just knew it would be good coffee. Error. Did not particularly enjoy. I'd rather have something I made myself, with beans either from Merlo, Grinders, Oxfam or Frisky Goat. (Not Lavazza! Does not combine well with soy milk.)

Umm.... yep. One of my friends went vegan for Lent and is now vegan. I went vegetarian for a few days because I was freaked out by both the amount of factory farmed meat in the house and the amount of time it spent out of the fridge, before spending twice as long in the fridge, before maybe being frozen for a week or several, then left out of the fridge for a day again to thaw, etc. before being fed to people. But the thing is, partly, I myself am by choice omnivorous (but I don't want meat every day, and generally not more than once a day), and more than that, I don't want to cook separate meals to the rest of the house. It just seems way antisocial. So I am back to sometimes vegetarian. And I buy free range eggs and don't use them all the time. And sometimes I cook vegetarian for the house. And it is grawesome.

Oh dear. This post has been a bit "Dear diary". Hope it's entertained you for a minute, anyway. I've had fun.

soul bistro

2011-06-30T22:08:00.002+10:00

I found this place at http://www.yourrestaurants.com.au/guide/soul_bistro/ and walking in, didn't expect too much.

WIN (as they say)

Here's their website. Do yourself a favour, Brisbanites, head over there sometime soon. Great service, delicious food (bread, not on the menu, OMG) (and apple crumble sundae, [gf] sounds weird I know but is anything but)!!!! The decor is not amazing and to use the toilet you have to get the key and go over elsewhere, but you win some, you lose some, this is excellent value. And they have a $28 three-course meal.

If you're too lazy to click on the link, it's BYO, it's at 5/16 Baroona Rd Milton.

couple of good things

2011-06-18T10:46:00.000+10:00

So I've just finished a coursework masters... in linguistics, which I love.

Just wanted to share a couple of great things:

A friend's music

Friend of a friend's writing from what seems like another planet, but also not

Interactive version of my life for the last couple of years (though more writing in English recently)

It's Ride to Work Day on the 12th of October

Makings of pear and almond flan from Consuming Passions.

I'm nuts about nuts, as you probably know. And I really have been after an almond and orange cake recently. Fingers crossed I'll be getting some today. Did you know that practically every recipe for flourless orange cake is the same one? It's in Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern Cookery book. I can just about remember it - 2 whole oranges, boiled for 2 hours, then cooled and mushed up in the food processor.. 250g caster sugar, 250g almonds, 1 tsp baking powder, 4 eggs or is it 6?. Pow!
Cooks for about an hour. That's how many times I've found this recipe.

Oh and one more thing. I stumbled on Frisky Goat Espresso yesterday after marvelling at my workmate's Frisky Goat paper cups for the last few months.
Coffee was nice, but I'm not a real snob. I enjoyed it all the more because of the attractive three manning the (kind of empty) deck... they, and the place, reminded me of home, though it was definitely Brisbane prices. They seemed to know what they were talking about, and they didn't laugh at me for soy, but instead chose a complementary coffee bean to match the flavour of the bean, as it were. AND they spelt my name right on the bottom of the cup. In arty handwriting.
All this being said, if you don't handle your caffeine well (and I thought I had increased my tolerance), go for small.

Procrastibaking

2011-06-06T16:24:00.000+10:00

And I haven't even got any photos. But any reader of this blog would probably smile to know that in the last 5 days or so I have made 2 cakes and I smile to know that they are both eaten (except for the pieces that we took to a certain grandmother's house, that will probably be on top of the fridge next week, growing mouldier by the day).

And I have been wanting to make a pecan pie for AGES. seriously months. And we've got all the ingredients. But that seems too heavy and needs an occasion. Yes it would be fine for it to BE the occasion, but cakes are quicker when you're trying to cull 3000 words from a study AND add a conclusion and limitations/further research section.

It's not even really procrasti- anything. (Saw [title of show] a couple of nights ago which inspired the title for this post.) (Though blogging is a bit of a procrastinatory tool, as you know.) It's more just stress relief - it's nice to be able to chuck something together and then have wonderful smells in the house and people telling me things are delicious and making me tea to go with them. (WHERE IS MY TEA? haven't had any today.) But at the moment I don't really feel like cake. Or floury/bready things, actually.

Is it truly Monday? Feels like Sunday.

Yeah, this post doesn't really go anywhere. But tell you what, I have nearly finished a Master of Arts.

choice of fat, bit of a rant (sorry about that)

2011-05-24T13:25:00.001+10:00

I like butter. Do not misunderstand me. Toast, pastry, crumbles, pancakes. YES.

But I am a Mediterranean girl at heart. I live with/for olive oil.

At the moment one of the people I live with cooks everything with butter. The assumption seems to be that if it tastes good, it is therefore evil, bingeworthy and made with butter. I caramelised some onions for a barbeque - for which I made those salads in the last post - and butterer was impressed and asked how I did it: just with butter?

NAY!!!! Go the evoo!

Onions, potatoes, pumpkin, rosemary, roast garlic, leeks, chicken, oogggggmmm ogm uhgrnm. (this is a throatier --> more realistic version of om nom nom)
What got me started on this today was my appreciation of salad dressing with decent vinegar and good oil. (Which happens to be imported from Italy. This I would not buy, but said butter-lover does not seem to have food miles or food ethics of any kind, really, on the radar. Coles tinned tomatoes from Italy, mineral water and olive oil from Italy, it pains me on my moral highchair. But Italian balsamic-olive oil blend tastes better than the nail-polish remover Coles white wine vinegar!) And sourdough dipped in evoo, like they give you complimentary at Tutto Bene.

So, darling reader, you sexy thing (did you love the Doctor calling the Tardis lady Sexy or what!!???), this is what I plan to cook tonight.

Chicken thighs (found in fridge, highly ethically dubious, but I want to use them before they have a chance to be extremely old, cooked and left on the stove for 24 hours, and fed to us with butter) WITH
chestnuts, olive oil, potatoes, rosemary and garlic (whole cloves) chucked in the oven and roasted. Salt and pepper, bien sur. May have to cover at some point to keep moist.
And leafy green salad. Possibly with some warmed bread on the side to mop up any juices.

Get some free-range (organic, I dare you) chicken and do the same. Tomorrow if not today.

PS. Do I use too many brackets in my blogwriting? What do you think?

last of the summer barbeques.. well autumn really.

2011-05-21T16:42:00.000+10:00

Potato, lemon and green olive.

These salads took me ages a few weeks ago. The beetroot one was popular.

That mush is actually delicious couscous with figs, grapes, almonds... and stuff.

Tabbouleh :)

farewell summer?

2011-05-21T11:10:00.000+10:00

Avocadoes are getting more expensive. And tomatoes are going out of season.

And as Clotilde says, the world doesn't really need another hommus recipe. But it's the internet. So you're getting one.

chickpeas! - dried. half a 375g bag (or 190g). soak for a while, all day or night.
bay leaf
onion, cut in half
COOK THE CHICKPEAS IN WATER WITH THE BAY LEAF AND ONION. tastes so much better than canned chickpeas.
then after a bjillion years (or a couple of hours) put the chickpeas in a food processor with a little bit of the cooking water. if you are like me, and you decide to cook chickpeas at 11pm, and then finish it in the morning, even better (the seasonings need adjusting when it's cooled) - just refrigerate the chickpeas and their water. together. in the pot you cooked them in. no need to dirty another pot.

so chickpeas and a few tablespoons of cooking water in the food processor WITH:
3+ cloves of garlic
cumin, ground - 1-2 tsp
couple of tablespoons tahini
juice of lemon - 1 lemon's worth, depending on size
salt (~1 tsp)
olive oil - you know, some. 1 - 3 tbsp? and drizzle some on top when you serve the hommus in a nice dish, because it deserves it. you can sprinkle some paprika on too if you want.

This is quite similar to Clotilde's recipe, but I stole it from Matthew Evans in the Good Weekend 'anyone can cook...' section before it became 'the weekend cook' and then ceased to exist, which was a shame because it was a real highlight. he wrote the nicest little blurbs. Then I made the recipe a few times, lost the recipe, and kept making it. So it's a bit more approximate than the original. Sometimes if you put the salt and the oil and the lemon juice and tahini all on top of each other it turns BLUE, which is insane. but that goes away.

You'll need to taste and adjust the seasonings when it's cooled. Most importantly, enjoy, and don't forget it's in the fridge, especially if you are the resident dip obsessee in your house and everyone else just doesn't think of eating it.

Nom, as they say these days.

great minds...

2011-05-05T17:26:00.000+10:00

Woo!!

Deb from Smitten Kitchen made an asparagus salad a lot like my zucchini salad, in principle and appearance, I think. Check it out.

I've got some stuff to come on a few salads, and hoummous, or hummus, or hommous, or hvmmvs. Isn't it weird how other languages have such a variety of spellings? and yet in English .. well, there's also a variety, but we tend to want to spell it the way we learned at school. It will always be colour, for me, and favourite, and don't try telling me the U is unnecessary. That's how I write down my national identity. And English is a mish mash of languages so its rules are stuffed anyway.

HOMMOUS.

something to share

2011-04-11T20:59:00.000+10:00

I don't know if you'd remember Consuming Passions. It was on tv years ago, in five-minute snippets, like Pingu, at 5:55 pm or some such time between half-hour shows. Ian Parmenter is the charmingest, daggiest man, with the coolest hair. At least he was then. I don't know what he's doing now.

A few years ago at home I discovered that we had a Consuming Passions cookbook. It has become one of my favourites, and nobody else has ever used it that I can tell. From it I have made homemade herb/ricotta ravioli with sage butter (DELICIOUS!!) and, a few times, a pear and almond flan, among other things. There isn't much in it that I don't want to make.

Check out the website. It's sort of devoid of pictures, and a bit out of date, but the recipes are great. He knows his stuff. And be sure to read the section 'About Consuming Passions'. :)

spontaneous late summer salad

2011-04-03T13:39:00.000+10:00

It's really autumn. I know that.

But it was one of these mornings, you see, when we had a conversation about breakfast that for me just went the wrong way. I am pro-breakfast. Gets your brain working, starts your metabolism whirring, turns on the engine, so to speak.

My friend who does not eat breakfast, because she thinks it will make her fat because she doesn't do any exercise (to which I say two things: 1, eating something - something small, an apple, a carrot, even! - will get you to start burning fat, and 2, just do some exercise, silly) likes to cook breakfast for other people. This weekend it was buttermilk pancakes. They were DELICIOUS. but feeling very obstinately pro-breaky, and also wanting to be use things up from the fridge to make space, and not knowing what to have with my pancake - I like to have fruit or yoghurt as opposed to lone syrup - I most unwisely dolloped the very buttery sugary remains of the other night's crumble. In light of the "breakfast will make you fat" conversation I felt the need to rebel and not only polish off the sugariness but also my other breakfasting friend's pancake (she was full).

While my body didn't seem to mind, my mind freaked out a little bit and that delicious breakfast weighed heavily on the brain (and perhaps later the love handles). I am a girl. Sometimes I feel guilty about food. Leave me alone.

Meanwhile, it was lunchtime. I read the clock wrongly and thought it was 2pm. There was no lettuce in the fridge. But after a heavy breakfast I wanted a light lunch.

Zucchini salad: amazing!

And I wouldn't normally bother, but this was so good I had to share it with you. You could bulk it up a little bit with a poached egg on top.

Serves 1 as a light lunch (or a nice side/entrée for 2-4)

1 zucchini, shaved with vegie peeler
shaved parmesan/romano/grana panado
small handful nuts of your choice - I used a mix of unsalted roasted hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds and pistachios
bit of fresh herb of some kind - I used parsley coz it was there
salt, pepper

dressing - makes or breaks the salad.
I just used the dressing in the fridge, as my non-breakfasty pro-cooking friend always makes some excellent dressing. This is what seems to be in the current one. This salad would be good with any decent dressing you like.

garlic clove, chopped
seedy mustard
salt
pepper
red wine vinegar
olive oil
dill?

Brisbane places

2011-02-19T21:13:00.001+11:00

Ha! Cleaning out the computer, look what I found. It's old news, but might be relevant.

I realised this morning that I’ve done very little reviewing since arriving in Brisbane early this year. So, here are some of the places I’ve enjoyed hanging out or feel the need to talk about in Brisbane.

BarMerlo UQ.
Those auspicious blue signs of coolness ground the SSH with the wonderful smell of coffee combining with the slightly odd scent of tech-hub in the library foyer. I have been slightly obsessed with the place since coming to the University of Queensland. The coffee is consistent, the food good. None of it especially cheap, but the beef sandwich is excellent ($7) which I treat myself to occasionally. But I think I have at last had enough of this place. I still like it, but the coffee doesn’t seem quite so amazing anymore (it used to seem DELICIOUS). Maybe it’s just me… I want a new hangout. Apparently the business school has good coffee, and I’ve had recommendations for Genie’s coffee as well. Anyone?

Punjabi Palace
Overpriced and overrated. I can’t really tell you my opinion of the food, because after everything I’d heard my expectations were unrealistically high. But the décor of the place is pretty sweet. Pity it’s so far from uni! Still, I’ll go back eventually with different expectations.

Curry Connection
A loveable, local and quiet Indian place. If you order the right thing, it’s a highly enjoyable experience. Don’t get the entrees – they’re nothing special, but I do recommend the lamb Subzi – Kashmiri spices. It’s perfect if you go there and get one curry between two, with a naan/roti, maybe some raita and rice. Of course, the more people, the more curries you can have! This was just the right amount for us to leave without feeling like we were going to explode.

My Heart Garden
The local vegetarian/vegan eatery. Almost always empty, I don’t know how they’re still open, but I’m glad they are. The coffee is nice and the staff are friendly, always happy to see you. I wasn’t blown away by the Not Sausage Roll, but their Saturday morning breakfasts are AMAZING. Especially the buckwheat pancakes. And you can just tell that everything is made with love.

Lorne and the Victorian floods

2011-02-17T00:28:00.000+11:00

Victoria flooded too. More than that though, because of all the water, there were about a billion times more mozzies and locusts than usual. SO MANY, especially inland.
We were at Lorne when it happened. They closed the Great Ocean Road, just after Lorne, luckily for us. Rockfall on the road made me glad later we hadn't been driving.

We had a good rainy week. Maybe rainier than preferable, but still a good week.

Dog's not mine, by the way.

This cockatoo was cheeky AS.

Actually for my taste we went to too many nice restaurants. One or maybe two in a week is pretty special. Once or twice a month.. you know, spread it out over the year, instead of all times in one week. But anyway. It does take away any order anxiety you might have.

Tree of red!

River tea house. That's not me. Yet.

At the end of the week, the sun came out.
:)

Oh, fruit cake!

2011-02-15T23:36:00.000+11:00

Some things are just inherently special.

summer: 10-11 in Melbourne

2011-02-15T23:28:00.000+11:00

Home grown

2010-12-07T00:40:00.001+11:00

Rhubarb.

Rhubarb leaf. Harmless uningested!

Giant Lemon.

Old apples.

...put to good use with rhubarb and a bit of lemon rind.

Deliciously ugly.

New (for me)

2010-12-07T00:19:00.002+11:00

So, I have at last discovered poached eggs. For the first time ever last weekend in Hardware Lane, in one of approximately 3 cafes that were open on a Sunday, I tried Eggs Benedict. (Just in time for my discovery of the masterful delivery of Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock . Well, really I should say Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, but Cumberbatch does pull it off in such a way. As does Martin Freeman, as Watson.)

Anyway. So then I had to make Eggs Benedict, didn't I? (Well, I only wanted one egg. So Egg Benedict.) Except it was Florentine. But I thought of Benedict anyway.
We had spinach in the garden, and hollandaise in the fridge, and I obtained some muffins.
My problem with poaching eggs has been that they go to the bottom, get stuck, and then the yolk breaks and leaks all the way to the plate! But apparently I wasn't using enough water.
Practice will make perfect.

Vicious as a sponge.

2010-11-17T13:22:00.000+11:00

So, I'm still bubbling around in existence. Been busy with uni and other commitments, including singing in various ensembles around the town.

And this morning I somehow found myself ingesting a quarter of a sponge cake. With blueberries. And cream, of course. It's soft, naturally, and meringue-like, this sponge. The first I've made away from home, and the first to this recipe of Maggie's that my mum has had great success with in the past. And it's gluten-free.
I won't lie. While I was assembling the line-up of ingredients, I was thinking about how people say sponges are hard, and they really aren't. But then I opened the oven door too early and it was a bit of a flop.
Not to worry. A blueberries-and-cream sandwich isn't going to be unpopular, even if it doesn't rise as far as you wanted.
Make sure you put the sugar in with the egg whites at the start, if you make this. I forgot to do so, and it might have helped. I had intended to make it for a group of people that includes a coeliac, and so I was ultra particular about getting things that had no chance of gluten in them. This led me to buy 'Pure Cream' instead of thickened, which is my usual default for whipping cream. What a revelation! It whips really fast. And it's so runny to begin with. I recommend trying it sometime, because it's interesting. Maybe sad that this is the case, but all the same..
Would go nicely with a cup of tea.

Because I'm at it, now, I'd like to share with you some thoughts about people and cakes:
People can often be grouped by what kinds of cakes they prefer in terms mainly of texture. And sweetness, perhaps. And I may offend. I don't mean to, but neither am I aiming for particular political correctness. In fact if your opinion differs, please comment- I'd love a second or third opinion. Which group/s are you in?

Light, fluffy cakes: People whose mums make these sort of cakes. Often descended from CWA schools. Includes sponge fans and pav fans. If you are one of these, please also like whipped cream. (Real, not fake.) If you are one of these and do not like cream, chances are you don't mind packet mix. I'm sorry for you, but get out.

Fruitcake: People also tend to be categorical about whether or not they like fruit cake. For some it's an acquired taste. I acquired it at some point over the last 7 years. One can prefer fruit cake groggy and dense (see next point), or lighter.. in which case, you might like sultana cake without liking fruit cake so much. Or you may like neither. That's ok.

Dense cakes: YAY. This is me. Flourless cakes are here, anything involving nut meal (dacquoise not included - that's under "light, fluffy." May not like it too sweet, but texture is important.. and when it comes to chocolate, fans hereof prefer mudcake to fluffy Sara Lee "chocolate" cake. Dense cake lovers like chocolatey chocolate cakes, not brown fluff pretending to be chocolate.

Cheesecake: Cheesecake lovers often tend to categorically love all things chocolate. Sometimes they place high importance on the icing of other cakes (maybe this comes from a childhood of shop-bought things where the cake tasted/felt like plastic and the icing was the only part to have any taste?) I am not really a cheesecake person and don't really understand it. Are you also more likely to enjoy chocolate croissants? What about doughnuts?

Chocolate cakes: Nobody dislikes all chocolate cake. Chocolate cake really deserves another section of its own, about how people like theirs. Then again, chocolate cake preferences probably fit quite nicely into the above 4 categories. Yes, chocolate fruit cake does exist. It is delicious.

Icing lovers: See cheesecake. If this is you, try not to be offended. Also: to marzipan or not to marzipan? I suspect that often, true dense-cake lovers like marzipan. Maybe. Certainly stollen fans do.

October, what?

2010-10-14T19:33:00.000+11:00

Just went home for a 5-day weekend. I needed it.

A good orange cake

2010-09-22T19:05:00.000+10:00

Problem is, I didn't use a recipe, nor measuring cups, spoons... and my camera is on holiday!

Anyway, friends approve. So here is what I did.

~60g butter
~2/3 cup sugar (raw is good)
Rind of 1 orange, or 1/2 a giant orange
~2/3 cup plain yoghurt
~2 tbsp oil
~50g almond meal
2 eggs
pinch ground ginger
~1/2 cup SR flour
~1/3 cup plain flour

Cream butter, sugar and rind.
Mix in the wet stuff and almond meal, combining well (no little bits of egg).
Fold in flour.
Bake 20+ minutes depending on your tin. In a moderate oven.

Study company

2010-08-20T12:32:00.000+10:00

When you're sitting at a desk all day reading and analysing stuff, and occasionally writing, it's nice to have something keep you company. I like a bit of music now and then - preferably not things that you've performed or studied, because then you focus on that instead - and of course, a hot-water-based beverage.

It's better to stick to one coffee and/or one or two cups of tea a day, because that feels better than more. But I still want a hot drink. One day I just put cinnamon in boiling water. It was good - simple, and better than many herbal 'teas,' or 'infusions' as the French more honestly call them.

And then there was a ripe pear. Overripe for my taste: soft.

Apple green tea

The best fruit tea/infusion ever:

Cut off some juicy pear over a cup (you don't want to miss the juice that will drip out) and pour hot water over it. Sprinkle cinnamon over if you like. Put the pear aside for later.
Leave until drinkable temperature, and stir if you want the pear to come through sooner.

And you get to eat the fruit at the bottom :)

Also excellent with green tea, especially if you like green tea weak and can therefore get two cups or more out of a green tea bag.
Apple is good too.
Also, cinnamon and orange peel.. what else could you do?

Days like this

2010-08-09T15:37:00.000+10:00

I'm sure that at least some of the people reading this blog would know what I'm talking about.

Food, eating, problem, thinking. Exercising perhaps.. and just consuming a bit less.

Fine for many, many people in the world.

For many others, less so.

If someone ever recovers from an 'eating disorder,' which at its core is less about eating than other, maybe more vital things inside - the kind that make life worth living -
If total recovery is possible, what does it look like?

I'm writing to say, if you ever eat two normal lunches' worth of lunch or dinners' worth of dinner and then feel guilty, and then feel guilty for feeling guilty because you're meant to be over that, and because it's indulging yourself in a weird torment, and you consider then eating more (as if that would help)
it will pass. Don't overcompensate. There are better ways to spend the day.

And there are so many people doing exactly the same thing, right now. Let them do the worry. You just get on with life; it will forgive us all if we let it.

A good holiday. 2: Indonesia

2010-08-06T18:53:00.008+10:00

We went to Bali, Lembongan and Java.
The coffee is good everywhere, although at Lembongan they also had Nescafé. As the kids say these days, fail.
Java had the best pisang goreng. As I mentioned in a previous post, their bananas taste brightly coloured - in fact, they look brightly coloured - and are almost sour.Indonesia has tiny bananas!
We had fresh guava juice.. my life is changed for the better. I also discovered manggis (mangosteen). Wow.

My favourite place was this little village in Java.They farm cassava and corn, among other things. I didn't know until we went there that tapioca is made from cassava! We saw how they make cassava crackers (like prawn crackers). It's a highly manual, labour-intensive process.This is the bank, apparently. Why aren't Australian bankers as cute?That lady with the basket of cassava isn't wearing shoes.

It was nice to be somewhere people don't have Internet. Or running water, I think.. -to wash her hands, our host got the water from a well.
One of my best holidays in a while. :)

Lazy bakey cakey

2010-08-05T14:33:00.006+10:00

So. I collected 3.6 smallish (for Australian) bananas to sit on the table.

Made a chocolate cake using two of my housemate's eggs. That she bought from the supermarket. Chook eggs. And some of her cream for the icing (about 2tbsp worth, because it was a ganache that I wanted to set but not be straight chocolate that would fall off when you try to eat it). And a college neighbour's loaf tin.

The 3.6 bananas were now the perfect spottiness.

What would you do?

I know you can freeze peeled bananas, but they're sort of weird when you thaw them. All the water comes out and they look, well, strange.

I wasn't going to steal any more eggs - in fact, didn't really want to use them because they are evil cage eggs.

The solution, of course, was to make another cake: marvellous, amazing, incredible eggless banana bread, courtesy of Archana's Kitchen.

Deliciously ugly.

It's not quite like anything else. Quite dense, strong/bright sort of flavour, slightly chewy crust with a slight sticky date flavour. Excellent warm. Probably not for the faint-hearted sponge lovers (don't get me wrong, I like a good sponge) or those who don't like banana.
Actually, what I mean by calling it a 'bright' flavour is that it's got character to it, a bit of bite. Bold flavour, that's the word. It reminds me thus of pisang goreng in Java, where the bananas are sweet and a little bit sour, like a still-firm mango.

So recipe for eggless bananana bread, based on Archana's:

1.5 cups flour
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar of some description (I used raw)
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup melted butter (~60g)
1 cup mashed banana
1 cup yoghurt (I used milk mixed with vinegar)
1/4 cup rough-chopped nuts, seeds, or weapons of your choice
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (I had none :( )

You know what to do! Mix it all together
(instructions:
Combine melted butter with sugar, mix till smooth.
Add the sloppy ingredients (banana, yoghurt, vanilla), mix around a bit.
Add the other stuff and mix through, trying not to overmix unless you feel like a rubbery cake.)and bake in a prepared vessel at 180C/350F until cooked. Depending on the tin, probably 35-50 minutes or so. Be aware that it's quite moist, so will leave evidence of itself on any testing implement, but not huge amounts of thickened batter.

A good holiday. 1: Spainelaide

2010-07-28T22:39:00.004+10:00

A good holiday is what I just had, and in it, I hardly touched a computer. So.

I first went home to Melbs. No photos there.. in fact, I had hardly any time there because we spent most of it in the country with my grandparents, who are STILL getting older (which may well be better than the alternative? But it's sad when any brain decides to go a bit funny and confuse itself).

But then, I went to Adelaide and met some amazing people. Extreme nerds, most of them, in one way or another. Mainly all in the same way, heartily including myself.
Did you know that Adelaide has SUPER pelicans? They are enormous!
I stayed with a half-Spanish family, which reminded me more than anything ever has of France. The mum and daughter have the same first name - the daughter reckons being at their house is just like being in Spain - and we ate Spanish food.Paella!
Apparently in Spain, they fight for the bits of toasted/burnt rice on the bottom of the pan. Not everyone likes them... mmm, a very enjoyable experience. We had some nice wine too, but the best part was sitting around the table feeling like part of a large Spanish family.

emergency post

2010-06-19T18:26:00.003+10:00

With 2500 words due on Monday, and a sister arriving in town in 53 minutes, and a full day tomorrow, there has never been a better time to blog.

1. Vegetables and simplicity. Beauty.
Eating college food is teaching me to appreciate what I can get. Tonight, said sister arriving, I'll be eating with her, but thought I'd have a few vegies in the meantime (it's a nice chance to have a study break and socialise with people too).
Shredded iceberg lettuce, steamed baby peas and carrot (just boiled carrot discs) with pepper and a small squirt of salad dressing. I don't know what is in the dressing, if anything, other than white vinegar, oil and salt. But this was delici.
And pieces of capsicum with grated carrot to go with some desecrated coleslaw like the tiny hacked up coleslaw you get from the supermarket. Not bad.

2. Pizza Capers tonight! They're pretty unique. If you're not from Brisbane, and you find yourself there one night with nothing to eat, and you want something takeaway, find a Pizza Capers.

3. Rant.
New sign up in the college kitchen:
MEAT IS FOR MEAT EATERS ONLY. Vegetarians please stick to your vegetarian option. Thank you one & all, College Kitchen.

Replacing old sign:
Vegetarian food is for vegetarian's only. Please keep to your meat choices. Thanks one & all.
(Yes, that comma was on the sign.)

I'm going to complain. I mainly stick to the vegetarian food at college, partly for environmental reasons, partly for health (meat 2 times a day x 7 days a week isn't good for anyone) and partly because it's not as bad as the meat most of the time. Sometimes it's awful. Like when they give you the same stir-fry for lunch, dinner and lunch, and then dinner is deep fried frozen vegie burgers. And the stir-fry isn't even good.

Mind you, it is a pain when you find out there was felafel for lunch, and now it's all gone because everyone wants felafel because it's amazing. The moral of the story, however, is not 'Eat only vegetarian options' or 'Eat only meat options' but 'Make more felafel.'

Now.. how much can I write in the next 15 minutes?

P.S. Latest creation, using up things in the flat, was surprisingly very very good.

80g butter
1/3 cup raw sugar (creamed with butter)
1 egg (the other one was cracked :( )
1/3 apple, grated (because the sugar ran out... pink lady was what I used)
tbsp honey (all I had)
2 carrots, grated (it was meant to be some sort of carrot cake)
1/4 cup almond meal :)
1 1/3 cup SR flour
shake of mixed spice
2 shakes ground ginger
handful of sultanas
some milk (as much as it takes to get a cake batter consistency)
walnuts on top

Bake as long as it takes to do the dishes. Or until it looks done and doesn't leave itself on the knife, or skewer if you're lucky. Texture is divine, especially when hot.

Actually inspired by the first time they made muffins at Graduate House breakfast.

P.P.S.
This is my 61st post. If you're interested. I was surprised there were so many.

time for another ode to something particularly good

2010-06-03T12:36:00.003+10:00

O Calci-plus, how I love thee.
Finest coffee makest ye
Slightly sweet, and roasted nutty
Rich, creamy luxury.

O Calci-plus! why dost thou go
in price most high to 3.0?
And yet thou knowest, as I know
To buy my prized one, I'll still go.

O Calci-plus, they laugh at us,
the dairy-drinking think it's suss,
so know not what they miss, or thus
the pleasures of my Calci-plus.

still going... phase?

2010-06-02T09:43:00.003+10:00

I'm getting bored of sugar.
Why is it in everything I make?
Why is it in everything I eat?

Am I getting tired of baking?
I love, love, love the smell of things in the oven.
But eating it just seems dull. Everything seems a bit the same.

Am I getting bored with cake? and biscuits?
Yes. I'm afraid the answer is yes. Only eating it for the guilt addiction.

How long will this last?

Maybe I just need to make a tart.

No - to make wonderful salads. And savoury things with spices.
Meh.

The thing is, lately I feel more like myself. Happier. This is good.

I care less about food. I'm only obsessing now out of habit, and academic-like interest.. not because I want to eat it. I've even gone off yoghurt - it was making me feel a bit strange.

So, world, what's going on?

she bringeth good tidings to Brisbane

2010-05-25T09:41:00.003+10:00

Not only is the Messiah being played on at least 22 sets of speakers around Brisbane, and to be sung/played in extremely fine concert at St John's Cathedral on Ann St at 7:30pm this coming Saturday the 29th of June, *ahem* but..

Thanks to a friend of a friend, I've discovered Sol Breads in Toowong. An organic sourdough place. This is real bread! In Melbourne I always wished we had a bakery near us that made decent bread. There were a couple of chains, and that was it. To get better stuff, I didn't know of anywhere closer than.. well, I guess I could have gone to the deli. I like Phillippa's.

Anyway, Sol is more expensive than your average supermarket bread, but also highly superior. I paid $6.50 for a very decent fruit loaf, which is cheaper than at the Bean Scene (quite a different sort of bread), my choice source of fruit bread, which probably merits a post of its own, and I'll take some photos.

Sol is also a cafe (yay), with sandwiches and cakes and such. Coffee, of course. All looks good. And did I mention, it's tiny. Like an overgrown cupboard. Made me feel very cool going in there, though also means you can't escape the notice of the shopkeepers, and I thus felt compelled to buy something. It's probably a clever design in that way.
I have no regrets.

8/23-29 High St, Toowong
http://ishop.solbreads.com.au/

the Word

2010-05-21T09:07:00.003+10:00

I've been doing a subject at uni about the development of the English language - the history and the spread of it.

Apart from admiration for the language, and horror at its ability to dominate/kill other languages - and it's not survival of the fittest language, by the way, but survival of the culture with the most force in any place who says 'Now I am King of your country' and sticks by it long enough -

Actually I'm writing out of appreciation for fine things English, which undeniably exist.

Handel's Messiah, namely.
Fittingly with the history of English, Handel was German. But he sort of became English. Very representative.

GREAT.
(was the company of the preachers, great was the company of the preachers, of the preachers.)

I here express my fervent admiration for other things British:

Toast and marmalade
Tea (English/Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey)
Tea (the event, as in afternoon tea, Devonshire tea..)
Scones!! With jam and cream. Ohhhhh.
Teacake
Crumpets, with butter and honey
Porridge

A willingness to try Vegemite and keep eating it. No other culture would do that.

And, of course, Harry Potter. And Shakespeare, and Keats, but this isn't meant to be an exhaustive list.

And the culture that among many things, good and bad, is responsible for this.

pondering

2010-05-20T10:03:00.006+10:00

I'm reading this book at the moment. Because I love his writing.It has reminded me of a conviction I had already - not to eat meat if ever in America, because it's not safe, if for nothing else. And because it's not real meat.
I'm not an angry vegan, and decidedly not an activist. I am undecided on many things, however.
Generally, it seems like humans are omnivores.
I am sure that in Australia most people eat more meat than we need.

I don't know what farming constitutes these days, though. In Australia.
I do know that every time I read about vegetarianism, farming etc., I remember seeing my Grandad and two of my uncles, all sheep farmers, race to kill and gut three sheep. And I know what kind of lives those animals got, and for me it would have been a bit boring, but for a sheep it might have been all right. They just ate all day.
I've ridden my bike through a few areas of Victoria and seen cows all over the place. And smelt them, when I couldn't see them. Moo.
But when we drive past Hazeldene's chicken farm in NW Victoria, I never see any birds. Hm.

For me, the issue is excess versus balance. In consuming, in waste. In exercise and thinking about food, being fat or skinny. In expecting to eat meat and eggs three meals a day. Or never, and why. In information overload. Do we need milk, or do we not? Who do I believe?

Added: Some writing from Choice. I found this pretty good.
'Organic'
Chicken farming in Australia
'Free range'

And particularly this one, for those who really want eggs and are prepared to pay a bit more and buy a few less.

Home made.

2010-04-09T09:08:00.004+10:00

When I grow up, if there is a world by then, I am having chooks.
Not giving birth to chooks.
But if I live in Australia, or somewhere people have yards, if yards exist by then, I want a couple of chookens.

Just had the most amazing egg for breakfast, from my aunt & uncle's chooks on their farm in country Victoria.
I don't even eat eggs for breakfast.
I'd forgotten how to eat a soft boiled egg, and cracked it on the edge of the plate. Then I remembered you can scoop it out with a spoon, like we used to have eggy-in-an-egg-cup.

The egg broke open and the yolk ran all over the toast, and I was standing there dumb. The white was so white! and so fine..
there was mustard on the toast, but I couldn't see it anymore.
A little bit of fetta, salt and pepper.

This must be why people order eggs.
Think I'll keep this experience for home.

settling slowly, and bananacakesuccess

2010-03-29T17:25:00.007+11:00

We don't have these trees in Melbourne.

Having changed location this year, it's taking a little while to get settled in. Moving creates different kinds of crises, and incurs cake-making.

And I have finally DONE IT, made a banana cake that really pleased me. (It's not really the first time, but as I haven't followed an exact recipe for banana cake in a while..)

Banana cake as it should be:
Because an anonymous flatmate (I don't know who) felt the love to cover it.

After one day, this is how it should look:
This is how I know it wasn't just me. It is good. This is the word of the Melbourne flat.

While I didn't have the book in front of me, I did use a recipe that comes from a book. I'm sure the lady who put it in there won't mind me sharing.

BANANA CAKE from the Boort Fiesta Cook Book
3 overripe bananas, mashed
60g butter
1 cup sugar (this is too sweet for me, I use 2/3 cup)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg
1/2 tsp bi-carb soda, dissolved in 2 tbsp milk
1 1/2 tsp baking powder (ish)
1 1/2 cups flour
handful of sultanas and walnuts

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla. Add egg, beat til smooth.
Add everything else. Make sure it's all mixed together, without beating the life out of it.
Bake at 180 C for about 50 minutes, depending on your oven and the tin you're using.
At home (yes, it's a Mum recipe) we use a biggish loaf tin. Here I used the only tin I have, which is in fact not mine or even a resident in my flat, but is a borrowed tin. It's round. It was a HUGE SUCCESS.
I didn't have walnuts, but this meant I got to use up some cashews/pepitas/sunflower seeds that weren't going to get eaten. Toasted them in the preheating oven and chucked them in at the end. Yum!

culinary prototypes

2010-03-23T20:06:00.002+11:00

Continuing with the nostalgic theme and eating a Golden Delicious, which used to be my favourite kind of apple, it became clear that "apple" now first evokes the image of a Pink Lady - a miniscule of a second before just meaning any apple, which to me is a Jonathan, Granny Smith, Akane, Gala, Fuji, Golden Delicious, or (hopefully not) Red Delicious... all those fruits that are sweet with varying bite/sourness, crunch, colour outside on a thin skin, whiteish flesh.

Of course, then there is cooked apple, which for me means Granny Smith, and which is green when it's cooked. (It's an appropriate name if you consider that for many, Granny Smiths are purely for cooking, and have that wonderful grandmotherliness of apple crumble, apple cake/slice, apple sponge, etc. or just stewed apple. Mmm.)

Further in this linguistic vein, did you know that 'apple' just used to mean fruit? And then at some stage.. I think it was due to the Norman conquest and the French introduction of the word 'fruit' (not sure what happened with 'pomme') that then the meaning of 'apple' narrowed to refer only to that particular fruit we now know as the apple.

Apples go with cream. It's approaching that season.

Food Love

2010-03-22T17:06:00.004+11:00

Apparently I am a nostalgic person. I love being nostalgic, and also happen to have a good memory for food.

I was just eating half a banana muffin (wholemeal and homemade, of course) practicing restraint, after an unrestrained few days that were really quite excessive. I ate two teaspoons of ice cream with the muffin and it was delicious, which brought me to thinking nostalgically.

The ice cream I bought when I wanted my college apartment to feel like home: Bulla Vanilla, 4 litres. It should last a while, depending who comes over.
We always used to buy the same ice cream, Peters Original and it was the Best. Then they 'improved' the recipe, so now it's Original with New Improved Recipe. Hm. New Improved recipe tastes and feels like marshmallow, sweet, gooey and empty. I seem to recall my dad reading out that the first two ingredients were sugar and water, then milk, or something like that.
So now we always buy Bulla ice cream. It's not for any amazing culinary sophistication. It just tastes like ice cream.

Lamingtons. Grandma makes them. Also in this category:
Sponge cakes, sponge kisses, jelly cakes, fruit cake (Christmas, weddings, and big birthdays), sultana cake, apricot jam, pav.

Apple cake/slice from Nanna, and cassata
Corned beef, sigh. I've never liked it much.

Marmalade!! I love marmalade.
Nanna always has marmalade on toast for breakfast, with a cup of tea, and I always think of her when I have it. I also can't help thinking of Mum, who makes THE grapefruit marmalade of the world.

Speaking of citrus, the whole-orange syrup cake from Women's Weekly Cakes and Slices cookbook has high sentimental value for me. The two boys I love most in the world have both made it on separate occasions: my brother, who made it first, and a non-family member, who has made it enough times in quick succession to make up for not having made it first.

Yo-yo biscuits and ANZACs always make me think of Mum.
As do cheese and chutney hot sandwiches. Made traditionally at our house with Colby and Rosella fruit chutney (known originally as cheese and children's chutney).
Also, I always think of Mum when I make a pavlova. We always hide a little layer of banana under the cream, and strawberries normally go on top.

And, not with any necessarily personal association...
Vegemite (derr). Is not vegemite on toast such an Aussie comfort food?
I have had fantastic palmiers with Vegemite and parmesan, too. Don't knock it until you try it. And in fact, I'm pretty sure these will always remind me of the friend who has made them twice recently.

Patty cakes. Vanilla. Choc chips optional. The best are made by my sister. They are what a cupcake should be.

I could go on for a long time. Potato flan... lemon slice... Blue Castello... you know.

:)

It's raining again

2010-03-06T11:36:00.004+11:00

Dear world,
Please forgive the incoherence of this post.

I've moved interstate for the year. It rains a lot here at the moment.
I've worn a jumper once in the last month.
My enthusiasm for food has changed over the last while. Perhaps my attitude has become healthier? Maybe it hasn't changed at all. But the food fascination is definitely of a nature I'm happier with.

Anyway, while I still love food, I've been enjoying it over the summer in simple ways. Often nostalgically.

With the arrival of autumn, I felt a strong desire to make this apple and date cake from such a lovely honest blog.
I don't peel the apples, and I reduced the sugar to 3/4 cup and omitted the topping, and it is dense sweet meltingness - as much as you could want. Next time I'll try 2/3 or even 1/2 cup of sugar.
It is a wonderful cake. Perfect with cream or not-too-sweet vanilla icecream.

Meanwhile, I think the most exciting role of food for me at the moment is with a bunch of friends around.
Even if it is a giant, ugly, delicious pot of non-authentic curry.
It's supPOSEd to be green. It was extremely yum.

more from december: bakery tour no. 2

2010-01-02T16:07:00.017+11:00

Well! Guess what I forgot to mention before going on holiday in December.

Early in the month, it was a very wet day for a walking bakery tour, but we'd already postponed so many times that it HAD to run. So I brought my car, and the 5 of us ventured (..rolled) across to Fitzroy, its north, and Collingwood.

Stop no. 1 was the French Lettuce, Nicholson St. I can't vouch for all the vanilla slices in Melbourne - probably have only tried three or four in my life, but this was very good. Better than Louttit Bay's? I can't say, but on par. It was about $5, slightly more expensive than LB, and served with a raspberry coulis that it was really better without. Delicious, anyhow.
Apparently their quiche was excellent. The pastries all looked appealing.

Next stop was Nicholson St Baker, up in eastern Brunswick. We were also looking for Inferno Cakes next door, which turned out to be upstairs because it was the same shop.
I didn't get many photos, but we tried a vanilla cupcake with lemon icing that was heated up, which was buttery, smooth and not too fluffy - divine!! and there was a date and caramel slice that I thought was pretty standard. Also a decent sausage roll, I think.
Then we drove around in circles for ages making wrong turns, parked off Smith St and crossed Alexandra Pde to get back to Sainsbury's. Hooray for the little green man! *eeooooobupbupbupbupbupbupbupbupbup*
It was worth the trip. Not for M.M's chicken pie, which was perfect other than being too heavy on the pepper, or for the reportedly average coffee, but for my loaf of Norwegian Rye. There it is in its little bag down there.
I had this with pesto, marinated fetta and cherry tomatoes about a year ago at Doctor Java, fell head over heels, and then like a shy fool, left. But the next time I was there having coffee, I plucked up the nerve to ask what the bread was and have since then been on a mission to Sainsbury's.
This with avocado makes me a happy toast eater. I had some for lunch at home the next day. The rest of the loaf went into the freezer, where I expected to find it on return from Brisbane. Not so! Mum and Dad had polished it all off.
The portuguese tarts are apparently famous and delicious. Next time I'll have to sample one.
En route down Smith to Gertrude St, we passed a couple of nice-looking bakery cafes. We stopped for a late lunch for some of the party at Upper Crust, 206 Smith, where we found a chicken sandwich that by all accounts of its eater hit the spot.
I wished I'd had room for something from Melissa, but you can't eat everything.
And last on the list: Fatto a Mano, on Gertrude St, just off Smith - a couple of doors up from Birdman Eating.
I can't wait to come back here for lunch!
This time we came for $3 (thievery!!) brownie, on recommendation from my sister. Very generous, and not bad at all.
I wouldn't come here for the atmosphere, by the way. It reminds me of a fish and chip chop à la eclectic Fitzroy. But the people running it are lovely and the food honest and good.

Finally, about the same time - the day before heading off to Bris - raspberry yoghurt cake, chez moi. Recipe courtesy of Clotilde at C & Z, the blog that made me want to food blog. She actually has a recipe up for a raspberry yoghurt cake but I just used the plain one and chucked in about 250g of raspberries. And then cream cheese icing with a fair dose of lemon juice.
My sister said this was the best cake she had ever had!

December goes with cream: the mango files, and Christmas

2009-12-27T12:37:00.004+11:00

I had a nice couple of weeks staying with my family-out-of-law this month. It was interesting to experience the lead-up to Christmas in someone else's house, and the way all this pressure and anticipation of family arriving and wanting your normal existence to go on while planning for a celebration kind of.. affects the dynamics of a house and of a bunch of people.
One thing I noticed early on: what happens with the politics of mangoes up here (in Brisbane)?

Some families have traditions of gifting mangoes to each other when part of the family lives in north Queensland, and those mangoes stay in the family. A friend of mine felt proud ownership of and looked forward to eating a couple of mangoes cheap at the fruit shop when price had since gone up. The friend's housemate, from Darwin, would have put mango in everything if it were feasible and paid us to get a box of them from the markets.

During my two weeks surrounded by the things (there were three boxes ripening outside the room where I slept), I learned to like them plain, though accompanying other things is still my preference.

Christmas may or may not get a post. We shall see you soon, though...

Well well well.

2009-11-24T17:37:00.002+11:00

It's been a busy year. My first year studying in a new field.
A fanTAStic year!

And now it's holidays. Photos will be taken, and may make their way onto this blog.
There hasn't been much cream this year, actually.

I miss the Food Co-op.
Everyone at Melbourne made fun of me for talking about Wholefoods, because I connected it in my head with Wholefoods at Monash. But no, it's the Food Co-op. So last night I made dahl, and today lunch was a regal peanut butter and salad sandwich. Peanut butter (the good stuff, please), lettuce, tomato, cucumber, beetroot - ours was canned, so I sliced it into thin discs - and a fair pile of grated carrot. And salt and pepper, that I should have put in between the tomato and cucumber.

Don't you love sandwiches?

Plans for bloggable events this summer:

Mystery items along the Great Ocean Road... hopefully some decent cake. And maybe wine?

"Mangomisu" from December's delicious. Or some version of mango trifle.

More peanut butter and salad sandwiches, when my camera battery is charged.

Oh. Also from delicious, HOMEMADE CRUMPETS!!!!!

An old post that I just found

2009-10-15T09:32:00.002+11:00

King Parrot at Kallista Tea Rooms in the Dandenongs. Beautiful place on Monbulk Road. This is where about a year ago, I had the most amazing 'apple teacake' in the world. But when I went there a couple of weeks ago, I had some 'blood orange and chocolate' cake that was stale and boring. Pretty sure this was an anomaly though.. might have to go back and check. I would dearly love to post the kiwi, strawberry and mascarpone tart that my Nanna got - it was incredible!

just adoring

2009-10-07T09:43:00.007+11:00

Last week, one of my favourite people came to visit. (No, not a peacock. They're always there.)
It was important that we go, as well as Babka and Kallista, to Montsalvat.
Good coffee have they at Montsalvat. Not to mention all of this.
Love!

spring eating

2009-10-06T23:42:00.009+11:00

Never mind cleaning. That's for later, when there is not quite so much to do.I didn't get to Dali. I don't really mind, at the moment.

Oh, Babka. I may not have loved your dumplings nearly a year ago, but still you have such a special place in my heart. In my mouth.
Luscious casual arrangement of green divinity!!

In case you're blind, or you'd like to blame my (admittedly not finest) photo, or it's not self explanatory for any other reason: Asparagus. Perfectly. Broad beans and fresh peas, likewise. Croutons obviously, ricotta, refreshing cos, and roasted hazelnuts. The dressing was subtle, and totally apposite.

For some reason, even though this was my first meal of the day, my appetite was haphazard and I had to eat slowly. All the longer to savour for. Oh, it was gorgeous.

And the chai at Babka = my benchmark, although Kallista Tea Rooms is pretty high. I also love the complimentary bread and butter, though being the wonderful euro place that it is, the butter is unsalted. I wonder why in Europe, unsalted butter is normal, and in Anglo countries we salt it?
Perhaps it was bastardising it, but I ate some and then sprinkled salt on my butter. I felt like it.

PS If you're an eggs and bacon for breakfast person, which I'm generally not, apparently it's pretty good. And they juice the oranges fresh. Tick.

ode to the pear

2009-09-21T16:50:00.004+10:00

Pears are homely.
Pears are gentle.
Pears are sweet.
Pears are sensual.

Pear with chocolate,
pear with ginger,
pear with butter and brown sugar.

Pear and vanilla.
Pear and cloves.
Pears and spices,
pears in droves.

Pear and leaves,
pear and cheese.
PEARS! you make me weak at the knees.
Pear and parmesan,
or gruyere.
Pear with squidgy camembert.
Pear and ricotta,
pear with blue.
Pear with brie,
oh stop it, you.

Pear and grog.
Pear and cream.

Pears alone.

Pear and pastry,
pear and tart!
Pear tarts are my kind of art.
Pear and almond, walnut, hazelnut,
Pear and citrus,
pear and cake.
Pear and tea.
Oh lovely pears,
how I love thee.

tick of time

2009-08-22T19:35:00.005+10:00

Had a look through some photos on the ordinator.Only two and a half months to go till this.
I plan to enjoy what's left of our mildish winter and beautiful spring while it lasts!

alimentari, my dear deli

2009-08-06T13:50:00.003+10:00

It's not really my own dear deli, though I wish it were. I don't have enough money to have a local deli, and if I did, well, I probably would just be a deli shopper-arounder. Though I do love being loyal to a place and getting to know it and the people there.

Went to Alimentari on Brunswick St this morning for breakfast. Cranky staff.
Best muesli I have had in AGES.

I didn't have my camera on me. It was 8am.
They don't have chai.

(I'm tired, this is why I'm writing in short sentences.)

So, chamomile tea and a wait for a friend, and a slight ponder on the menu. House muesli came with yoghurt and a compote of pear, rhubarb and raspberry. Semolina porridge did too, and though bircher muesli didn't say so, it also did. If I'd known, I 'd have ordered it.
Glad I didn't.

Not because it didn't look good...

Mine was DIVINE.

251 Brunswick St Fitzroy VIC 3065 - (03) 9416 2001
Open Weekdays 8am-7pm; Weekends 8am-5pm
deli-cafe

Deathly Brisbane

2009-08-03T21:01:00.007+10:00

Australia is known for its many dangers. Notably the naturally occurring ones, like snakes, sharks, spiders, jellyfish, waves, rocks, dingoes, kangaroos, koalas, and large expanses of land without water.
I was lucky enough to place myself in the hazard zone that is Brisbane recently.
You'd think it was a friendly place, wouldn't you? Midwinter, midtwenties, sunny.
Same goes for this chair. Looks welcoming. Wasn't.

Who planned that? Honestly. There's a big metal nose just where your head goes.

Beautiful Mt Tamborine...
...with, like Lamington National Park, the giant stinging tree. Well, these aren't stinging trees, obviously, but we saw some.
And seeing as we're on the cream blog, just as deadly, this cocktail at Sling on Boundary St, West End would have done well with some coconut cream in it.
It was like the hottest green curry you've ever tasted, in a glass. And no, the blurriness isn't that it was my third cocktail (first and only, thankyou, and I didn't even drink it, too much effort when it was so hot), it was just hard to hold the camera still for the 20 seconds or so of exposure in the night.
Flavours: Chilli. And kaffir lime infused vodka, Malibu, lime, death, and may have been topped up with lemonade. I didn't notice any sweetness, too busy dying. Everyone at the table tasted it and was completely gobsmacked.

I also hit my head on the metal supports for a car headrest, got lost in the wilderness, sugar overloaded at the Three Monkeys, sunburnt (should have gone with cream!) and my friend fell off her bike and damaged her knee, elbow and clothes.

One of the best weeks of my life.

Yarra Valley Saturday

2009-07-17T14:41:00.005+10:00

A couple of weeks ago, a few of us went day tripping out to the Yarra Valley. Again, I was largely the tour guide, which again proved to be much fun. We went to...
Helen's Hill, which I think is also known as Ingrams Rd. Some odd scents, they reminded some of us of cheese. Their chardonnay was beaut.

Yering Station, where there was a fantastic cellar door assistant telling us lots of information in a knowledgeable, passionate and still down-to-earth way, who also looked a bit like David Wenham, to the enjoyment of at least two of the girls on the trip. Oh, and some delicious wines. David Wenham guy took us through all of the 20 or so wines on the list, and then a couple that weren't! I remember really liking their rosé, and an Italian-style red: think the Sangiovese was good. And a sparkling pink that exploded in your mouth, it was fantastic.

Yarra Valley Dairy, where we were going to get lunch, but the dining part was downscaled from what it had previously been, so we did a quick cheese tasting, or wine for some, and moved on.

Coldstream Brewery was where we did get lunch. Their cider was delightful! Subtle, small bubbles, and almost colourless. Beautiful.
Dad and I shared some smoked trout and potato cakes with a horseradish sauce, and this pizza: Caesar salad with calamari. Crazy, and really good.Dominique Portet, a smaller winery, was really French and quaint, straight from Provence. We met the man himself, Dominique, and all had a go at throwing a boot into a barrel to win a crepe (none of us made it). Though I wasn't blown away by the wine, I adored the place anyway. And to be honest, by this point, my tastebuds had had many many winey flavours through them and probably weren't at their most.. astute.Coldstream Hills (where the top photo is from) was our last stop before heading home, and I found pretty much the same thing as at the previous place: just wasn't appreciating the wine as much. There was a nice toasty smelling chardonnay again, though.

You can find a map of Yarra Valley's cellar door places (where you can do tastings!) here.

And that night, when we all got back, I was due to head out for dinner with two friends, one of whom was visiting from Perth. It had been rather a big day, so I declined the pre-food cocktail at Murmur and the with-food wine, and not being hungry yet, ordered a salad. We were at +39, that new trendy pizza place everyone has been writing about (oh, look it up if you want, I can't be bothered), but my salad was (excepting their exceptional tiramisu) by far the best thing we got!
Radicchio, pear, parmesan, walnut, and truffle honey dressing.
It was a very good day.

gâteau de l'amie de la mamy de Clotilde

2009-07-10T16:08:00.003+10:00

Just made le Gâteau de Mamy from my increasingly beloved C & Z book. Adorable. My camera's at my other abode, so I can't take a photo, but it's beautiful, even more than the ingredient list would lead you to predict.

Only the pear version is listed online, but I'm willing to bet it's just as delicious.
Have I ever mentioned that Chocolate and Zucchini was the first food blog I ever saw?
I was looking for, probably just googled, a recipe for zucchini cake, I think. And to my disappointment, because it wasn't the recipe and then delight, for obvious reasons, I stumbled upon Clotilde's blog.

I bought the book. It's the only thing I've ever bought online.
Everything I make from it is wonderful. It is where I discovered one or two of my favourite sandwich combinations, and that you can eat gingerbread the cake with pear without any butter and it's lovely.

Anyway, this is a sweet, friendly, buttery, melting step in my apple teacake quest.
Make it. Remember that fresh fruit means the cake will take longer to cook through, and when you tip it out, tip it onto a plate, just in case. Don't use a cake rack, especially if you ran out of space and stuck the extra apple on top of the cake, because you might lose some of it and trust me, you don't want that.
Mmmouth watering!

Bakery Hopping, Part 2

2009-07-06T21:35:00.012+10:00

Man, it's been a busy week or two.
So!
Third stop on our bakery tour was Dench, where there was no room for us to sit down and I was the only one to buy anything, so no photos. The loaf of raisin bread I got is interesting. It's like.. densish white bread with raisins in it and a lemon scent (no spices, I'm pretty sure, and little, if any, sugar). And taste. I think it's got a lemon glaze too, and the top is rather dark, kind of burnt tasting. Having had it for breakfast a couple of times so far, I can say it takes a bit of toasting and is quite chewy.
It makes wonderful French toast with butter and cinnamon. And a chopped up pear chucked in the pan too.
Mmm.
I was too lazy to photograph mon pain perdu. But back on the visually documented track...

4. Loafer Bread, Scotchmer St (just across St Georges' Rd from Dench):
Sandwich, I shared it with S. Beetroot, feta, leaves, some spicy chutney. Pretty standard. Nice subtly sour bread, chewy enough but not too much.
M had a quiche that disappeared before I could get a photo, and she said it was the best one she'd ever had. Was going to buy another one for lunch the next day, but then forgot.
And the savoury brioche that I longed for (thought between the other pastries, the sandwich was more virtuous) and tasted C's. What was on it? I can hardly remember now. But I recommend.
The cakes looked lovely, too. Let me know if you go and try their chocolate beetroot cake. I've been wanting to taste chocolate and beetroot cake for quite a while. They have a big list of coffees, which I approve of (when I wanted coffee in the good old days, I never knew what to ask for. I knew people had all sorts of different coffees but didn't know what there was. So this is good) and S had her first dandelion latte, which she liked.

5. Babka.
We waited patiently and then less so, for more than half an hour to be seated, while groups of 2 and 3 came, ate and left. Sigh.
Then we had coffee and the 4 of us shared two $7 wedges from the cake fridge, which was the right amount.

The chocolate fiends among us required that mud cake be one of the two. It was good mud cake and not overwhelmingly chocolatey. Kind of subtle. I dunno, it might have been fantastic if I'd really wanted it. As it was, I might have rathered pecan pie or a dried apricot and fig cake with some tea. Either way, mud cake was completely upstaged...Highlight of the day: caramelised pear and custard tart. My words and this photo are inadequate. Let's just say it was our favourite.

Bakery Hopping, Part 1

2009-06-30T10:24:00.015+10:00

It's been a great couple of weekends. A trip down the Great Ocean Road, and then a tour of some of the bakery cafes of Melbourne's north. And the residential streets. Anyone know what this plant is? There were a few .
Where I'm living is a residential college, but people don't necessarily stay for the whole year. Maybe days, weeks or a couple of months.. most of the residents are from overseas. Generally we're all busy during the week (some more than others: we coursework students are on holidays at the moment.) and on the weekend, well, there's the whole of Victoria to see.
Having heard complaint of a lack of bakeries in the area (compared to Germany), I wanted to show my friends Babka and Dench at least, but with limited time, when were we going to fit in all the lunches required?
Thus was born the bakery tour. Five of my favourite bakeries in an afternoon made for a very enjoyable Sunday of looking, smelling, eating, walking, sitting on the tram and of course, taking (and posing for) photos. Singing Beethoven's 5th shamelessly, to the amusement/embarrassment/annoyance of the other patrons. Whatever. We waited ages for that table, and by TART was it worth it.

Here we go.
First stop, Lygon St, opposite the cemetery. I first came here in 2002 with my aunt and very young cousin and had hot chocolate, and it was hot!, spilt on my lap, and my jeans smelt like sour milk for months. But that wasn't Filou's fault. They have beautiful breads, pastries, and especially quiches and the like. Their spinach pie, with poppy seeds on top, is really good.

Because this was our first stop of a tasting tour, it was only just after midday, we didn't want to fill up too much. So C got a mini strawberry tart, which S and I also tasted. They'd used perfect strawberries.

M said her mini white chocolate tart was good.

Aaaand northward bound.

Guess where?

But of course. No northern Melbourne bakery tour would be complete without Sugardough.
A little custard bombolono ($2.50) was different to what I'd expected. Not as sweet, not as rich. Kind of bready. Not as much filling.. the dough was actually a bit dry. I wasn't that blown away, but it was pleasant enough.
M had one of these little berry tartlet things, for which she asked for a knife and then to have it heated up. I'm not sure how much it was. It was nice, but not the best thing you can get at Sugardough.

What was really enjoyable this time, though, was S's Croque Monsieur. The mustard was yummm.. the white sauce creamy but not too much, balanced nicely by good ham.
To be continued...

Las Veganagain

2009-06-05T15:33:00.008+10:00

It is a warm, sunny June afternoon in Melbourne, and all is well.

DELICIOUS... Las Vegan Nirvana Lentil Patty with gourmet salad.

Depending on the place, 'gourmet' is such a crap word. It's a crap word because the fact that it's used usually seems to mean the opposite of the word's supposed meaning. Like, 'we just like our meat + 3 veg, but we'll put some token other combination of ingredients on the menu and call it gourmet to please you weird hippy people who like raw spinach.'
I realise that this is a strong and somewhat angry statement blindly stereotyping any users of the word 'gourmet'.
But tell me anywhere you had a 'gourmet' pizza that was better than Bimbo's?
I guess I generally mean, if your food is good, it's good, and it will speak for itself.

But at Las Vegan, the 'gourmet' salad is different to the normal salad, and they've named it so because it's a green salad plus avocado and marinated stuff (little bit of eggplant and mushroom), oh and dried olives. Fair enough.

There was a decent whack of oil in this meal, to be sure. Might not be able to see it under all those beautiful bright colours. Deep fried patty with oil on the salad and oil-marinated eggplant and stuff. And avocado (oh, this was some good avocado). After some initial squeamishness -squeam?- I don't feel bothered, though. It was yum. And ohh, the crispy, sweet edges of the lentil patty! aaah. It was a monster thickness, too. What can I say about the flavour and the texture? Pleasing. Very.

Me mate had the TVP Calzone with gourmet salad and a cup of the bottomless Chai. The calzone was all right, but I won't bother with them when there is so much amazing stuff on the menu.

No chai for me, but I escaped having spent a total of $10.50 for my patty with gourmet salad and a crazy muffin that seems to be chocolate, walnut and cinnamon. Had a taste of the lemon and ginger too... crunchy sugar on top, fresh ginger.

More soon.

ummmmm

2009-06-04T14:32:00.008+10:00

What am I doing again?

I have several assignments due soon, all in varying states of begunness. I don't know front from back anymore.
My inside out is head.

But I do know, I liked this cake.

Went to Arcadia on Gertrude St for breakfast this morning, not really hungry, and ate a savoury muffin that was good, but maybe would have made a better lunch. It was quite salty. But the texture - moist in the middle, chewier/crisper on the edges, oh the edges were gorgeous. A hint of cheese, which went nicely with the potato, rosemary, olives and capsicum. Could have done with a little bit more bits of capsicum, but it was good. Ah, I'm getting hungry thinking about it.
I remembered to take my camera, and then forgot to take it out of my bag.
No Bircher muesli on the menu, which disappointed me. Apparently the French toast was really good, but I wasn't in the mood. And the other breakfast stuff wasn't that appealing. Eggs with spinach/smoked salmon would have been nice, but again, I'm not a fan of eggs before midday, really.

The lunch stuff, however... looked good. The sandwiches looked like my kind of thing.
On the way out, I spotted this cake.
Want.
Asked what it was, for interest's sake: lemon and polenta.
Had to have.

Sorry I didn't take a picture when everything was all pretty in the cabinet.
Sorry I didn't take a picture when it was intact in its little brown paper bag.
Sorry it's all gone.

But I had to document this crumb!

So grainy, perfect amount of sweet, not that lemony. Lumps of it falling off as it came apart.

Researching. No, not cake. Uni.
Cake.
Uni.

Cake.
What a happy word.

intruder

2009-05-24T23:05:00.004+10:00

Okay, this isn't really about food. Because neither am I, any more. I'm widening.. er, broadening my horizons...

I love this blog. I wish it were mine. This is blog envy. Am I over a food blog phase?

Am I over a phase in my life where food was The main good thing, the only flame?
Where I had forgotten how to procrastinate, my other favourite thing?

Certainly I still enjoy reading food blogs. I just enjoy other things a lot too.

Such as Gotye. His album is going around and around in my head lately.

I'm feeling pride in my city, my country. Melbourne's cultural hipness and hapness. Fond disdain for the wankery around the arts, which is arrogant of me at 21. Self awareness of privilege too.

Thing is, I'm too lazy to take photos of food all the time. But a food blog without photos just isn't the same to read. And I have this other blog which I could switch back over to, and try to recover. Or should I just keep going at EGWC and write about a variety of things? I'll write the same old crap wherever I'm posting.

Enough of this, silly. Semantics time.

PS We had roast lamb today, with all the goods as done in our family. And steamed a plum pudding I made the other day, and ate it with custard, and of course cream.
I also may have made ginger nuts and digestive biscuits.. thankyou Matthew Evans, writing just for me, the weekend cook (I do miss the old title though. Anyone can cook).
Oh, and carrot and zucchini fritter/patty things, with cumin. They were good.

delicious ginger

2009-05-20T14:09:00.003+10:00

This morning I went to a new place at uni whose sign for spicy, gingery chai I have been eyeing for the last couple of weeks. There was a smiling, charismatic person there with a laptop whom I sat next to with my laptop.

He had sitting in front of him a dirty mug and three-quarters of a muffin, and as we sat there tapping the people from behind the counter came over and took away his dirty mug, and smiling, he yelled something out to them as they returned to the coffee machine.

'Here's your change, man.' The coffee student held out more than two dollars, but had to convince him to take it, in the end winning on the grounds that the girl had charged him double for the previous thing.

I worked for a while, and he had gone, but the laptop was still there on the sunken seat. Then he came back, moved it and sat down again. I smiled, without looking up from my (very rudimentary) essay.

He had brought with him a clean mug and a steaming pot, and apologised he was going to stink the place out with ginger. I told him I was having the ginger chai, and it would do me good anyway with sinus issues.
And he poured it, and it smelled so good. It was ginger and lemongrass.
With honey, it's amazing, he told me.

My spicy chai was $4.50 with soy.

It was worth it.

Las Vegan Bakery

2009-05-01T15:26:00.002+10:00

Just went there for lunch today.

OH MY WORD it was delicious.

No, I'm not vegan, but I have increasing numbers of friends who are.

My sister went with a vegan friend of hers and told me more than once about the tofu and tempeh with satay sauce, bean shoots and salad ($8.50), which I dutifully ordered, eyeing the rest of the menu with equal longing. I wasn't sure what to expect, having had tempeh only once before at Vegie Bar (I LOVE Vegie Bar, but don't get tempeh there, at least not with the House Salad. It's as dry and boring as 7:30 on a Sunday night with no food in the house). But S1 had said this would be nothing like that.

She Was Right.

My local lunchmate ordered the Rice Balls (also $8.50), also with satay sauce, bean shoots and salad. A girl at the next table had this - I asked about it and she said it was her favourite! - and it was inevitable that one of us was going to order it.
Not everything on the menu has bean shoots, or salad, or satay sauce - in fact, some things have none of them! - but I was exceptionally glad to have all of the above.
The salad was just good old salad, but with little semi-dried olives and this fantastic dressing. I can't quite describe it. Think it had garlic?
The rice balls, 2 plump mounds of rice with a little bit of corn and stuff, encased in a sticky, sweetish batter and deep fried, were gorgeously ugly.
The satay sauce is evil, it's so good.
But I was happy with my tofu, hard on the outside, soft in the middle, and meltingly good tempeh.

The place is really cute. Run, it seems, by this funny straight-faced man.. he was serving and this helpful woman was out the back cooking (to get to the toilet you have to go through the kitchen and they tell you how to use the basin with the foot pedal). I shall check out what has been written about them when I have more time coz I want the story.

Everything is a similarly cheap price. Nothing under $5 except a muffin ($2, today only, according to the sign... they ran out while we were there. They looked great.) or a $3 all-you-can-drink cup of chai with bonsoy, but I don't even care, it's still super value for the best meal I've had in weeks, that's how pleased I am with Las Vegan.

They do takeaway, too. It's worth noting that they're only open 11-3:30, Tues-Fri.

If you're reading my blog and you don't know where Las Vegan is, I am surprised. And pleased. Don't make them too busy to fit me in, but they're on Smith St Collingwood, right near Trippy Taco and Espresso 24 or whatever it's called... between Victoria Pde and Gertrude.

Shhh!

blueberries

2009-04-17T00:09:00.005+10:00

go with cream, and are good for your brain. Good to know at this time of year, when assignments are due and there's reading and work to be done.
Incidentally, I read an article the other day about blueberry's lesser-known cousin, the bilberry. Apparently it can help with Raynaud's syndrome, which I hadn't realised officially existed, but which bothers me sometimes, like in winter. Perhaps baking tarts will keep the cold at bay this year.
We don't normally have blueberries, but someone at Mum's work had a relative with a berry farm who when the fires came, grabbed what they could and ran. So we were lucky enough to be able to relieve them of a kilo of blueberries... plump, sweet and bubbling with juice when you bake them in a tart and rescue it from the oven, albethey blanketed under a buttery, subtle almond filling.
I'd been eyeing off Clotilde's recipe in my beloved Chocolate & Zucchini book for some time now. Almonds, blueberries, butter and delicious shortbready pastry. What more could you want? Apart from some cream to go with it, of course.

birthday

2009-04-16T23:32:00.012+10:00

Yes, it's been a while, that's true. But I have 2000 words due tomorrow, so what better time to blog?

A lot has happened since last I wrote.. including a birthday dinner of mine at BCoz, Riversdale Road, Hawthorn (here). It's a certified organic, completely ready-to-comply-to-whatever-dietary-requirement-you-can-throw-at-us 'fine dining' restaurant (we threw nothing, and they actually seemed quite disappointed).
I was 21.

I was having an anxiety problem, and shouldn't have had more than a sip of the delicious organic rose-tinted sparkling wine we started with, because after the lovely tomato salad...no photos of this, alas, but Bcoz's description: yarra valley heirloom tomato, pickled cucumber, feta, basil & spinach salad... who knew there were so many kinds of tomato?
The Black Russian ones tasted like baked beans. Yes, sophisticated lady am I...

Anyway, after some different zucchini flowers (with half-zucchini attached!) - rice battered, with quinoa, pickled vegetable and brazil nut salad - I felt wrong by the time the soup appeared, and I don't generally care much for soup. This was fine, but it was just soup. How cute the bowls were, though! (Photos très artistiques par ma plus 'tite soeur.) And the bread that came with tasted just like out of Mum's bread machine, but they'd stuck white to wholemeal dough, which was just as cute as the bowls, and we had butter. Mmm. Anyhow, the soup was a ducky broth with sweetcorn and pasta. So when the Moreton Bay bugs arrived, beautifully done (wok tossed queensland bug meat, leaves, macadamias, spanish onion,
chilli salad passionfruit dressing), it was all I could do, once I got back from the Ladies, to look sadly on and try to tell myself I'd feel better once I'd swallowed some food.

Didn't work for the chicken with cashew and coconut, albeit this was tastable art, and it was gorgeous. Okay, a description is called for. It was amazing. Menu said: crisped milawa free range chicken, leaves, wonton wafer, dried mango, cashew nuts, coconut dressing. OH the coconut dressing, woe to be without appetite.

Wondering if I felt better after another trip to the loo, I didn't even try for more than a taste of the lamb (on sweet potato mash with mustard seed sauce), though I did get a photo.
But! Appetite somehow reappeared in time for dessert. Funny, that.
Dessert platters were good. My favourite was possibly the warm banana soufflé - inspired! Apple and pear 'bread pudding' was very good with an interesting sugary crumb. It was nice with the toffee icecream, which they had told us was vanilla bean, but the pudding was a bit too much sugar, which makes my throat hurt. Needed cream. 'Bread' here wasn't referring to actual bread, but a cakey entity.
What else... the coconut and lime tart was great, went beaut with pineapple sorbet. Fun, fun. The chocolate hazelnut marshmallow was funny but good. I liked it. But the whole dessert platter needed some cream accompanying.. the sweet needed diluting!

Next birthday, either something spontaneous or nothing. No more stress.
If anyone sprang a surprise posh dinner, or lunch on me, I wouldn't mind, though. That wouldn't be stress.

Genius, daringly simple Febbaking

2009-03-01T15:23:00.011+11:00

This is what I was waiting for, the reason - without knowing it - that I joined the Daring Bakers. Not for the endless rolling and resting of pastry, not for fiddling, getting out and putting back in the fridge, not for beating curdly buttercream icing and making toffee to pralinate in the food processor, or in fact for icing of any kind. Especially not for piping bags.

Genius.

Three ingredients. Chocolate, butter, eggs.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.
(Never mind the ice cream. I made pistachio and served it another time. But it turned out such an ugly colour that I haven't got a good photo yet! so you won't see it in this post.)

Cared I that it was Valentine's Day? I wouldn't have noticed except for a certain teenager I know feeling the aloneness of couples all over the world doing coupley things (as far as she knew.. or defying the contrivedness of such a Hallmark holiday.. or not even caring enough to defy).

Chocolate is the answer!

It was a good distraction for my teenage friend, anyway. And an excellent one for me.
And an even better dessert the next day.

Who needs flour, honestly. The TEXTURE.

Chocolate Valentino (Australian adaptation)
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
454 g chocolate, roughly chopped (I just used 450. Aka 16 ounces)
146 g unsalted butter (Imperialists! Just measure it. Or use 125 g like me, quarter of a block.)
5 large eggs, separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While the choc-butter mixture is cooling, butter the pan and line with baking paper.
2a. Put on Ray LaMontagne, Bob Dylan, or whatever music you feel like. Dance around.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together. (Hooray! same beater. Clever 'un who wrote this owns the key to my own chocolate heart. Hear me Daring Bakers, our usual recipes use far too many dishes. Don't you have something better to do than wash up?)
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter.
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmould..

It needs a good chocolate, because with no added sugar, nuts, flour or that, this cake tastes exactly like the chocolate you use. But even better, because it's cake.

breakfast around town

2009-02-24T11:28:00.012+11:00

Though you wouldn't know it from the number of posts around here, I've been busy, using my abundant holiday time wisely.
Maybe it's a holiday thing too, that I've discovered the joy of making breakfast an event in the day. I used to hate the fact that a big breakfast out would take away the point of lunch, because lunch is one of my favourite meals, along with breaky. and tea.

The breakfast that changed my mind was nowhere less worthy than Dench Bakers, North Fitzroy. Right at the start of my holidays, i.e. November.. it was a cool morning. We sat inside, feeling a little bit cold, tired and under the weather, and between two of us ordered hot chai, bircher muesli with berries and French toast with cooked pear. We couldn't finish the muesli, and don't I wish I'd had a picture... that French toast changed my life. I didn't care about lunch. I wanted it to be breakfast time again.
Breakfast for lunch also made me pretty happy when I tried the award-winning corn fritters at Mart 130, Middle Park. I'd read about them on Claire's blog a while before and was blown away. Sweet corn, smooth sour cream, coriander, salty snappy bacon and tomato relish. It's not very me, and oh how that just didn't matter.

Another cool morning in the city found me loving a nice warm coffee from next door and a savoury mushroom crepe at Concorde Crepes, GPO, as reviewed at possibly my favourite blog WTB. I don't think they do buckwheat crepes, it's all the same batter, so my mind told me it was probably unauthentic but my mouth made me unable to care. (Bonus if you care about lunch - this left enough room for another meal later.. or an immediate sweet crepe. I thought about it, because my friend's banana, ricotta and almond looked so good. Next time.)

Oh! pictures! Please forgive my tangents. In accordance with my enjoyment of corn fritters, I was told I'd love the breakfast stack at the Green Refectory, Brunswick. That's it you see far, far above, complete with potato thingie (a lot of), bacon, grilled tomato, haloumi, spinach, a poached egg, and encircled by some good tomato relish. It's a good concept but this time, it seemed to matter that it wasn't my thing.
Here on the right is their French toast with poached pear. It was quite nice.. a bit meh. Maybe I'd been spoilt by Dench.

The BEST EVER breakfast out I have had, a couple of Tuesdays ago when I headed to the Jam Factory to see the dwindling Twilight. Chapel St is a long way for me, so I don't get there very often, and I made sure to visit my favourite bakery Amici after the movie. But for breakfast beforehand, we went to Babble (can't find a review I like), Izett St, Prahran. It was 11:30 by the time we got there and we had to be out by 12:10. Could we do it?
Happily, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Split two ways, we got to have both:
1. Polenta vegetarian breakfast - words, used by me, cannot describe how good this was. Why oh why did I not have my camera? Triangles of the best, crunchy, creamy but still light, polenta with some hint of chopped green herb, grilled field mushroom with rosemary, tomatoes, just-enough-seasoned spinach and a little pot of plain yoghurt on the side.
My friend K, this is waiting for you. I am almost scared to go there again in case it isn't as good.
2. the French fruit toast! with mascarpone, banana and strawberries, and some subtle syrupy strawberryish sauce. The Best. Delicious. There was some coconut in there too somewhere. Ohhhh, the French fruit toast.

While I research and wait for the perfect French toast technique to show itself through my hands, it must be pancake time. Breakfast at home is also very good.

And not least of all when it's Bill's blueberry buckwheat pancakes.

PS Shrove Tuesday! Crepes tonight, perhaps.

Orange, we glad we went

2009-02-18T19:17:00.005+11:00

... to Gigibaba. I'd heard of it a few times over a few months and was quite keen to try. Then Larissa Dubecki's article in the Age Epicure, Orange, You Sad You Left? came up a week or two ago and reminded me. So on the spur of the moment, a couple of friends and I went to line up at 6pm and got a spot at the bar.
All the staff were wearing orange, and the title of the article was stuck to one of the bar shelves, at which I couldn't help but smile.
I didn't have my camera on me, but I thought I'd blog about it simply because of how ridiculously exciting it was to be somewhere so hyped up.
The food was really good. I didn't drink because there hadn't been time to get to the ATM for any extra money, but liked the sound of the national Turkish drink. This was a pity as the style of the place is Turkish tapas, plus I had an hour to order, eat and leave, so it was a little bit frantic.

They were out of BBQ Hellim cheese! weep! but sold us instead some delicious zucchini fritters, egg-shaped and gooey inside, but not too much, and with flavour. I adored the smoky eggplant salad with walnuts, tomato, lemon, parsley, and tahini yoghurt, which my companions quite liked but for me, smoky eggplant is the KING.
We also had lamb in vine leaves (the others liked them a lot, maybe not my thing), lamb kofte (this is what all kofte should now aspire to be) and some enjoyable but very tapas-sized BBQ chicken with black-eyed-bean salad.

You order things in sizes for 2 or for 4, and it's all small. Worth going when you have a while to first wait, then eat and drink, and about $50 up your sleeve to make the most of it and order the whole menu. So price-wise, it's not somewhere I'll be going for my next dinner.

But if anyone wants to teach me how to use flavours like theirs, I'm listening.

it's really hot

2009-01-30T15:57:00.005+11:00

REALLY hot.
On the verandah at the moment it's 46.5 degrees Celsius.

And the oven is not going on again today!

Also, this is late. But aren't they pretty?
This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

I made plain sweet tuiles with raspberry filling, raspberries and mint leaves. The raspberry filling has lemon. My brain isn't working enough to tell you any more because the heat is making me act irrationally and yell at my siblings.

Happy January!

january, just summer

2009-01-23T20:32:00.010+11:00

I was in Brisbane for a festival/conference about sacred music, which was interesting. Ab Fab caterers were true to their name, incidentally. But I didn't photograph the food, because I got distracted by the food.
Moreton Bay figs..
...and the bougainvillea, and forgive me for not looking up that bird. Is it an ibis?
I love a sunburnt country, but it's a bit dry, the trip back south confirmed.
...Beach.
Check out that pastry. Finest I've yet to meet in a vanilla slice, and shall certainly be informing the Vanilla Slice Blog of Louttit Bay Bakery, so good I don't even care if you don't go there when you're in Lorne (but you'd be missing out).
The pastry, though. Flaky, slightly sweet, not buttery, just the right amount of dry between all that oohhhhggg custard. And the icing on the top sweet, just enough to balance.. Perfect!
There is fine eating to be had in Lorne. But I am too lazy to blog about it, and too embarrassed to take photos in public. So you can observe my home adventures.

Must be the first meal I made this month, approx two days ago. My fingers smelled like garlic until, oh, about now. It was worth it... say ricotta, I'm yours. and parmesan. Plus all the other usual suspects, yes, and How I love them.
And summer.

december away... the away part

2008-12-30T15:16:00.016+11:00

December away...

2008-12-30T14:51:00.004+11:00

I am trying to track down this Donna Hay cake I saw the recipe for in that No Time to Cook book in a bookshop recently. It was like a giant raspberry friand (siiiiiiiigh) and I need to use up the egg whites in the fridge. It is not to be found! I'll have to wing it.

So on the topic of December away, it has been quite a month for fruit picking, just wait for my photos, but they shall be in the next post, because this one goes to those crazy 'bakers'. More like daring freezers, ha. Yes, darling readers. I complain, but do I stop following?

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.
They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.. search it if you like. It's an ice cream cake, AKA a litre of cream and a few blocks of chocolate, with layers amillion. Well, eight-ish.
The half piece is because it was really hard to cut without breaking, even left out of the freezer. Some components softened more quickly than others. So we just cut huge fat pieces and served them in halves.

Starting from the top, we have:
chocolate icing (does that need stating?)
milk chocolate semifreddo in which everything else is set, i.e. frozen mousse
baked creme brulee
more chocolate mousse
praline feuilleté (hazelnut praline crushed with crisp-baked crepe biscuits, chocolate and butter)
mousse again
dark chocolate ganache (hands up if this is your favourite part. me, pick me!)
and hazelnut dacquoise, of which I could have happily eaten a bit more.

Yum. I won't be making THAT again anytime soon!

spring-clearing the klog

2008-11-27T16:05:00.001+11:00

PP. I am having date problems with when Blogger is saying I published. This post was written on the 30th of November.

It's the last day of spring in Australia. For fifteen minutes. Here I go!In no particular order, a backlog of spring things:
Above, barbecued ocean trout and potato salad (adapted from Sally James' recipe from Simply Sensational, an aptly named favourite book of mine), scandalously and deliciously bastardised with iceberg lettuce and salmon.
On the sides - not really spring, but we had them in spring anyway.
What began as that nigh-orgasmic (see how close nigh is to thigh? interesting..) appley dessert I had in France, became known as Sophie's 'the french apple crumble' and to me, now, is Dad's specialty. Nothing crumbly about it, this was in our house about the same time as my sisters made Donna Hay's caramel slice (even better, don't kill me, before they had added the chocolate) and was THE thing that I had thought I was over and not been so keen on in a while but that night at 11pm when I'd got home not having had the roast lamb that had filled up everyone here, well, this was what brought me back around to the idea of caramel. I accepted for what it was this non-crumble. Caramelised apple slice? It's like a solid, crisp biscuit on top.mmmmmmmm.

Back to spring..
asparagus quiche. Actually inspired by a vegan friend of my sister's, but don't let that put you off. It didn't me, that's the important thing. Bench art...

...a delightful by-product of florentines.

Below, roasted cauliflower salad from dear old Maggie and Simon. Not the best photo, but never mind. This was the second time I've made it, and won't be the last. A new favourite lunch, methinks! Neither of the times have I had quite the right herbs.. it's been parmesan instead of gruyere or goaty, parsley for coriander, etc. Burnt cauliflower, possibly both times. Do the antioxidant properties of cauliflower, olive oil and walnuts cancel out the carcinogens of burntness? I'll eat it anyway.yummo.
I don't even SAY yummo.
yummO.
As I hope you have been waiting for, Yoghurt Goes with (Chocolate, Coconut and) Cream Part 2.
It was good.. not as moist as the first one. I probably wasn't paying enough attention because there was another seriously worthwhile distraction in the oven.

My best sourdough yet.
It's been UBERbusy around here lately.
Including some baked and unbaked goods and very goods.
I hope you have enjoyed feasting your eyes on my mouthwatering photography (ha).

you put the salt in the caramel and eat it all up!

2008-11-27T14:05:00.000+11:00

This months' darling bakers decided on a caramel cake with caramelised butter icing (defiantly Australian am I, frosting I will not acknowledge) (and yes we caramelise with an S).

I admit I reduced the sugar, but I can't remember how much.. a good amount. And made somewhat less of the icing, with not too much syrup. The icing turned out to be a very repeatable thing (mmmm). I made a half quantity of the suggested syrup and had enough left over for a toffee and banana cake.
Even reduced in syrupiness I doubted my friends and family's will to demolish the golden thing, so I took it to an all-day choir rehearsal where it happily disappeared. Thanks singers!

Anyway, as you can probably tell from my flattish tone, I have never been that excited about caramel, except obviously for sticky date pudding! and banoffee pie which I have yet to try! and homemade caramel slice!
ahem.
This was a nice cake. I could even have eaten some hokey pokey ice cream with it. Hokey pokey ice cream is a bit like English toffee flavour, for any non-Australasian readers.

And now the referencing.
Recipe courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon from Eggbeater as published on Bay Area Bites, challenge hosted by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity and co-hosts Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo, Jenny of Foray into Food and for gluten-free daring bakers not quite daring enough to eat the gluten, help from Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go.
Optional was an extra challenge, Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, Artisan Press, Copyright 2007, ISBN: 978-1579652111

salted caramel

2008-11-15T08:42:00.000+11:00

Back to fashion.

It's my fashion to be frantic and slightly late everywhere I go. Which is part of the reason I am typing this when I should perhaps be in the shower, knowing I have to leave the house in half an hour.
That rhymes.

When I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 2000, it was after a couple of years of wanting to resist, purely on the basis that everyone was reading it and it was everywhere. But the thing about a book in vogue is no matter how many people talk about it, you read it alone (just like you die, apparently, but I haven't done that yet, plus it was a bit of a morbid analogy). It's still your own discovery when you read it for the first time. And the next, and the next.

Well, I bet you know it: so it goes for flavours.

Thank you trendies for alerting us!

I am converted.

yoghurt goes with cream - part 1

2008-11-08T15:54:00.000+11:00

I
love
yoghurt.

I am fascinated with the stuff.
Cinnamon yoghurt gelati from Tutto Bene, a month or two ago, began the resurgence of my obsession. Began? No, I was already very much besotted, and that was why I tried it, which was a GOOD move.

And the other night after finishing uni and being too excited to sleep and driving around dangerously the next day and wandering palely around Brunswick Street and a disappointing lunch at Babka... where was I? (Needs to learn to use commas.)
I had a blondie from Sugardough.
It was gooey and strange.

My dessert Thursday night: blobs of blondie with cooked pear, blackberry evia yoghurt, vanilla icecream and roasted salted macamadamias. Salted caramel, lick my battery!

Anyway the point of this post was to show you my beautiful yoghurt cake.
Recipe from Chocolate & Zucchini, first food blog I laid eyes on and have ever since adored. I bought the book and it is still sitting on the bench, open on Yoghurt Cake. I decided about a week ago that I wanted to make a coconut one - which is still on the list - but the other day it was raining, raspberry was calling out and I'm glad it did.

Frozen raspberries would be better because they would hold together, but we had a big Fowlers-Vacola jar from picking last year. So in went about a cup, and a little bit of cinnamon.
It is moist, a bit sweet, and a bit sour from both the raspberries and the yoghurt. Just what I wanted!
Though the batter looked and felt a bit like muffin batter so I was ultra-wary of overmixing it, perhaps a bit too over-wary, see those bits of flour. They're kind of good though.

I suspect this would make an excellent apple teacake. And can't wait to try it plain. And the raspberry one, well, I haven't tried it with cream yet but it's tangy and reminds me of raspberry jam, so.. better go and do that now.

By the way, I don't make only cakes. Just have to blog about them because they are just exciting in this special special way.. it's ridiculous how excited I get about cake.

fashion

2008-11-06T10:09:00.000+11:00

I'm a little bit more interested in clothes now that I have finished uni for the year and have time to sit down (I'm sitting down right now, in fact, and plan to do a bit more of it today). I would like to think I don't care much about keeping up with trends, but there are some good clothes around in Melbourne.. it's going to be a good looking summer.

Culinary fashion, on the other hand, intrigues me.

What's with caramel? Who started it this time? Is it just like, Jacques Reymond or a world class equivalent made a caramel something that made an impact on someone and they were so excited that they told everyone, and everyone thought, hey yeah, I'd forgotten about caramel! and they all get inspired and it just spreads?
Not that you need an expensive restaurant to start the wave at all, it could start with just a little blog somewhere.
Or does the food media have an evil corporation somewhere with a person at the head of a meeting deciding what this season's fashionable flavours will be (other than obviously, what is actually in season)?
Salted caramel, especially. Everyone's writing about it, eating and making it.

Chorizo has been cool for a fair bit longer.

Uni has rendered me sleepless so that's about as far as my profound observations go for today.

Hello holidays :) out comes the sun as I click 'publish.'

brief thoughts

2008-10-28T15:02:00.000+11:00

I am on a quest.
Perfect apple teacake. It is such an art!

The old-fashioned apple cake, I reckon, is not often done really well. When it is, it is impossible to beat.

The best I have had was in a quaint little cafe in the far-out hills.. Kallista Tea Rooms, I think. It was still warm when I saw and pounced (What's that cake there?) and we had had a delicious lunch with fairly poor service.. debating whether or not to bother getting cake/coffee afterwards, and SO glad am I; we'd decided not to when I saw this ugly beauty. The cake was collapsing on itself, sinking in the middle as it sat, and the piece we had fell apart, melting in our mouths. More apple than gooey cake, it was lazily punctuated with sultanas, so sweet, just the right amount, and oh... had disappeared.
When we got the bill, they gave us the cake on the house, wisely recommending we remember them not for the poor service we'd had that day (my aunt, a regular, said it was unusual) but for the cake. Worked on me!

My attempts so far have been well received but I will not rest until I find the One.

I was too lazy to take photos, but I made Lucy's Apple and Olive Oil cake from Nourish Me - that was good, I'll make it again.
And this Jewish one from Smitten Kitchen. Nice, but I want it moister.

On we go. I made banana cake today because the spotty bananas were there. Thankyou, Andrew McConnell, genius man.

Anybody got a worthwhile apple teacake? I'm wondering if it's going to take some walnut meal and/or yoghurt...

The List
Clotilde's Gateau de Mamy from Chocolate and Zucchini
Women's Weekly - will have something

To be cont...!

ricotta, leftovers, and other fun things

2008-10-19T22:31:00.000+11:00

Hey reader. It's been a while between posts, I know, on a not-very-frequently updated blog. And I have been exceptionally busy lately, leaving not much time for eating, let alone cooking and going to exciting food places!

But I did get very excited the other day, about ricotta. It is just the best stuff and I can't seem to get enough of it, especially after I had some incredible simple spinach and ricotta agnolotti done just perfectly with the right tomato sauce at Vegie Bar a month or two ago. Spinach and ricotta. Ricotta in cakes. On top of turkish bread with avocado and lemon scented oil at Kanteen on the Yarra (technically that was cottage cheese, but oh so good).
Fetta has made an appearance too; lucky enough to have a day at home the other day, after my family had had roast lamb without me the night before... I got to make this Donna Hay-modelled salad I've been eyeing off over at Kitchen Wench. Roasted sweet potato and tomato, almonds, leaves, marinated fetta, and the dressing features that apple cider vinegar I've been meaning to get around to using. Thanks, Ellie!

Tonight I have finally dragged myself all the way upstairs to get my camera and cord and then all the way back down again to import photos. It was worth it, too.

Anyway. The other day after a long hot bike ride in the sun, a friend and I went to this amazing fruit shop where we got some amazing yoghurt and in their amazing fridge there was some Mamma Lucia ricotta! I got two tubs because I've been wanting to make a cassata out of Good Weekend a few.. months ago, and wasn't sure how much it needed.
There hasn't been enough time to put into the making of the caking and the filling and all, so this I made instead when I saw that the use by date was soon:
Ricotta, honey, rosemary and pine nut tart.
SOOOO much better the next day. delicious baked cheesecake goodness. I think I am becoming a cheesecake person. Hmm, no, more that I have discovered baked cheesecake. (If you have a good recipe for white/dark chocolate cheesecake with a chocolate crust, by the way, let me know. I tasted one - evilly good - in the Blue Mountains and am on the hunt.)

Also recently, lemon yoghurt cake, (no photos yet, alas and alack) thankyou very much Brigitte Hafner, legend I love to read in the paper. Saw the recipe flicking through a Spring recipe book in a bookshop in the Blue Mountains. Semolina, lemon, yoghurt, almonds, syrup, you were meant for me and I was meant for you, so I tracked you down on the internet. Poetry if ever there was!

Rehearsals, shows, assignments, cars, trains, lessons, sandwiches, pianos, books, makeup, bike rides, phone queues, and my diary, used so much that the cover has fallen off. That is my life at the moment. And occasional blog lurking.
Hope your life is fun, even if it too is ridiculously busy at this mental time of year. Send me a comment or a post!

Le lavash que je viens d'avoir fait

2008-09-28T23:03:00.000+10:00

Ta da!
Ready for my Lethlean rip-off phrasing? Aussie foodie journalism at its easy reading best. What can I say, I know some of you other Melbournian bloggers have a thing about him and his writing, but I love it. (How can you not enjoy his loveable adventures in A2? My favourite comfort food reading on a Saturday morning.)
Pasta machine worked a dream.

On the left, poppy.
Smelled like bread in the oven.

Some got a bit overdone. Let's call it toasted (tastes good, tastes toasted). Some puffed up like a pillow, or Arnott's goldfish, but better.. one bite and you're hooked.

Sesame smelled even better.

P.S. I'm not really sure why we made lavash. So easy. Just bread dough rolled flat. I don't mean to complain, it's just, it didn't feel all that daring. I'll make some vegan friendly - that was one of the reasons behind lavash I think - dip later, but even without, this is good stuff. Who doesn't love a good dry biscuit. Even if it isn't very daring.

late lavash

2008-09-28T20:52:00.001+10:00

Oops! Daring Bakers was yesterday and I've been out of the house for the last two weeks!
Life is increasingly hectic this last month. A catering-sized cupcake bake with Kris of A Bit o' Culture, a week in the beautiful Blue Mountains (some photos may follow soon), a googolplex rehearsals, several hours spent planning projects and recital material, stressing, reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, walking, laughing, driving, sitting on trains, writing, a short film soundtrack..
and somehow, my lavash got left behind. It awaits me now! to lovingly roll and bake it. I plan to be terribly lazy and squish it through the pasta machine. Poppy and maybe sesame shall be my decor.

This time of the month

2008-08-31T10:00:00.000+10:00

...in a totally male-friendly way. The end of the month means one thing in baking blogs all over the world.Daring Bakers, thankyou for not even threatening my sanity with this month's chocolate eclairs!

I thought choux pastry was meant to be hard? The only part I struggled with was piping the dough/paste onto the trays, because either my piping skills or equipment (most likely both) are not quite up to it. Never mind, roundish globs became pretty profiteroles!

I freaked out when I saw instructions to boil the pastry cream, and to my delight discovered that cornflour stops the yolk curdling! Genius. I actually was surprised to see that the recipe called for a chocolate custard and that other bakers going for a chocolate non-overload had used a set custard rather than just whipped cream, which I had thought was the more traditional way to fill an eclair. Custard suits me perfectly.

What else is there to tell you... let me know if you want the recipe, it's quite easy.

Mum came in as they were in the oven and said they smelled right. She used to make them all the time and she said Grandma (of the trusted sponge kisses and luince jelly) used to just spoon the paste onto the tray and smooth it out in eclair shape with a knife. I'll do that next time, and there will be a next time, because these were not only easy but fun to make.

And after taking photos to show off how wonderful they looked, I'd forgotten that they would have a taste! and delicious they were.
P.S. Reading other Daring Bakers' commentaries, I thought lavender and chocolate sounded gorgeously good, especially as spring arrives here, so my cream is subtly lavender. Enjoy :)

sweetness of the old fashioned sour

2008-08-18T09:58:00.000+10:00

It may have come to your attention that I like baking. And bread.

So way back before the start of this blog, last summer in fact, I enrolled myself in a sourdough making course. A six-hour day in Hampton, in a house with the most amazing kitchen garden you could imagine and a homemade cave of an oven in the backyard.

Some things the tutor made clear: bread is bread, and this is bread - the real thing. No need to give it special names. Bread won't make you fat if you don't eat lots of it loaded with dense fuel, eg hot with butter and honey (he kept saying this). Bread is made of flour, water and salt; anything else and it is a specialty bread, so if you go adding oil, that's fine, but he'd call it oil bread. The bread we witnessed the making of in the class was from sticky dough - had been allowed to rise for too long because of circumstances - so got specialised into cheese bread (haloumi and mint, perfect!).

Our tutor was a man who is not a fan of the new culture we have where everything is fast/instant. I think it was for this reason that he so detested the idea of hot bread, fresh bread that we all seem obsessed with. It was interesting to question the value of freshness. Making bread the real way is something you would do every week or two.. and if you really like it fresh, you could easily make a few loaves at a time (you end up with enough starter to do this) and freeze them. I liked his philosophy. If I were a hermit, I would join the slow food movement.

Sourdough - as we all kept calling it, even being informed that it's just bread - seems to be the way they made risen bread before instant yeast came along. Leave dough for a few days, it turns sour. Voila, sour dough.
But there is more to it than that. Many of the other people in the class had tried to make sourdough before and found that it was far too sour and dense, hardly rising at all.

Here is the basic understanding I got:
Dough ferments - yeast forms from bacteria (very mysterious) - needs fuel - fed flour, it grows. It takes feeding to keep growing, like any living thing, otherwise it just gets sourer and sourer. So when you feed it (dissolve it a bit in water and a bit of salt, add flour, make into dough again) the sour taste is diluted and the yeast in it has fuel to multiply.

That's basically all you have to do. Of course there are details and the best way to learn is by experiment, and I've been dabbling lately.
How To: Start with a paste of water, a little bit of salt, and flour; the thicker the better, and leave it (covered). When bubbles rise to the surface or it grows noticeably, add some water, mush around to dissolve a bit, and knead/mix in more flour. Repeat. The more flour, the more it will grow. When it has risen for a day or two it may smell like nail polish remover... that's normal.
As our tutor said, if your original paste/dough is thin enough that bubbles rise to the surface that's fine for the first time, but after that make it stiff. This didn't mean much to me until I experimented, not only with the texture of the dough but the length of time I left it and the gooeyness of the resulting hungry dough. The moral of the story was make it stiff, which I think you get when you do it.

When you and your dough are ready to make loaves, a quarter is a good amount of starter to make up the final dough. Knead it a lot. Leave covered until the surface cracks or the dough has doubled in size. If this doesn't happen after about 8 hours, I'd recommend chucking it on a tray/in a tin, letting it try to grow for an hour or two and cooking it anyway. That's what I did with my last loaf and it was bread's answer to my favourite very dense and moist Irish tea cake. But it was delicious!

Finding somewhere relatively warm for the dough to rise is the hardest part. My last loaf I probably didn't feed enough when I fed it, and definitely suffered a lack of warmth, because my house hasn't been more than 17 degrees (celsius) since May. After I had shaped the loaf I was so frustrated that I set the oven really low and turned it on and off for a couple of hours and it worked, but obviously you can't do that for days with all the feeding and breeding of the dough. This lot is living above the microwave and going very well so far - the question is, what happens when it gets too big for the space?

madeleines and other dainty cakes

2008-08-04T10:32:00.000+10:00

Though I have had many good adventures lately, none of them particularly wild, this post was to be about madeleines.

Honey and lavender.
Les madeleines aux miel et lavande. ou di-t-on au miel et à la lavande? je ne sais pas.
One of my friends with whom I did French at school, and went to Montpellier, mentioned recently that she had a recipe for honey and lavender madeleines. As I had been wanting to make maddies for some time, I jumped with enthusiasm, and soon after found myself in Greensborough on a cold morning. Looking for coffee, I saw that the cafés open at 10..
The cake deco shop opens at 9 :)
So I came home coffeeless but with many new clothes and a madeleine tin, and the following weekend there appeared a batch of soft but firm madeleines.

We used fresh lavender from the garden. I suspect it would be prudent to pick some and dry it while it's good. Anyway, it tasted elegant, and not too much to enjoy.

The event that actually spurred me to finish this post, though, was the Vanilla Pod Café where I went to meet a relative in Heathmont the other day. Said relative had to cancel, but I bought myself lunch (ham and cheese croissant, served cheerfully on a wooden board like at Base Kamp, and a side salad that came with some fantastic dressing in a little pot) and then bought some cupcakes to take to my nanna's house.

I wish I had had a camera with me... usually I haven't bothered writing about places if I have no photos, but please, if you are in Heathmont, pop into the Vanilla Pod.
I bought a strawberry cupcake and an orange one to take to Nanna and for ron, a flourless chocolate. All aMAZing. The icing on each adds something as wonderful as the ganache was on my hazelnut gateau.
The strawberry cupcake ($2.50) was pink all the way through with strawberries which must have been folded through the batter, the cake was moist and not too light or dense, and what was the icing? It was like slightly sweetened whipped cream, coloured pink to match the cake, and topped with a gorgeous red half strawberry. Cream cheese icing has never been so good! And dare I say it, would make cream a completely superfluous partner. The orange one was similar, with candied rind as the top garnish.
Flourless chocolate is one of the world's presents that occasionally make me think I could be happy as a gluten-free. There is no way I can possibly do justice with these rambly words. I recommend you find an excuse to visit the little strip of Heathmont shops on Canterbury Road.
What's your favourite cupcake recipe? How can I recreate this perfect slightly sweet icing? Please advise!!

Flaring Bakers go the hazelnut genoise

2008-07-30T15:27:00.000+10:00

So, I am still going strong in the second month of claiming Daring Bakership.

The majority of this pack of strange people (I feel myself becoming addicted already) live far away in the US of A or far away elsewhere. So it seems they are likely to come up with slightly different challenges to what another Melbournian might think of.. a super-duper layered torte-ish gateau with creamy fillings, requiring hours of fridge time, for example, I think I would have been more inspired to make in summer. Teacakes call to me lately now that winter is settled in for the last coldest stretch...

That being said, I came home looking for the last piece of this creation about a day after completing it, and nowhere was it to be seen...!! So nobody had a major problem with it.
Nobody else in our house minded my lack of decoration skills either - well, maybe the noises coming from the kitchen during the decoration process! - so I am pleased.

Some books seem to say filberts and hazelnuts are related but slightly different, while other sources say they are the same thing. Whatevs.
Description:
Layers of Frangelico-brushed hazelnut meringue, held with praline buttercream and whipped cream, all swept over with a pear and vanilla glaze and finished with a second glaze of ganache (my favourite bit ;) and decorated (sigh) with more praline buttercream.

I left the skins on all my hazelnuts because going on my little experience of the sweetness of the DBs I -rightly, in all our opinions- predicted the cake would be sweet enough to take a tiny hint of bitterness. And maybe even some nutrition (fibre is in the skins, yes?). No laziness there at all.
mmmm.

Welcome to the NT... beach!

2008-07-19T16:11:00.000+10:00

It has been a while since my last post, eh. I have been away. To the beautiful big flat hot and cold Northern Territory! And July is escaping.

Apart from some very nice (inexpensive, too!) barramundi NT didn't really yield a great many culinary secrets to me.
But Darwin! is so warm all the time! and frangipane, and mangroves and bougainvillea and coconut palms are eeeeverywhere.
The Queenslanders and the locals couldn't believe how amazed I was at all the fauna!

Anyway, seeing as I was deeper into the tropics than ever I had been before, I decided to make it my business to try fresh coconut. Mirth abounded!
I know they talk about how hard coconuts are, but who knew!? Wow. One girl reckons you get a clean tea towel and swing it around and bash it on concrete.
We had a little tomahawk.
And crunchy coconut flesh. It was like coconut flavoured, creamy raw broccoli. I am sure there are many much more appropriate analogies, but anyway, yum.

the silly baker

2008-06-29T10:52:00.000+10:00

I may have been out of my mind, but I joined the Daring Bakers for a little bit of ... something.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I was up half the night (I happened to be up half the night in a head-cold-induced trance) pondering fillings and rollings and my arms .. what's the underside of the forearm? .. were sore for two days after the rolling, we definitely need a rolling pin on a wheel, rather than a big fat stick that requires much awkward wrist twists.

Was it worth it?
My Danish Braids. It made a truckload of pastry and with my offcuts there is a little family of darling croissants. I think I forgot to take photos once the croissants were done, but they are sugar and spice and all things nice.

Apricot Almond Danish braid. and below, apple.

I am worn out! ....but vaguely proud.

Longwinded kitchen spells

2008-06-22T15:57:00.000+10:00

...seem to be wearing me out. I am spending ridiculous amounts of time performing menial tasks that chain me to the bench. However it does get some kind of cool results.
Above is the first silly pursuit. I read in the paper about beans dressed softly in chickpeas, it was that Alexander woman again, and we didn't have any ricotta for the beans so it was Homemade Milk Ricotta - very easy to make, as it turned out. Only my saucepan on the lowest heat was determined to do nothing less than boil, so boil away merrily it did until I (too late) remembered the simmer mat and it may have been my fault if it was slightly too hard to beat to a creamy consistency. But it was delicious.
Next was to make a porridge of chickpea flour (besan), oops, thought that said 250g, no wonder it needed so much more water than I originally put.. never mind, it will be fat, bake it anyway for a much longer time. Process the tomatoes for a vinaigrette? No, I'm hungry. Lemon/olive oil salsa it shall be.
Did I mention it was meant to be a roulade? No way that was going to happen when I had the exact sized pan (18 x 28 cm, thankyou very much) with double the amount of chickpea.. thing.. and anyway a roulade is meant to wait for an hour.
I had a sandwich, and very pretty too.

I am also having a slight teacake obsession at the moment, no photos of any of them yet. So far I have made three and am hunting around for more.. apple and custard may make an appearance somewhere in the next month or two, and the glazed Irish will definitely get a second go. Oh winter and sore throats and comforting English ideas (and puddings! lovely old stodge).

It has to be one of my favourite things to curl up - sorry for the cliché - with a good book in front of the fire (or in front of some BBC with a blanket) and a hot cup of tea. Oh tea, how I love thee.
Especially when we get winter rain, which was kind enough to drop in for a few hours this morning and may yet be back, fingers crossed.

More sweet things to come.

Rahat Lokum

2008-06-14T11:12:00.000+10:00

I love all Middle Eastern consumables I have come across so far (with the exception of some ultra-perfumed lemon sugar water that just didn't seem right). And I do enjoy Claudia Roden's writing, and read her book quite a bit, and my brother loves Turkish Delight - the real stuff of course - and I was hiking off to Coburg for music lessons and catching the tram down Sydney Road, and so it came about that we planned to make our own Turkish Delight, or as it is otherwise called, Rahat Lokum. The lokum will keep for a long time in a box, apparently. Sugar usually does.
So more than once I jumped off the no. 19 and wandered interestedly but less fruitfully around Brunswick/Albion (is Albion an actual place or just a lonely station like Dennis?) in search of mastic to flavour our lokum. Mah-stick-uh seems to be the way to say it, best as I can spell anyway. It took a few goes and I was late for class twice because of this quest! Eventually A1 produced a tiny plastic pocket (turned out to contain a small teaspoon's worth) of tiny translucent pebbles, one of many stapled to a cardboard backing, that cost me either 70c or $1.65 or something. Not much. Will have to go back to the grocery I found for that sour cherry jam...
Brother and I followed the recipe as faithfully as we could, grinding the mastic tears with sugar, mortar and pestle, taking turns to stir for - granted - 2 hours not 3, but we were only making half the whopping 3kg of sugar's quantity. We still didn't have enough cornflour and had to run down to the neighbours.. and had serious lump problems.. and with pistachios, lemon, all the pink colouring we had, mastic and a new packet of cornflour (maybe wheaten would have worked better? No amount of stirring would smooth our lumps) not poured but scooped and scraped into a heavily dusted dish. It must have been fate that the Sunday of stirring was the day the Age magazine had an entry about the tears of the mastic tree.

The next day we tried to cut with cornflour and probably too much icing sugar, but still.. our sweet fragrant lokum releases its hard-sought flavours in a slow rush of mouth-watering tang that requires a second (almost solid) piece. It's slightly tinged with colour and very soft, like we would no doubt become if we ate it all quickly - as is quite tempting.

Luinces

2008-05-19T16:12:00.000+10:00

Quinces, beautiful and weird fruit that they are, have abounded lately... in our house anyway. When I go for a run I pass this big laden tree, breathe in a lungful and try not to steal any. Cheap at the shops too. I like 3-hour-dark-pink-poached quince with yoghourt at breakfast time and after tea and in the afternoon. If it hasn't made an appearance at breakfast, as well as if they have, you could have them in the mid-morning too.

Anyway.
My mum comes from the country, and her mum is therefore a country cook. They lived on a farm and it was roast lamb pretty much every day, and my Grandma ran the house and cooked for everyone. She's a hard worker and when we visit, it's like this huge chance for her to feed us all up with roasts and sponge cakes and kisses. Her teacake is a first prize winner at the local show. We LOVE her apricot jam, and I particularly love visiting the source of it in summer, a little home orchard that is really hard to find even if you've been driving there for 75 years and when we go is chockers with warm apricots, and peaches and plums appearing. Grandma's tomato relish... well, you understand.

So on the farm where Mum grew up, there is a quince tree more than fifty years old, and her brother and his family live there now and I think they pruned it last year. Pruned or not, it is awesomely prolific!
And it is still the origin of Grandma's fantastic Quince Jelly, or Luince Jelly as we know it, because she doesn't quite close her Qs.

Thus it was at Easter we came home with a box of quinces (and four pomegranates), a box or two of jams and relishes and a warm-quince-scented car.

Me, I finally got to make a certain buttery tart and affirm in my opinion that yes, Stephanie is right, butter and quinces do both certainly go with cream. I was too lazy to photograph that part, and it really needed eating, but I hope you get the gist.

a bit of weekend baking

2008-05-11T21:41:00.000+10:00

Weekends are the time when there is a little bit more.. well, time. For things like chasing down photocopies and handwritten copies and shorthand copies of recipes from all over the place. And even more importantly, time for things like baking.

I came home on Friday to discover a long-longed-for new biscuit barrel.

It needed yoyos.
Yo-yos.
Yo-yoes.
I can't make the word look right but the bikkies did me just fine!

There they are above with icing firming out.
Humble, lovely, just buttery enough yo yo biscuits.

saturday night pizza

2008-05-11T21:23:00.000+10:00

Bread is great if you're up early enough and can be bothered washing dough off your hands that many times. In our house, though, Saturday night is pizza night when we're home.. being the culinary innovator (or, as I see it, rebel) of the house I like different things on mine and secretly try to lean everyone towards simpler combinations. Anyway, we happened to have some basil in the fridge last week and cherry tomatoes on the bench, and there is always parmesan of course, and balsamic, and every week olives (kalamata. What does 'black' mean? Is a neutral 'black olive' spanish or other?) so we were in business for the House Favourite Pizza that was discovered in my aunt's olive oil book. The black blobs are olive paste which is simply olives lazily mushed up in the mortar and pestle and a bit of balsamic vinegar. The photo truly does not do justice to how good it was!

First Things First

2008-05-02T00:21:00.000+10:00

It had to come. And here it is, my admission, confession, profession and admonition to the netting world: I am a foodie.

I like the word foodie. It just feels right. Nothing else quite means what I want it to, though the French got close to making me feel elegant (until they explained with a bit of English). Isn't that interesting? To love food in France seems tasteful, and to love food of English background just seems ... not. Not that I'm meaning to start a Franco-Anglo discussion.

It's just this:
(identity crisis)

greedy guts, glutton, pig/hog, eater

gourmandise

sounded lovely until they explained it meant Glutton (yes, it does need a capital letter). And anyway, wish and try as I might, I'm not French. Though I do love their culture, surtout la cuisine.

The other thing going here should be a disclaimer: No, I don't feel the need to eat cream with everything. Just have a look at the book (you know the book. the big fat one that doesn't fit in the recipe stand) and the nifty little lists of what goes together.

All right my little food blog. You are golden brown and setting, and smelling delicious...