To the people, food is Heaven

I first encountered Harry’s writing at the now-defunct Back Pages blog during the 2004 election, and have been a fan ever since. He is very handsome for a nerd, which may explain his current employment as a part time scrotum model. Or not. I feel it’s proper to disclose that I have met him in person and, as it happens, have seen him with his trousers off. While I am able to vouch for his general good looks, I must confess to have paid inadequate attention to vouch for his employability.

He blogs at The Adventurerer, a travel blog about a boy who came home, where the following post first appeared, and also at the marvellous group blog For Battle! I would like to apologise for the number of commas in that sentence, but I’ve had some wine (like you hadn’t guessed that by now!) and it isn’t immediately apparent to me how to do it better. Suggestions gratefully accepted. Youse know who youse are.

Overpriced and crap.

Is there a tapas place that actually embodies the spirit of what tapas actually is, ie cheap finger food while you drink and chat?

I don’t think so. For some reason everyone thinks tapas should be overpriced and an all hoitytoity playground for self-consciously dressed people to dick swing.

Last night I went to Subsolo at 161 King St, Sydney.
Substandard.

$30 each got four people:
A beef skewer with five bits. Not top grade beef. Some marinade.
A chicken skewer of six bits. This was quite nice.
Two very small slices of french stick.
A small bowl of salad leaves presumably so we could put meat bits on-a-bed-of salad. Also included was one half artichoke and ONE green olive.
Good sized platter of indifferent paella including four mussels and about six prawns.
Bowl of green beans with onion.
Bowl of potatas bravas (chopped baked potato with a chili tomato sauce).

What a bunch of cheap-skates. The cheapest vegetables in the world, and not even lots of them (to paraphrase a Woody Allen joke).

As bowls were being cleared we started asking if the main was coming.
No, that was not the entree. It was the whole meal.

What sort of a tapas place does not have:
a) bowls of a variety of olives
b) bread and oil to dip it in
c) chorizo
d) mushrooms for anybody but particularly when we requested vego options.
d) something fancy that makes you go “ooh! Haven’t had that before”?

I’ll tell you what sort of place: a shit one.

Don’t go.

Hopefully the new winebar licenses will see real tapas come to Sydney instead of this overpriced crap. It’s meant to be seasonal peasant/fisherman’s food you bunch of pretentious dickheads!
if you don’t have salt and pepper whitebait (the fish is $6 a kilo) when it’s in season then you deserve to be firebombed.

Unimpressed, Marrickville.

“Yes, yes,” he said curtly. “The crossroads. There’s a devil. So you want something from me, man?”

Start with a joke, and finish earlier than your audience expects: there’s some free and eternally wise advice for formal speeches, drinking sessions, striptease and blog posts. Thank me, reader, when you next rrrrock the microphone at the wedding of your unlovely relative, and give me praise when you next set the roof of your company’s boardroom on fire. With your presentation.

In this edition, Kate makes a class inquiry, Wendy wonders about whiskies, and Mindy asks about old cold black gold.

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Dr Sista Outlaw is the kind of woman you want on your side in an argument, educated, informed and utterly bloody ruthless. However I would not advise playing Scrabulous with her if you wish to retain any sense of dignity or self respect.

She is the single parent to a particularly nice son, and they live in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. She is a superb dinner companion, and also makes the best Christmas Pudding you have ever had.

Her name comes from her revised relationship status, formally shifting from sister in law to Ampersand Duck to sista outlaw status, a role that sits more comfortably on her shoulders.

Those of us who live in the climatic zones of Canberra and Katoomba are currently freezing their bloody tits off, and there’s nothing more warming than a very nice pudding. Here is a recipe that really hits the spot for winter. It tastes divine. It invokes memories of grandmotherly warmth (at least for those of us who had grandmothers who could cook. Mine couldn’t, so for me it invokes memories of wishing I had one of those other grandmothers. You know, the nice dainty ones, who could cook). It is quick and requires no special ingredients. And did I mention it tastes divine?

This has been adapted from the PWMU – short for the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union – Cookbook, first printed 1904 and reprinted at least 18 times in the interval between the first edition and this one, which dates from 1973, just before Presbyterians became Uniting Churchies.

This particular volume was pocketed when I cleaned out a blind poet’s house. I figured she wouldn’t notice it was gone. Now it’s subject to a custody battle because my ex says he was closer to the blind poet than I was and it came from his mother’s house anyway. I am, so far, resisting all entreaties to return it.

Part of the reason I love it because it shows how far we have come since the culinary dark ages that beset the country between 1788 and Margaret Fulton. It has ‘International Recipes’ - only one example from any country, ordered alphabetically, by country rather than recipe. ‘Savouries’, which might be called hors’ d’ouevres elsewhere, include Angels on Horseback, Curried Eggs, Devilled Kidneys, Scots Eggs and, completing the unholy circle, Devils on Horseback and it includes recipes for Tripe and Onions, Boiled Fowl and Jugged Hare.

All this means it is a boon for anyone hunting traditional recipes. It’s got loads of good soup, sauce and stew recipes, which show a bit of French influence, as you would expect. It contains the recipes my beleaguered home economics teachers tried to impart to me back in my country childhood, which I never wrote down, even though I have never forgotten how good they tasted. I consult it most often when baking or preparing puddings. My faves are Golden Syrup Dumplings, Kiss Biscuits, and this one, which is, as I have noted, a bit of an adaptation.

Lemon Delicious Pudding

Single girls should know that the production of one of these desserts weakens the knees of red blooded males but they only take 10 minutes to put together and you can bake them while you eat the main and linger over the wine. All you require is some familiarity with bringing egg whites to a stiff peak, and folding things in gently (you see, this is a seductive pudding).

Firstly, get your oven nice and moderately warm – somewhere between 150 and 180 degrees, depending on the ferocity or otherwise of your beast. Get a soufflé or deep pie dish or bowl and butter it liberally.

Then grab your blender/food processor/mix master or, if you have neither, a spoon and bowl and cream together 1 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of butter. While you are doing that, take a lemon and grate all the rind off it. Chuck the rind in with the sugar and butter so it’s macerated (and smells divine). Then add ¼ cup of self-raising flour. Juice the lemon, and put all the juice in with the sugar mix and add a cup of milk – lite milk is fine.

Then carefully separate two eggs. Because I know many people are stumped by this instruction I shall explain. Crack the egg over a bowl just once and use your fingers to prize the shell in half, catching the yolk in one half. Tip the shell until the white falls into the bowl, and pass it into the other half as you need to. Be careful not to snag the yolk – your egg whites will never reach their peak (same goes for fat). Use a hand mixer to whip the egg whites sitting in your bowl until they form stiff peaks – the stiffer the better. Then add the yolks to the lemon mix. Here’s a picture, with the lemon mix safely in the blender. Note also wine bottle.

Now fold the blender mixture into the egg whites to lightly disperse the flour and flavourings through the whites. Do this using a spatula or something, so you don’t bash the air out of the egg whites. You don’t need to do any more than this.

Then pour it in the pie dish. You can sit the dish in a bowl of water, but I don’t think you have to. Bake it for about an hour and a half. The top will set, and you’ll have a nice saucy bottom, and it will look something like this – all the lemony goodness is under the crust.

Eat it whenever you feel like it – sometimes they sag as they cool but the point is they are not soufflés and remain delicious. You can refrigerate and reheat if there are leftovers (hah!). What you will find is it’s different every time you cook it, particularly if your oven is cantankerous. Shorter cooking times produce a white fluffy meringue with a nice brown crust and a tart sloppy sauce underneath – if that’s the way you really like them, cut the flour back to two tablespoons, as PWMU recommends. If you cook them longer you’ll get a cakey meringue, like a self-saucing pudding.
By the way, I fell in love with these puddings at Varuna, The Writers’ House, where the famed cook Sheila serves them. She uses limes, and they are inimitably macaroony.

A friend of some friends has the curious habit of taking a photograph of every meal he eats.  Whether he is at home or dining out, no matter the occasion, he takes out his camera and makes a record of that which he is about to eat.

Our mutual friends discuss this individual’s practice as part of a continuum of OCD behaviour on his part, but I can’t recall their deliberations ever extending to reveal what he does with the photos he produces.

On my own, I have contemplated his apparently obsessive desire to take photos of his meals. 

First of all I wonder about the logistics of taking the photos. What kind of camera does he have? Or does he use a mobile phone?  When he’s in public  or dining at a friend’s is he concerned that he might be breaching social etiquette by producing his camera at an inopportune moment? At home, does he have to contend with irritated loved ones who just want to start eating before the meal goes cold?

Perhaps the meal doesn’t have a chance to go cold.  That possibility would suggest he cared about the quality of the photo he was producing due either to another dimension of his already compulsive behaviour or the knowledge that the photos would be seen by others, who might bring some understanding of ‘quality’ to their judgement of them.

As someone who occasionally blogs about my own meal experiences and who likes to accompany any rumination on culinary feats (either shopping, cooking or eating) with pictorial evidence, I’ll admit that I’m slightly intrigued by the proposition of taking a photo of every meal I eat.  As a study in the everyday it appeals to me. What kind of picture would emerge over time? What narratives would be wrought?

Here, I’m reminded of the Paul Auster/Wayne Wang film, Smoke, where a tobacconist, Augie, takes a photo of the corner outside of his shop at the same time everyday.  He places them in an album and looks through them from time to time, observing the shifts of people and seasons just outside his door.

Doing a similar project with meals would, in an affluent country such as Australia, lend occasion for more variation in the photographs taken than those in the Auster/Wang film.  And, since the advent of blogging, the impulse to post the photographs online would be overwhelming; it’s the stuff of those 365 Blogs whose authors seek to self-impose discipline and post everyday for a year.

Imagine the stories, not of culinary or photographic expertise, but of meals prepared and eaten: shared and alone, on holidays, remembered from childhood, exotic and plain, old favourites and new discoveries, experiments and failures, for comfort, health, and taste, and, indeed, for very much more.

Five weeks now without a car, although the insurance company promises me it’ll be fixed on Wednesday. Promises, promises.

Having no car, even in Canberra, even in winter, has been absolutely fine until this last week when I’d already been sick for a week when both the kids got really crook. Bit of a bugger walking a five year old home from the doctor and having to wait while he vomits because he’s been coughing so hard. Could be worse, of course, as no-one has cancer (we hope) and everyone has all their limbs, but I felt sorry for the little bugger all the same.

So on Saturday morning I pounced on my dear friend Steevy when he dropped by IN HIS CAR and inveigled him into taking us to Choku Bai Jo. It was lovely to see Cristy, Paul and Lily there, even though I had to confess that I was buying a bunch of baby turnips just because they were tiny! (the largest nearly an inch wide) and cute! although I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

Pasta with baby turnips, bacon and turnip greens

This needs about 10 minutes preparation time and up to 15 minutes to cook, depending on the pasta you choose (wholemeal spirals for us). Will serve 3 adults or 2 adults and two kids.

Ingredients

1 bunch baby turnips, washed thoroughly with the greens cut into 3-4 cm lengths.
2 rashers bacon
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
toasted walnut fragments
romano cheese, grated finely
black pepper
a sturdy pasta that you like

Preparation

Put on a big pot of water to boil.

I’d planned to leave a little of the stems on the turnip bulbs, Japanese-style but was defeated by the tiny grit filled folds of stem and cleanly beheaded them before slicing each one into two or three thick slices. Go with whatever you’ve got the patience for.

Parboil the turnips for a minute or so and retrieve them. Add the turnip greens to the pot for just a minute and drain them, then add salt and the pasta to the pot.

Chop the bacon into 1 cm slices and fry gently. I only had that poxy flabby packet bacon - thanks, Dad - so cooked it veerrrrrrry slowly until it had crisped gently and then splashed on some some Camellia Oil. I have fallen in love with Camellia Oil thanks (again) to Fuchsia Dunlop - it’s earthy, peppery and delicious. Add in the crushed garlic and turnips and after a few minutes stir through the greens. In just a minute the pasta will be ready, and you can throw some in the pan.

Serving

Serve in a nice deep bowl, and sprinkle generously with parsley and walnuts and a bit less generously with cheese and pepper. The turnips are mellow and subtle, the greens are zingy and delicious and the pasta gives you enough energy to chase children all afternoon. Ann, you may omit the bacon, but then you’d want to add some salt.

So now I have to work out what to do with the cavolo nero (aka Tuscan kale, black kale or dinosaur kale) that was the other thing I couldn’t resist …

I’ve been sick for nearly two weeks (I’m never sick!) and both the kids are feverish snot covered whirlwinds. So yeah, not cooking much.

Thank God for my friends Nigel and Willa. Nigel turned up early yesterday morning bearing his mother’s heirloom casserole dish full of a beautiful tomato and silverbeet soup (with cinnamon) made by Willa.

Some cous cous to improve the child spoonability factor, and lots of pepper and a squeeze of one neighbour Billy’s Meyer lemons for the grown ups. Wonderful.

Giving food is a beautiful gift, particularly for new parents or single parents. Don’t be shy, just make up a big tray of something delicious and take it around. This is the one situation where I think disposable foil cooking trays can be a Good Thing, because the new parents feel no obligation to clean and return other people’s cooking equipment. (I prefer the beautiful dish this came in and will enjoy returning it, but I don’t have a newborn. Which is also a Good Thing.)

When my dear friend Jude had her second child, her neighbour arranged seven households into a roster, and for one night a week for six weeks, we cooked for the enlarged family. It was such a wonderful thing to turn up, drop off the food and see the relieved faces. Sometimes I would stay for a glass of wine, but usually I would just scoot off after no more than ten minutes or so. And how I loved cooking for them! I would turn up with things like a big bowl of washed and picked over leaves, a little bag of really good vinaigrette and a container of marinated and grilled chicken, baked sweet potato and very fresh nuts. And always a dessert. Breastfeeding women need sweets.

There’s a simpler way we can give food too, by just clicking at the hunger site.