i made this!
a thing of beauty, adapted from nigella lawson’s kuchen recipe in delicious magazine. this one has grated lemon rind mixed into the bready dough, and is topped with cherries, almonds, raw sugar and mixed spice. it’s just out of the oven! i’m excited!
a surprise midweek jaunt into the city put me once again outside the plexiglass lockers at breadtop, looking in. the buns sat there, glowing a faint green… and then i bought them, finally.
a single hefty green tea melon bun, and a bag of six little green tea buns, filled with red bean paste.
the green tea melon bun — where the melon refers not to a flavour, but the crisscross pattern on the surface of the bun — has all its flavour concentrated in the crust. you crunch through this sturdy green armour to get to a plain yeasty sweet bun beneath. it’s like kogepan’s friend, melon-pan, come to life! a life that sadly came to an end after dinner wednesday night, washed down with a pot of jasmin green tea. mmm…
the next morning, a green tea-red bean bun fulfilled its destiny. this bun had green tea flavour (and colour) all through the soft dough, and contained just the right amount of sweet red bean mash.
the next morning, the kid and i, and another kid and her mum, trundled down the street in the rain, to about life, again! clearly i am deluded about the amount of money i’m earning with my high-flying, stay-at-home mothering, extremely-part-time graphic designer job (except, i’m not, because i just calculated my entire year’s earnings for my tax return, and even though i thought i was doing more paid work than last year, i actually ended up with less money! sucks when that happens!)
but my $9 bowl of mushroom soup made it all better. up on the chalkboard it said “cream of mushroom soup”, but after interrogating the countergirl to find out if there were actual mushroom bits in it, i was delighted to receive an enormous bowl of pureed brown mushrooms, with mushroom bits, slices even, all the way through.
maeve ended up eating most of the oversized inside-out unagi maki that i’d thought we’d share. it was a splendid vision in the glass case, its outer layer made up of artfully sliced avocado and seaweed sprinkles. it came with a salad of lightly dressed rocket leaves, and a little receptacle of wasabi and soy sauce fish.
we are thinking of moving in.
back when i worked on a pop magazine, deadline morning would see stuart the subeditor hunched over my desk, cutting back stories with one hand while the other clutched a glistening bacon and egg roll for sustenance. this was at least eight or nine years ago, and between then and now, i have intermittently thought about acquiring a bacon and egg roll, usually when i walk past one of those greasy-spoon hole-in-the-walls about the gritty city. it’s never actually happened though, either because i’ve somehow convinced myself that it won’t be as good as i’m anticipating, or because i think that i can taste it in my head and that’s what it will be and that is good enough, or because i fear the bacon will be too fatty, or because i’d rather, at that particular moment, have a goat cheese and basil omelette, or mushrooms on toast, or pancakes with berries, or whatever.
this morning, we met the boy’s family for breakfast, at an old skool italian coffee shop on the very edge of leichhardt. the breakfast menu consisted five items, three of which were: bacon and egg roll ($5), bacon and eggs on toast ($7), and bacon and eggs on turkish bread($9). the other two were bacon, eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms on toast, and toasted focaccia — i really do not like focaccia. but because i really do like turkish bread, that is what i had.
it was amazing! i should have given in years ago!
what a fool!
perhaps you’ve stumbled across “ready steady cook” in the pandora’s box that is afternoon tv, a sort of cooking gameshow which pairs everyday people and their bag of random groceries with actual chefs (think darren simpson rather than huey or aristos). maybe your favourite chef on the show is tobie puttock, because of the way he curls his lip with scorn at the showoff host, or because he seems irritated at the contestant he’s been dealt, if she is more inclined to chat vacuously to the host than to chop the spring onions. because he’s, like, sort of cute.
you may then already know that he will be heading the melbourne franchise of jamie oliver’s fifteen restaurant, and that he has a cookbook just out, “daily italian“. from this book came the recipe for friday’s potatoes.
sliced potatoes baked in milk with rosemary and garlic. it comes out with a curdly-crunchy crust. the perfect accompaniment for salmon panfried with capers, and a melange of green beans, broccoli and peas cooked up in a tin of tomatoes.
i’d thought that posting my $70 grocery receipt was an invitation for admonishment or ridicule, but no. well, perhaps there was some eye-rolling at your screens, or mutters of “why don’t you give that money to me instead?” that i don’t know about. still, i was touched by the outward show of support and understanding of my spendthriftiness. which is how i found myself back at the very same emporium, with deborah, attending a short presentation on how to increase our energy.
it amounted to the instore nutritionist sitting at a small table reading a short essay off a sheet of paper, while showing us a variety of grains, legumes and other healthy things that would help with the necessary nutrients. there was a brief and awkward pause while a girl’s baby choked on a mouthful of apple, and then there was question time, during which another girl asked what effect on her blood sugar it would have, to put four or five spoons of sugar in her cup of tea.
but of course, the food tour was just an excuse (for me anyway) to trawl the aisles of wonder once again. it was enough fun just to look, and think about buying the box of inca red quinoa, or the carton of italian chocolate cornflakes — it had a lovely illustration of a monkey on it. in a fit of restraint, i bought just a loaf of bread (sprouted rye and spelt, with a whiff of caraway), and a piece of cheese (organic parmesan).
that morning, it had rained until just before the kid and i left the house, paused for the ten minutes it took for us to walk up the hill, and then resumed. and then it stopped again. and started again, harder. it was all right for maeve, under plastic, but i was quite sodden when we pulled up outside the store. and so after the morning lesson and the circuit round the shop, when we looked out the windows to see that it was pelting down again, we thought it was best that we sit down to something to eat.
hurray!
before too long we were all perched on the shiny white stools at the counter. “babycino!” yelled the kid, as the miniature paper cup approached. and then coffee and hot chocolate and deb’s enormous stack of brown flour pancakes with marscarpone, maple syrup and strawberries — how’s that for healthy and decadent — and a great platter of smoked salmon, brie and dill omelette with thick slices of wholegrain sourdough for maeve and me. we tried our hardest to eat everything, and then we surrendered and went across the road to the common ground bakery.
“ah,” deb had said earlier, as we stood in the bread aisle, debating, “that is the bakery where the men all have beards [an anagram of ‘breads’!] and all the girls have long hair.”
it is true. the girls also wear long skirts, and blouses of flower print. such a girl, behind the counter, talked up the maté latte, and sold me a loaf of mountain berry bread. the same bread is sold back across the road at about life, but when you buy it at the bakery, it comes with a festive sprinkle of flaked almonds.
contrary to its name, it is packed with plump raisins, dates apricots and walnuts. it has a sugary glaze and an aura of brandy. these bearded men and long-haired lasses, they sure know how to have a good time.
i was giving the kid a bath this evening, when the boy came in and casually perched himself on the toilet (do not be alarmed; the lid was down). he said,
“tim sent me an interesting website today.”
“…”
“it’s a collection of streaming 80s videos.”
“oh, like music clips?”
“yeah. guess what the first song i picked was.”
“ummMMM. something by duran duran?”
“no, but something remarkably similar.”
“…”
“it was ‘tarzan boy’ by baltimora!”
there followed a brief interlude in which we sang the “oh oh oh-o-oh-o-oh-o-oh-oh oh oh-o” chorus, after which i asked,
“have they got a-ha?”
“i don’t know. i didn’t check.”
but i did. and i played, in this order:
the flame, by cheap trick
take on me, by a-ha
somewhere in my heart, by aztec camera
after which i had to get up and walk away, before i clicked on scritti politti (“oh patti (don’t feel sorry for loverboy)”) or… bonnie tyler (“total eclipse of the heart”).
the thing about having a list of things you might like to do when you go somewhere, even if it’s a very small list, is that you might end up not being able to do any of it. so that even though you might have eaten chocolate until it seeped out your pores, the fact that you didn’t eat any chocolate from the one place you really wanted to… well, it makes you feel like you’ve sort of failed, doesn’t it?
right now i would like to go to a nice hotel, just me, where there is room service, an in-house DVD library, and a cakeshop next door.
i need to recover from my week away:
—
by the time we get to melbourne, at 3pm on a friday afternoon, we have already been on the road for a couple of days. this means there have already been pies filled with lamb mince in rich brown gravy and pies filled with creme patisserie and syrupy raspberries. in fact, as a testament to the cake frenzy i found myself in on thursday afternoon, the recipt from the bakery reads: 1 beesting, 1 snickerdoodle, 1 raspberry harvest cake, 1 fruit eccle, 1 cup of tea. it wasn’t all for me! i like buying cake for other people!
our brand spankin’ new serviced apartment (complete with stainless steel galley kitchen and villeroy-boch china) is touted as being on the edge of carlton, so i kinda figured we’d be feasting italian every day. however, the reality is a billowy outpost quite a hike away. nevertheless, it is on the tram route straight to the city, so before too long we’re riding into the sunset and reacquainting ourselves with the monstrosity that is federation square
— it’s not as ugly as it used to be —
and having hot soupy noodles in chinatown.
and then what does one do in melbourne on a drizzly friday night, when holidaying with a toddler? one takes the kid back to the hotel, washes her and puts her to bed, puts the boy on babysitting duty before he can arrange to go out drinking with his friend, and then one catches the tram back into the city to see you am i at the forum.
i’d seen the poster as we walked along the twilit streets and thought i’d call up to see if there were still tickets. who knows? who knows if people still go out to see 90s aussie rock? maybe it would be sold out. but it wasn’t. when i rocked up (so to speak), the crowd was like the mid-to-late nineties; comforting, in a way, like so many plaid shirts. the theatre is a gorgeous old building, with a gilded foyer, and a hall full of banquet seating. there are classical sculptures perched over the bar, and the domed ceiling is blue like the evening. i found myself a spot inbetween the dancefloor and the seats, on a step, so i could see.
i last saw you am i, like, in 1998. so long ago. friday night, they sound the same (maybe louder). sound as ever, as it were. tim prefaces every second song with, “you think that’s a corker, wait till you hear this one!” (and it’s true!), and punctuates with windmills. it’s all fun and good until the stupid girls in two groups to my front and back start getting drunk and falling over. on me. repeatedly. and they think it’s funny, and their friends do too. and what the hell is wrong with people these days? well, what is wrong with girls then, because the boys in the group look over my way and smile, and say things like, “would you like to stand in front of me so you can see?” and “i have a spare beer, would you like it?”
even though i turn on my heels right after the final encore, and bypass the merch stand selling footy scarves with YOU AM I woven into various team colours, i miss the last tram and walk for a bit in the rain before a taxi comes by. it’s nice.
the next morning we walk past bakery lane…
…en route to the queen victoria markets, with its aisles upon aisles of fruit and veg, and its warren on delicatessenal delights such as picked octopus and festive sausages (you will see, if you squint, one of these starbusts says “wedding sausage”).
but i resist the lure of the salami, and even the hot kranski with sauerkraut. or any number of continental pastries; this morning the spinach and cheese borek calls to me. it all works out in the end though, because the boy goes back in after his sausage, and reappears with a wedge of kolace: a yeasty base topped with poppyseeds, sugary ground walnuts, sour cherry jam, and soft white cheese. thank you, boy.
come back later. i’ll tell ya all about it.
back to the comforting clicky-click of one’s keyboard, one could spin fanciful tales of homely cakes that one encountered in the wintery sou’-eastern wodge of this great land.
instead i shall spleen about some ridiculous developments in the field of convenience foods that i’ve seen advertised in the last couple of days.
1 the “café menu” range recently introduced by a prominent instant coffee conglomerate includes four varieties of cappuccino (eg. sweet cappuccino — “authentic café quality coffee targeting younger drinkers, those new to coffee or those who prefer a sweeter, milkier cappuccino”), and perhaps too many flavours of latte, the stupidest being the chai coffee latte. it’s not even the (you might think) tautologicality of the name for a milky tea drink, it’s that it actually is a coffee beverage blended with a spice mix of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon.
2 the newly-implemented flip-top lid on tubs of ice cream. apparently this makes it “easier”, though the ad didn’t specify what exactly we would find less challenging. certainly, i was more puzzled.
who thinks up these things? argh!
i’m sure these are at last partially responsible for the worrisome dream i had last night. my recurring stress dream, i might have mentioned, is my teeth shatter and i chew on them, grinding them down like broken seashells. a few years ago, i bit into a stale rice cracker, and part of my molar did break off, around an old filling; i sat there a while wondering, am i dreaming, or am i awake and my tooth just broke. argh! my other stress dream, which i’ve had maybe twice, though several years apart, is where i can see parasitic worms floating around inside my stomach, and also involves walking through a shiny white laboratory with stylish stainless steel table lamps.
in last night’s dream, i realised too late, as i was getting a sandwich for dinner, that the pearl jam show started in half an hour, and it would take me at least an hour to get there. and even more horribly, i had forgotten to go to the previous night’s concert, and had also forgotten to sell my spare ticket. i believe i may have sobbed. somehow, i made it there in time, and my only concern was how a short person gets a good view of the stage. phew.
it is with some sadness that i am retiring my faithful old backpack, with its frayed edges, wayward (completely broken off, for the second time) shoulder strap, and gruesome stains on the inside. i bought it several years ago in a shop full of cute things in new york city, and even then, i think it hung around my cupboard for a few months before i finally put it to use. this was some time in 1998, and the first time i carried it out, i stowed my takeaway salad lunch, and when i got back to my desk i discovered that at the bottom of my pristine bag was a puddle of oily, vinegary salad dressing. that first week, every time i caught a whiff of the lingering odour, i felt a little bit sour.
this bag was mostly waterproof (from the outside, at least, and hey, it had kept the salad dressing sealed in), and it was the perfect size for carrying magazines around. it had a recipe for cherry pie on one side, and on the other, “fluffy pudding”. it was made by super planning co., who also brought you mr. friendly. a pedigree bag.
people always wanted to know where i got my bag; strangers in the street would stop me and ask, and i always felt like a bit of a dick when i answered, “new york”. but i carried it everywhere, and when one of the straps broke off a few years ago, i stitched it back on, and it carried on like a champ. even through the sudden but brief infestation of ants. i had it with me as i boarded the plane to london three months ago. it was full of books and magazines and snacks and toys and cameras and passports, and when i picked it up after the boarding announcement, the tired strap gave way.
since then it has sat on the floor, first in the corner of nellie‘s spare room in her london flat, and then propped up against my bookshelf in the study. i’ve been making do with a couple of totes, one calico and the other dark denim. which is fine and all, but i fear the weight on one shoulder is doing terrible things to my back. (well. that and the lack of yoga or swimming.)
so, i’m finally breaking out the new one, a long-ago gift from nellie, from the same shop even, from when she was a new york city girl. it’s sort of the same, but not quite the same. it’s coming on a mini roadtrip with me — tomorrow we wind our way down to melbourne. i don’t have much planned, except to have a sausage at the markets, some chocolate at koko black, and read my new new yorker, in which there is an indepth article on pastry.
see you in a little bit.
