ragingyoghurt » 2007

Monthly Archives: July 2007

today was all blue skies and fluffy clouds, perfect for a cupcake excursion! we caught a bus and a train, crossed two bridges, and walked out into the sunshine at kirribilli markets. we wandered through the maze of stalls, not really looking too hard, and then we found it: chocolate suze’s biscuit (and cupcake) stand, as advertised.

there were sample jars filled with little nuggets of shortbread, warmed by the sun, and a sign which told me to try as many as i wanted, so i did: white chocolate and cranberry shortbread, cranberry and pistachio, macadamia, ginger… there were as many different kinds of biscotti, including an intriguing pear and cardamon specimen. there was a shameless display of well-frosted cupcakes, overwhelmingly pink and copiously sprinkled. and there was chocolate suze, who i had never met before today, and is yet more proof that the innernet is my friend.

but we cannot stand around making small talk about butter; maeve is not so easily distracted when there are pink cupcakes about. with pink dragees! and that boy is going to get it! but he didn’t. we took the cupcake to the park, plonked ourselves down in the shade of the harbour bridge, and then she dug out all the dragees and ate whatever frosting she hadn’t licked off along the way. as an afterthought, she ate about half the cake too.

she was kind enough to offer me a nibble now and again, so i was able to ascertain that it was all sugary icing and buttery cake, and sometimes that is all i ask of it. and so it was that after a play in the playground, and another meander through the market, and a greasy gozleme on the bare patch of grass in the middle of it all, and a free facepaint in the likeness of a pink kitten, we ended up back at the cupcakes so that i could buy one of my very own, and bring it home with me.

“that is such a delicious and moist cupcake,” i gushed. “does it have a lot of butter in it?”

suze smiled a wicked smile. “yes,” she said, “and you don’t want to know how much.”

i thought i’d be eating it tonight, solace while i worked a crazy deadline. but an even crazier deadline has taken shape, making this evening just the calm before the storm. and so here it sits, biding its time, waiting for the morning when it will kill me a buttery death. it will be great!

posted by ragingyoghurt on 28 July 2007 at 10:48 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, kid, werk

i am about to go watch “america’s next top model” with a cup of tea (green, vanilla) and a biscuit (macaron, rose), which is a grand way to spend a friday night with kid sleeping and boy absent.

last tuesday, as we parked the grocery-laden pram outside adriano zumbo patissier, a yelled-out welcome made its way onto the street: “hello, ragingyoghurt!” it’s nice, no? when the boy behind the counter knows your name? nevermind that your name isn’t actually “ragingyoghurt”…

we entered the shop, and my eyes automatically swung to 2 o’clock, where the macaron usually hang out. except, there were no macaron! not a single one. “where are all the little coloured biscuits?” i asked, perplexed.

turns out the entire zumbo workshop had been wiped out with the killer flu over the weekend. charlie the counterboy had been making pastries to keep the counter stocked. but no pink biscuits for us. the kid, who’d been chanting a mantra of “pink-biscuit-pink-biscuit”, was easily placated with a raisin snail. and i… i finally got a chance to try the cheeky charlie.

a figure eight of a danish, topped with chopped strawberries and pistachios. the surprise is, the brioche feuilletine has a ribbon of sticky red jam running through it, which makes your cheeks tingle with intense strawberriness.

i’d been eyeing this for weeks, but there was always something more enticing than a danish along the counter. plus i didn’t think i could ask charlie himself for a pastry named in his honour. tuesday, an extra countergirl was there to help me out.

thanks, countergirl!

anyway. i thought you might be interested to see the kind of more-enticing-something that’s been keeping me from surprise danishes.

the merry-go-round, from two tuesdays ago: like a regular strawberry custard tart, only crazier. behold the macaron biscuit topped with a tiny cube of turkish delight. beneath the ring of strawberries, a great dollop of creme patissiere — as you’d expect — but within this, a secret core of lychee mousse. predictably, the kid was only interested in the pink biscuit, so after i bribed her with it, she left me — and the merry-go-round — to our own devices. i took it to bed with me that night, and when i was done with it… well, you know how it is.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 27 July 2007 at 9:24 pm

permalink | filed under cake, kid

i arrived home from melbourne to find a flurry of delivery notices on the doormat. the fedex man had been while we were gone, thrice in the week, each time leaving another official bit of card saying, “we were here, you were not”, with the final one adding rather threateningly, “we will be returning the package to sender”.

but i called them up on monday and grovelled a little bit, and a couple days later, my parcel showed up, from the good folk at penguin: a handsome hardcover called, “alone in the kitchen with an eggplant: confessions of cooking for one and dining alone” (edited by jenni ferrari-ader).

“look!” i said to the boy, “people send me books now, because i am media!”

“you mean, because you have a blog?”

“yes?”

“that’s ridiculous,” he said.

which maybe it is, a little. after all, i mean, who am i?

well, never mind me. here is a collection of 26 essays, personal stories from an eclectic mix of writers including amanda hesser (food editor of the new york times magazine), nora ephron (chickflick writer), haruki murakami (tedious postmodern novelist), and steve almond (whose book “candyfreak” — a brief history of regional american candy — i am also currently in the middle of). i am reading them as the editor intended — in order — and a handful of chapters in, have encountered someone who ate asparagus every day for two months, someone who was happy to subsist on crackers:

…most nights i did not feel fancy at all. i ate slices of white cheese on saltines with a dollop of salsa, then smoothly transitioned to saltines spread with butter and jam for dessert. i would eat as many as were required to no longer be hungry and then i would stop.
– ann patchett

…someone who relied on black beans throughout grad school, someone — at last — who didn’t make eating at home alone seem quite so dire:

my home-alone dinners are often composed of one or two flavours, prepared in a way that underlines their best qualities. eggs are high on the list. i rarely eat breakfast but i adore eggs and there are very few opportunities to eat them at other times of the day. so i might poach one and lay it on a nest of peppery or bitter greens. i might toss a poached egg with pasta, steamed spinach and good olive oil, and shower it with freshly-grated nutmeg and cheese. or, i might press a hard boiled egg through a sieve and sprinkle the fluffy egg curds over asparagus. – amanda hesser

which is the way it should be, no? when else are you going to get the chance to cook exactly what you want to eat, without having to take into consideration anyone else’s particularities? the week i had to myself, that week boy and kid were away, i made spaghetti with shredded brussels sprouts sauteed in rocket pesto, and a tofu green curry with as many green vegetables as i could pack in. i’m sure i would’ve made several more meat-free, veggie-packed things, but i also had to fit in some leisurely solo cafe meals, a vegetarian dinner at BBQ king — it can be done!, and adriano zumbo, three times.

this is a book about how food fits into people’s lives. there are no glossy photographs of tasteful little dinners and convenient lunches, but there are recipes now and again, for such things as roasted beet and cucumber salad with ricotta salata, truffled egg toast, kippers mash, yellowfin tuna with heirloom tomatoes and oil-cured olive and caper salsa. see, it doesn’t all have to be about drinking your lonely way through a giant pot of soup.

though it could be, if you wanted it so. it’s not so horrible to eat alone, is it? don’t you? (and what do you eat? tell me. tell me!)

and that is why this book is such an enjoyable read: all those dirty little dietary secrets. and, ok, all the moments of glorious self-discovery. it’s like reading food blogs! at its best, it’s like reading orangette.

i am looking forward to the penultimate chapter, “instant noodles” by rattawut lapcharoensap, because actually, that is one of the things i like to eat best, when i have the pleasure — the luxury — of being home alone.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 24 July 2007 at 2:35 pm

permalink | filed under blog, bookshelf, kitchen

friday, two fridays ago, it rained and rained and rained. though not while we made our way to waffle on to break fast. i know purists — and monsieur waff — would strongly recommend the plain waffle, adorned with nothing more than a dusting of powdered sugar. but. the waffle with maple syrup is an amazing thing. the air around you tingles with a mapley, syrupy aura, and your teeth go soft. since before we left sydney, i’d been telling the kid about how we could go have waffles in melbourne. she was happy to play along, perched up high on a barstool, with her waffle in a brown paper bag; the waffleman thought it might be easier to eat that way. “are you leaving today?” he asked, because he remembered that we are from sydney. “tomorrow,” we replied. there was a sadness in the air. i was already a regular. “you should move to melbourne,” he said, “you will love it.”

as the kid slowed down at the halfway mark, we folded the bag over, popped it into my backpack, and headed off on another adventure. while the boy made a pilgrimage to the fred williams room at the ian potter centre, maeve and i wandered through the indigenous collection, picking out our favourite shell-studded, feather-adorned, hand-woven satchels; making faces back at the totems; looking for native animals hidden in the dots. there was a tale which accompanied a little family of colourful woven dolls:

a woman was out in the bush looking for food for her children. two men killed her. when they noticed that milk was leaking from her breasts, they realised that she must have children nearby. they found their way back to her camp, where they discovered her two children, and killed them too.

tops.

it was heaps more fun ambling down by the yarra, past the australian poster annual. in the shadow of the circus oz tent and a creaky old ferris wheel. we took a ride on “the grand carousel”, a small scuffed thing with a ring of tired animals jerking up and down and a soundtrack composed of the whirr and hum of machinery.

we walked on: the boy led the way up the green slopes into the botanic gardens. and it was fun for a while, even though it was bitingly cold, and even when it started to rain, because by then we were right by the tropical greenhouse, and i knew that inside it would be warm, if a little moist. the kid finished off the rest of her waffle surrounded by steamy exotic vegetation. and then we stepped outside because we thought the rain was easing.

but it tricked us.

it got heavier and heavier, and i got wetter and grumpier: why was there no place to take shelter? by the time i spotted the visitors’ centre and stomped off towards it, my shoulders were sodden, my hair saturated. i fingered the plastic rain ponchos in the garden shop, and gazed longingly at the fat sandwiches and wedges of cake behind glass in the cafeteria. truly, i would’ve been happy to stay.

but the boy had his sights set on a walk beside port phillip bay, and was leaning out the glass doors in the direction of the st kilda tram. fortunately, i had no such desire to slosh around the outdoors for an unspecified time, so me and the kid caught a tram in the other direction, and headed underground.

there is a cute little boutique in the pedestrian tunnel under flinders street, where cute skirts can be found. sadly, everything on the rack was either an 8 or a 14. so we went next door to sticky, floor to ceiling, wall to wall zines and other scraps of paper, and a desk with badge machines where you can sit and press out your own buttons. one of us came away with a little button with a black cat on it; one of us bought too many zines.

and we climbed the dark stairs back up to the street to find sunlight! and life! and the lord of the fries! twas a lovely picnic indeed, on the tramstop bench, with a crate of hot chips smothered in brown vinegar and tomato sauce, and two tiny forks.

and then you know, one thing led to another, and suddenly, one night later, we weren’t in melbourne anymore. we were in a stone-cold motel room in tumut, discovering that the advertised “free cable in your room!” was three sports channels. even the ones that on the handwritten tv menu were assigned to “lifestyle channel” and “fox-something” (not “fox sport”), had since been switched over to something with a football game on it.

we read the interesting takeaway menu that i’d picked up in reception, for a local chinese restaurant. there was an entire section titled “sweet & sour”.

and really, for a while we considered regional chinese for dinner. but then we thought that maybe a counter meal in a pub, or a slap-up feed in the bistro of the RSL club would be more “authentic”. the tumut bowling club is a big, concrete bunker, the inside of which is lined in spectacular carpet of a glitzy pattern you just don’t see anymore. we followed the corridor around several bends to the packed dining room, and it became clear from the laminated menu on the counter listing such classic australian cuisine as “honey king prawns” and “mongolian lamb”, that the tumut RSL bistro was in fact a regional chinese restaurant, albeit with a small selection of steaks and chips tucked away in the extended menu.

we were not really disappointed, but it was very hard to choose. in the end, we had sweet and sour pork — not as lurid and padded out with pineapple and celery as i’ve enjoyed in other country towns, garlic king prawns, and mixed vegetables with cashew nuts. the order took about an hour to arrive, during which time i tried without success to keep the kid away from my lemon, lime and bitters. and then minutes later — well, maybe 20 minutes; we are not swine — it was all gone.

and now, looking down the barrel of a surprise annual report to be designed in five days, these golden memories of melbourne are flashing before my eyes, taunting me, like a cavalcade of well-fried chips.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 21 July 2007 at 10:15 pm

permalink | filed under around town, boy, cake, kid, snacks, trip

two thursdays ago, we walked along the tramline through north melbourne, to breakfast at the queen victoria market. there was a jam donut van parked in the heart of it, and two hot jam donuts with our names on them. there is a hand-lettered sign proclaiming 6 for $4.80, but you are not obliged to make a glutton of yourself. a handy pricelist taped to the window of the van lets you know that 1=80c, 2=$1.60, 3=$2.40, and so on. it was a very long list.

the kid face was all smiles and granular sugar. when she hit the main artery of runny, red jam, she seemed surprised: “it’s like blood!”. i was already onto a fat kransky buried in a mound of sauerkraut. i had asked for double sauerkraut, but when the lady brandishing the ladle asked if this was enough — about five times what you get at those twee german sausage stands at cultural festivals — it turned out that that was the normal amount. wuh!

we wound our way into the city, poking about in some of the shops surrounding the market. so by the time we made it to the larger-than-life-size pixar logo outside the acmi, it was princess maeve in her $2 tiara.

we swanned around the art gallery for a while, and then caught a tram to the prahran market. two markets in one day? well, i was on a cupcake mission. we must have found the crabapple bakery a little past noon, but most of the cupcakes were already gone. “i had a rosepetal one today too,” the shoplady said helpfully, gesturing towards a little tray empty but for a scattering of crumbs. the kid had no trouble choosing; her pink-iced cupcake was also pink on the inside. i hovered for a while, eventually deciding on the chocolate-raspberry cupcake: a mudcake base with raspberries baked in, topped with a swirl of ganache.

the boy had no time for cupcakes. and so, with this fragile package in the crook of my arm, we barrelled on, stopping for a large bag of tiny mandarins, on the lookout for the chocolate stall.

and there it was, three aisles down, monsieur truffe. the frenchman himself was not there that day, but a very hospitable girl offered us truffley treats from the array of samples before her. having already done my truffle dash at koko black, i thought it would be improper to acquire more of the luscious, meltaway beauties. no matter though, because monsieur truffe also peddled a great variety of bars. milk bars and dark bars of varying percentages of cocoa, organic bars, single origin bars, single origin bars with cocoa nibs… i was having a very hard time choosing.

but the shopgirl rescued me, asking what my preferred level of cocoa content was, and then saying, “that’s my range too!” when i told her it was somewhere between 65% and 75%. she recommended a few, and brought out secret samples from the fridge behind the counter. and so i learned that this was wonderful, creamy dark chocolate, not at all like the usual dry and shattery french stuff. before too long i had a little brown bag stuffed with four slim bars. it’s not really hoarding if it’s from interstate, right?

and then it rained. and we went into too many secondhand shops along chapel street, and the boy bought a year’s worth of clothes for $4, $6, $8, and i bought vintage paper coasters from a box out on the street. we were riding the rollercoaster of missed naptime, but a late afternoon cupcake back at the apartment made it all better. for a short while.

getting from north melbourne to north richmond at dinnertime is a trial. the tram you think will take you there would have stopped running, and so you will end up catching a tram to a tram to a tram. the kid will get louder and shriller before the jugga-jugga motion rocks her to sleep on her father’s shoulder, five minutes before you need to get off. but it all works out in the end, because dinner is the biggest banh xeo in the world, somewhere in north richmond.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 19 July 2007 at 10:22 pm

permalink | filed under around town, boy, cake, chocolate, dinner, kid, trip

so, wednesday.

two wednesdays ago, i woke up, made myself a cup of hotel tea, and considered the slab of chocolate kugelhopf i’d procured the day before at the monarch cakeshop on acland. my room wasn’t swish enough that it came with a microwave, however there was a column heater in the corner that came in damn handy for a breakfast of warm cake.

i was feeling a little antsy, because boy and kid were due in melbourne at some point in the day, and because boys like to be spontaneous, i had no idea what point that would be. so i checked out of the hotel and went to buy several truffles at koko black. i walked over to the queen victoria market, but it’s closed wednesdays. i caught a random tram and found myself at the casino. i thought maybe i’d look into the window of the prada shop for old times’ sake (god forbid i should actually set foot in a prada shop!), but the whole complex was clad in plywood scaffolding. they were still letting people in though, and it was right after i bought a cone of sweet corn pumpkin ice cream from the japanese stall in the food court, that the call came through: they were half an hour away!

and that pretty much sums up wednesday, because by the time i got the keys to our fancy serviced apartment on the edge of the city, and met kid and boy, and distributed welcome gifts of fruit bun and poppyseed danish, it was storytime, and then naptime. for me even. two days of walking around doing plenty of not much sure takes its toll.

afterwards there was a twilight stroll through gentrified laneways, and cheap chinatown noodles. and then i felt a duty to steer the proceedings in the direction of the trampoline store across the road — truly, they are everywhere — because the previous day, i had seen on the wall of the fitzroy shop, a poster with a caterpillar on it (the segments of its body were scoops of gelato) which said that people shorter than 90cm could get a free kid’s cone. (so, and, dwarves?)

and so she did. pink.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 18 July 2007 at 9:51 pm

permalink | filed under around town, breakfast, cake, ice cream, kid, trip

two tuesdays ago, i woke up in my hotel room in melbourne with a mission. i had to find the waffle place for breakfast, and then i had to be at acmi at ten, when the doors opened, to buy me a ticket to the pixar exhibition.

the waffles you might have already read about; the pixar show — well, by the time i waddled my waffle-laden ass over to the hideous yet brilliant federation square, there was a short queue at the ticket counter. yep. first day of the school holidays (they’re closed monday), and there were munchkins everywhere.

the three or four large rooms crammed with concept sketches, colour studies and clay models made me feel, alternately, awe and revulsion (awe towards the pixar artists, clearly, and revulsion at how i had squandered my life away and never did any drawing). there were touchscreen video kiosks scattered throughout the exhibition — ingenious foldy things that could be adjusted from full-height vertical to how-low-can-you-go? did i mention there were children everywhere? — video kiosks, before which you could stand for many many minutes (hours?) if you were so inclined, to watch behind-the-scenes everything on pixar productions. and then there was a zoetrope.

oh. my. godddd.

there’s this small, dark room, right, and in the middle is a carousel of toys from “toy story”, engaged in all manner of acrobatic activity. it’s kind of interesting, this dimly-lit tableau of colourful little statues going around and around… and then the strobe lighting kicks in, and the music, and it’s the most amazing thing ever (4.2mb mp4, as documented by this guy). i went back in three times. kids everywhere.

so that sums up the pixar show for me: 3D “toy story” zoetrope. quick! go! you have until october.

and then it was lunchtime. i got a passout just in case, and guess what! went back to waffle on and joined the immense lunchtime queue for freshly-baked baguette sandwiches. truly, the man takes them out of the little oven behind the counter, splits them open, and fills them, still steaming, with such things as salty butter, ham and pickles, if you, like me, ask for le parisien. and if you do request le parisien, he will ask if you want cheese in it as well. “you will like it, i promise. it is very good gruyere.” it was. the whole unwieldy baton.

i tore bits off, salty-melty, as i walked up flinders lane, and then i devoured the rest of it sitting in the sun in fitzroy gardens until the lunchtime tree loppers cut short my reverie, sending a gust of sawdust my way. but no matter: it was time to cross the street to craft victoria, to see the scarves. so many scarves, and what’s the definition of a scarf anyway? i’ve been curious about learning how to knit, and now i see that if i stick to scarves, i may not need to.

i did a quick jaunt back up brunswick, to see if the shop i really wanted to go to was open (it wasn’t; they were renovating), and it turned out to be sunny enough that i could sit outdoors — in melbourne, in wintertime! — and have a cup of gelato.

here’s the thing: maybe you walked past trampoline yesterday, while poking ’round fitzroy. you might have even popped in briefly, just to see what flavours might lie waiting in the metal troughs. “chai latte” might have caught your eye, and probably “berry pavlova” — a bright pink concoction studded with uneven chunks of broken meringue. but you were sloshy full of lunchtime soup, and besides, there was no-one at the counter. today is a different story: with only a ham-and-cheese baguette under my belt, and two helpful youngsters behind the counter, i came away with a double dose of “chai latte” and “caramel pear”. the former had not much tea flavour, but the spices were intense and true; the latter was creamy and smooth for a sorbet, and had a sweet, dark caramel syrup running through it. dee-licious.

i caught a tram back into the city, and as i passed my stop on collins street, it occurred to me that i could ride all the way to the end of the line, because really, what the hell did i have to do? and so i found myself in st kilda. strolling aimlessly, with purpose, looking in windows, being seduced by those acland street cakes (and another trampoline outlet!).

“chocolate kugelhoph… now available in slices” said a hand-lettered sign. it comes in a large pan, and the surly countergirl will cut you off as much as you want. turns out i wanted $3 worth; it would do fine for breakfast.

and then the sun began to set, and i could’ve done that thing where you walk along the bay and see how quick the sun can drop away… but i had a movie to get to. back in the city, i was just in time for [mutters, lips unmoving] “blades of glory“. me and… well, at first i thought i had a personal screening, but then two, and then four, and by the end, no more than twelve, and will ferrell. it was no worse than i expected, and there were larfs to be had; just enough good stoopid fun for $8.50.

after, walking through chinatown and not being able to decide which noodle joint would be better than the others, i turned the corner onto lonsdale, and stumbled upon the international cake shop, right where i last left it years ago. glistening greek pastries called to me, like sirens, i tell you. once i was inside though, it became clear that i would have to break the perfect wheel of spanakopita sitting behind the glass counter. it was salty and good, and the tea service was not without charm.

the night was quickly crashing to a close, and the cakes behind glass — all manner of shortbread, filo, gateau, syrup-soaked temptation — put their best sides forward. i picked the chocolate sandwich sponge slab decorated with piped icing (over a golden semolina cake) and decided later, back at the hotel, that it was a slightly stale mistake. tchk.

i never made it back to see the pixar zoetrope.

– – –

one tuesday ago, i went to see “transformers“. wah!

posted by ragingyoghurt on 17 July 2007 at 3:22 pm

permalink | filed under around town, at the movies, cake, dinner, ice cream, lunch, trip

waffle interlude…

i found the waffle place — waffle on — right by the subway entrance on degraves street. it was a little nook and cranny, cosy red and warm. i ordered a waffle, plain, and a hot chocolate. “chocolat chaud?” confirmed the proprietor, while indicating that i pull up a stool to the high counter in the corner.

not too long after, he whisked this suger-dusted beauty down before me. there were wispy strands hanging off it, that i took — with a lurch — to be hair, but it turned out to be threads of caramelised sugar. i broke off a corner and nibbled at it, and was immediately won over: satisfying crunch gave way to chewy inside. this wasn’t some common variety of flluffy waffle that you could just shove into your mouth and swallow. i tackled it slowly, all its burnt sugary bits, stopping every now and then to answer a question — “c’est bon?”, or to learn a bit more about the man and his waffles:

lived in sydney — left sydney — doesn’t miss it — ran a cafe in darlighurst — le petit creme — ran with the victoire crowd — doesn’t think much of fluffy americain waffles — imports his beet sugar from belgium

and then monsieur waff, he brought me my hot chocolate. ah, merci!

posted by ragingyoghurt on 16 July 2007 at 1:28 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, chocolate, trip

so, two mondays ago, i hit the ground running. actually, walking as fast as i could with a large pack on my back, halfway up the spine of the city, after waking up at 5, after a flight that included no food except for the half-filled paper cup of hottish water and mediocre teabag that i paid $3 for and, thank god, the chocolate treat slid across to me at zumbo a couple days earlier — all chopped almonds and dark chocolate coating, over a luscious, meltaway salted butter caramel core… excuse me, my mind wandered. and so after the airport shuttle dropped me off at southern cross station, and after i found out that the next hotel shuttle would be 20 minutes away, i slung on my backpack and walked.

the shop right before my hotel entrance was a kitchenware emporium, with 400 pink and white balloons in the front window, suggesting, “let’s cook!”. if they had said, “let’s eat!” i would have taken it as a very good sign.

still, the hotel turned out to be just a block away from koko black, so that is where i went first. as i neared the royal arcade, it struck me that there was a queue of people stretching out into the mall, and i became immediately concerned that there would be no tables available at the chocolate salon. but the queue was to enter the jewelry store on the corner. phew.

you enter the koko black, and it’s like running the gauntlet: bars on the left, truffles on the right. straight ahead it’s a drink station and a wall of gift boxes and a staircase leading up to the salon. it’s all marble tables, and plush chairs, and the chili hot chocolate that appears quite a while after you order it is like a saucy painted lady. the heat is right there at the front of your tongue, and lingers after you swallow: afterglow. it is rich, though not thick and cloying, and there is just enough of it. if you take your time and sip gently, the pink fancy in the crema will last, more or less unscathed right until the very bottom of the cup, when the slightest inhalation will suck it right into your mouth before you quite realise what has happened. afterwards, you will want to return, tomorrow, for the cinnamon hot chocolate.

slightly buzzy (only chocolate and liquids so far; why oh why no breakfast foods, koko black?), i walked to the ngv and tried to be impressed by the sneaker exhibition. but the majority were macho terminator sneakers, and generally uncharming. so i went down to the cafeteria instead and was charmed by the dessert bar: a cluster of fat jam donuts, glasses of chocolate mousse and what’s that? i asked the countergirl. it was bannoffee pie, but not like any banoffee pie i’d ever seen. prepared ‘slice-style’, a crumbly biscuit base, with sliced banana, a pillow of whipped cream atop a blanket of thick caramel. this is what i’m going back to melbourne for. because at the time, i thought i should eat something not made solely of sugar.

overlooking the great, grey hall of the gallery foyer, i had a large bowl of chickpea and bacon soup, with bread and butter. the bacon makes all the difference.

and then i caught the tram to fitzroy, but being monday, half the fun stuff was closed. the enormous dangerfield clearance warehouse at the start of brunswick street though, that was open, and welcomed me with this rather fetching t-shirt with a merry skull print: hours of fun mixing and matching ahead.

later i walked the city streets in the drizzle. the sun was setting, then set, and everything was dark and glinty, except for the dazzling oasis that was lord of the fries. i ordered a cone of fries with “european mayo”, and a mini burger, and couldn’t think of anything more trashy than to eat it sprawled on my grand expanse of hotel bed.

the fries were delicious: hot waxy potato — real potato, you could tell from the skin still attached — with a tantalising crunch upfront. i was underwhelmed by the mayonnaise, but maybe it was just the residual tang of strepsil on my tongue interfering. the burger, i didn’t get to until i was back in my room, so it was somewhat tepid from the ten minute walk in the cold. it went down like a regular fast food chain burger, somewhat squishy in the patty, and now that i have the innernet at my disposal once more, i have discovered that the patty is not meat at all! the company website proudly reveals that they “use a product called Textured Vegetable Protein” [their caps]. well!

and then, you know what? i fell asleep. barely past nine-thirty, struggling to follow “brothers and sisters”, i gave in to the crisp white linen and the four fat pillows.

so far, so good.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 16 July 2007 at 9:40 am

permalink | filed under around town, chocolate, dinner, trip

i wanted to introduce you to my new cake dish, reduced from $80 to $24 at victoria’s basement.

unfortunately i have no cake handy, but i hope to rectify that problem soon. clearly it will have to be piled high with pink rose macaron and green pistachio macaron. clearly.

i wonder if i need a matching teacup and saucer.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 13 July 2007 at 9:03 pm

permalink | filed under shoping

Monthly Archives: July 2007

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