my other weakness, you may know, is “the new yorker“. so i was pleased — acting on a sedaris tipoff — to stumble upon this slideshow of food-themed covers in the upcoming food issue. just look at that gorgeous wayne thiebaud painting!
(upcoming in sydney, i mean. i guess it’s already out across the pacific.)
the cakes they are a-changin’.
i was studying the jewelcase at zumbo when counterboy said, casually, “all the cakes are going.” i guess i’d known this for a couple of weeks, having heard it from the pastryman himself one afternoon — that he’d been working on the new spring menu — but being suddenly confronted with the news that i would not see these familiar cakes again before the week was through, it was a little too much to bear.
my immediate thoughts were, “i shall finally have to try the wheelie good” and “i shall finally have to try the houdini”. but this is the quandary i face every time i go in anyway; it’s just, now there was a deadline. “take the wheelie good,” counterboy said helpfully, “houdini will still be here on the weekend.”
the first question that you might ask yourself is, how does this cake stand up by itself? followed by, how do i eat this? and i can tell you that the entire white-chocolate-coated affair is held securely in place, on its little golden platform, with a dollop of said chocolate. i sliced through its middle — a belt of roughly chopped pistachios and macadamias — and ate it one half at a time.
when i first arrived in australia, in the very late 80s, my favourite after-school, petrol station-snacks were polly waffles and wagon wheels. it was the marshmallow that done it; marshmallows don’t do so well in the moist tropics, and this glut of biscuit-coated marshmallow was all a bit wonderful and new for a marshmallow-deprived immigrant.
but the wheelie good surpasses all fond memories of chocolate-covered jam-marshmallow-biscuit sandwich. sure, the engineering is the same, but the wagon wheel biscuits were never as crisp on the outside, chewy and light in the middle as this pistachio dacquoise. i may never again eat a marshmallow-and-jam confection, but i would not say no to more of this lemon-infused mascarpone creme, with its hidden chunks of stewed apples and apricots.
it looks like a hamster wheel, does it not, this cake?
here’s another story: remember back in february, when i returned from a trip to singapore with a pair of running shoes and an ipod shuffle? the shuffle held one song for months — “take on me” — and then some podcasts, and then i added “punk farm” for the kid… and the shoes were still pristine in their box, until last friday.
yes, i, who do not run, often not even for buses, ran. because, alas, the cake-eating business is a flabby old business. i ran for ten minutes, on a treadmill, and it was awful. and then four days later, i ran again. the second time, i’d finally put together a playlist on my ipod, called, “run run run”. it consists solely of up-tempo you am i and ratcat tunes, and it made a galaxy of difference. pounding along to “flagfall $1.80“, i didn’t even feel the pain so bad.
if you want to see the winter cakes at zumbo, you might have to run too.
i’d been watching it take shape over the last month or so, this shell of a shop next to gleebooks, on glebe point road. i’d been watching it specifically because once when i went past, there was a sign taped to the dusty window, which said, “chocolateria san churro coming soon”.
and then, last friday, there it was. pretty much open for business as i walked by after dropping the kid off at playschool, except for a ladder right in the middle of the dining room and two freshly jigsawed holes in the plywood shelf in the window.
monday afternoon, because this is the way we are, deborah met me and the kid out front. the holes had been plugged with miniature chocolate fountains, and the ladder had been removed, but when we stepped inside, the first inhalation was all paint fumes rather than sweet chocolate. we sought to remedy that in a hurry.
this was supposed to be lunch; we had debated the issue for a couple of days, and decided that to do justice to the chocolate, we should make it the main course rather than just dessert (but it’s never just dessert anyway, is it? is it?). so instead of just chocolate shakes, we had the chocolate shakes with whipped cream, and the alfajore, and the fried chocolate truffles.
the classic chocolate shake, made with premium 60% cocoa ice cream, comes to the table one foot high, topped with another couple inches of whipped cream and a good scattering of chocolate shavings. it is wonderful. the alfajore is two light, crunchy biscuits with a rich chocolate flavour, sandwiching smooth-as dulce de leche, whipped cream, and a drizzle of chocolate. it may not be an authentic rendition of the south american confection, but it is nonetheless, um, wonderful. the fried chocolate i had to get, because it sounded just crazy — loco, really — and it was! crazy good! you bite into the freshly fried nuggets, all thin crunchy shell, and then suddenly, molten dark chocolate is running down your chin. it comes three to a serve, on a bed of milk chocolate flakes, and it was lucky there were three of us to share it, or someone would have died. (me.) if the batter hadn’t tasted so slightly of oil, meh, these would have been wonderful too.
we had only just begun, and then the kid started speaking very, very fast. you could not even make out the words she was saying; they were sounds involving the rolling of her tongue. perhaps she was speaking spanish? funnily, i started speaking very, very slowly. “oh, you are speaking quickly, ” said deborah, “it’s just that time is moving very quickly too.”
and then something, and something, and something. and there was giggling, that i remember, and some slumping. and at some point we had to stop the waitress from clearing the plates with the chocolate flakes and the caramel-smeared cookie pieces. well, i thought i had to stop the waitress; everyone else had stopped eating by then.
so, yeah. it was great. i had only managed to walk past the one on brunswick street the last time i was in melbourne, but the time before that, i had come out of there with a spicy hot chocolate in one hand and a tray of fat, crunchy churros and chocolate dipping sauce in the other, a fine balancing act all the way to the playground by the museum. and now, i will no longer have to fly south to OD on chocolate: it is only a busride away.
say, could you help me out?
how often do you visit ragingyoghurt?
– i come by every day.
– i drop in once a week.
– i pop in every now and then.
– this is my first time here… but it won’t be my last.
– this is my first time here and i’m never coming back.
would you like this blog better (and visit more) if it had permalinks and a feed?
– yes! embrace the new technology! it is 2007!
– no, i like it just fine the way it is, with its luddite charms.
do you care for zumbo?
– bloody hell. it’s all you write about. enough already.
– it’s all you write about, but i like it!
– zumbo? hadn’t noticed a skew. just keep doing whatever it was you were doing.
saturday morning church fete
dog show: check
coits: check*
cake stall, outside: check**
cake judging: check
cake stall, inside: check***
sausage sandwich: check
* $1 for 6, 7, 8 throws, winning nothing, but i’m sure the church will do good work with that dollar
** orange butter cake
*** gingerbread biscuits
i woke up this morning and the world had disappeared. from the balcony, across the water, it was whiteout. lovely.
i got to zumbo so early, the black curtain across the window was still down; the cake case was empty but for dewdrops; the pastry case was halfway being stocked; the counter was piled high in cakeboxes and crates of bread. the counterboy, seeing me give the bread the once-over, wordlessly slipped a loaf of soy-linseed into a paperbag, because i had mentioned, once, that it is my favourite.
i was distracted by the danishes. there are new ones: pear, and cherry. but for months i had forsaken the pear and macadamia scrolls, arranged, this morning, in perfect glistening rows behind the glass. they are always the ones which promise to be stickiest, and this morning i took them up on it. it was so early, i could take my time.
it was so early, the hot chocolate machine was not warmed up yet, so i must wait for another foggy morning. the macaron were not out, so i said i’d come back later for the blackcurrant one.
i walked past the newsagent with my bread and my danish, and the poster of yesterday’s news was still out front; it was so early. those herald sub-editors sure can write a pun into anything.
the toffee glaze on the pear and macadamia scroll is sweeter, and stickier, than i had imagined. it made me a little bit gleeful as i sat, drinking milky tea and watching the rowers drag themselves through the fog. i only ate half of it, because i also wanted a slice of bread and butter, and i thought it could (should) have been much pearier, although maybe all the fruit is in the other half, and my thoughts will shift accordingly tomorrow.
sometimes the sadness sits so tight in my throat.
my first bite of adriano zumbo’s blackcurrant macaron was whispery quiet. it was definitely fruity, though mild, and there was a barely discernable tinge of saltiness. i was sufficiently surprised to look down into the cross-section, where i discovered a chocolate filling.
now that it had my full attention, i took another bite. this time an immense wave of blackcurrantness hit me. i tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to pry the biscuit apart to see if there was a hidden jammy layer, but no. it was mixed into the chocolate. so very, very genius.
so yes, the macaron was like ribena, as i had hoped, but chocolate ribena, which was even better.
in the late 70s, when i was five, some talent scouts came round to tiny tots kindergarten, looking for kids to appear in a ribena tv ad. they chose me! i was paired up with a boy in my class, and i remember traipsing round a park in the hot, hot tropical sun one day, doing test shots. and then a week or so before the actual shoot was scheduled, my father decided that we all had to go away on family vacation. my mother tells this story to this day: “and you know, the producers were sooo angry with me…”
a couple of months later, the ad was on tv, with the boy and another girl in my class, swinging on the swings, reciting their lines, running off to get a glass of nutritious ribena… i wonder if my life would have been different today, if i had done that ad.
the only other thing i remember from kindergarten is that one day after school, as i stood at the chainlink fence by the driveway, waiting to be picked up by my grandmother, my nose bled. oh, the horror.
until noon today, it had been more than a week since i last went to zumbo. i thought it was necessary to cut down the visits because… well, it wasn’t so much that my clothes were feeling tight, but my skin certainly was. is that worse?
but we popped in today, just to see if the macaron were hanging out in their acrylic tubs, and it was like a display of precious jewels: red, purple and orange. two of them i had not encountered before — raspberry and blackcurrant — and the third i just got for good measure because it’s in my top three favourites.
the raspberry macaron, from the bite and a half i managed to wheedle out of maeve, had a smooth and mild candy-like flavour. by which i mean candy that has been flavoured with real raspberry juice, rather than like, whatever they put in frangos, by which i mean, if you eschew fresh raspberries because they are sometimes tart and intense, then this macaron could be good for you, because it tastes of raspberries that are not tart and intense.
the blackcurrant macaron is still in its cellophane baggie in my backpack, but i’m sort of hoping it tastes like ribena. i’ll let you know.
the mandarin macaron also survived the mid-afternoon sugar slump, but i know it well and i love it.
before the early lunchtime crowd forced us back out onto the street, i managed to find out that zumbo is now also a purveyor of sonoma breads. indeed, i looked up at the bread shelf high above my head, and in the corner was my favourite and my best soy and linseed sourdough loaf, with the whole soybeans. this is great news because it means i will no longer have to make a special detour in glebe for it. yay.
and also, because my attempts to eat less cake by making fewer trips to zumbo didn’t quite work out, because, well, if you’ve been reading, you’ll see that i’ve been to a bunch of other pastryshops in the inner city instead… because of that, another reason to stop at zumbo every day or so will not be such a terrible thing.
haberfield is a bus and then another bus away from me, and even though the trip surprised me by being much quicker than i’d expected, in the last couple of years, i have been, let me see, oh, just the once.
this is a pity because the main street goes something like this: chocolate, cheese, pizza, deli, cake, pasta, cake, supermarket where two or three aisles are filled with more shapes of pasta than you have ever seen, and then, on the corner, pasticceria papa.
it was raining monday morning, and though i had mostly psyched myself up to take on the temperamental bus schedule, i was very pleased when ana said she’d swing by and pick us up. so we arrived mostly dry, in great time, and ready to eat, which we did.
this is what two big girls, two little girls, and a one-week-of-gestation-remaining baby can put away, in just under two hours:
veal arancino
prosciutto pizza
custard tart with mixed fruit
cassata gelato
mixed berry and cream tart
mini ricotta cannoli
large ricotta cannoli
almond biscuit
three lattes
three babycinos
the gelato was especially good, a festive riot of hazelnuts, candied fruit, chocolate shavings and dramatic swirls of pistachio paste. good thing they were out of pink for the day; the kid was easily swayed.
still, it was the superlush ricotta cannoli that came home with me, four in a shiny brown box, along with a chocolate custard horn and a napoli biscuit and a fat schnitzel roll.
this is not your regular breaded cutlet on fluffy white buttered bread. behold: schnitzel, yes, and then roasted cherry tomatoes, eggplant, fontina, mozzarella, artichoke, rocket and prosciutto (though you could choose one with salami), in a chewy-soft roll.
i ate it, with a cup of darjeeling tea, for a late lunch, and it sat in my stomach well into the evening, when plans were already afoot for a return visit.
ah! what is this thing? with its topping of dark crumbs?
after a fun 20 minutes at kinko’s, i cut across oncoming (pedestrian) traffic along the footpath, to peer into the window of the bourke street bakery’s broadway satellite, just to see. and here was something new! because the labels were all a-hither, i had to step inside to ask what it was. and then because i was already inside, i had to buy it.
behold: the chocolate mousse and raspberry tart. the gritty innercity cousin (with the milky soft heart) of the zumbo and lumiere chocolate-raspberry tarts, previously documented.
raspberry chocolate and me go way back. it was the summer of nellicent’s graduation from northwestern, and we spent the days with the backs of our knees slick with sweat, hanging around downtown chicago. the tourist brochure from our hotel had a coupon in it for a welcome gift from marshall field’s, the historic chicago department store, and we took advantage, really we did. day after day we would show up at the visitors’ center, coupons in hand, and be like, “oh! what a lovely surprise, to be getting this giftbag with a little box of chocolates inside.”
the chocolates were frangos, and commonly mint, but one day, there was a red box which held a raspberry variety. these were small blocks of chocolate that just melted away on our tongues. the raspberry flavour was bewitching.
and of course, it is “flavour”. a distinctively un-raspberry taste that you know to be “raspberry” because the package is red, and says r-a-s-p-b-e-r-r-y. and you crave it anyway, and years later, you discover that the raspberry syrup they use in starbucks is a pretty good approximation of a raspberry frango, when squirted into a hot chocolate.
this is not like a frango. beneath the dark chocolate crumbs is a lush chocolate mousse. beneath the mousse is a layer of squishy, tart raspberries. the pastry shell is flaky, rather than biscuity, and the whole thing — this tiny bouquet of contrasting textures — is so extremely delicious that i keep nudging it with my fork, eating it one small piece at a time, until it is all gone. it certainly makes a night of saving print-ready PDFs infinitely more pleasant. those crumbs… ingenious.
