and then on sunday, i met deborah and her boy at the powerhouse, ostensibly to immerse ourselves in a bunch of design festival exhibits, but as soon as they showed up, a matching pair in chocolate brown, a simultaneous rummaging through our bags occurred.

“i’ve brought you something,” she said, “but it’s not very exciting.”

“i’ve brought you something too!”

and the simultaneous rummaging through our bags brought out bags, and bags in bags. i was relieved of a couple of zumbo macaron, and was very pleased by the package she handed me: a compact lump in a bakers delight paper bag. i knew what it was before she announced, “a chocolate mud scone”. whee! but she was still pulling stuff out of her tote: a bottle of sri lankan kithul treacle in a bright pink plastic bag. wah! so she lied — this was very exciting! exotic sugar!

but at this point we were still pretending that we were there to feed our minds and our eyes, so we dutifully worked our way through a couple floors of smart works and bollywood, until our eyes lost focus and our minds started wandering. in fact, they wandered right out of the building, and across the road, to hannah’s pies.

this, folks, is the real reason we had converged on this corner in ultimo: the tiger. a meat pie (there’s real meat in here) topped with a scoop of peppery mashed potato, topped with a scoop of mushy peas, into which has been set a pool of gravy. the countergirl presses a hollow into the mound of green with the base of her gravy ladle, then with a deft gesture, tips the gravy in. genius. genius under $5. we carried our wobbling towers of pie back across to the museum forecourt for our pie picnic. people pointed and stared, double-took, thrice.

oh it was lovely, eating this with the sun on my back.

[ photo © deborah rodrigo ]

thus fortified, we headed back for another two hours of looking at stuff — swedish stuff and woollen clothes, and now i think i’m all designed out, but look: if you visit the powerhouse museum any time during the design festival, you get a pass for unlimited free entry over the next fortnight.

i know the kid will be getting at least two excursions to the robot bears on the ground floor in the coming weeks. you press these buttons, and they play teddy bear’s picnic on their little brass instruments.