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Category Archives: dinner

the year or the rat is upon us — my year! this evening’s reunion dinner got a little bit out of hand with a sashimi salmon first course and a magical cauldron that never boiled dry. a worthy procession of farmyard animal, fish, fowl and funghi — sliced fine — was dipped in bubbling chicken stock, and then a bright green sauce composed primarily of bright green chillis. i ate eight bowls, and then discovered, upon standing, that my centre of gravity was decidedly fluid.

the biggest discussion over the last couple of days has been about the distribution of angpow. my sister, recently married, has heard that she is exempt from issuing funds for the first year of marriage; that she should give angpow to all unmarried relatives; that she should only give to those who are younger than she is; that she should only give to the generation after ours. no-one knows what rules apply to someone who is not married, but has a kid, the father of whom has removed himself from the equation. “who asked you to live your modern lifestyle?” she asks, because she is helpful, my sister.

this time last year, i was clinging to the rim of a hotel toiletbowl, purging my insides of the poison burger from a roadside reststop. we are making that pilgrimage to malaysia again this year, and i am prepared. i have a bag of muji mini soyabean poundcakes, a couple of mandarins, and some slices of bakkwa. with any luck i need eat nothing else until we are tucked safely into my grandmother’s enormous rosewood table, with the lazy susan piled so high it can barely turn. no matter — what is directly before us will undoubtedly be delicious.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 7 February 2008 at 12:39 am

permalink | filed under dinner, trip

the blue skies and sunny sun on australia day brought them out in droves: buff young blonde things, draped in australian flags, wearing flag stickers on their bumcheek pockets, plastering fake tattoo flags on their faces, sharing the warmth with their flag-emblazoned singlets with “if you don’t love it, leave” printed beneath the southern cross. i don’t know if it was the immigrant in me, but it all made me feel a little uneasy. what do these children think about when they swathe themselves in flags? it goes a little beyond simple, good ol’ USA-style rahrah patriotism, surely. well, maybe not. anyway, we had more important things to think about… like how many minutes it would take us to walk from the ferry to the angie hart show!

yay, angie hart! the whimsy of frente! that i’ve carried around since university brought me and the kid to the steps flanking a little stage in the heart of the rocks. we unpacked our ham sandwich and waited. angie stood alone by the side of the stage as the previous act dismantled and her gear arrived. she looked all adult contemporary rock chick… older. her hair was long and tangled, and her arms were soft, and beneath her billowy blouse, a little pot belly — she has aged as i have! and then her equipment arrived, and her guitarist, and she began to sing and it was just gorgeous. but it was a tough lunchtime crowd, in this little square surrounded by fastfood takeaway: people chatting over cartons of noodles, that man at the table right in front of the stage who kept his face turned away for the entire set.

the kid too was mostly unimpressed. “i don’t like this song,” she said, once the ham had run out. i was not beneath telling her that if she didn’t stick around for the whole performance, then we would not be going to the dorothy the dinosaur show later that afternoon.

but it all went according to plan. the ice creams on sticks, the dinosaur lurching about on stage before going backstage to collapse of heatstroke, the carousel ride, the grande raspberry iced tea frappucino, the ferry back home, the paddle in the pool, the lamb and rosemary sausage in white bread eaten on a picnic rug on the balcony —

hers with tomato sauce; mine with the fancy green peppercorn mustard that i procured at the maille boutique in paris. see, one of us does play at being australian better than the other.

i asked her later what part of the day she liked best, and she replied, “the swimming pool.” tchk.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 28 January 2008 at 10:44 pm

permalink | filed under around town, dinner, kid, snacks, soundtrack

so this is what 35 feels like: like any other day, except with all the love and virtual cake that facebook has to offer. due to unforeseen circumstances, i actually ate three zumbo cakes yesterday (which, never fear, you will hear about one of these days), so i had to consciously steer today away from the real-life cakefest it otherwise might have been. it was going quite well too, until my aunt and grandmother showed up at around 10.30 in the morning with a whole ricotta cheesecake.

my good parents had left me birthday cards when they were here in october, and i opened them to find one — from my mother — covered in an enticing cluster of gem biscuits (one of my favourite biscuits ever, and ones that i don’t actually eat enough of, because i don’t actually eat a lot of biscuits), and the other — from my father — adorned with a velvet cocktail dress and its sparkly accoutrements, as well as the phrase “paint the town red on your birthday!”. which is interesting, because now i know that my mum thinks i am five (or perhaps she cleverly surmised that i need a warm, comforting childhood memory to cling to), and my pap thinks i am a vamp. huh.

inside this somewhat unsettling card, he had concealed a crazy and unexpected amount of cashmoney, so what i did was take everybody out to lunch.

i pointed my aunt in the direction of zilver, where i’d tried — unsuccessfully — to get in once before, at lunchtime, on a weekend, when the queue was out the door and almost down the escalators. just past 11 on a tuesday morning? no problem. the usual suspects were lined up: ha cheong, wu kok, char siu sou, char siu bao, a plate of bright green vegetables with its accompanying dish of oyster sauce, a cluster of steamed scallop dumplings, and egg tarts to finish. i love that, where most dimsum places give you three piece of whatever to a serve, zilver give you four. i love the light, flaky pastry in the baked treats — clearly they are packed with shortening. sadly though, the egg tarts — quivering circles of gold in their meltaway pastry shells — numbered only three, but my aunt and grandma were happy to share.

we made it home in time for cups of tea and slices of cake, and then all too soon it was time to eat again.

last night the boy had asked where i wanted to be taken to dinner. the act of which raised all sorts of issues in my head, and not just limited to: red lantern? flying fish? tetsuya? — well, we live in hope — (glebe point diner? bodega? ottoman cuisine?…) ultimately, i knew it had to be in the neighbourhood and affordable, and so i ventured that we could try again for rosso pomodoro, which, being a half-hour walk away, really pushed the boundaries of being “in the neighbourhood”. the first time we attempted to eat here, maybe a year ago, we fronted up to the door, and the doors, though open, had clouds of construction dust billowing out of them; they were renovating that week. last month we tried to get a table for the kid’s birthday family get-together, but it was booked out. tonight, with a 6 o’clock phone call, we managed to secure a table for 7.

i was excited!

and justly so. the tomato sauce is fresh and pure, the bresaola and rocket perfect foils. the pizza bases are crunchy, then chewy. they are thin where they need to be, and puffed-up slightly where it counts. the best part is, there is just enough cheese, and no more.

[ recently, we called up another local pizza place for delivery, and made a point of asking for half as much cheese as they’d normally put on. the guy on the phone was confused. “oh, so you want 50% more cheese?” he asked. “no, no,” we said, “less cheese. less.” it took a while to make things clear. ]

but, so, rosso pomodoro. we had wonderful pizze, and we were well looked after. the charming and friendly waiter explained all the specials, flirted with the kid, brought her fancy italian strawberry juice at the start, and at the end, chose a pink plastic paddle to go with her strawberry gelato.

me? i had a fat slab of old skool tiramisu, so boozy it sagged to one side, sitting in a thin brown puddle of itself. it was great.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 13 November 2007 at 11:23 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, dinner, lunch

two recipes

1. red velvet cupcake. behold.
i figured i’d be trotting out the ol’ martha stewart one-bowl chocolate cupcake recipe yet again, but when i came across luckykat’s red velvet post a couple of weeks before the kid’s birthday, i knew that i’d have to make them. you know how it is… so hard to resist the mythological cuisine of the american deep south. more importantly though, it looked like a simple enough pair of recipes. lucky, kat had already sourced and tested them for me.

so the day before the birthday saw us two roaming the streets of balmain, buying red food colouring — pillarbox red, as artificial as you can get; raspberries — suddenly up to $8 a punnet; buttermilk — aggravatingly unstocked at the supermarket, but i tracked down the last carton on the peninsula at the local deli, for about twice the going rate. so far, so burning a hole in my wallet.

the cake recipe called for a whole bottle (just a bit more, actually) of red, into which you dissolve a surprisingly small amount of cocoa powder. the cocoa was measured with my wonderful new measuring spoons, a completely surprise present in the mail from the green bananas. look! the bowl of it is actually a miniature mixing bowl!! thanks, santos!!!

and then i chucked a few more things in the batter, and suddenly everything went like molten lava. i filled a tray of regular-sized cakes, and then another of mini ones — and ok, i overfilled so i wouldn’t have to wait for a second round of oven time, the cakes rose dramatically and i was vexed until i figured out that i could hide it all with frosting, hurrah!

this recipe yielded a voluptuous and pillowy soft frosting. there are other versions out there with half the cream cheese, which i guess gives you more definition when piping the icing on. however, i applied mine by dipping each cupcake headfirst into the mixing bowl and then slathering on quite a bit more with a butter knife. the texture was lovely and rich, perfect for licking off the beater at the very end — breakfast of champions…

… although maybe after three or four cupcakes, things go a little funny.

these were great cakes! moist, not overly chocolatey, and very, very sweet. i will definitely make them again, although i may not have to just right now, because there is a box in my freezer with three unfrosted cakes, and another box with a quantity of leftover frosting, and any day now i will complete the experiment called “does cream cheese frosting freeze ok?”. does red velvet cake? we shall see.

– – –

2. spanakopita
a few weeks ago, when spinach was $1 a bunch, i googled a recipe on the internet, and because i neither bookmarked it nor printed it out, i cannot remember where i got it from. tchk. however, because it turned out to be a really good recipe, this afternoon i fished about my recycling bin, and retrieved the scrap of paper on which i’d scribbled down these notes from the screen:

2 pounds spinach — wash, coarsely chop. 907g
2 tbs olive oil
cook onion, chopped, scallions 4
add chopped spinach, handful at time
5 mins, wilted, liquid released
cook on high until dry
stir in 1/4 cup dill
cool. squeeze liquid

large bowl:
4 eggs, beaten
add spinach
8oz feta crumbled 226g
1/2 tsp salt
black pepper

melt butter
1 pound filo
8 sheets bottom
8 top

oven 375°F 190°C
bake 45min

helpful, huh? but see, i cooked off these notes, and it was delicious. i think i may have used just three eggs, and brushed the filo with olive oil instead of butter, to no ill effect. i ♥ spanakopita.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 29 October 2007 at 10:17 pm

permalink | filed under cake, dinner, kid, kitchen

in the back of your pantry there are two bags of world rices in 90 seconds (!), a long-ago gift from an eccentric uncle. pre-cooked rice — basmati, in this instance — in a plastic pouch that you microwave on high for a minute and a half. maybe you were suspicious of them for the longest time, months they lay in the back of your pantry. good thing, then, that there was no expiry date on the package. because when your mid-week pasta plans are scuttled, the rices will come to your rescue.

really, there is no need to be afraid. even if the rice is a bit chalky straight out of the bag, you can fix it, hack it, even, with diced-up, fried-up eggplant and zucchini, a sprinkle of moroccan spice mix, a lot of garlic; raisins; toasted almond slivers; cubes of creamy fetta, tossed together on low heat and then left in the wok to develop a bit of a crust on the bottom.

if you top it with slices of fried chorizo and garlic-roasted cherry tomatoes, arranged like a big red flower, it will look like something out of a fancy cookbook — maybe even an international cookbook from the late-70s.

but, ok, really: rice in 90 seconds. is that ridiculous?

posted by ragingyoghurt on 22 September 2007 at 11:02 pm

permalink | filed under dinner, kitchen

yummy green things for tuesday

1. starbucks blackberry green tea frappuccino
blackberry syrup blended into the regular green tea frappuccino; voluptuous whipped cream; an extra drizzle of syrup. it tastes much less of green than the normal maccha frappuccino, but was still fun. i won’t have it again, because it does not fit into my kilojoule-balance plan. but you, you should totally go ahead.

2. broccoli soup
bounteous broccoli, at a bargainous $1.98/kilo at the supermarket, necessitated four heads be purchased and cooked up in a large pot with onions, garlic, olive oil, butter, and chicken stock. oh, and two potatoes. truly, it is the gift that keeps giving; i think i will get at least another three meals out of this.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 18 September 2007 at 10:54 pm

permalink | filed under dinner, drink

i know it reads like i don’t eat normal food anymore — even to me — but of course this is not true. no, really. it’s just that in the light of lovely shiny cakes, mushroom blogging might seem a little boring. however. since i did learn from someone today that “boring” does not mean it is not good, i shall tell you what became of the mushrooms i bought this afternoon at harris farm.

i think you know the ones: a tray of enoki, shiitake, shimeji and oyster mushrooms, a tidy harvest for just under $6, and a perfect serving for two. i sauteed them with minced ginger and garlic, in sesame oil with a little salt. i tossed them through some pre-cooked soba noodles with a glug of soba dipping sauce and a good sprinkle of sesame seed furikake; just a few minutes of warm mushroom contact infused the noodles with a lovely, earthy aroma. i served it up with panfried salmon and grilled baby bokchoy. if, before cooking, you are generous with the grinding of salt and pepper on the salmon skin, you will be rewarded with a crunchy sheet of saltiness to nibble at in-between all the other stuff.

the kid, when she found out it was salmon for dinner, began asking for “some salmon, in my hand, please” on the way home from school. she ate it all, before deftly and fastidiously removing every single strand of enoki hiding out amongst the soba, and placing them in a tidy tangle by her bowl.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 5 September 2007 at 11:07 pm

permalink | filed under dinner, kid, kitchen

i recently met this woman… ok, another mum in the kid’s tuesday music class, and this is what she said to me:

“my husband is away on business tonight, so i’ll be having a lean cuisine — pasta with salmon — and a glass of white wine. and watching “the bill”.”

i mean, in essence this is probably what i’d do too, except what i’d be pulling from my freezer is that braised lamb, mushroom, brandy and rosemary ravioli from peppe’s pasta. while that was boiling, i would saute diced onions, garlic and carrots in olive oil and butter, with a bay leaf and a few drops of water to keep it from drying out. towards the end, i’d add some small florets of broccoli. and then, probably, right at the end, i’d stir in a little extra bit of butter, i dunno, for shine?

by then the ravioli would be ready, and i’d add it to the sauce and swirl it all around just to get it all coated, and i would empty the pot into a large bowl, and it would be delicious, because there is real meat in the pasta, and none of that sawdust or breadcrumb filler you get in the $4 bags of tortellini at the supermarket.

i would eat, propped up with cushions on the blue sofa, and i’d be watching my season 1 DVD of “gilmore girls” with no commentary from the sidelines, and it would be great.

(and then later, while tidying up, i would try to open the fridge with the same hand i’d be using to hold my ceramic butter dish — the one with the cow moulding on the lid — and the fridge door would jerk open suddenly, and the butter dish would spring from my hands, and shatter into several pieces on the floor. which would not be so great, actually, but i would not be upset.)

this woman also said to me, “i don’t eat a lot of bread, because when you think about it, it’s just flour and water, and what is that? glue!”

i don’t know that we can be good friends, is all.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 1 September 2007 at 11:55 pm

permalink | filed under dinner, kitchen, tv

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

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

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