ragingyoghurt » adventures in good eating etc.

here’s the thing: i really like chocolate, and i really like cake… but when confronted with a display case full of treats, i’d more likely get the pink thing filled with cream and berries. as you have witnessed.

every now and again though, a chocolate cake unleashes a call so strong that i cannot resist. well. i’d been resisting the cha cha cha at zumbo for a while, before i finally succumbed (three weeks ago now, sigh, how time does fly).

but, so. what you may have already noticed about this cake, is that it actually contains no “cake”. the base is sesame-riddled pate sable, sure, but the rest of this artful construction is all thin planes of chocolate and fat trails of ganache — two layers of comforting milky-chocolatey ganache, and a feisty middle layer of quite burny chilli-dark-chocolate ganache. surprising, the level of heat, though not as surprising as the salt wash on the underside of each piece of chocolate.

you probably know that i dabble in chocolate-covered pretzels — the bigger the grains of salt embedded in ’em, the better. i have no qualms about mixing sweet and salty (though possibly, i am not quite ready for the jam-vegemite combo suggested to me in the past), and a few months ago, when i saw these earthy granules of chocolate-dipped fleur de sel, i was smitten. and so, the salt-wash chocolate? it was compelling, and although at first i couldn’t work out where the salt was — and if i was only imagining it — once i isolated the source, i couldn’t stop licking it. the disappointment that came with the end of the salt was only fleeting; the smooth dark chocolate took away that ache.

this is not a warm and comfy dessert. it is punchy and aggressive… perfect, as it turns out, for savouring slowly on the eve of a thirty-fifth birthday, while watching the season finale of “californication”.

(and why “cha cha cha”? one “cha” less, and it would’ve been a fitting tribute to that scary girl in “grease”. feisty!)

posted by ragingyoghurt on 5 December 2007 at 10:47 pm

permalink | filed under cake, chocolate

after the kid interrupted me one time too many this morning, i sighed heavily, and drew the last tentacle on a bongo-drum monster. then i got us dressed, and took us up the street for a saturday promenade. there are many lovely things in the shops these days, but few as lovely as this vision in pink in the glass case at adriano zumbo patissier.

if you are lucky enough to know me (or, un-, as the case may be), you may well know how tediously indecisive i am. you may have been out shopping with me… hell, you may even have been in the changeroom with me, as i try on the smaller one, then the larger one, then the smaller one again, and the larger one (and so on…) until i no longer know which is which, and neither actually fits better than the other. or maybe you just know that i am the sort of person who might see a shiny thing in a shop, who will pick it up and fondle it and then walk away, and then return to the shop three or four more times over the course of a week — a month, even — walking away each time until it finally gets bought by someone else, in which case it was not meant to be, or i decide i do not need another shiny thing after all. and maybe now you know more than you wanted to, about me.

but today, this pink thing. it already had an audience when we entered the shop; countergirl was reading out loud a list of its components to a(nother) pair of curious girls. “creme de rose,” she said, “with lychees. and raspberries. and the macaron, though the macaron isn’t actually flavoured.”

i had only intended to buy a chorizo baguette, for lunch, but as i progressed along the counter, suddenly there were two pale pink rose macaron calling to me like sirens from the middle, and then at the end, this pink thing.

some people think that pink is a soft, girly colour, but really, it makes me bold and decisive. faster than normal, i had put money down on the lot, although i left pinky for later in the afternoon when i had a spare hand to deliver it safely home. and how pleased i am for this uncharacteristically bold decisiveness, for when i returned not quite four hours later, they had all sold out!

so this is what you did not get to eat: a rather wonderful biscuit, moist and chewy on the inside; more plump raspberries on the perimeter than i bothered to count; a slightly clotted creme filling, tasting faintly of roses — the perfume of it coming out of the box was far more intense; whole fat lychees hidden within. rather a monstrous end to such a beauty, but golly, what a frolic of taste and texture.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 1 December 2007 at 10:21 pm

permalink | filed under cake, shoping

i was eating a bowl of foodhall pho bo tai the other day. nothing spesh, but at that moment, sitting at the counter overlooking the theatre that is sussex street traffic, i thought it was the best thing ever to be eaten. oh, how i love the heady herby beefy broth, the slurpy noodles, the bouquet of basil and sprouts that wilts in the hot soup. now you want one too, don’t you? i ♥ vietnamese food.

so despite the vow i’d taken to not buy another cookbook ever, i found myself standing in line at borders* a few weeks ago, with this handsome tome in the crook of my arm: “secrets of the red lantern: stories and vietnamese recipes from the heart“, written by the clever kids who run that surry hills restaurant.

i used to live a few blocks away from red lantern, would walk past it pretty much every day, and i never went. so silly. just look at the book, full of evocative photographs of delicious food. (the feelings they evoke are hunger, i think, and regret.)

but here’s the thing: a lot of the ingredients in these recipes are things i have sitting in my kitchen, or are, at least, familiar things i grew up with. most of these look to be comforting and achievable recipes. i could make this stuff at home. i think.

if i really felt like it, i could even make the pork terrine, the pork pate, the pork belly, the garlic mayonnaise and the pickled carrots required for a banh mi sandwich. there you are: the recipes for each component are helpfully compiled on consecutive pages, with a persuasive picture coming up the end for encouragement. for now, though, i’m happy to pay three dollars to the chatty girl in the tucked-away shop in the other chinatown foodhall. well, maybe i’ll give the pickled carrots a go.

i’d also like to make canh chua ca, the tamarind fish soup of which i ate great tureens as i moseyed through vietnam in the time of SARS. and i will make banh xeo, of course. and the avocado ice cream? mmmmaybe.

but it’s not just a cookbook; alongside the pretty pictures, and the compelling recipes, are chapters of a family history woven through: a story of a childhood in saigon, an exodus aboard a boatload of refugees, a life rebuilt in cabramatta. there is a dictatorial asian father, an estranged daughter — the storyteller, plain and true –, a time in the desert (figurative), and finally, redemption. it’s more than you could ask for, really. i expect it will be on my bedside table for quite a while yet.

* are you signed up to the borders mailing list? they send you a better than average discount coupon or two every week, perfect for when you need that 35%-off nudge to buy yet another cookbook.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 28 November 2007 at 11:09 pm

permalink | filed under bookshelf

what better way to start the day than with a big bowl of warm crumble in a puddle of cream? every now and again, i dig out my trusty crumble recipe (actually luke mangan’s crumble recipe, from the sydney morning herald a while ago); with rhubarb at $2.99 a bunch, and strawberries at $2.50 a punnet, now was one of those times.

luke mangan’s rhubarb and passionfruit crumble
6 stalks rhubarb, chopped
1/3 cup passionfruit pulp
250g strawberries, hulled and halved
1/4 cup caster sugar

for topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/3 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup plain flour
90g butter, softened
1 tsp ground cinnamon

preheat oven to 160C. combine rhubarb, passionfruit, strawberries and sugar in a bowl and divide between 6 x 1 cup capacity ramekins.
to make the topping, combine brown sugar, oats, flour, butter and cinnamon. spoon topping on the top of the fruit and bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden and fruit is soft. serves 4.

i’ve never actually made it with passionfruit, but have added pears regularly — as i did on this occasion — or cherries, and sometimes apples. also, i bake it in one large baking dish rather than little ramekins, which requires quite a bit more baking time: you’d have to keep checking to see when the rhubarb and strawberry juices were bubbling. if you’re lucky, they bubble right up to the surface and the crumble goes all pink and sticky. mmm…

posted by ragingyoghurt on 28 November 2007 at 9:22 am

permalink | filed under breakfast, cake, kitchen

wow. the time sure goes by.

and it’s not that i’ve got nothing to say. in fact, my camera is full to the brim of past eatings, and my head is soft with trying to figure out how to tell you about those slivers of chocolate with a saltwash on the underside.

i’ve completed my last session of comic artist rehab, a milestone of mixed emotions because i feel generally good about this handful of strips and the potential to keep going in this direction… but now that the deadlines are done with, i know i just won’t get any more comics drawn for a while. finishing up rehab means a freed-up pocket of time that i can squander away on the internet once more, with no regrets.

which will be good for the blog i suppose. um. though not right at this moment.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 27 November 2007 at 9:32 am

permalink | filed under cake, drawn

you come, day after day, and hope that i might have written about a cake or a soup or something. and instead, this chasm of disappointment keeps getting bigger. i’m sorry, and it’s not just that i have all this work to do. in fact, i do have a lot of work to do, all overdue now as of four days ago, and i’m doing my best to procrastinate, and i think i’m doing that quite well. but, so you see, i could well be using this stolen time to blog.

instead you get a painful memory about cake gone wrong. how’s that for chasm of disappointment? eh?

posted by ragingyoghurt on 22 November 2007 at 5:17 pm

permalink | filed under cake, drawn

rehab is going swimmingly….

posted by ragingyoghurt on 15 November 2007 at 9:38 am

permalink | filed under around town, drawn, kid

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

the kid has not been playing fair of late. dropping of naptime aside, the deal is that i take her out to fun places and buy her treats, and in return she is sweet and docile and generally nice. i’m even happy, in principle, for her to set the itinerary. playground? cafe? that shop over there full of fun kitchen things? yup! these days she wakes up in the morning, and her first words are, “where are we going?”. really.

however, on recent excursions, she has been cheery only up until the part where i gaze across at something that might solely interest me. at this point, she will become most floppy and whiney, and she will say things about wanting to go outside now. there may even be grunting!

i know it’s all part of growing her own personality, but bloody hell it’s getting tedious. this afternoon, after a bus ride back from the city, she chose going to the newsagent with me rather than following her dad home. the newsagent by the busstop has decreed every saturday and sunday, “magazine day”; all magazines are 20% off. this is almost as good as a national public holiday to me. as soon as i flipped open the cover of “vogue”, the kid ran up the aisle and said that she had to go to the toilet right away.

i was extremely furious. extreme furiousity! this entailed grabbing her hand, and walking super fast across the street, past the church, down the hill, only pausing a moment when she stumbled, and not at all when the loosely-knotted balloon string came away from her wrist and drifted off into the blue with her bright pink xmas balloon. we had been to the david jones xmas concert in hyde park earlier in the day, a travesty of shrek in a santa suit.

but there was no jolly hoho left. there were tears (hers) and slamming of doors (mine). and after her dad took over and wiped her bottom and read her a book and put her to bed, he said that maybe i could go out and play by myself tomorrow. he went out himself then, to the beach and a barbeque and a night off, and the kid slept for three hours until i roused her. she was a different child then, sweet, docile and generally nice.

i don’t get too much work done these days. i don’t seem to get much of anything done, actually, except keeping the kid entertained. the two or three hours after she goes to bed for the night… i am torn between work, and this blog, and comic artists rehab. and on nights like this one, when the sofa upstairs is vacant, there is also “gilmore girls” to contend with. who’s winning tonight? not work. blog — well, i could write another post, but i won’t. i posted a comic today, so i won’t have to again until wednesday. so.

hey, did you know gingerbread frappucini are back in season? i think it would be the perfect accompaniment to the biscuit factory exhibition. only a day away…

posted by ragingyoghurt on 10 November 2007 at 10:45 pm

permalink | filed under drawn, grumble, kid

um, so, i don’t get to vote, because i’m not a citizen, and i’m not a citizen because the last time i tried to become one a couple years ago, the beryl on the phone said that since i didn’t have the very passport stamped when i first landed on these fair shores over twenty years ago, my application would be incomplete. and if i want to become a citizen now, i’d have to take the goddamned citizenship test. it’s not enough i pay taxes? huh?? turns out beryl was talking out her old, shrivelled-up ass anyway. perhaps she’s even drafted some of the questions on the test!

krispy kreme does not fly such an exclusionary flag. happy to take votes from anyone, they are offering free doughnuts for australia the day after election day, if you register to vote on their site. free doughnuts, folks!

[ or, as free as it gets with an “invitation” to make a “donation” for every doughnut… proceeds help out the salvos, but golly, they sure got that hidden-worm-behind-the-election-promise thing worked out ]

posted by ragingyoghurt on 6 November 2007 at 3:23 pm

permalink | filed under grumble, misc

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