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.
my desk is a mess again, and i haven’t even arrived at the busy time. i am circling the periphery, looking in, pacing myself. just pacing.
at my elbow i have sheets of paper, covered in scribbled lists: lists of amendments to layouts; lists of drawings to make; lists of invoices to send; lists of where to go in queensland.
i have passes to a film on the weekend: “an epic tale of mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, unrequited love, betrayal and secrets… the true story of a glamorous shanghai nightclub singer, who struggles to survive in seventies australia with two young children“. phew!
i have tea: muji jasmin tea ball in a muji glass teapot, good gifts from my good mother.
i have chocolate: a monsieur truffe bar with cocoa solids of 64%. there is some guff on the back of the package about fresh fruity notes and bouquets of dried fruits, but i am simply impressed by how a dark chocolate bar — french, no less (by way of melbourne) — can be so goshdarned creamy.
i have an urgent calling to watch that hideous show, “age of love“.
you feel a little uncomfortable, don’t you? like you need to cross your legs, or check to see if i moo, or something? i can assure you, i continue to be simultaneously enamoured and repulsed.
so, i guess they are more socks than sneakers: japanese socks with rubber soles. apparently, in japan, construction workers and miners wear them? i wonder if pickaxe-through-the-toes incidents are much higher in japan than over here in the land of steel-toecap boots.
of course, i have no need to worry about pickaxe accidents as i whisk deftly up the street in my new cloven-toed sneakers! or, as deftly as i can move while keeping pace with a small person whose legs are just over a foot in length.
when i returned to the store last friday afternoon, the shopgirl asked in greeting, “so, shall i pack these up for you?” she pointed at the ones i’d tried on that morning, black soles, black fabric, chunky white numbers. i looked around the room, trying to buy time, and out the corner of my eye, i saw the flash of red. and i asked to try them on. and i don’t know why i do this to myself, because now i had another thing to wrestle with.
[ red shoes on, red shoes off; black shoes on, black shoes off; repeat ad infinitum… ]
by the end of it, i was squinting into the mirror with a red shoe on my left foot and a black one on my right, and the shopgirl was pretty convinced that i wasn’t a black shoe kinda girl.
so yeah, i got the red ones, and they have a lovely pink lining which matches my pink cloven-toed socks, with the chunky white numbers. they are so light to wear, and the thing i thought would bug me — that wedge inbetween my toes — my feet got used to pretty quickly. in fact, my toes are spread out most comfortably, and there is none of the crippling pain that comes after a day of having them wedged into my allstars, or that pinchy twinge on the side of my little toe from the slightly more comfy jack purcells. the only thing that concerns me is that such whispery light and thin soles are not cushioning my heels as i pound around my concrete environment, and i’m going to pay for this fashion moment with years of chronic knee problems.
(the only other thing that concerns me is that i may have to go back and get the black ones after all.)
but, y’know, fashion! it affects us all at some time. like, the kid has been seeing the new bonds ad on teev. the one where a ring of nubile underwear-clad girls cavort joyously to an infectious brazilian tune? the second time it came on, she said, “give me a little bra and panties, so that i can dance like that.” so yeah, advertising, your work here is done. clearly she is on track to wanting a harem of hideous bratz dolls by the time she’s four. meh.
farewell, my battered jack purcells, you have served me well.
bagel house, right after it finally opened on darling street, was strangely empty. for weeks, it seemed as though the only people i could see through the clouds of steam emanating from the back room, were the people behind the counter. these days, there are queues at the counter, and the historic mirror-topped tables are usually occupied. it could be just because i’ve been going in on the weekends… clearly i will have to make more mid-week visits, just to see.
when we arrived today, after walking through the summertime, it was bustling. we bustled ourselves a table. the kid, having learnt from the last time that cream cheese, capers and chopped onions are not her friend, customised her smoked salmon bagelwich to contain just the smoked salmon, and some sliced tomato. on a cheese bagel. it was a great success. have you seen how they make the cheese bagels? through the glass window of the operation’s nerve center, you can see neat rows of already-boiled, not-yet-baked bagels, each one with a uniformly square slice of cheese perched on top; it bakes down into a bubbly, crunchy, cheesy crust. and the bit that has melted into the hole? huf!
fearing that i was stuck in the rut of reuben on dill bagel (pastrami, sauerkraut, pickles and swiss cheese — the greatest of ruts to be stuck in), i ordered the portobello mushroom melt, on an onion bagel. in my head, i envisaged a great big field mushroom, as wide in diameter — if not wider — as the bagel, meaty and dark, grilled with garlic and fruity olive oil. instead, it was a modest scattering of regular button mushrooms, finely sliced. they had been grilled, and were tasty, but they lacked that satisfying bite of a monster mushie. still, it was in itself pretty monstrous, and eaten in large mouthfuls, with the pesto, red onion, grilled capsicum and swiss cheese, it was a delicious lunch.
afterwards i walked to the supermarket to stock up on nappies and tinned tomatoes, and popped my head (the body followed unquestioningly) into adriano zumbo patissier to see if the pink biscuits were on today. they were not, and saturday afternoon is crazy, so i spun on my heel for a quick retreat. even quicker though, charlie counterboy brandished an acrylic-framed label at me. i knew from the small print that it was for the gorgeous glass of sticky-rice-coffee-lemon-orange which i had encountered earlier in the week. back then it hadn’t yet been christened, and now it had. in boldface, they had named it after me!
!!!
remember when santos made the raging yoghurt cupcake? i felt all strange and tingly. it was like that all over again; almost brought a tear to my eye. “are you happy?” asked charlie.
darn tootin’.
the sydney design trail continues. today, singapore girl met me, half and hour late, because that’s how long it took for her bus to inch its way forward between the broadway shopping center and the queen victoria building. apparently it was following a slow-moving dumptruck traveling in the bus lane all the way. why did the bus driver not overtake? why did the girl not get off the bus? and walk??? it certainly would’ve been quicker. but these are questions which will forever remain unanswered. upstairs at the QVB, workshopped awaited us.
this showcase of emerging australian designers included all manner of curvy plywood chairs, whimsical pendant lamps, and chocolate-covered cheese. yes! bizarro! under a plexiglass case were sculptural hemispheres of gorgonzola, goat cheese and a washed rind cheese, covered in dark, milk or white chocolate. you could even buy them at the chocolate shop downstairs, which i did not, because, um, weird, and also, i was far more interested in the shop’s selection of teja — peruvian milk caramel enrobed in chocolate — that i’d recently read about in “good living“.
i never go upstairs at the QVB, but because we happened to be there, we stumbled upon the amazing, well-stocked boutique of sydney fashion designer, alistair trung. it was the neat row of colourful cloven-toed sneakers stretching all the way to the back of the shop that initially caught my eye, but once we were inside, we were mesmerised by the collection of dramatic necklaces and scarves, each of which, according to singapore girl, was equivalent to two weeks’ rent. the shoes, though, were a hundred bucks, and what can you get for $100 these days? ok, so my current pair of sneakers — pink plimsoles — were $6 from the sportsgirl bargain bin, and my other current pair — navy blue jack purcells — were $50, but both have holes worn through their soles, and they let the rain in, and so i need new sneakers now, dammit.
but did i need these $100 sneakers? with their grungy print of chunky misshappen numbers, white on black? oh how i miss grunge! oh how i loved these shoes! and their inventive fastening mechanism of thick thread and metal tabs. and their secret inner lining of soft khaki cotton. and the specialised cloven-toe socks with the same numeric print, except white on pink, for an extra $15.
what i needed was to leave the shop. we walked through the park and partway up the horrible bit of oxford street to object gallery for a strange little show of contemporary craft — multi-eyed monster potato heads shaped in glass; plastic plates covered in cheery fabric and stuck to a wall; a vast expanse of lace curtain cut from black rubber; ceramic rope… and then we had to break for a light lunch.
we are not girls who know restraint, necessarily, but we knew we must save room for afternoon tea at patisserie lumiere, just tripping distance from object, and something else i had come across in “good living” — the most useful of newspaper supplements, no?
faced with a multi-level case of choux this and danish that, and a kaleidoscope of pretty tarts, it was like being in zumbo! we were poised to order at the counter, but were shooed to a table for proper service.
eschewing the plump and seductive paris brest (filled with hazelnut creme, and i think you know how i like a creme filling), i picked the chocolate tart, handsomely goldleafed. it was crisp chocolate-biscuity shell, meltaway chocolate filling, and a secret layer of squishy raspberries hidden within. truly, it was the gilt-edged eastern suburbs cousin of zumbo’s envie tart, and very delicious too. singapore girl couldn’t decide between the pristine meringues sandwiched with chocolate and the glistening raspberry tart, so she had both. it was our plan to discuss the issue of $100 japanese sneakers over tea, but by the end of it, nothing had been resolved (because we discussed anything but), and i was now concerned that buying cloven-toed shoes would mean i would need to invest in a whole new supply of appropriate hoisery. also, my head was having issues with the sudden burst of chocolate into my bloodstream.
we caught the express bus back to the city, so that she could go back to studying for her PhD in speech pathology, and so that i could go look at those shoes — my shoes — again.
