ragingyoghurt » adventures in good eating etc.

today i beat up a door. today i stepped out onto the sidewalk and wanted to run. away. anywhere. because i dislike running, though, i walked very quickly, and found myself heading in the direction of kmart. i haven’t been swimming in almost a year. i haven’t done yoga — aside from the occasional cluster of sun salutes and a cursory stretch every now and again — in over five months. my body is atrophying. my backbone is clenchy. i find myself buying strings of paper lanterns and overpriced (though very beautiful) christmas lights, because everything else seems so dark, dammit. some days i find myself in a place even cake cannot reach.

today i thought i’d catalogue the jams in my moth-infested pantry.

already opened in the fridge and in various stages of gone-ness are:
apricot jam — the last centimetre at the bottom of the jar
raspberry conserve — more than halfway gone
cherry jam — i would like more of this to be gone, but its strange and unjammy liquid state and lack of cherry flavour have kept me from fulfilling its destiny
papaya and macadamia nut jam — a gift, this remains barely eaten after many months; it has a strange solid texture and is studded with distracting fragments of macadamias
rhubarb ginger conserve — almost as unsuccessful as the papaya macnut jam

the jams-in-waiting are:
cottees apricot conserve
hanks pear cinammon jam
harrods christmas mature thick cut marmalade with orange liqueur
harrods ginger extra jam
les palais des thés rhubarbe au thé vert du japon
luxardo 170% fruit marasca cherry preserve
st dalfour gourmet pear 100% fruit spread
young maid cherry jam
young maid raspberry and cashew jam

this is of course not counting the two kinds of honey, cinnamon sugar, vegemite and chocolate sprinkles that grace my bread from time to time. and then, hidden under a pile of clothes on the dresser upstairs is a jar of chocolate body paint (with saucy stencils) that i was given at christmas. the list of ingredients suggest that it could be used as a breadspread instead.

meanwhile, what the hell hints have i been exuding that made chocolate body paint an appropriate gift?

so. fourteen jams in total. one with 170% fruit. it must be a sign of… something, i’m sure. i think, perhaps, i need a new loaf of bread.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 6 March 2005 at 5:40 pm

permalink | filed under boy, kid

wednesday, we drove out west to visit the boy’s grandma who is was dying in hospital. we got there at lunchtime. lunch was a large brown blob and two smaller blobs — beige and orange — sitting in a plate of skinned-over brown gravy. helpfully, a menu had been included on the tray:

PEPPER
SALT

poached chicken with gravy PUREED
EXTRA GRAVY
mashed pumpkin
mashed potato

poached pears PUREED with custard
tea

the patient in the next bed looked over and said to grandma, “you’ll die eating that.” sixteen hours later, she did.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 25 February 2005 at 9:02 pm

permalink | filed under boy

two weeks ago, we fired up the barbeque on the balcony. nothing fancy, just some sausages and steaks and cheeses and houseguests. a thoroughly pleasant affair that ended with the sound of midnight oil wafting over from aussie stadium. rock!

and then.

over the last couple of days, we’d been sticking our noses up into the occasional breeze, sniffing, then asking, “what’s that smell?” or “hmm… what died?”. yesterday, the boy walked over to the corner of the balcony where it smelt deadest and fossicked around a little. quite a bit of spluttering ensued as detective goren revealed…

the bloated corpse of a sausage lying at the bottom of a bin. the deceased had been a raw sausage that had fallen off the grill the night in question, and had been picked up and tossed into the bin, and then forgotten. in the meantime, there had been crazy hot days, and days of welcome gentle rain, and so now, mr sausage was rotting away in a small amount of stagnant collected rainwater. with the lid of the bin fully removed, the smell of death intensified, and made its way into the living room. oh how our eyes watered!

quick! shut that door!

eventually the boy picked up the deadly sausage of decaying flesh (using the hand in plastic bag trick used in dogpoo removal, but still!), and carried it through the apartment to the garbage room downstairs. but the odour lingered, and a couple hours later, far, far away in the park, we could still smell the sausage.

on a happier note, this morning the boy asked, “if i made pancakes, would you have some?”. i thought it was a trick question at first, forgetting that i’d already had a breakfast a couple of hours earlier. whatever, the answer was “YES!”.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 13 February 2005 at 8:31 pm

permalink | filed under boy, breakfast, dinner

posted by ragingyoghurt on 9 February 2005 at 9:11 am

permalink | filed under misc

this past sunday afternoon saw the kid and i in the shade of a luscious frangipani tree in a backyard in the inner west, for ella berry‘s birthday party. the invitation had said to bring a plate of party food, and somehow, in the best way, everybody had interpreted that to mean “bring cake”. even the piñata was in the shape of a cake: a double-layered, yellow structure with printed-on cream and candles. similar to the coloseum in more than appearance alone, it withstood the frenzied beating of two children, one adult and a third child helped by an adult, and only gave in when it was finally cut free from the tree and jumped upon gleefully by the birthday girl.

when i collected my tray at the end of the afternoon, a selection of little cakes came home with me.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 8 February 2005 at 3:23 pm

permalink | filed under cake, kid

there is a place two or three suburbs away, where you make a call and they bring you chinese food. i never make the call. well, i did, once, several years ago, and then again, tonight.

can i just say, the home delivery menu is your standard A4 folded down into thirds setup, and not counting the six special budget packs and the three party set menus on the back flap, there are 179 items listed. actually, i’m just looking at it again, and if you count the un-numbered item, All Sauces 80c, there are 180 choices for dinner.

it’s just that i was really quite hungry at five this afternoon, and hungry in particular for sweet and sour pork and fried rice. the more fluorescent the red of the pork, and the more glistening the rice, the better. the boy said, “why don’t you call new addison?” i fetched the menu from the bottom of the menu drawer, and it instantly became clear that sweet and sour pork and fried rice had to be deprioritised. under the “chef’s suggestion” heading, for instance, i really wanted the Deep Fried Brocolli [sic] in Batter with Mushrooms and the New Addison Special. what was in the Special? dunno, but it was the second most expensive thing on the menu, right after the Imperial Queen King Prawn.

after much deliberation and debate on whether two out of three dishes ordered could be deepfried (boy: yes; me: no, surprise) the boy made the call. Fried Salted Chilli Squid, Garlic Lamb and sorry, what?

the Deep Fried Brocolli [sic] in Batter with Mushrooms hadn’t been on the menu in three years; our menu was dated july 2000. we ended up with a much more sensible Bean Curd with Special Combination Vegetables, which when it arrived, turned out to be broccoli, choi sum and snow peas, all a lovely shade of green.

the nice delivery man also thoughtfully brought us an up-to-date menu. it is a bit shorter than v.2000, and in fact most of the missing items were specialties that the (previous?) chef had suggested: the Deep Fried Brocolli [sic] in Batter with Mushrooms, New Addison Special and the lesser Mok Lee Special. also gone were All Sauces and the entire section known as “western dishes”. which is a pity, because what i had actually most wanted to get from it was the Hot Chips $2.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 4 February 2005 at 8:51 pm

permalink | filed under dinner

every now and again i get one of those beige cards in my mailbox, the ones from the post office, that say “we tried to deliver an item to you earlier, but you weren’t in, so now you have to come to us and stand in a queue for twenty minutes and lug it home yourself”. thing is, i don’t believe the post office actually tries to deliver anything other than letters and bills anymore. i am home all the time and no one ever rings the doorbell to say “parcel delivery for you”.

never.

the upside to this farce is that a couple weeks ago, when i got to the front of the line at the post office and handed my beige card over to the counter lady, she said, “oh i don’t need to see your i.d.. i know you,” which was dang near the nicest thing that’s been said to me at a post office.

today i queued again, with a card that appeared in my mailbox on friday, which meant that every time my eyes fell on it all weekend, it made me wonder “what is it? what is it?” what is it, in that fat, warm yellow envelope with my name writ large in fancy handwriting?

a luscious comic book!

thank you, nellicent!

incidently, the fine folk at mcsweeneys who put out said comic book also run a page about “new food“. no, nary a diatribe on genetically modified brussels sprouts in sight. more a growing collection of tantalising new products like white chocolate peanut butter cups, a beverage called “pom” and microwave piroshki. those of youse who were intrigued by the melted butter twisties of two posts ago might like to investigate.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 31 January 2005 at 6:01 pm

permalink | filed under bookshelf, nellie

so another sunday rolls around, but it feels like there’s a great empty hole there, dammit. “carnivàle” is no longer on.

oh my lord, has anyone else been watching it? getting to know the travelling freakshow? marvelling at the slack-jawed yokels? being alert, but not quite alarmed at brother justin?

amber?

yeah, yeah, sure i want to know who management is. and what brother justin has to do with ben. and who gets horribly burned in the cliffhanger caravan fire. (and sure, it would be as easy as going to the website and reading the synopses of the next season… but i won’t.) what i really want to know is: what will be my next tv show?

is it possible that it will end up being “my restaurant rules? say it ain’t so, ferris!

i thought you might like to know that not “australian idol”, not “big brother”, not “the block” compelled me to turn the tv on… and in fact more often than not, made me change the channel, which is asking a lot really, because there is no remote control. yes, last year it was “my restaurant rules” that got me on the reality tv roller coaster. and i called up and voted. just the once though, because i voted for sydney and they ended up being the first to go. the site of that ill-fated restaurant housed a second also short-lived italian place, and is now a malaysian restaurant with nice signage called kl.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 30 January 2005 at 9:23 pm

permalink | filed under tv

who doesn’t like new junkfood products? not me, oh no. the other evening i was simultaneously queasy and pleased to walk past a billboard with homer (simpson, not the greek philosopher) advertising a new variety of twisties. the flavour of these twisties was…

i’ll tell you later. but what about the fanta spider? remember way back in april last year, when i was captivated? the fanta people (who i believe are actually coca cola) recently relaunched it: the orange flavour is no longer just orange spider, but choc orange spider. yes! chocolate flavoured fizzy! why is there not more of this?

however, i was distracted by the pink, so i ended up with strawberry spider, which is not a bad thing, because then i ended up with this:

a mini ice cream soda, with chocolate fudge sauce down below, a couple scoops of buttermilk vanilla, and pink fizzy all the way up. i suspect, nellie, it beat that neopolitan frappacino that never was.

and the new twisties flavour? it’s melted butter.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 29 January 2005 at 5:27 pm

permalink | filed under drink, ice cream, snacks

look nellie, look. those Stroopwafels you gave me are the perfect size for the yoghurt mug, um, that you gave me.

why is the biscuit perched on the cup? i’m glad you asked, for i can now read to you from the package:

“the history of this Wafer dates back to 1700 and the town of gouda in holland. late one afternoon, an industrious baker prepared the first stroopwafel on his stove using a small, round waffle iron and the dough and spices left over from his day of baking pastry. as he finished his work, it occurred to the baker to enhance his waffle with thick, rich caramel syrup, and so the Caramel Wafer was created… the appeal of the Stroopwafel has remained strong with the unique taste sensation of the moist and flavoursome wafers having a truly international look.

“enjoy Caramel Wafers with a hot beverage by placing one on top of a steaming cup of hot coffee [here i used tea] and allowing the caramel filling to melt, or simply eat as is. either way this sweet, creamy, buttery wafer is absolutely delicious!”

and truly it is. at first i was concerned that after taking a bite, the biscuit would be too small to balance so prettily on the rim of my mug, but then i took another bite and another and then it was gone. not a problem after all!

posted by ragingyoghurt on 27 January 2005 at 4:53 pm

permalink | filed under drink, nellie, snacks

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