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i had already shut down the computer for the night (what! only 8.30!) and was feeling so sorry for myself that i wasn't even going to make myself a sundae to cheer myself up. fortunately i came to the same conclusion that you did, just then: it is stupid to let abject self pity get in the way of dessert. so here i am, back, with a cup of vanilla green tea and a glass of double chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce and strawberries. i feel better already.
why, apart from the ice cream, am i feeling so crumpled? the spongihead is upon me! and with it, the sneezing, the drippy nose, the mildly throbbing temples, the smarting eyes, the tinge of a sore throat... (so clearly i should not be having this chocolate sauce -- so heaty!)
but more aggravatingly...
about a month ago i was offered a job laying out an annual report. at that stage none of the copy had been written, and so based on the calculation that i would need two weeks to design it, and the printers would need two weeks to print it, and the report was needed in about that time, i declined the job.
"that time", you might have surmised, is now. you are sharp. a couple of weeks ago i was contacted by the editor who'd been hired to pull the report together. she explained that it was in fact a concise 20 page book, and that each page would have essentially the same layout: a small picture, a highlighted quote, and a slab of text. it was a tight schedule, but once the design was sorted ahead of the wednesday copy deadline, the text could be dropped in easily and quickly, and it would be at the printers on friday. today. somehow they'd managed to find some magical printer who'd do the job in 24 hours.
i should have been more wary of this straighforward task when the sample story came through early in the week, and despite having agreed on the style of the report (based on someone else's annual report they'd seen and liked), the word count was about three (if not four) times the length of what was required. of course, of course you can fit 750 words into an A5 page, with a picture and a headline and a picture caption and a quote. oh yes, of course.
wednesday came, and then thursday, and now friday -- printer day! and just right now, 9.13pm, the first half of the text has arrived in my inbox. along the way, i'd been sent reassuring (yet threatening) emails saying things like, "text arriving later today" and "first half of the text arriving tomorrow", and then the one yesterday afternoon that made me laugh (it was not a pretty laugh):
"I will have half text pages for you tonight.
Images tomorrow.
Financials over the weekend.
Aim for printer Monday depending on the time you need..??..."
on top of all that, the book has grown to 36 pages.
on top of that, this is one of the sentences in the 36 pages:
"While one of the positives of this project was that the participants were the center of the project, and they were driving it artistically, because it was their lived experience and there were so many big issues that they had a strong desire to deliver them."
but wait! this is the next sentence:
"The process was cathartic and emotionally difficult for the filmmakers, but highly rewarding to create something which has a broader reach than their own communities."
i'm the graphic designer though, right? i should just typeset it 8.2/11.5pt and leave it at that. it's just, i can't. i sit here, reading while i lay it out, and maybe this is what's causing my face to hurt.
but, haha, this is where i say, "HAHA! i have fooled you, you april fool!".
but, no. alas it is only 31 march.
i am so grumpy. and my ice cream is gone.
Served on Friday, March 31, 2006 at 08:48 p.m.
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there was a brief moment on friday, as i walked down the crap end of pitt street with a box of cupcakes in my hand and central station rising up before me, when i thought i was in new york. sure, it was the crap bit of midtown manhattan that flashed through my head, but i was there, man.
how distant that moment is now, with me sitting here eating vegemite toast much too quickly, stealing minutes to blog in between too many jobs that involve fitting too much text into too small a page.
but, friday. cupcakes. rewind. <<
i'd been wanting to go to cupcakes on pitt for months and months, even before reading about saffron's happy adventure back in november. but somehow i never got to the city before closing time, or i was never in that part of the city, or i just, um, forgot. but, friday. cupcakes on pitt just happened to be on the way to where i needed to be (the department of immigation).
it was like it was meant to be: the boy was off sick from work, the child was having her nap at home, the buses conspired to run off-schedule... and one of the two little tables in the shop was empty. there is a cupcake and coffee deal for $5 (cupakes $3.50 each), so i had a latte, even though i'd given up coffee again. as for the cupcake...
how long does it take you to choose a cupcake? is there a length of time, after which it becomes embarrassing (or just freakish) to stand swaying before a display of eight-ish frosted beauties, trying to pick the one that will be just right? in the end, the classic combination of pink and brown won. the smiley counter girl brought it over, my chocolate cupcake with strawberry frosting. it was a bold, pretty thing, and when i turned it around, i discovered its deformity: a overhang of cake where it had risen unevenly in the baking tray. i was delighted, because... well, more cake. but that countergirl, did she know something about me? spooky.
i tried to make it last, but the cake was so light and moist and chocolatey and the frosting... see, i like the idea of twice as much frosting, but i'm thankful that they took the sensible route here; it was quite buttery, with a delicate strawberry flavour. and no doubt you would have noted the generous curls of good dark chocolate perched so jauntily on the top. it was really good, and just the right, sensible size.
it was so tasty that later, faced with the decision all over again for takeaway cupcakes, i eschewed the white chocolate cupcake, the dark chocolate cupcake, the plain chocolate, the jaffa on chocolate, the strawberry on vanilla, the passionfruit, the cappuccino, and picked the chocolate with strawberry frosting again. the cupcakes here are a flavoured frosting on either a vanilla or chocolate cake base (which saved my brain from imploding while trying to decide frosting as well as cake flavours), so i thought it would be good for the survey to also pick a vanilla one. this ended up being the lemon cupcake, topped with a modest swirl of baked meringue.
[ i have this fantasy of buying a slice of foot-high lemon meringue pie whenever i pass one by in a cafe window; it always seems like way too much meringue, though i suspect i would eat it all, and perhaps regret it, maybe.]
i wondered if there might be a dab of lemon curd beneath the meringue, and cutting into it when i got home, i discovered that there was. hurrah!
Served on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 at 11:13 a.m.
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who likes ice cream? bunnies do! no wait, i mean, i do! sometimes (rarely) i make my own, in the machine we were given a couple of xmases ago. this year there has been the coconut-lime-turkish delight extravaganza (coconut milk + cream + sugar + lime rind + lime juice + toasted coconut + bits of turkish delight = over the top confection with a curious hint of savoury flavour) and the lemon-buttermilk-blueberry affair (buttermilk + milk + brown sugar syrup + lemon juice + lemon rind + blueberries). i made that one on a very hot afternoon, so it didn't freeze quite enough, but it had a lovely light texture, like uncle louie g's italian ices. oh cherry chip explosion, how i miss you!
so far i've avoided those recipes with the rich egg custard bases -- a combination of fear of lots of egg yolks and fear of undercooking the egg yolks and contracting salmonella, and ice cream's not about fear, dammit -- but so far i haven't noticed anything amiss. maybe for the next one i'll try that handy hint i read about, where the homecooked custard base is replaced with a carton of supermarket custard. maybe i'll just go out and buy a tub of sara lee.
what i did buy recently was a new drawing pen, made by the mitsubishi pencil company. i love it! how it glides across the paper, leaving a smooth, shiny black trail. i drew the bunny over the last couple of days, and it's in the running -- run rabbit run! -- to be put on a threadless tshirt. if you could be so kind as to click on the thingy below and vote for it, i would be most appreciative (because, i'm sorry, you will need to sign up). oh no! it's been taken out of the running due to a poor showing in the first 24 hours. harsh. ah well, click on the thingy below if you'd like to see the whole bunny.
Served on Saturday, March 25, 2006 at 10:26 a.m.
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shall i finish telling you about the picnic, and the tart, from before?
it's just that, if a group of people goes into a kebab shop to pick up some supplies for a picnic, you might imagine that there may be a platter of meats shaved off the great revolving thing behind the counter, if not from the special grill set up by the door, with those kebabs that are minced lamb moulded onto a mean skewer, or chunks of marinated meat and onions; several tubs of salads and dips; maybe a handful of falafel; and a fat bundle of bread -- maybe even a couple of those tasty-looking ones drizzled with oil and za'atar -- for everyone to share.
instead, there was an unspoken consensus that each mini-group within the entourage would cater for itself. hence, boy's olds bought themselves a doner kebab plate, boy's sister bought herself a doner kebab plate and a bag of chips for her son, boy's other sister bought herself a vegetarian pide and a can of coke zero, and boy tried to buy us and the kid a chicken kebab plate and a falafel plate but the shopgirl misheard and made us roll-ups.
thusly laden, we bundled ourselves back into our cars and drove to the botanic gardens, but waiting in line with our picnic, we saw the sign on the gatehouse telling us to stay on the path at all times, which is just not condusive to picnicking, now is it?
no.
we ended up at the picnic tables a short hike away, close to where some kids were playing with a heavy metal chain hanging off a tree branch. i suppose it used to be some sort of swing, but now, without a seat, it was just a braining waiting to happen, flung about as it was with glee and stupidity.
but we got through the meats without incident, and then there was baklava on the table, and the custard eclairs, and well, the plum tart had been there from the start. "this baklava is so fresh," someone said, lips glistening with sugar syrup. "the chocolate on this eclair is really good quality," someone said. (it was!) "it's a pity we didn't think to bring any tea," someone said, "because it would be very nice to have with your tart."
and then, with the tart still pristine, someone said, "i couldn't eat another thing." and reached for another piece of baklava.
so the tart went back into the car as we walked round the garden, and after the garden, no-one wanted tart still. well, i wanted tart, but no-one else did. i asked the boy if we should cut the tart up and give some to his family to take home. i mean, i had made it to share with them, but it seemed that these were people who did not want tart. could i force it upon them? was it more polite to leave them with tart or without? in the end, the boy cut a portion of tart that was uncomfortably just short of half, whacked it on a paper plate and saw it unceremoniously into his mother's arms.
when i got home and finally had a piece of my plum tart with a cup of tea, i j'regretted that i had brought it along to that shamster picnic. i should have kept it all for myself. it was fantastic.
Served on Friday, March 24, 2006 at 10:05 p.m.
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i was ready to leave at 11, but due to dawdling on everyone's part -- though least of all, mine -- it wasn't until after noon that i left the house, and when i reached the top of the street, i saw the bus pull up at the stop, and then pull away. this turned out to be a good thing, because i walked a few more blocks, to starbucks.
it's been a few weeks since the new promotional banner appeared on the footpath: for "coffee with a taste of the tradewinds", the banana caramel frappucino. i was sceptical at first; i mean, banana and coffee! and also, i had sworn off coffee (again) a couple months ago after a raspberry mocha knocked me out for half the day. but then five minutes later the jaunty yellow banner won me over. i had just been biding my time. today was it!
the chalkboard behind the counter said "we've gone bananas!", and in case you doubted the conviction, there was also a drawing of two bunches of bananas. so, apart from the banana caramel frappucino, there was banana caramel cream, banana caramel bread, banana cake and banana chocolate chip biscuit slice. do not think that there would be no customer so obsessive as to tailor a complete banana-themed meal; just before xmas i snuck in there and had a gingerbread frappucino and a slice of gingerbread loaf -- a dense brick frosted in thick cream cheese and bright orange candied ginger.
it wasn't until i was mid-way through ordering that i looked up at the menu board to check the prices and discovered that there is also banana mocha frappucino, which immediately cancelled out the banana caramel frappucino. sitting in the corner, reading annie proulx, i was pleased to find that it tastes like chocolate and banana paddle pops.
such are the little pleasures to be had in a child-free afternoon. there was also: a fantasy about buying a new teacup; a slow trawl through the borders magazine aisles; the following conversation:
"oh, and may i also have a brownie please?"
"would you like a big one or a small one?"
Served on Sunday, March 19, 2006 at 06:22 p.m.
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two weeks ago... or was it three? either way. a recent weekend, and it was hot. the boy's family thought it might be a nice outing to have a picnic at the botanic gardens in auburn. the plan was we'd all meet on the main street in auburn, pick up picnic supplies, and then head over to the gardens where we would sprawl on the grass and eat ourselves silly.
i seized this opportunity to make a tart, because who doesn't want a slice of tart, all sticky summer fruit, while lying in the sun on a saturday afternoon? amalgamating two... (or was it three?) recipes from an old donna hay magazine, armed with a kilo of just right plums and a scant-used food processor, i spent friday night and saturday morning at the kitchen counter. minutes before it was time to head out west, i had this: a ricotta and plum tart in a hazelnutty crust. it was still warm -- actually, hot -- from the oven, radiant on my lap with two folded up tea towels in between.
we got to auburn road early, and inside of twenty minutes we'd bought fresh baclava and custard eclairs and little buns filled with salty white cheese and chopped herbs, and had finally come to a halt outside mado. i'd been wanting to come here for years, for the turkish ice cream.
late summer in 2000, the boy and i caught a ferry up the bosphorus to the edge of the black sea. we thought it was a boat trip there and back, but the steward ushered us off and told us not to return for two (or three) hours. we bought grilled fish sandwiches in an alleyway, climbed a grassy hill to a fort and ate our delicious sandwiches in the presence of hilltop cows. when we climbed back down to the town on the ground, our boat was ready and waiting. we had just enough time to get ourselves ice cream cones from a nearby café. what strange and gummy ice cream, full of fruity bits; gleeful, we chewed on them as the ferry puttered towards istanbul.
and now here on the main street in auburn, dondurma, waiting in tubs out front, for us. these were some of the labelled flavours: date, pistachio, mulberry, mango, turkish coffee, and cherry. there were also two unlabelled flavours, yellow with bits, and white, which the counter girl revealed to be apricot, and "... special turkish ice cream". the price list only went up to three flavours, but i wanted four or maybe even five. but also, i wanted tart later, so i made do with cherry, apricot and special turkish.
it is fun, this stretchy ice cream. but we have to eat it quickly, so quickly, because not only is it very hot and melty sitting by the road, but if we do not shovel it into our mouths fast enough, the child will devour it all. as it is she has great red rivulets running down her chin and onto her AB/CD tshirt, so she looks like she's on the losing end of a pub brawl.
but here comes the boy's family now, and there we go to the big kebab shop on the corner.
to be continued...
Served on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 at 02:39 p.m.
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don't you love going to the supermarket? i do! don't you wait patiently every monday morning while the new woolworths catalog downloads, all 3.1mb of it, so you can see what's on special this week? i, um, do.
it's just, my way of keeping the junk food beast in check is to only buy things like chips or chocolate biscuits or ice cream when they're on special.
ok, plus, i'm just sad that way.
monday night, almost 8.30, i walked to the supermarket after putting the kid to bed. we needed milk. it was drizzling a little and the sidewalk was mostly clear except for those people outside the thai restaurant and the kebab shop. the supermarket aisles were easy.
this is what was on special, that i bought:
- two bottles of fresh peach fragrance dishwashing detergent
- a bag of frozen baby peas
- a toothbrush
- an avocado
this is what was on special, that i didn't buy, although i really wanted to:
- english lamb and mint flavoured potato chips
(i think they're a special release for the commonwealth games. there was also australian sausage sizzle and canadian bacon and cheese, but, hmm, no representatives from all those other countries with predominantly black or brown or yellow people.)
- oreo wafer sticks
(chocolate wafers filled with that pigfat stuff, covered in chocolate. i almost got them, until i read the ingredients list and discovered the primary ingredient was vegetable oil. maybe i should have got them anyway; i mean, what a testament to alchemy!)
then there was this:
what happens when a 23-year old marketing graduate gets together with a brand management guru with 20 years experience is tampons in a little pink stripey tin. apparently they are redefining tampons as "a premium fashion accessory" and "a gorgeous indulgence".
they weren't on special, but i bought them anyway. clearly i need to do the grocery shopping in the daytime, with the increasingly grumbly kid in the unwieldy stroller, bumper to bumper with all those other urban warriors. clearly.
Served on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 at 10:11 a.m.
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in spite of being in a bit of a lull -- the result of a sudden influx of paid work, tight deadlines, and the ensuing throbbing, smarting eyeballs the instant i looked up at the screen -- this here blog found itself on other eminent pages this week.
there was the dubious (but welcome and gleeful, oh yes indeedy) honour of being someone's "sad little fetish" at the sydney morning herald blogs. and then being quoted on rice bowl journals about running amok in the aisles of mr wong's grocery. why, it made me feel like i had cake in my belly.
thank you for coming to read. i will tell you about the dondurma, and the lemon buttermilk ice cream, soon.
Served on Sunday, March 12, 2006 at 12:59 p.m.
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there is a vague queue to get on the bus. having secured my window seat, i only hope that i do not get:
- that musty, musky old chain smoker who sucked his cheeks hollow on his cigarette waiting to get on board, exhaling downwind on everyone
- that obese woman
- any of that quartet of skanky boys, in their big shorts and thin singlets and baseball caps and dirty face scruff
in the end i get a slim, clean asian girl who eats what smells like a salty toasted cheese sandwich, and then spends the first hour of the drive drawing clothes in a sketchbook.
i'm going to canberra to renew an expired passport. a couple of months ago, on the verge of applying for australian citizenship, i called the immigration department helpline, received no help at all from cantankerous old beryl, and so i'm staying malaysian for a little while longer. i know this means that if things went awry, i would be deported to malaysia, despite having not lived there since i was six, but what the hell. it's mercenary isn't it, choosing citizenship on the basis of convenience?
this is my first trip away without the child, and without the boy, in forever. in my own bubble of a hotel room, i sprawl across the bed to watch "the amazing race", and wake up at five the next morning purely on my own volition. stupid volition.
it takes about an hour to walk from the city centre to the malaysian high commission, and from there, about 40 minutes to walk along the foreshore to the national library for an exhibition of ephemera. by this time, you will feel like breakfast, even with that 6.30 cup of tea and sydney brownie under your belt. bookplate, the "not exactly a café and not quite a restaurant" at the library, serves up mushrooms on toast until 11.
see those crunchy brown bits? you have never had mushrooms on toast like these. buttery and salty, yes, but the burnt edges are a bonus. the toast -- is it helga's? -- is so buttery you might contemplate not eating both slices, but do so anyway. the magazines on the rack are either australian gourmet traveller or waitrose food illustrated, and you can read them in the mozaic light of the stained glass windows. you can flip through waitrose, while eating mushrooms on toast and drinking a "chai latte" (why does it roll off my tongue to say "raspberry white chocolate frappucino", but only wince and curdle up inside when i have to order a "chai latte"?), and then be so surprised and pleased to come across an illustration by a girl you used to know.
in the national art gallery bookshop, i bought a book on the fundamentals of illustration, because during the week i drew a horse for money, and things like this could happen more often. but when i picked up my passport later that afternoon, it turned out that the clerk had been too lazy to type in "illustrator" in the profession box, after "graphic designer". tchk.
in that last canberra hour, i stepped into a chocolate shop in a mall and found the mother lode of desirable chocolate, emerging some time later with $19 of truffle-marzipan-marzipan-chocolate in a white paper bag. "you've chosen all french chocolate today," said the counter woman, "top of the line."
"my mother gave me a box of valrhona once," i said, "and now i can't go back." counter woman didn't need to know about the milk chocolate bar with M&Ms minis peanut butter chocolate candies at the bottom of my backpack.
Served on Sunday, March 12, 2006 at 09:53 a.m.
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things to blog about:
plum tart
dondurma
custard eclair
lemon buttermilk ice cream,
with blueberries
Served on Sunday, March 5, 2006 at 08:32 p.m.
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a passing comment snowballs, and before you know it, four girls congregate on a footpath in ashfield, slightly giddy from all the possibilities knocking about their heads.
not even a block from the start, the chinee-style english writing on an awning called to us from across hercules street. "MR. WONG," it said. we walked into the path of cars to get there, this little filipino grocery, full of powdered ube this and frozen ube that, those chocolates which seem to be made of flour, many sacks of rice, and even more tins of sardines in tomato sauce. there were three brands of cooked dried green peas in water, all in little golden tins. i showed great restraint, because it was only the first stop along the way, and so i only came away with a little packet of garlic flavoured cornick... and a ten-pack of individually wrapped blueberry cream sandwich crackers. "i know exactly how these will taste," said sue, "the cream will be all sandy." it was the clincher, really.
two bakeries later, we were standing in an aisle in go go chinese supermarket when the shopman came up and said, "can i helptch you?" in mandarin. he was most suspicious about the surreptitious photo-taking that was going one, and wanted to know whathowwhywhy?
"is this where we get kicked out?" we wondered. but then helen pointed feebly at the amusing row of tinned peanut octopus, and i thought about how i couldn't explain blogs in chinese, and he eventually stomped off. this meant i could buy a package of pickled mustard greens and a bottle of hot dumpling sauce. more importantly it meant sue could buy a tantalising box of crab spawn biscuits (but i might let her tell you about that one).
the counterlady at the polish deli was much more welcoming, offering to explain all the sausages behind the glass and then handing slices all round when the words became inadequate. but there were more important things than meats! on the counter, polish doughnuts! on special! and cake!
"um, what is that cake?" i asked, pointing at the one that looked like cheesecake on a layer of poppyseeds.
"that is cheesecake, with poppyseeds," she said.
"and this one?"
"ah. that is poppyseeds with things in it. like nuts. and apple."
"and this one, is it cheesecake with apple?"
[ noise of affirmation ]
i came away with a slab of cheesecake, with poppyseeds, and two doughnuts -- tennisball-sized with a modest filling of sticky red jam, and glazed in sugar, from wednesday, so they are not fresh, and that is why they are on special -- and some sour cherry confiture: 70% cherries!
and then, at the first indian spice and video shop, a masala spice mix for tea; at the second indian spice and video shop, a bag of red rice, both with deb's seal of approval.
the calico strap on my shoulder was starting to sink deeper to the bone as the bag filled up, so it was with great disappointment that i walked through the fragrant wonderland of the enormous fruit barn across the road. all the greens were fresh and dewy, all the eggplants (of which there were five varieties) were glossy and plump. even the 99c jar of apricot and amaretti puree -- all left on the shelf.
but we weren't done yet. there was still the chinese grocery in the underground carpark, the one that had started all this. as promised, there were two trays of chang perched on the meat counter, and a bit anticlimactically, no-one bought any. i blame the voices of chinese mothers muttering in the backs of our heads. or maybe we were just hungry and distracted.
because of the way we are, we crossed four lanes of main-road traffic to get to shanghai night for dumplings. and, as it turned out, pan fried pork buns, with crunchy brown oily bottoms. and red bean pancakes. oh, and did we want noodles? under the 'cold noodles' heading, we pondered.
"what is the smoked fish like?" we asked the waitress.
"orh. the fish... it is cold. and hard. and the noodles, they are cold."
"and what kind of fish is it?" prodded deb.
the waitress gazed off into the distance. "hmph" she exhaled thoughfully.
"too many questions! we'll have the new year cake in XO sauce... um, what's that like?"
"ah!" beamed the waitress. "it is favourite in shanghai!"
there has not been a luncheon of starch so happily devoured before this, and after, with the grit of the last-minute crab spawn biscuits still on our tongues, we went our separate ways into the afternoon.
for me, that was straight into the bbq shop on the way back to the station, for a cup of sugar cane juice, half a soya chicken and a side of siu yoke. "anything else?" asked the shoplady. "you want to try this mochi? red bean, custard and... huasheng jiao shenme? for you, special price." alas, graciously, i had to decline.
Served on Sunday, February 26, 2006 at 10:17 a.m.
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what i've been wanting to tell you for a week now, is that if you think you may have sliced too many mushrooms, it will only be just enough. this mound of mushrooms, as big as my head, sauteed with garlic until that moment before everything collapses in a soggy mass... it was just enough to toss through a pot of fettuccine, with several spoonfuls of a dill pesto i'd found in a deli earlier that afternoon, and a handful of chopped fresh dill for extra greenness. it was only the promise of ice cream for dessert that prevented me from having a third bowl of the stuff. i think about it, still.
Served on Saturday, February 25, 2006 at 09:57 p.m.
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the boy brought home a fundraiser box of maltesers this afternoon. i generally won't eat cheap and nasty chocolate, but the maltesers? they have undone me. you know them. they are the marble-sized crunchy malty centers in a polished chocolate coat. who'da thought -- all that crunchy malt center, and still, according to the ingredients list, the chocolate makes up 75%. the nutritional information below said list informed me that a serve of maltesers would be me consuming just over 10g of fat. there were four servings in the box, and i'm afraid i could quite easily have eaten them all. so i stopped, and put the box back in the fridge, and while i was there i made a simple sundae of vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and a topping of a crumbled up pistachio biscotti, a bright green chewy almond pastey biscuit coated in whole pistachios. hey, i feel good about not getting 42g of fat all from the one source.
i feel bad about not blogging though. it's not that i haven't been eating delicious things almost every day...
a couple weeks ago, delirious with hunger on a thursday night shoping expedition, i stumbled into the australian homemade store in the city mall. such a naff name for a shop selling premium chocolate and ice cream, and such a blah logo, but lordy! the chocolate! i bought three squares: dark chocolate with cranberry, earl grey milk chocolate with nuts, and a fig bonzer.
"oh, that is my favourite," said the chocolate boy. it is a slim layer of soft chocolate and then a fat layer of seedy, figgy bits in caramel, all walled up in milk chocolate. in fact, it was so good it is now my favourite too, and i went back the next week and bought three more.
so, delicious things. the boy made a delicious risotto a few nights ago, with zucchini, peas, parsley and a can of shitake mushrooms. no wine, and no extra-dry vermouth, as counseled by well-wishers on my messageboard, but it was salty and buttery and lacking in nothing. he made it with a whole bag of arborio, so i also had risotto for lunch the next day, and dinner again, and then lunch the day after that.
we also had some delicious pizza one night, from zesti's, up the road, where you can look into the big windows off the street and see chinese people making your pizza.
an ad for some delivery place came on tv as we sat eating.
"argh! look! now they're making pizza on puff pastry!"
"that looks bloody awful."
"but is it worse than that three-cheeses-sandwiched-between-three-layers-of-bases thing they did before?"
"that looked awful too."
"but what about the one where there's a ring of little cheese-filled rolls around the edge of the pizza, so you can pull them off and eat them one by one?"
"that was revolting!"
our pizza had lovely thin bases, with crusty polenta bottoms. one was topped with: baby octopus, prawns and scallops, none of which were rubbery. the other was topped with: green -- pesto and minced-up spinach, and many little cubes of fetta.
so, delicious things a-plenty. but i've also been working, and reading a really good book -- "the language of baklava", and coming to terms with the fact that the child may no longer take a second nap in the day, and well, i've been trying to not watch so much primetime tv (daytime kid's programming chews up enough hours), although in my post-malteser-sundae stupor i found myself slumped in front of the men's olympic ice-figure-skating coverage...
and of course, there's been "carnivàle". monday morning i woke at 5.30, and couldn't get back to sleep. a combination of anticipating the child grunting herself out of slumber, and also the memory of brother justin crashing through the cornfield with a sickle and sophie with her eyes gone black. mainly brother justin though, and as it was, maeve slept in until seven. tchk.
um, what was i saying?
Served on Friday, February 17, 2006 at 09:49 p.m.
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the sticky red "jam" in the complimentary wrapped-in-plastic, homestyle jam swirl biscuit in the minibar of the corryong hotel motel... is actually called "bakers filling (12%)" on the ingredients list. it in turn is made out of sugar, apple, vegetable gum (440), food acid (330), colours (122,123), and flavour.
the biscuit you see above is not it. oh no. this is the european-style monte cream biscuit that i stumbled upon in a marrickville supermarket over the weekend. i was in the bread aisle looking for something tasty, and suddenly this box of pink-filled biscuits was in my arms. i took her home for a cup of milky tea.
Served on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 at 09:32 p.m.
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what?? february already?? then there is no better time to respond to saffron's gentle poke in the head, before the end of the year is upon us.
five food challenges for 0-6
1. eat less sugar
i don't add table sugar to my food or drink... not that there are that many opportunities for this. as a child i would add a heaped spoon of sugar to my cornflakes and savour that viscous, sweet milky goo at the end of the bowl. i don't even know why i even started this practice; i'm blaming it on pop culture references. later i bought frosties instead -- much more efficient. anyway, after dalliances with froot loops and cocoa crispix, these days i get just right tropical or, since it was on special the last couple of times, sustain.
the photographs of vigorous and happy old people on the sustain box make me feel like i'm not really the demographic for this particular cereal. which is what i said to the boy this afternoon as i showed him the box in question. "why?" he asked. "because they are so happy and carefree," i replied. "ah well," he said. "no, i mean because they are old!" i said. "well. you might be happy and carefree when you're that age," he said, "when you have a new husband."
the only other food i can think of that i could also sugar is bread-and-butter, but i haven't done that in years.
it's not even like i want to eat sweet food. it's just that a lot of the food i like to eat happens to be sweet. hey, there is a difference! i like cake, not because it is sweet, but because it is cake. really. how can i eat less cake, when the aim is to eat more cake?
i don't particularly like sugary beverages apart from the occasional pink grapefruit fizzy, but i do need to try new products. this is why i have a guava calpico carbonated fermented milk beverage on my kitchen counter. and a bottle of peach soda. but that's it, honest. and i need a cup of sweet tea every now and again. and ok, right now i'm drinking a glass of raspberry ice tea, made from a bottle of raspberry ice tea syrup... but it's hot. and also...
2. do not hoard food until it goes bad
such a bad habit. if i have a really yummy thing i eat it really slowly... more and more so the further i go. it's a way of making it last innit? unless i keep that last splinter of yummy thing in a box in the fridge and know that it's there and refuse to eat it because then it would be all gone, until it goes all grey and furry with mould, and then i have to throw it out. or if i have a not-quite yummy thing, usually a gift, but i feel bad about throwing it out straight away, but don't really feel like eating it because it is not quite yummy... yes, in a box, grey and furry, out it goes. either way, i feel bad about throwing it out in the end. stop the insanity!
the raspberry ice tea? it was a christmas present. i am drinking it. it is neither yummy nor not, so in a way consuming it has been devoid of the usual neuroses.
3. bake more cake
i have a mixer; i have no excuse. i don't know quite how this will fit in with food challenge #1, but we shall see.
4. make risotto
it sounds simple, no? particularly when scompared to saffron's #1 challenge of making a croquembouche from scratch. but i've been saying this for years, and it's always come to nought. my one obstacle is that one of the ingredients is a cup of wine. i don't drink it, so i never have any around, and what would i do with two-thirds of a bottle of leftover wine?
two more risotti.
5. learn some old family recipes
i suspect this will be the most challenging... yes, even more so than the sugar one, because my mother and grandmothers live back in the old countries and i have a natural aversion to recipes with more than five steps and six ingredients. so it's unlikely that this is the year i'll tackle otak otak or nonya chang, but would it kill me to be optimistic? after all, a couple of weeks ago i did lose my fingertip to the german supergrater at my aunt's house, while shredding turnips to make popiah.
the trick, i think, is to start small. perhaps with the steamed minced pork-soy sauce-egg custard number. mmm...
Served on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 at 10:15 p.m.
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as nellie says, buy first, think later.
after i bought the bumper box of 30 assorted mochi for the bargainous price of $7.95, i thought it over, and then tried to get my aunt to take some of it home. "no, no, no," she said, "i don't want to eat these fattening things."
but after she left i checked the nutritional information on the back of the box, and discovered that this magical mochi has 0% fat, 0% protein and 0% dietary fibre; one serving size of mochi -- three pieces -- is only 67kj. which is surprising, really, as one of the mochi is filled with peanut butter.
this box, almost a kilo of squishy delight, contains a selection of green tea, sesame, taro, red bean and peanut mochi. over the course of the day i managed to sample all five, and i can't really say which is my favourite. the green tea one isn't maccha flavoured, as i had assumed, but it's understandable since this is not japanese but taiwanese mochi, produced by the royal family food co., ltd.
the sesame one is gritty outside and in, coated with black and white seeds, and filled with a ground black sesame paste. it's the kind of thing that makes you check your teeth before smiling at anyone, after you eat it.
the taro one is a lovely shade of lilac, smooth through and through. the red bean one is as you'd expect, though sprinkled with perhaps more rice flour than necessary, and will leave a powdery white residue on your red carpet when you're done.
the peanut one is strangely savoury, with its salty smooth peanut butter inside. i'm not a great fan of peanuts, but felt the same way about this as i do when someone else buys a jar of peanut butter, and it's sitting there in the pantry, and one day he makes a slice of peanut butter toast, and i just have to have a little bite.
the little paper cases have been colour-coordinated with their contents; the red bean mochi sits in a white case, which is printed with fruit: pineapples, grapes, cherries... and the cherry is the same size as the pineapple and the bunch of grapes. that's my kind of cherry.
some time in the week, this blog will be featured on australianreader.com, as part of their summer feature: delicious indulgence. it's poetry, fiction and nonfiction by emerging writers, from now until 22 january. go see!
Served on Monday, January 16, 2006 at 09:19 p.m.
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o how nice to see krissie and jude and bim and edie, who drove all the way down from the mountains to grace us with their presence. maeve hardly gets to properly meet other little people (as opposed to pointing at random children we pass in the street), so it was a great novelty to have two friendly young 'uns for the afternoon.
our party of six became those groups of people you hate, who trundle up the sidewalk with multiple prams, obstructing traffic. but balmain has the biggest number of pavement-roaming prams i've encountered in a suburb (although krissie claims penrith actually holds that title) so i'm sure everyone we hindered was used to it.
after walking up and down the main drag in an effort to get jude off to sleep, we ended up at circle cafe, where i went with nellicent once and a homeless man followed us in off the street and stood next to our table for the longest time, occasionally making conversation, before eventually pulling up a spare seat to sit down. not only does circle cafe have a breakfast-all-day menu, they also do the best ever vegetarian big breakfast: an enormous oval platter covered with two large slices of crunchy sourdough toast, two pats of yummy salted butter, scrambled eggs (though you can choose fried or poached), creamed spinach, sauteed whole button mushrooms, hash brown and three grilled tomatoes. and a sprig of parsley.
i ordered maevis a grilled cheese sandwich off the kid's menu, which turned out to be old skool plastic cheese melted onto square white toast, and slightly mouldy on the edges, but that was ok because she ended up quite liking the eggs and spinach and tomato and sourdough... and that still left a whole slice of sourdough left on my plate at the end of the meal.
afterwards, as the drizzle returned, we sat on my couch, and krissie counseled me against buying "the complete new yorker" on dvd from the internet. for a couple of months i've been entertaining the thought of owning every single issue of the magazine ever published, since 1925, albeit on DVD -- eight DVDs, but the original pricetag (US$100 plus $65 postage) was a little upsetting. over at amazon, it's being sold for US$61 plus $6.50 postage, but my computer has a colourful history of randomly not reading DVDs, and what do i need with a set of shiny, limited edition "new yorker" drink coasters?
not so much. instead i am going to buy comics!
Served on Friday, January 13, 2006 at 10:09 p.m.
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can i do it: three posts in a day? it's just, i was in the asian supermarket at world square today, and right after i paid for a tin of maccha, a box of 30 assorted mochi, a biscuit that maeve had chewed to smithereens in its packaging (45c was a small price to pay for twenty minutes of quiet, contented child), and the shiny green box you see here, containing maccha and red bean flavoured chocolate mushrooms... i saw the shiny pink pouch you see here, containing happy candy. happy cherry candy. i had to join the queue again.
Served on Thursday, January 12, 2006 at 10:25 p.m.
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here i sit with a baker's dozen of sweet fat cherries. it is allowed, because these days i am a baker, don't you know. ok, so it was just another loaf of banana bread, but it is a damn fine loaf of banana bread. i'm sure this is because it's such a forgiving recipe; even with slightly less butter and quite a bit less sugar, and more bananas, it comes out good. this time 'round i threw in a cup of the sweet fat cherries, quartered, in place of blueberries, and i want to sit down and eat slice after slice, toasted and buttered.
week number three sans boy is coming to a close, and things are going much better than i anticipated. really quite good, actually. as he fixes up his country estate -- digging up floors, pouring new concrete, liberating asbestos, hosing himself down at the end of the day with cold water in the backyard -- me and the kid have sorted out a routine (starting at 5.30 most mornings) involving hanging out laundry; meals on the balcony; an occasional luncheon (with chips!) at the portuguese chicken shop up the street; walks in the park; perhaps a swim on an extra sweltery afternoon; cartoons and picture books; bathtime; storytime; and "hmm... isn't it almost bedtime?".
i have just enough work on for maeve's morning and afternoon naps, and no resentment towards the boy sitting down and watching tv instead of attending to child... because i have to do it all myself. since the boy isn't here to help me out by cooking dinner and using every single pot, pan and utensil in the kitchen, i have about half the number of dishes to do at the end of the night. the end of the night is a lot earlier because i eat dinner with maeve at 6.30 instead of 8 or 9 after she goes to sleep. there is no loud primetime tv, and no snoring in the wee hours sending me out to the couch. could i get used to this? eeeeeyes.
last night i shut down the computer and made up a sundae of raspberries, icecream and yoghurt, and a muji green tea biscuit. i ate it in bed, reading a "new yorker", which maeve had dropped in the bath a month ago, and which i dried by blotting and smoothing each page with kitchen paper, before sunning it on the hot tiles in the backyard. bliss.
Served on Thursday, January 12, 2006 at 09:05 p.m.
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what is it with the hoarding? surely not because my grandmother lived through the war? these boxes of cardboard and cardboard boxes, the magazines -- you know those stories, the jams, the teas... right now it's chocolate bars. i go up to the shops knowing that i cannot buy another bottle of jam or packet of tea or bar of chocolate, but despite my best intentions...
despite the valrhona bar (from my kind mother), the pack of haigh's chocolate-covered marzipan (from my kind father), the scharfen-berger block (from my kind sister, and it's really cooking chocolate, so it doesn't count), the slab of italian chocolate nougat (from xmas(s) past... oh dear) all stashed away in a shoe box, i left the supermarket the other day with a lindt intense lemon bar: 47% cocoa with bits of lemon and almond slivers (and oh! apple pulp and pineapple), and then a day later, all giddy like a schoolgirl from being in the wonderland that is about life, i bought (raspberries-blueberries-half-a-pineapple-and) a grizzly bar.
the grizzly bar is one in the managerie of the endangered species chocolate company. the display at checkout was row upon row of chocolate bars with wildlife photographs on the labels: zebras, giraffes, koalas, snow leopards, marine iguanas... the kid started making monkey noises at the chimpanzee bar (72% dark chocolate), but because she is also partial to bears, i managed to get away with the grizzly (70% with raspberries).
you get more chocolate for less money compared to the dagoba roseberry bar and, bonus, it feels creamier on the tongue. later, sitting at the computer, i was going to have a square, and suddenly the entire top row was gone. the thing is, the squares on this bar aren't even all that clearly delineated; there are suggestive mounds where you can break around if you are so inclined.
at the store, i turned the bar over to see where it was made: unsurprisingly, oregon. 10% of profits are donated to protect endangered species, and the inside of the label contains conservation tips such as:
"Don't Feed the Bears
Bears that obtain human food, birdseed, pet food, or garbage quickly lose their natural fear of humans. This poses a risk for both human and bear safety. If you visit or live in bear country, learn ways to secure your food and trash.
Protect Our Planet...
It's the Only One with Chocolate."
speaking of bears... we have been watching a really good cartoon in the mornings: eddy and the bear. or at least, i have been watching while the kid does her rounds of the living room. nellie, i must insist that you click on the trailer link.
Served on Thursday, January 12, 2006 at 11:40 a.m.
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my sister, who keeps me in constant supply of cool comics, recently sent me a "drawn and quarterly showcase" in the mail. you see the drawing above? it is by a french-canadian girl, geneviève elverum/castrée. her pages in the book made me want to fall over and curl up into a ball. in a good way. there are pages completely covered in intricate ferns. and there is an elephant. and sadness and wistfulness.
sigh.
i used to draw. i even used to want to draw a comic, but i think that time has passed. a combination of extreme laziness and the thought hanging over my head that i couldn't do it: self-defeating blah.
these days i lie on the floor with scraps of paper, blunt pencils and the kid, and i draw dogs and cats and lions and cows. tigers, ducks, monkeys, frogs, elephants. i tried to draw a rabbit the other morning, but it turned out to be a totoro.
gripped by a short and uncharacteristic burst of motivation over xmas, i drew this:
because who doesn't like that light and fruity taste of baby yoghurt? i find myself licking the spoon, just short of nicking mouthfuls myself, when i dish out the kid's breakfast in the morning. you can buy it on a bib for that grubby baby in your life... or maybe even for yourself! we all spill brown and red down our fronts from time to time, no?
Served on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 at 10:12 a.m.
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early on new year's day, my aunt telephoned me and said, "eh, it's going to be 41° today. you'd better come over and sit in my aircon." except it wasn't 41°; it was 44°. no wait, 45°.
in her shiny new white kitchen, we made ice kacang. just a basic selection of hidden treasures -- grass jelly, sweetcorn kernels, kidney beans, atap chee, preserved jackfruit -- beneath a mound of shaved ice drizzled (or drenched, as the case may be) in evaporated milk and gula melaka. there would have been rose syrup too, but the mantra i'd been chanting to myself all morning ("remember to bring the rose syrup. remember to bring the rose syrup") had been instantly forgotten when it came time to load bag of toys, bag of nappies and eating gear, bag of extra clothes, car seat, baby seat and baby into the car.
due to my aunt's persuasive nature and cooking prowess, we ended up staying the night, and then another night, and had the spare clothes and nappies not run out and a print deadline not been pressing up against my forehead, i'm sure there would have been a third night as well.
which is just as well, because stepping back into the apartment on tuesday morning, we were engulfed in a rather fruity odour. yes, so sunday i hadn't taken out the garbage because i thought we'd be back later that afternoon. i will not make any such assumptions again, because a very hot day followed by a very wet day turns your ordinary bag of kitchen scraps into a pile of wriggly little maggots.
Served on Friday, January 6, 2006 at 07:42 p.m.
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o what an inauspicious start to the new year. somehow my < div > tags have become magic spells, which spirit away everything that follows them.
what i wrote last night was that i had a choice between writing an entry, watching reruns of "lost", reading and sleeping. the blog won, but clearly i should have spent the hour watching "lost" instead. first time 'round, it seemed like the kid would wake for a feed in the last fifteen minutes of every episode. that and the fact that the promos kept promising things that were never delivered... in the end "lost" lost me. i am assured however, in the promos for the next season, that i will find out what's at the bottom of the hole, in the first three minutes. we shall see.
new year's eve, me and maeve were talking to the friendly neightbours across the way, and i asked what my balcony was like for that night's fireworks. "this is the place to be," they said, and pointed to a large flat thing being towed across the water into our line of sight. "look! here comes the barge from which they set off the fireworks."
come midnight, i was perched on the balcony, chin on the railing. the fireworks were right there and the building trembled from fifteen minutes of crackle-crackle-BOOM. miraculously, maeve slept through it all.
this year i resolve to be better.
look ma, no < div > tags.
Served on Friday, January 6, 2006 at 07:15 p.m.
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i just wrote something, and after i tried to attach a picture to it, everything disappeared. like, happy new year. tchk.
Served on Thursday, January 5, 2006 at 10:48 p.m.
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