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you know i love a sweet breakfast, oh yes i do. but my favourite could well be mushrooms on toast. i love it so much, sometimes i even have it for lunch. i used to get it at cafes, but more and more it seemed an exercise so fraught with disappointment: sometimes the mushrooms were too small, or sliced too thin, or not cooked enough, or there were too few of them, or any combination or permutation of the above. now i make my own, and it is better because i get them cooked the way i like, and if i'm actually lucky enough to have a cafe breakfast these days (which generally i'm not), it frees me up to have something like french toast with maple syrup and berries and bacon. the first rule of mushrooms on toast is that there have to be a lot of mushrooms. look at these pictures; you can barely see the toast. i use regular medium-sized white button mushrooms, sliced about 5mm thick. sometimes i'll buy a few bigger mushrooms as well, and mix them in for variations in bite. i chop much more garlic than you might think necessary. i use olive oil and butter. i cook them a long time. once, at a cafe, i was presented with a few tiny flakes of dry, blackened mushrooms. problem compounded upon problem: too small, too finely-sliced mushrooms, cooked on too high a heat for too short a time. mushrooms really take some time to get going. they absorb the oil, and then sit there, dry, until you begin to wonder if you should add a bit of water to help them along (no, don't), and then finally they seize up, and relax, and all the mushroom juices ooze out into the pan, ready to christen your toast... (your toast should be a sturdy enough receptacle for the mushrooms and their juices. i like sonoma soy and linseed sourdough, sliced thick and salty-buttered.) you can season with just salt and pepper and it will be fine. but you could also drizzle the lot with aioli [above], or stir through some pesto in the last minutes of cooking [below]. if you are lucky, the pesto will be parsley and fetta pesto, and the heat on the cheese will give you a sticky, salty crust which you can eat -- gracefully -- off your cooking implement. Served on Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 09:50 a.m. --- the blackened bananas, thawing all day on a plate on the kitchen counter, seep a thin brown puddle. if you make an incision at one end of the fruit, and apply gentle pressure to the other, the squishy inside glides out whole, and comes to rest curled up like an enormous grub. it is a squeamish and giggly moment, but it is a good thing, because we are one step closer to banana bread. i'd been hearing about deborah's banana bread for a few days -- magic loaves that disappeared over a weekend. with little prompting, she pointed me in the direction of the recipe, and offered a tip to swap self-raising flour for the plain with leaveners. the original recipe is for banana maple bread, but when i tiptoed around the idea of swapping kithul treacle for the maple syrup, deb gave her blessings to go forth! truly the fairy godmother of homebaking, she even voiced the idea i'd had in my head, to sprinkle it in shredded coconut. although the recipe comes with a warning that the bread "is not super sweet because it has no sugar", it does ask for 3/4 cup of maple syrup. so i was surprised when it actually wasn't anywhere as sweet as your typical banana bread. the other surprising thing was that it baked more like a bread than a cake. i mean, sure it's called "banana bread", but it's normally sweet and moist, and maybe even oily. this wasn't. my loaf rose magnificently in the pan, almost doubling its height. the first slice i ate, plain and quite recently out of the oven, i was a little disappointed by how unmoist it was, and what a mild flavour it had. but then i realised that this was actually where it was perhaps better than regular banana bread (cake), because it allowed for toppings, without the threat of overwhelming sweetness. toppings like yoghurt and treacle and toasted coconut. i've had this for breakfast four days straight and i'm not sick of it yet. pity the loaf is gone. Served on Saturday, September 29, 2007 at 9:06 p.m. --- tonight i am celebrating the mooncake festival with a wedge of a two-yolk lotus paste mooncake and a pot of tea. the mooncake left an oily slick on my fingers when i removed it from its little tray, so i thought a mean, smoky tea would be good with. and it was: muji pu-erh tea with whole rosebuds -- not quite so mean, then. have you eaten the eggyolk in a mooncake? it is peculiar. unapologetically savoury. tough and dense, crumbly in some spots, and waxy in others. there is something wrong about it -- i don't actually enjoy eating this golden globe encased in the sweet lotus paste. but it is compelling. anyway. last night, finally, it was me, david duchovny and the throw-me-down. you know, the adriano zumbo tiramisu: layers on layers of mascarpone creme legere, savoiarde soaked in coffee syrup, and chocolate-coffee sauce. it certainly was saucy! the divine gloopiness of the sauce melding into the foamy mascarpone; the sodden biscuits sending an immediate buzz into my head. (i know that "gloop" and "sodden" are not normally words that you associate with goodness, but listen: last night, they were!) riding the crest, impossibly light chunks of crisp meringue that dissipated on my tongue. where does it all go? actually, yes, i know where it goes. sigh. Served on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 at 9:35 p.m. --- breakfast! many weeks ago -- you may remember -- deborah gave me a bottle of sri lankan kithul treacle, along with helpful suggestions on how best to enjoy it. somehow i never got 'round to searching out fresh curds, or cooking up milk rice, and shamefaced i tell you that even buying a tub of plain, european-style yoghurt seemed beyond me. and now i don't know why i waited so long, because i could have eaten this slippery treat much sooner: a runny and intensely flavoursome syrup mingling with the velvety yoghurt. you can vary the treacle-to-yoghurt ratio with each spoonful, just to see how much of the roasted chestnutty flavour you can handle (quite a lot, it turns out). although it was suggested that i might shave chocolate onto it like they do in the old country, i think a generous sprinkle of toasted coconut makes it just about perfect. Served on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 at 09:12 a.m. --- i really put my eyes through the wringer over the weekend: one feels quite swollen, and the other is decidedly twitchy. there's nothing like a looming deadline (which i'd cleverly been choosing to ignore, until it was too late to pretend it wasn't looming) to keep me at the computer for all hours of the day, beyond blog and facebook. [ nellicent! join! ] i've been drawing on my real desktop, and shuffling little coloured boxes around my virtual one, and i have within easy reach too many chocolate bars and not quite enough bowls of berries. cups of tea are always on standby. i've been drawing happy pots and perturbed sheep, know-it-all kitchen sponge people -- the best enforced fun i've had in a long time. i'm helping to put together a real, live book for the real fun website, kids craft weekly, and at the moment we are pretending that it will all be done and sent out into the world in the next month. HAHAHA. i've just realised we must look exactly like this amiable saucepan, smiling blankly in the face of adversity. anyway. buy a book? gaarn. you never know when you might want to turn your collection of wooden spoons into a family of puppets. or a paper bag into an owl. [ photographs © kids craft weekly ] Served on Monday, September 24, 2007 at 06:01 p.m. --- this past week, the kid has made heartening advances in the hand-eye coordination department. taking arky joe's lead, i handed her a blunt knife and half a banana at breakfast time, and by the third day, she was slicing perfectly uniform slices, and arranging them just so on her honey toast. but, oh, that glint in her eye when she took the knife from me that first morning! so thursday morning, we delved into handling hot water. well, i poured it, and then she emptied the packet of jelly crystals, and stirred, and added cold water, and then filled a cluster of little gelato cups -- without spilling a thing. by the time we got back from library storytime, the jelly was ready! she poked her finger into it, and it sprang back, and her eyes were big at the magic! "but where is the other jelly?" she asked, bemused. good children, today's lesson in the state of matter: liquid, solid, gaseous and jelly! me, i've been eating little food too (distinct, and very different from "a little food"). just look at these adorable ritter sport minis i got when i was last in singapore. yes, i'm aware that was a good seven months ago, and i'd much rather think of this as "saving for a special occasion", rather than "pathological hoarding". and anyway, who says a special occasion can't be, um, reading in bed? i love ritter sport. it is so not sporty! pretty good chocolate with a huge variety of fillings like cornflakes or yoghurt or marzipan (or, yes, fruit and nut, if you're that way inclined). the regular slabs are 16 squares; the minis, four, and you get an assortment in each pack. of course, i liked the one with the whole sweet biscuit hidden within -- just look at the cute wrapper, argh! -- but even the old-skool hazelnut bar was very agreeable. here is the copy from the website, written with characteristically german precision and attention to detail: "...there are more nuts in 'Ritter Sport Milk chocolate with Whole Hazelnuts' than in other chocolates -- and what is more, only the best hazelnuts will do: hand-picked and freshly roasted whole Turkish hazelnuts with precisely defined ideal dimensions -- between 1.1 and 1.3 cm in diameter." Served on Sunday, September 23, 2007 at 8:57 p.m. --- in the back of your pantry there are two bags of world rices in 90 seconds (!), a long-ago gift from an eccentric uncle. pre-cooked rice -- basmati, in this instance -- in a plastic pouch that you microwave on high for a minute and a half. maybe you were suspicious of them for the longest time, months they lay in the back of your pantry. good thing, then, that there was no expiry date on the package. because when your mid-week pasta plans are scuttled, the rices will come to your rescue. really, there is no need to be afraid. even if the rice is a bit chalky straight out of the bag, you can fix it, hack it, even, with diced-up, fried-up eggplant and zucchini, a sprinkle of moroccan spice mix, a lot of garlic; raisins; toasted almond slivers; cubes of creamy fetta, tossed together on low heat and then left in the wok to develop a bit of a crust on the bottom. if you top it with slices of fried chorizo and garlic-roasted cherry tomatoes, arranged like a big red flower, it will look like something out of a fancy cookbook -- maybe even an international cookbook from the late-70s. but, ok, really: rice in 90 seconds. is that ridiculous? Served on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 11:02 p.m. --- good morning. it is drizzly and grey, but we have a wholesome whitebread breakfast under our belts, and are about to embark on a cupcake expedition. --- vegemite and apricot jam are very nice toppings for whitebread toast, but my favourite thing to do with fresh whitebread is to have it soft, buttered, and covered in chocolate sprinkles. oh, that waxy glaze! i love breakfast. [ via deborah ] Served on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 08:48 a.m. --- yummy green things for tuesday 1. starbucks blackberry green tea frappuccino blackberry syrup blended into the regular green tea frappuccino; voluptuous whipped cream; an extra drizzle of syrup. it tastes much less of green than the normal maccha frappuccino, but was still fun. i won't have it again, because it does not fit into my kilojoule-balance plan. but you, you should totally go ahead. 2. broccoli soup bounteous broccoli, at a bargainous $1.98/kilo at the supermarket, necessitated four heads be purchased and cooked up in a large pot with onions, garlic, olive oil, butter, and chicken stock. oh, and two potatoes. truly, it is the gift that keeps giving; i think i will get at least another three meals out of this. Served on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 10:54 p.m. --- i knew a girl once, whose wild teenage years were frittered away in the eastern suburbs. a few years ago, she had an appointment in parramatta, but she showed up at an address on the equivalent street in newtown, because she knew that the meeting place was in the western suburbs, and i guess newtown was as far west as she considered civilisation to have reached. i don't know what the point of that story is, just that it amuses me to think of it. i lived in surry hills for just over ten years, and now i don't, and i miss it sometimes. i just had it in my head that the east was a bitch to get to, with the buses and the waiting and the kid... but now that the kid is able to leap capital T in a single bound, and survived the bondi expedition last sunday, i thought that maybe the eastern suburbs would be less painful to tackle. so during the week, we did it twice more! wednesday, we loaded up on morning tea at zumbo, then caught two buses out clovelly way. halfway on the second bus, ana txted to say that she was going crazy inside her four walls, and could we meet at a cafe instead? um, sure, because after all, she did just have a baby. we met up at clodeli, with the shelves along the walls packed with italian imports, and the glass case with its bounty of salads, sandwiches and fat cakes. there was a stand of mini cupcakes piled three-high on the counter, so that was the kid sorted. i had a slice of house-made pear and raspberry bread -- toasted golden crunchy on the inside, slightly more soggy than necessary on the inside, and served with little dishes of ricotta and honey -- and a pot of leaf tea, which at $3.50, was the same price as the cup of teabag that i had in the strand arcade a couple weeks ago: i'd asked the waitress if it was at least a good teabag, and she assured me it was, before serving up the twinings on a string, grumble. but clodeli, it was pleasant, eating cake surrounded by the maple syrup aura of ana's hotcakes, and reading the vintage little golden books provided. and because the newborn astrid kept up her end of the bargain and breastfed for a good forty minutes or so, it was soon time for lunch! at last, the zumbo chorizo and olive baguette emerged from my bag, no longer the soft warm thing i'd bought straight off the delivery van that morning, but still delicious after a spell in the oven back at ana's. in an amazing feat of bad timing and/or planning, she is laden with two-week-old baby, three-week-old (and counting!) roof repair job, and a host of new kitchen cabinets waiting to be installed in the current loungeroom by her fella (who evidently has a different idea to girls of what paternity leave involves). the packet of zumbo baci biscotti was well-received, though not opened, but it looks like chocolate ganache sandwiched between hazelnut biscuits, so how could it be bad? the sour cherry and almond biscotti was totally part of my plan for morning tea, but after the cafe interlude, i thought i'd re-assign it after-dinner duties. back home, the intense sweetness of the sturdy biscuit crust and the sticky marzipan was tempered by the whole tart cherry hidden within. - - - saturday -- beautiful blue sky saturday -- we got 'round the two-bus hurdle by catching one bus into the city, and then walking the rest of the way into the shiny heart of paddington. the kid was strapped into her luxury kmart stroller, so she didn't care. but we thought it was wise, me and deborah, because of the cupcakes. whizzing home on the bus from bondi last sunday, i had caught a fleeting glimpse of a cupcake bakery, and thought we might have to investigate further. happily, the cofa spring fair was on just up the road, lending some respectability to our excursion. we did our best to ignore the riot of colourful cupcakes by the entrance, and wondered at the amazing cardboard mainframe computer directly opposite, housing an art student, a manual typewriter and a very long strip of paper. i did the same thing i do every time i attend this open day: took a handsome flier for the fine arts course, even though i know i will never go back to school for three years to write long essays on art history just so i can have someone tell me to make some art. sigh. we got tattooed in the inner courtyard, by which time the sun and free candy had worn a crease into the kid's cheery demeanor. lunchtime, then. i have no idea where we lunched. i mean, i know the building, on the corner of the street leading up to cofa, and i have a vague memory of it being gertrude and alice bookshop and cafe, which i only ever read about, and which sounded a little too literary and feminist for me. but my googling this evening has only unearthed gertrude and alice in bondi, and i don't recall what the sign said, above the door, we were so hungry to get in and get eating. what i do recall is that the risotto was surprisingly good, not the slushy-mushy mess you might expect from something scooped out of a large bowl in the glass display case: it was still just al dente, and salty with chunks of fetta. wilted spinach and ribbons of roasted capsicum all the way through. we shared this, as well as a greek salad, which was greek only because of what, the olives? the fancy green leaves were almost untouched by dressing. but we were mostly happy, sitting upstairs at a low checkerboard table, surrounded by old books. and then the kid started smearing the avocado from her sandwich over the handsome corduroy stool, and then tipped over said stool and drove it across the room, and we knew it was time to hunt down them cupcakes. the saturday arvo promenade up oxford street is fraught with fashionistas; more skinny jeans than you can poke a pointy heel at, and all moving at a pace quite detrimental to getting somewhere fast. but we made it, eventually, to this cupcake bakery called the cupcake bakery, and we joined the queue out the door. the thing is, there are lots of people behind the counter at the cupcake bakery, but most of them seemed focussed on icing the cupcakes. that said, the cakes on display were exceptionally nicely frosted. so it's good they have at least that working for them, because the counterfolk were unblinking and surly, and the cakes themselves, when we finally sat down with them, were simultaneously dry and dense. "like sponge," we agreed. but not that light and airy feel of good sponge cake; really, it might have been useful for a spot of flower arranging. and still, it wasn't bad cake. it just wasn't especially good. the frosting was very sugary, in fact had a crunchy granular texture, but i suppose it needed that to hold its magnificent folds in shape. we chose: a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, and a chocolate chilli cake with chocolate frosting. mine, the chilli one, had a kick to it, a burn rather than a flavour, and i did actually like the bit where cake met frosting, that tantalising chewy crust of chocolate cake. in the end though, the iced teas were declared more of a success. the kid drank most of my iced spiced tea -- an inventive concoction of chai mix, orange juice and flat lemonade which tasted a lot better than it sounds -- before reaching into the glass with her pink-iced hands for ice cubes. deborah's strawberry iced tea was a much more delicate affair, with pureed fruit mixed into green tea. and then we walked way the hell back into the city, stopping only for a gander at the kiehl's shop, and for the last minutes of the markets, and for a longing gaze into the windows of dinosaur designs, and then again for a pretend picnic on the grassy bit outside the barracks. we were pleased with what paddington had to offer us, and we were equally pleased that it might be months before we returned. Served on Monday, September 17, 2007 at 07:46 a.m. --- ah friday, the day i throw off the fluffy pink shackles of parentdom and walk the city streets as quickly and carefree as i once did. this past friday, i walked the arts of islam exhibition at the art gallery, which closes next sunday, so quick! go! if you haven't already. i had been warned by a friend that one might be brought to tears by the beauty of some of the works on display, and it's true, walking through the middle rooms filled with four-hundred-year-old qur'ans and illuminated manuscripts, one gets an idea of how insignificant it is to be moving text boxes around on a computer screen, when such amazing feats of publishing could be achieved with a very small paintbrush and a tub of gold paint. i didn't cry, but i may have stifled such sacrilegious utterances as "holy fffffff" a half dozen times. if you like drawing, as i do (or more accurately, if you like looking at drawings and getting that knot in your stomach from guilt that you are not drawing, as i do) then you might also like to see the dobell prize for drawing, where amongst other scribbly things you will see a rather arresting portrait of a boxer, a sympathetic rendering of a bull, and a luscious red still life of a pomegranate. and then you might feel a bit peckish, and think to avail yourself of the tasty treats at the cafe downstairs. it is bordering on overpriced, but it is mostly good and fresh, and if you beat the lunchtime crowd, you can sit in a booth looking towards the room, with the deep red carpet and the gleaming white chairs, eating a well-dressed greek salad, and another with potatoes and slices of chorizo (though only two slices of chorizo for your $9.50, ch.). Served on Sunday, September 16, 2007 at 04:18 p.m. --- last friday, international opec day, i looked out the window and it was raining. ten minutes later, the sun was out... until the rain kicked in again. and so it continued through the morning, until it was time to go meet deborah. we packed our picnic rug just in case, and small forks, a flask of hot tea, and some pretty teacups, because we had a spring picnic in mind. it's good to have a plan, isn't it? we already knew that one of the things we'd be eating was adriano zumbo's chorizo and olive baguette. the other, as-yet-unkown entity was to be any lovely thing (or things -- we had not planned to be restrained if the situation allowed) on the new season's menu. we met across the road from zumbo, and hurtled across darling street to the happiest place on earth. but, where o where were the delicate morsels of pink and green and yellow? everything in the cake display was chocolate! (i know i say it like it's a bad thing, and it's not. just, the plan in our heads was in colours other than brown.) so we pressed up against the wall as other people came and went, and eventually we worked out a suitably diverse collection of cakery for our morning tea. it had stopped raining by the time we emerged from the shop, and emboldened, we strode with purpose to the park. amidst other optimistic picnickers, we spread out our blanket. it had barely touched the ground when we felt the drizzle on our heads. after deborah pointed out a low ceiling of blackness blowing in from down the hill, we folded up the blanket and raced the raindrops home. the kid, for whom the picnic torch burns bright, spread our faux burberry across the balcony floor, and then the parade of baked goods, and the pouring of tea. deborah unpacked a tidy box of cucumber sandwiches and a brand-spankin'-new ikea catalog. i was immensely pleased with both: the sandwiches had been made with soft white bread, and butter that the clever girl had salted herself, with pink flakes from the murray river; the ikea catalog holds the promise of things to come. we tried the chicken, mushroom and almond sausage roll, which tasted salty and peppery above all else, and, alas, doesn't quite hit the heights of the lamb and harissa at bourke street bakery. and you already know the chorizo and olive baguette: lovely, chewy bread filled with a choice selection of salty things. but we could hardly wait for the sweet things: deborah's maxiadz was a great brown wheel on a stick -- two bits of chocolatey dacquoise sandwiching luscious chocolate mousse and divine raspberry brulee. the whole contraption was coated in chocolate and then sprinkled with cocoa and rolled in chopped hazelnuts, and even between the three of us, chocolate freaks all, we could not quite finish it. (ok, i finished that last crumb of dacquoise later that night.) and this, the one i'd been hanging out to try for aaaaaages. sugar lips: a brioche donut filled with lemon creme. look how it sparkles with sugar and cinnamon! see how pillowy soft it is when you slice it! just watch that glorious pale yellow ooze forth! if the man would just bottle his lemon creme, i would buy it and grow fat on it alone. we poured the last cup of muji spicy orange and pepper tea, and then brewed a new pot of T2 monk pear. a splendid time was had by all. Served on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 03:51 p.m. --- the house is very still. it is early, true, but perhaps he has already left; he likes to head off before sunrise, when he has a long way to go. the boy's grandmother died yesterday. she was just short of 93, went into hospital for something to do with her leg, and never made it out again. the boy is driving some six hours south and west to go say goodbye. except, i don't think i should call him "the boy" anymore. i write about him less and less because i no longer know how to fit him into my stories; since january, he has been the man sleeping upstairs on the red couch, who's off to work each morning by 7.30, who comes home and takes his turn making dinner, giving the kid a bath, and reading her bedtime stories if she lets him, who sits out on the balcony with his beer and his cigar before turning out the light. me? i sit down here and blog. and i don't feel a thing as i write this (which, in turn, makes me a little bit sad). earlier on, i'd occasionally feel like a nothing piece of shit. but eight months is a long time to get used to something, and the stuff that got said a few weeks ago -- that uppercase moment -- made it easier to just shut a part of myself off. by coincidence, he had spent the last couple of days packing a selection of his things into boxes. the plan was that come the school holidays, he'd be down at his house in the country, fixing it up. this is the house he bought a couple of years ago, just like that, in a small brown town with one main street, where the bakery doesn't even bake its bread daily and ships it in three days a week, these springy loaves wrapped in plastic. during school holidays, the goth kids hang out on the dusty sidewalk, and the main attraction is the largest grape vine in the southern hemisphere, around which a pub has been built. -- ah. a cough from upstairs. he is still here -- this house, in this town, is close to where his grandmother lived, and so he will be able to drop these boxed-up things off along the way, and take another load in october. it is good, in a way, this gradual emptying of feelings and things; instead of a sudden gash, it is slowly trickling down to nothing. (it is also crap, of course.) the original plan, i guess, was that we would all move to the country and play happy families, and i don't know... put down that eyebrow! yes, me in the dusty brown! it might have been possible? with a kinder, gentler boy? a less angry boy anyway. but this is no longer a blame game. the recriminations, and expectations fallen short, the pointing of fingers -- literally, sometimes -- i don't think of them so much anymore, though they are always there. for the next six days, it'll be just me and the kid. which is ok too, because she is always up for an adventure in good eating, and because we've had lots of practice: that summer he took off to go fix up his house, the six weeks he went walkabout in south america, those early days of parenthood when he'd spend friday nights at a friend's place so he could drink in peace and get some sleep. the bitterness goes right to the core, kids, which is probably why i eat so much damn sugar. bear with me, normal transmission will continue shortly. there is a picnic i need to write about. Served on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 06:44 a.m. --- what is this beastie? several years ago -- could it have been seven years ago? argh! -- my sister and i went to coney island, in brooklyn, in the springtime. the beach was windswept and deserted, and after we ate our obligatory nathan's hotdogs, we sauntered down the boardwalk and came upon a softserve icecream stand. it was like, the softserve stand of your (my) dreams, with unexpected flavours like banana! and pistachio! and you could get a twister with the two combined! so i did. see, the banana would have been good, or the pistachio, on their own, but the fact that you could get the two so gloriously entwined in each other, that made it at least three times better. so when i walked into zumbo on the weekend, with the intention to not buy anything, and the first thing i saw was this chocolate-pistachio croissant... well, you can guess the rest. what you may not guess is that the pistachio frangipane is not just a lush, velvety cushion on the inside, but also an extra layer slathered onto the top of the pastry so it bakes golden brown and crunchy, like a sweet nutty biscuit. i was so enamoured of the fallen-off bit i ate right at the start, that by the time i cut the croissant in half and discovered the dark chocolate nestled within, i had forgotten it was a pistachio and chocolate croissant, and was thus pleasantly surprised. oh this is a rich bastard of a croissant; i could only manage half with the blackest of teas, before we headed off to see the kites. the bondi festival of the winds was not the hellish entanglement of kite strings that i may have been expecting, thanks, probably, to the weather, or perhaps, the apec luncheon. after an hour or so of bus-train-bus, we skipped merrily down the grassy hill towards the pavilion, straight into a cluster of kite stalls. "i want a kite," said the child, "i want a kite. i want a kite." so we bought a windsock in the shape of a fish, and signed up for a kite workshop on the front steps. for a dollar, you got a piece of waverley council's best scrap paper -- the back of ours was printed with the schedule for some library event -- which you drew on, handed back to the facilitator, and watched in awe as she deftly folded and stickytaped it into an actual kite! we took it down to the beach later, and it flew, dammit, alongside all the other grownup kites. which meant nothing to the kid. nothing. after all the kite talk, what she really wanted to do was fill her fish with sand. and then her boots. we ate beach festival food of course: corn on a stick, fairy floss and gelato. the gelato came at the end of the afternoon, and we walked back up the hill to pompei to get it. the kid picked the boldest of three pinks: raspberry sorbet with a sharp burst of fruitiness. i got a scoop of dark chocolate, which was delicious, and a scoop of tiramisu, which had a wonderful texture, smooth and milky, and punctuated by whole slabs of almost adequately coffee-soaked biscuit. here's the funny thing: i don't drink alcohol or coffee, but i really like a good tiramisu. the zumbo tiramisu is called "throw me down", which sounds sexy as fuck, and is totally next on my list. Served on Monday, September 10, 2007 at 10:09 a.m. --- i'm all worded out. these days the kid says, "tell me a story, from your mouth." and sometimes the story that emerges sucks, and she kind of breaks eye contact for a second as if to spare me any embarrassment, and then asks for another. sometimes, the story is a tale of a bunny who goes up to the moon in a paper box rocket, and the moon is made of red jelly, and the bunny scoops some into a bowl and has it with the ice cream from the freezer on his rocketship, and the man in the moon comes out from behind his moon mountain and says that if everyone came and scooped up bowls of moon there would be no moon left, and the bunny feels bad and fetches a tub of pink yoghurt from his fridge and fills in the hole, and the moon man spends the rest of his days sitting in his comfy deck chair looking out at his little pink puddle, and the bunny decides he has had enough of an adventure and rockets back to earth to see his mum. and when the story is a success, i get to tell it maybe three or four times a day, two days in a row so far. by two-thirty this afternoon, naptime, the quiet refuge i sought was at circle cafe. on a saturday. in the rain. so, silly me, circle was packed with a raucous late lunch crowd, which i mostly managed to tune out by reading david sedaris in the new yorker food issue -- three great things rolled into one, no? i had really wanted a bowl of soup, for the rain, and circle tends to do interesting soup, like chestnut, or french onion, instead of pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin. however, the interesting thing today was that there was no soup on the menu. so i had a mushroom, spinach and gruyere crepe, which arrived covering half the plate, a fat pillow with a lovely, frilly golden edge. the filling was different to what i expected, which was sharp, salty gruyere. instead, it was tempered by rather a lot of bechamel sauce, which, when you think about it, is exactly the kid of mushroom-riddled stodge you want on a cold, rainy day. so yay. on the other half of the plate lay a salad of leaves, tomato, onion and olives, so perfectly dressed that it must have been tossed by hand, with love. as i ate, the room gradually emptied, and by the time i was done, i was finally surrounded by silence. Served on Saturday, September 8, 2007 at 10:44 p.m. --- honestly, i just don't know how to begin telling you about this one. houdini. at first incredulous glance, it might appear to be only the biggest macaron you ever did see. take the glistening strawberry for comparison: it is a normal-sized berry, admitedly, but still. i'd had my eye on this, at adriano zumbo patissier, like, forever, and it was the threat of it forever disappearing off the menu that finally brought us together, on tuesday. what it is, is two enormous macaron biscuits, lime and basil creme, strawberries, raspberries. it's weird: on their own, the pastry creme is beyond limey, and the biscuits don't particularly taste of anything except sugar and almonds. but eaten all together in a big mouthful of crunchy-creamy, the flavours soften into each other, mingling to create an almost savoury -- gah! i can't even write a cohesive sentence. clearly, it's some kind of genius alchemy at work, and the complexity is beyond my grasp. it was lush though, and now i wish i had a little more on hand, just to see. i had half to begin with, and i thought i would wrap my head around the other half in a quiet moment of the evening. but the kid, who was with me when i bought it, and whom i was hoping might not have taken too much notice of the shiny pink and black cakebox, awoke from her afternoon nap to utter the words: "shall we share the cake? the pretty cake, with the berries and cream?". so we did and she licked her plate clean. i took the first photograph, and then right after i cut it, and prepared to document the inside -- because truly, you have to see the biscuit-to-filling ratio -- the sky went dark and it began to rain, and the shift in ambient light really changed the colour of the cake, and -- what's that? you want to see it anyway? well, ok then. Served on Thursday, September 6, 2007 at 10:30 p.m. --- goshdarned sonuva bush rained on our parade. well, ok, so it rained (and rained and rained) of its own accord, and we weren't really parading. but we'd been planning to see the jellyfish exhibition at the maritime museum for weeks, and whoulda thunk the leader of the "free" world would choose this very morning to hang out at said museum too? fortunately apec hadn't quite locked down the mobile network, and a quick on-the-run phonecall later, me and the kid rocked up to the australian museum, where, beneath the enormous suspended skeleton of a blue whale, we got reacquainted with amber, ellaberry and arkyjoe. in between the hallfull of skeletons (including a homely tableau of a human skeleton sitting in a comfy chair reading a book, with a faithful doggy skeleton by his side) and the kids area upstairs (more inventive handpuppets of wild -- and scary -- animals than you have ever seen) and the other kids area upstairs (way too many stuffed marsupials to be petted and kissed, and a live, deformed, green tree frog that looked as if it were melting), we shared a really good bowl of nicely-seasoned hot chips and a round of strawberry milkshakes, babycino, hot chocolate, and milky coffee. it was all fun and games, no-one lost an eye, and two little girls negotiated with grace and long-suffering diplomacy, the gentle art of hand-holding. so there, mr president. why can't we all just get along? Served on Thursday, September 6, 2007 at 08:47 p.m. --- i really never order a croissant. it's just, you hear these french people talk about how nothing french outside of france tastes like it's supposed to. and i know, the people who are not french roll their eyes and maybe make a rude gesture with their loosely-clasped fists. and i haven't effectively been to france and eaten a real, live french croissant, so i have nothing with which to make a comparison. but i have eaten the odd croissant or two outside of france, and all they did was make me hope that the french ones were nothing like them. outside of france i've had: pale, flaccid croissants; overly-browned croissants with a sugary glaze; flaky-mouthfuls-of-air croissants that leave your lips covered in bits; soggy almond croissants that taste of flour; and once, in a health 'n' golf spa resort high in the hills of east malaysia, a basket of mini croissants that weren't flaky or buttery or puffy or whatever it is you think of when you think of croissants, plus they tasted strongly of freezer. which is a bit of a minus, really. so i surprised myself at zumbo when i pointed out the chocolate croissant. i figured, if the pastry was lacking, at least i knew the chocolate would be good. but of course, the pastry wasn't lacking at all. it was bold and crunchy on the outside, and just chewy enough on the inside. and the little slabs of dark chocolate tucked into its folds? just the right number. it made for a most enjoyable lull in springcleaning, with a cup of vanilla tea. i don't want to play favourites or anything, but i will eat this over and over again. Served on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 at 11:37 a.m. --- i know it reads like i don't eat normal food anymore -- even to me -- but of course this is not true. no, really. it's just that in the light of lovely shiny cakes, mushroom blogging might seem a little boring. however. since i did learn from someone today that "boring" does not mean it is not good, i shall tell you what became of the mushrooms i bought this afternoon at harris farm. i think you know the ones: a tray of enoki, shiitake, shimeji and oyster mushrooms, a tidy harvest for just under $6, and a perfect serving for two. i sauteed them with minced ginger and garlic, in sesame oil with a little salt. i tossed them through some pre-cooked soba noodles with a glug of soba dipping sauce and a good sprinkle of sesame seed furikake; just a few minutes of warm mushroom contact infused the noodles with a lovely, earthy aroma. i served it up with panfried salmon and grilled baby bokchoy. if, before cooking, you are generous with the grinding of salt and pepper on the salmon skin, you will be rewarded with a crunchy sheet of saltiness to nibble at in-between all the other stuff. the kid, when she found out it was salmon for dinner, began asking for "some salmon, in my hand, please" on the way home from school. she ate it all, before deftly and fastidiously removing every single strand of enoki hiding out amongst the soba, and placing them in a tidy tangle by her bowl. Served on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 at 11:07 p.m. --- "californication" eh? somehow i made it past the advertising blitz, the suntanned duchovny busstop posters, the pneumatic breasts of the first episode, the last-minute "mum, i want you to read me a story"... to watch episode two with a chocolate treat and a pot of mint tea by my side. is hank moody the new carrie bradshaw? is this just sex in the other city? i much prefer new york, but i do like david duchovny. on tv. remember when he was on "the larry sanders show"? or when he did that episode of "dr katz"? a pan could not be deader. i'm pleased he's not doing stoopid alien movies anymore. at zumbo yesterday morning, i admitted my unease at the delicious way the cakes just melted away on my tongue. "you know why that is, don't you?" asked counterboy. "because they're the fattest things on the planet?" "yep." alas. behold the chocadz. the salted butter caramel ganache melts away to nothing; so quickly, it is just a memory of a ribbon of salty-sweet. sitting on its crunchy hazelnut meringue biscuit base, it is draped in a thin coat of milk chocolate, and a dense sprinkle of rough-hewn hazelnuts. the first time i had this, i was on a plane, too early in the morning, up in the air somewhere between sydney and melbourne. i liked it then, hence the reprise, however it was much funner eating it in bed. Served on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 at 09:08 a.m. --- the second day of spring felt like the first day of summer. me and the kid did silly walks across pyrmont bridge, to get to the pacific on a plate festival at the national maritime museum. according to the publicity guff, this event would "draw together the culinary traditions of people who have migrated to australia from communities right around the vast pacific basin", and it did. it was an eclectic little festival with a curiously disproportionate number of peruvian stalls. still, we managed to work out a pretty balanced menu for ourselves: a tall glass (plastic) of bandung while watching the taiko drummers; a serve of takoyaki while listening to the mariachi band; an appropriately-timed oranagey teja for the kid during the spectacle of the peruvian folkdancing -- and a canadian sugar pie for me; and right at the end, a blini stuffed with farm cheese and raisins, with sour cream and strawberry jam on the side, mmm: i'll admit it was the sugar pie that drew me to darling harbour, on a sunday. it turned out to be a little -- tiny --disc of crisp pastry, topped with a thin filling made of brown sugar, butter cream and maple syrup . the cardboard mountie out front beamed at me as the stallholder squirted the tiniest little splodge of aerosol cream onto the tart. in an instant, it had melted down into a streaky puddle. $3 for this? in contrast, the $5 shougun selection at colo tako was a grand four-ball combination: two regular octopus, one prawn, and one dramatic crab,which turned out to be rather more style over substance. but it won the kid over, from "i don't want to eat the crab thing" to a bout of pincer hijinx. she then ate the prawn, and a piece of octopus -- dubiously -- and most of the graceful bonito, and the golden-crusty, squishy-inside batter of an entire ball. oh a proud moment for a parent! ever enthusiastic about takoyaki, i came away with a smooth blister in that tender spot where the roof of your mouth meets your two middle teeth. at the end of it all, we trudged back over the bridge, just in time to catch the ferry back to balmain. we were all sunned out, but we stopped in at zumbo on the way home, just to see if the spring cakes had arrived,and they had! the countergirl said they'd sold out of five new cakes already -- it was about two in the afternoon -- and behind the glass sat a single lovely moulded pink moussey thing adorned with a shard of spring green chocolate. but that's another story. Served on Monday, September 3, 2007 at 09:43 a.m. --- from across the counter, before counterboy popped the lid onto the paper cup, i caught a glimpse of glossy dark brown and knew that this was a hot chocolate to be reckoned with. minutes earlier, the answer to the question, "do you make it with melted chocolate?" was a pause, and then, "it's half cream and half chocolate." i sipped it at the counter. it's like drinking luxury. but luxury which, a short time later, made me feel like my face was detaching from my head. i fear that my tolerance to good dark chocolate is decreasing; i would like to be able to eat more of it in one go before i start feeling strange. and this is really good dark chocolate: a rich... well, i can't even say "liquid", because it is on the verge of that next step up into... well, i can't say "solid", or even "goop" -- like those cornstarchy concoctions that get sold as thick, european-style hot chocolate -- because it glides so smoothly down my throat. what i did say, out loud, was that it was better than the lindt cafe hot chocolate, and those are big words, i know. i kept up the steady sipping all the way home, and when i got there, with my loaf of soy linseed, and removed the lid, i was astounded to find that i hadn't even made it halfway through the cup. i prepared myself a slice of buttered toast, and put the hot chocolate in the fridge for later. which turned out to be much later, after dinner, when -- because i am a wuss -- i thinned it out on the stove with a dash of milk, and -- because i am a wuss capable of diabolical and twisted reasoning -- fashioned a sort of affogato with three kinds of ice cream. and look, one of them was even chocolate! Served on Sunday, September 2, 2007 at 9:27 p.m. --- i recently met this woman... ok, another mum in the kid's tuesday music class, and this is what she said to me: "my husband is away on business tonight, so i'll be having a lean cuisine -- pasta with salmon -- and a glass of white wine. and watching "the bill"." i mean, in essence this is probably what i'd do too, except what i'd be pulling from my freezer is that braised lamb, mushroom, brandy and rosemary ravioli from peppe's pasta. while that was boiling, i would saute diced onions, garlic and carrots in olive oil and butter, with a bay leaf and a few drops of water to keep it from drying out. towards the end, i'd add some small florets of broccoli. and then, probably, right at the end, i'd stir in a little extra bit of butter, i dunno, for shine? by then the ravioli would be ready, and i'd add it to the sauce and swirl it all around just to get it all coated, and i would empty the pot into a large bowl, and it would be delicious, because there is real meat in the pasta, and none of that sawdust or breadcrumb filler you get in the $4 bags of tortellini at the supermarket. i would eat, propped up with cushions on the blue sofa, and i'd be watching my season 1 DVD of "gilmore girls" with no commentary from the sidelines, and it would be great. (and then later, while tidying up, i would try to open the fridge with the same hand i'd be using to hold my ceramic butter dish -- the one with the cow moulding on the lid -- and the fridge door would jerk open suddenly, and the butter dish would spring from my hands, and shatter into several pieces on the floor. which would not be so great, actually, but i would not be upset.) this woman also said to me, "i don't eat a lot of bread, because when you think about it, it's just flour and water, and what is that? glue!" i don't know that we can be good friends, is all. Served on Saturday, September 1, 2007 at 11:55 p.m. --- thursday night i stayed up late, working so that i wouldn't have to friday. i had plans up my sleeve! plans that were almost scuttled friday morning, when the kid woke up a little later than usual, slightly dribbly in the nose, and announced that she was really ever so not well. it turned out (or, as i chose to see it) she was quoting "charlie and lola", to which she has lately become addicted, and i figured (chose to) that the dribble was cosmetic, so we caught the slightly later bus and made it to playschool just as the kids were starting their morning snack. i hightailed it to badde manors, and squeezed into the corner booth in the back. i like it here; it's kinda rumpled, and the service is friendly-tinged surliness. i like it so much i didn't even mind the freeform jazz dee-dee-dee-dee-dee on the stereo. even when they switched over to the tibetan chanting over a dancebeat that my yoga teacher used to play during class, it didn't jar. well, ok, it jarred a little. when i first started coming here, over a decade ago, i didn't realise it was vegetarian (although maybe the rumpled surliness should have been a clue?), because meat has never been the main event for me. but then i noticed that sometimes it was hard to get people to come along with. the thing is, you would not feel like you were missing out if you ordered -- as i did, yesterday -- the mediterranean breakfast. when it arrived at the table, i think i may have gasped, or at least, inhaled audibly. the previously surly waitress caved in and smiled a little. "enjoy that," she allowed. and how can you not? four wedges of toasted turkish bread, topped with fried eggs, sprinkled with za'atar; fried haloumi; fried eggplant; pickles; olives; slices of tomato and cucumber. a veritable bazaar on a plate, and the only downside to such generosity is that if you try to work it such that you are alternating bites of everything, instead of say, eating all the lovely crunchy, salty, melty haloumi in one go, the cheese would have cooled down by the time you're halfway through, and taken on the squeaky-between-the-teeth consistency which is less than ideal. but it was otherwise perfect, perfect with a pot of actual, brewed chai. too many cafes serve damn chai lattes made up with too sweet flavoured syrup, but this handsome teapot is full of leaves and twigs, pours four glasses of spicy, not-too-sweet tea, and the last serve gives you a heartening gingery warmth in the back of your throat. in a little over an hour i was well-fortified, though perhaps a little too distended in the belly, to try on a pair of $18 jeans at target up the street. i'd been looking forward to seeing the veronicas' new fashion line, and although i liked the little chain with the dangly plastic punkrock charms hanging off a miniskirt... it was all just too red and black, and besides, everything was child-sized 7 to 14. well! just the jeans then. things were going according to plan: i met up with an old flying monkey at the UTS gallery for the fun exhibition, + & - = X, 20 years of typo-graphics from the tokyo type directors club, before adjourning for long, long lunch at xic lo in chinatown. it's not especially tasty here, but today at least, the summer rolls were fresh, and the "healthy drink" -- barley, ginko nuts, dried longan, red dates and strips of seaweed in a sweet brown syrup, topped with a hillock of shaved ice -- did a good job of pretending it wasn't just a glass of sugar water. and then suddenly the afternoon was mostly over, and it was time to spring the kid from playschool. i found her out back, shoeless and lightly dusted -- like a cinnamon donut -- with sand from the pit, and we headed back up broadway for an afternoon bun at breadtop with some good folk from a distant past. there are people with a grudging and uneasy relationship with facebook, but having orchestrated recent reunions with long-lost friends, over facebook, over baked goods no less, i cannot say that it is a bad thing. nellie? Served on Saturday, September 1, 2007 at 10:28 p.m. --- my other weakness, you may know, is "the new yorker". so i was pleased -- acting on a sedaris tipoff -- to stumble upon this slideshow of food-themed covers in the upcoming food issue. just look at that gorgeous wayne thiebaud painting! (upcoming in sydney, i mean. i guess it's already out across the pacific.) (and by the way, have you polled, three entries down?) Served on Thursday, August 30, 2007 at 08:14 a.m. --- the cakes they are a-changin'. i was studying the jewelcase at zumbo when counterboy said, casually, "all the cakes are going." i guess i'd known this for a couple of weeks, having heard it from the pastryman himself one afternoon -- that he'd been working on the new spring menu -- but being suddenly confronted with the news that i would not see these familiar cakes again before the week was through, it was a little too much to bear. my immediate thoughts were, "i shall finally have to try the wheelie good" and "i shall finally have to try the houdini". but this is the quandary i face every time i go in anyway; it's just, now there was a deadline. "take the wheelie good," counterboy said helpfully, "houdini will still be here on the weekend." the first question that you might ask yourself is, how does this cake stand up by itself? followed by, how do i eat this? and i can tell you that the entire white-chocolate-coated affair is held securely in place, on its little golden platform, with a dollop of said chocolate. i sliced through its middle -- a belt of roughly chopped pistachios and macadamias -- and ate it one half at a time. when i first arrived in australia, in the very late 80s, my favourite after-school, petrol station-snacks were polly waffles and wagon wheels. it was the marshmallow that done it; marshmallows don't do so well in the moist tropics, and this glut of biscuit-coated marshmallow was all a bit wonderful and new for a marshmallow-deprived immigrant. but the wheelie good surpasses all fond memories of chocolate-covered jam-marshmallow-biscuit sandwich. sure, the engineering is the same, but the wagon wheel biscuits were never as crisp on the outside, chewy and light in the middle as this pistachio dacquoise. i may never again eat a marshmallow-and-jam confection, but i would not say no to more of this lemon-infused mascarpone creme, with its hidden chunks of stewed apples and apricots. it looks like a hamster wheel, does it not, this cake? here's another story: remember back in february, when i returned from a trip to singapore with a pair of running shoes and an ipod shuffle? the shuffle held one song for months -- "take on me" -- and then some podcasts, and then i added "punk farm" for the kid... and the shoes were still pristine in their box, until last friday. yes, i, who do not run, often not even for buses, ran. because, alas, the cake-eating business is a flabby old business. i ran for ten minutes, on a treadmill, and it was awful. and then four days later, i ran again. the second time, i'd finally put together a playlist on my ipod, called, "run run run". it consists solely of up-tempo you am i and ratcat tunes, and it made a galaxy of difference. pounding along to "flagfall $1.80", i didn't even feel the pain so bad. if you want to see the winter cakes at zumbo, you might have to run too. Served on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 at 10:56 p.m. --- i'd been watching it take shape over the last month or so, this shell of a shop next to gleebooks, on glebe point road. i'd been watching it specifically because once when i went past, there was a sign taped to the dusty window, which said, "chocolateria san churro coming soon". and then, last friday, there it was. pretty much open for business as i walked by after dropping the kid off at playschool, except for a ladder right in the middle of the dining room and two freshly jigsawed holes in the plywood shelf in the window. monday afternoon, because this is the way we are, deborah met me and the kid out front. the holes had been plugged with miniature chocolate fountains, and the ladder had been removed, but when we stepped inside, the first inhalation was all paint fumes rather than sweet chocolate. we sought to remedy that in a hurry. this was supposed to be lunch; we had debated the issue for a couple of days, and decided that to do justice to the chocolate, we should make it the main course rather than just dessert (but it's never just dessert anyway, is it? is it?). so instead of just chocolate shakes, we had the chocolate shakes with whipped cream, and the alfajore, and the fried chocolate truffles. the classic chocolate shake, made with premium 60% cocoa ice cream, comes to the table one foot high, topped with another couple inches of whipped cream and a good scattering of chocolate shavings. it is wonderful. the alfajore is two light, crunchy biscuits with a rich chocolate flavour, sandwiching smooth-as dulce de leche, whipped cream, and a drizzle of chocolate. it may not be an authentic rendition of the south american confection, but it is nonetheless, um, wonderful. the fried chocolate i had to get, because it sounded just crazy -- loco, really -- and it was! crazy good! you bite into the freshly fried nuggets, all thin crunchy shell, and then suddenly, molten dark chocolate is running down your chin. it comes three to a serve, on a bed of milk chocolate flakes, and it was lucky there were three of us to share it, or someone would have died. (me.) if the batter hadn't tasted so slightly of oil, meh, these would have been wonderful too. we had only just begun, and then the kid started speaking very, very fast. you could not even make out the words she was saying; they were sounds involving the rolling of her tongue. perhaps she was speaking spanish? funnily, i started speaking very, very slowly. "oh, you are speaking quickly, " said deborah, "it's just that time is moving very quickly too." and then something, and something, and something. and there was giggling, that i remember, and some slumping. and at some point we had to stop the waitress from clearing the plates with the chocolate flakes and the caramel-smeared cookie pieces. well, i thought i had to stop the waitress; everyone else had stopped eating by then. so, yeah. it was great. i had only managed to walk past the one on brunswick street the last time i was in melbourne, but the time before that, i had come out of there with a spicy hot chocolate in one hand and a tray of fat, crunchy churros and chocolate dipping sauce in the other, a fine balancing act all the way to the playground by the museum. and now, i will no longer have to fly south to OD on chocolate: it is only a busride away. Served on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 at 11:28 p.m. --- say, could you help me out? how often do you visit ragingyoghurt? i come by every day. i drop in once a week. i pop in every now and then. this is my first time here... but it won't be my last. this is my first time here and i'm never coming back. would you like this blog better (and visit more) if it had permalinks and a feed? yes! embrace the new technology! it is 2007! no, i like it just fine the way it is, with its luddite charms. do you care for zumbo? bloody hell. it's all you write about. enough already. it's all you write about, but i like it! zumbo? hadn't noticed a skew. just keep doing whatever it was you were doing. Served on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 09:47 a.m. --- 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 wil do good work with that dollar ** orange butter cake *** gingerbread biscuits Served on Saturday, August 25, 2007 at 11:04 p.m. --- 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. Served on Saturday, August 25, 2007 at 10:59 p.m. --- 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. Served on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 10:35 p.m. --- 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. Served on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 10:33 p.m. --- 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. Served on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 05:25 p.m. --- 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. Served on Sunday, August 19, 2007 at 04:09 p.m. --- 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". Served on Thursday, August 16, 2007 at 10:30 p.m. --- 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. Served on Thursday, August 16, 2007 at 09:53 a.m. --- 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'. Served on Saturday, August 11, 2007 at 10:17 p.m. --- 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. Served on Friday, August 10, 2007 at 10:53 p.m. --- it was way past naptime by the time we emerged from the powerhouse museum yesterday afternoon. we had spent a good slab of time waiting for our turn at schmuck quickies -- a sydney design festival event in which the performance jeweller yuka oyama crafts you a piece of jewellery from recycled materials, on the spot. today, the spot was a long line. we got there about 11.30 to find the musical robot bears switched off and the adjacent schmuck quickie salon brightly lit and full of cameraman and sound recordist and abc tv producers. our 15 minute wait swelled to just short of 40 minutes (without the musical robot bears!), when the organisers came around to say that everything was running slower because of the recording, and it was now lunchtime and could we come back at 1? so we did. we scooted out for a picnic of hotdog with tomato sauce and pie floater, and returned to the deserted atrium and waited some more. at quarter past one, yuka was back in action, most personable, asking if there was anything out of her bags of stuff that i liked, or if there was anything i liked in general. "i like fabric, " i said, "and acrylic. and pink!" and then she was rummaging in her trolley and pulling out great handfuls of bright pink ribbon and thin plastic tubes. she worked nimbly, fashioning a necklace from the material, with a scribbly little highlight safetypinned to my collar at the very end. she even made a matching one for the kid. "it is simple" said yuka, "but it is pretty." and it was, but here's the thing: as soon as we were done, the camera crew who'd been lurking in the shadows turned their machines and lights back on, and prepared to document the next participants. the ones who'd been filmed earlier in the day had quite elaborate pieces made; the girl from the tv station, in particular, had a resplendent brooch -- an alien botanical specimen, really -- attached to her jacket, spirited up from squirty nozzles from detergent containers and a cluster of colourful randomness. would it be so wrong to imagine that the artist had rushed through ours so that she could make something more involved for the tv people? or had she really seen right into me, and discerned the correct flamboyant vs. low key ratio which makes up my personality, and worked accordingly? ultimately, i was pleased with my pink ribbon (and would have worn it out again today, but i couldn't attach it to my shirt in as lovely a way as it had been yesterday, argh!), but maeve was rightfully disgruntled: she had wanted to be a bunny. we had barely made it to the exit when she began tugging it off. so we decided that we should go have pink ice cream. if you are in chinatown, as we were, you might assume an obligation to have your ice cream at passionflower, or maybe the seven-years-out-of-date Y2K cafe. maybe you'd just pop into gelatissimo for a takeaway cone. but across from the entertainment center sits the inconspicuous shopfront of the cold rock ice creamery. i'd been wanting to try this for years: where they smoosh stuff into your ice cream on a cold marble counter. today was the perfect opportunity: it was the closest ice cream store out of all available options, and i was developing an uncomfortable chaffing from carrying the heavy, wilting child. they had two kinds of pink ice cream for us, and one of them was turkish delight! at an adjacent counter were a great many things you could choose to have mixed into your ice cream for 80c a pop -- famous chocolate bars, unlikely candy, frozen fruit, cookie dough, tim tams... and because of the company, i deferred to the unlikely candy option. surrounded by pigeons, gulls and their shit, we shared a cup of rose-flavoured ice cream with gummy bears. the ice cream was lovely and creamy, the gummy bears extra springy from being cold. next time, perhaps in the company of myself, i shall have it with smooshed-in raspberries, and maybe, if i'm in the mood, smooshed-in chocolate fudge brownies. Served on Friday, August 10, 2007 at 09:53 p.m. --- sometimes you see her. you know nothing about her, not even her name, but she stands there so demurely, sweetly even, and you have to find out more. maybe you turn to the man watching over her, and ask. he screws up his face as he tries to remember the sum of her parts. "coffee sticky rice," he said "lemon creme, blood orange jelly..." honestly, he had me at the sticky rice; i may even have whimpered. but i left her behind. and then the regret set in. i was back the next day -- we're talking adriano zumbo of course -- because i really wanted a chorizo-olive baguette for lunch, but when i saw her glowing behind the glass, it was clear that she had won me over. not the thing with the apricots and apples, rolled in white chocolate and pistachios; not even the giant green macaron sandwiched with berries and basil-lime creme could sway me. in the quiet afternoon, i worked my way through the layers: the blood orange jelly was intensely tart, and adorned with a flutter of tiny petals; the lemon creme felt full and fat on my tongue, and then dissipated completely -- a wonderful mystery; there was a curious layer which seemed to be a spongy coconut foam; and a thin layer of coffee-ish jelly almost like the coffee agar agar from my childhood; and then the sticky rice... which, meh, was my least favourite bit. it wasn't creamy as i expected: the rice grains were a little al dente, and the stuff surrounding it foamy rather than lush. tchk. what was lush, was the lemon creme. i could eat bowls of this. because it is hard to isolate this pale yellow layer from the others. i tasted each layer on its own, and then paired with each of the others. i tried to make the lemon creme last, but it kept gliding into each little spoonful i took from the glass. so next on the list, i suppose, is the brioche donut filled with lemon creme. and here i was thinking i should cut down on the zumbo trips. anyway. i did get the chorizo baguette as well, so that should do me for the rest of the week. Served on Thursday, August 9, 2007 at 05:24 p.m. --- why is there no apostrophe in bakers delight? are they saying that what bakers do, is delight? well, i guess i'd buy that. i've been delighted by some of the white yeasty things that appear on the racks of this franchise bakery chain. somewhat less delightful is the discrepancy between quality (and size!) of buns from one outlet to another. for example, the cheesymite scrolls from the bakers delight in albury are twice the size of the ones from the surry hills mall (and most of metropolitan sydney, i imagine; must be the good country air). and what about when a particular bun is completely missing from a shop? most undelightful indeed. thing is, i first caught a glimpse of the chocolate mud scone in the display case of the balmain bakers delight, and oh what plans i had for it! i was going to smother it with whipped cream and sliced strawberries. however, when i did actually buy one, it was from the outlet at broadway shopping centre, and i was ravenous, and in the company of equally hungry kid and boy. we split it three ways, cold, from the bag, and wondered at how far this austere scottish bread had come. it was an impressive dark brown, rich with cocoa and a riot of chocolate chips. oh what plans i had for it!! and then eventually i did have cream and strawberries in the fridge, and i walked up the street -- gleeful -- to the balmain branch to find no chocolate mud scones. my plans were in disarray! i thought maybe they had sold out, due to deliciousness, but no. i went by several more times, and it was as if they had never been there. and y'know, maybe they hadn't: maybe i had imagined the whole thing! maybe they are only sold in the bakers delight at broadway, because that is where deborah bought the one that she thoughtfully brought me on sunday. and everything went according to plan: warmed up in the microwave, split and slathered in whipped cream and sliced strawberries, and then -- an afterthought -- more cream and more strawberries. truly, i was delighted. but the kid made her dad lick the cream off before she would touch hers. is there an age group in which things are too delicious? because she's in it. Served on Tuesday, August 7, 2007 at 04:33 p.m. --- and then on sunday, i met deborah and her boy at the powerhouse, ostensibly to immerse ourselves in a bunch of design festival exhibits, but as soon as they showed up, a matching pair in chocolate brown, a simultaneous rummaging through our bags occurred. "i've brought you something," she said, "but it's not very exciting." "i've brought you something too!" and the simultaneous rummaging through our bags brought out bags, and bags in bags. i was relieved of a couple of zumbo macaron, and was very pleased by the package she handed me: a compact lump in a bakers delight paper bag. i knew what it was before she announced, "a chocolate mud scone". whee! but she was still pulling stuff out of her tote: a bottle of sri lankan kithul treacle in a bright pink plastic bag. wah! so she lied -- this was very exciting! exotic sugar! but at this point we were still pretending that we were there to feed our minds and our eyes, so we dutifully worked our way through a couple floors of smart works and bollywood, until our eyes lost focus and our minds started wandering. in fact, they wandered right out of the building, and across the road, to hannah's pies. this, folks, is the real reason we had converged on this corner in ultimo: the tiger. a meat pie (there's real meat in here) topped with a scoop of peppery mashed potato, topped with a scoop of mushy peas, into which has been set a pool of gravy. the countergirl presses a hollow into the mound of green with the base of her gravy ladle, then with a deft gesture, tips the gravy in. genius. genius under $5. we carried our wobbling towers of pie back across to the museum forecourt for our pie picnic. people pointed and stared, double-took, thrice. oh it was lovely, eating this with the sun on my back. [ photo © deborah rodrigo ] thus fortified, we headed back for another two hours of looking at stuff -- swedish stuff and woollen clothes, and now i think i'm all designed out, but look: if you visit the powerhouse museum any time during the design festival, you get a pass for unlimited free entry over the next fortnight. i know the kid will be getting at least two excursions to the robot bears on the ground floor in the coming weeks. you press these buttons, and they play teddy bear's picnic on their little brass instruments. Served on Tuesday, August 7, 2007 at 07:35 a.m. --- the first thing counterboy said to me as i stepped into zumbo this morning was, "why haven't you been blogging?" . to which i might have mumbled something about being busy. i dunno. i don't remember so much of last week. i know there was a crazy deadline that had lurched and hiccupped over the weekend, and then into the week itself, where corrections and adjustments were still being made an hour before it was due wherever it was going. and then a large bunch of flowers showed up on my doorstep the following evening. and then, um... i met my aunt for a devonshire tea in a foodhall in chatswood, where the scones were warmed in the microwave before being plonked on a plate with two little squirts of cream-in-a-can and two tiny foil-sealed packs of kraft strawberry jam. that'll learn us to get scones at a muffin place, although really, the scones were the best thing on the tray. she paid for morning tea, as she is wont to, and then she paid for dimsum as well. and right at the end, she handed me a box of home-made yam cake. good value, my aunt. i met a friend (really, my sister's friend) for brunch in newtown, and although i couldn't persuade her to have tacos at 10am (plus, they weren't actually open yet), we didn't do too badly at the cafe across from the cinema, with buckwheat pancakes, coconut-infused mascarpone, maple syrup, and half the fruit in a small greengrocer. oh, and a side of bacon. she is from singapore; we spoke singlish. it was great. i became addicted to the pre-packed exotic mushrooms at harris farm. shiitake, enoki, shimeji, and oyster mushrooms, quickly sauteed in sesame oil with rather a lot of chopped garlic and whatever asian greens are handy, poured over jasmin rice -- what a dinner it made... twice! i had it first with flowering choi sum one night, and then addressed my addiction head on by buying more mushrooms to have with broccoli and baby buk choy soon after). you don't need any more seasoning than a spoon of sea salt: the mushrooms flavour everything. i went to the organic markets and bought just short of half a kilo of salty french-churned butter. i found myself stepping, too casually, too often, into the jewelbox that is adriano zumbo: a mandarin macaron one day, a brioche stuffed with custard and mixed berries the next. or was it both on the same day? and another the next? i lose count. oh! also, my sister got married, not that you'd know, since she hasn't been blogging either. Served on Monday, August 6, 2007 at 08:42 p.m. --- today was all blue skies and fluffy clouds, perfect for a cupcake excursion! we caught a bus and a train, crossed two bridges, and walked out into the sunshine at kirribilli markets. we wandered through the maze of stalls, not really looking too hard, and then we found it: chocolate suze's biscuit (and cupcake) stand, as advertised. there were sample jars filled with little nuggets of shortbread, warmed by the sun, and a sign which told me to try as many as i wanted, so i did: white chocolate and cranberry shortbread, cranberry and pistachio, macadamia, ginger... there were as many different kinds of biscotti, including an intriguing pear and cardamon specimen. there was a shameless display of well-frosted cupcakes, overwhelmingly pink and copiously sprinkled. and there was chocolate suze, who i had never met before today, and is yet more proof that the innernet is my friend. but we cannot stand around making small talk about butter; maeve is not so easily distracted when there are pink cupcakes about. with pink dragees! and that boy is going to get it! but he didn't. we took the cupcake to the park, plonked ourselves down in the shade of the harbour bridge, and then she dug out all the dragees and ate whatever frosting she hadn't licked off along the way. as an afterthought, she ate about half the cake too. she was kind enough to offer me a nibble now and again, so i was able to ascertain that it was all sugary icing and buttery cake, and sometimes that is all i ask of it. and so it was that after a play in the playground, and another meander through the market, and a greasy gozleme on the bare patch of grass in the middle of it all, and a free facepaint in the likeness of a pink kitten, we ended up back at the cupcakes so that i could buy one of my very own, and bring it home with me. "that is such a delicious and moist cupcake," i gushed. "does it have a lot of butter in it?" suze smiled a wicked smile. "yes," she said, "and you don't want to know how much." i thought i'd be eating it tonight, solace while i worked a crazy deadline. but an even crazier deadline has taken shape, making this evening just the calm before the storm. and so here it sits, biding its time, waiting for the morning when it will kill me a buttery death. it will be great! Served on Saturday, July 28, 2007 at 10:48 p.m. --- i am about to go watch "america's next top model" with a cup of tea (green, vanilla) and a biscuit (macaron, rose), which is a grand way to spend a friday night with kid sleeping and boy absent. last tuesday, as we parked the grocery-laden pram outside adriano zumbo patissier, a yelled-out welcome made its way onto the street: "hello, ragingyoghurt!" it's nice, no? when the boy behind the counter knows your name? nevermind that your name isn't actually "ragingyoghurt"... we entered the shop, and my eyes automatically swung to 2 o'clock, where the macaron usually hang out. except, there were no macaron! not a single one. "where are all the little coloured biscuits?" i asked, perplexed. turns out the entire zumbo workshop had been wiped out with the killer flu over the weekend. charlie the counterboy had been making pastries to keep the counter stocked. but no pink biscuits for us. the kid, who'd been chanting a mantra of "pink-biscuit-pink-biscuit", was easily placated with a raisin snail. and i... i finally got a chance to try the cheeky charlie. a figure eight of a danish, topped with chopped strawberries and pistachios. the surprise is, the brioche feuilletine has a ribbon of sticky red jam running through it, which makes your cheeks tingle with intense strawberriness. i'd been eyeing this for weeks, but there was always something more enticing than a danish along the counter. plus i didn't think i could ask charlie himself for a pastry named in his honour. tuesday, an extra countergirl was there to help me out. thanks, countergirl! anyway. i thought you might be interested to see the kind of more-enticing-something that's been keeping me from surprise danishes. the merry-go-round, from two tuesdays ago: like a regular strawberry custard tart, only crazier. behold the macaron biscuit topped with a tiny cube of turkish delight. beneath the ring of strawberries, a great dollop of creme patissiere -- as you'd expect -- but within this, a secret core of lychee mousse. predictably, the kid was only interested in the pink biscuit, so after i bribed her with it, she left me -- and the merry-go-round -- to our own devices. i took it to bed with me that night, and when i was done with it... well, you know how it is. Served on Friday, July 27, 2007 at 9:24 p.m.