Thursday

Thank goodness I finally have a laptop to work on in my kitchen. Not only does hamper procrastinating about beginning writing but my usual computer station is filled with the odour of rehydrating dried mushrooms. My Mother in law always cooks on a Thursday and this Thursday she is cooking pork with mushrooms. I can only describe the reaction to the odour of the re-hydrated fungi by most Whiteys as similar to being faced with an open jar of roadkill cured in swamp gas. Every fibre of my Northern European sensory system is repelled. It is simply Not Right. I can only imagine the same effect would be induced on my Mother In Law if I piped Stilton and Cauliflower gratin fumes in to her chambers. Which of course I would never do. The aforementioned mushrooms also have the texture of ear cartilige, thinly sliced. Mother in Law is cooking the dish for the rest of the family for its cleansing properties and as a strengthening agent against the winter weather. Similar to offering lemsip only more pungent. Bless her.




Ahhh..... a trip to the supermarket in the mall, what joy. If I hadn't been accompanied, aurally, by James Dean Bradfield and Josh Homme there could have been an incident. I dislike supermarket shopping, hell, I even think I grew jaded with Waitrose when I lived in England. I did pop in to a very large Asda last year but it proved overwhelming. Now I get the reusable bags sent to me by a nice lady in Harrogate. I do envy those of you with access to Lidl and Aldi. Sean Lock says it's like going on holiday.

Another sunbeam brightening my day is having remembered I shall be seeing The Hives here in Perth and, if they have time, here in my kitchen in July.
Reader, I cannot wait. http://www.thehivesbroadcastingservice.com/index.php
Beautifully designed site, don't you think?

However the upshot of the supermarket visit was to buy cheaply.

There are no new soups. Soup making was nailed back in the last century. So what I present is a version of Scotch Broth, the way I made it and with some colourful photographs. I have nothing new to say on the subject, and if I had I am at something of a loss to put any value on it.

Ingredients:
Dry Soup mix containing peas, barley and lentils
Sliced carrots and celery
Beef stock from the freezer
and these lamb forequarter chops.


The bones in these chops will do wonders for the texture of the soup. I make a very good curry with them because of the quality of the bone, recipe next time I do it. I also add a good dash of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce because the tamarind and the anchovy contained therein are very good at cutting through the richness of the lamb.


Will you look at that; pan of boiled peas barley and lentils fits in snuggly to the brim. I am very good at estimating volumes, and parallel parking even if I do say so myself.

A tablespoon of cornflour cooked on the stove top in the liquor and it's done, and some sliced chard from the garden. This is a dish for the next day as it benefits from having the lamb fat skimmed off after a restful night in the fridge.



Bulk Roasting.
I am tired of chopping onions, one of the many reasons I quite professional catering plus I couldn't do it properly. Today I am going to shove on the roasting rack a raft of whole ones, in their skins, seasoned with sea salt and - no, I cannot use the term drizzled, I lived through the 90s and never said it then - moistened with some olive oil.
Far better to coax them from their crispy skins all at once without the release of lachrymatory-factor synthase. I hope one day to be able to draw it. http://www.vcru.wisc.edu/simonlab/sdata/genes/index.html#allplfs. Once coaxed, they need to be pureed and then can keep covered in the fridge for two weeks. I added a spoonful to the scotch broth to a pan of sausages baked in the oven and mixed in the juices and some dijon mustard. No pictures, no time, eaten too quickly.


Also going in are slices of Italian bread with olive oil which will become diced vacuum pack to serve as croutons for all the soup yielded from carrots and pumpkin, roast with thyme and cardomon. The carrots took an age so I added water and sealed the pan and roasted for another hour and then pureed. Again, a spoon of the onion puree and a cup of yogurt mixed through. Gorgeous colours, don't you think. Katie Price take note -Orange is for FOOD, not skin.


Joining the others in the oven is an crumble made with tinned apples, yes I said it; tinned apples. I made the pastry but I refuse to peel and pulp when the season's apples here are on their last legs and woolly and dented. And one cannot get Bramley's. God, my life is Hard. To conclude, although the ingredient cost was minimal, especially all the protein and carbohydrate yielded by the dry peas et al, the fuel costs were high. It may be less vain and wiser to let Campbells and Heinz take the hit for fuel bills in bulk, afterall they can write it off against corporate expenses.

Winter, Paying attention to Food Prices and a new 3 litre slow cooker: this one is already writing itself

My first semester at Curtin University has ended. Now there is time to cook and write and take stock (geddit?) of what kind of writing about food is useful. Any-old-person can take a picture of a restaurant plate of food and funnel their "oohs" and "aaahs"through the keyboard and onto the screen but to what end? Great if it works for you, however it's not floating my boat of self-actualisation and feeling of worthiness right now. Plus many people do it far, far better than I can.

I blame Bob, of course, for two things: It was July 1985, my friend Rebecca Nelson and I had boarded the Excelsior Coach to Londondinium, sold some trinkets and emptied our piggy banks for two scalped tickets to Live Aid. If I recall correctly we also had on t-shirts we printed ourselves with day-glo dye and crimped hair. Take a look at your own self 26 years ago and then judge. I blame (Sir) Bob for my addiction to rock concerts (what a one to kick off with) and what I now admit is an indelible connection between what I buy to eat and what that says about Me. Am I a grateful, conscientious Have or a blase, ignorant Have? (I did resist buying 2 litres of supermarket brand milk for one dollar ninety nine because I know what that is doing to the dairy industry and I really should use up all the tins in my pantry before I replenish so maybe I 'm a small part of the way there). Chances are high I am never going to be a Have Not of any description.


I have also been reading the postings of the World Food Programme http://www.wfp.org/our-work and while it is too late for me to skip off to Niger* and do Good Things it is not too late for me to Take A Serious Interest in the way Food Resources are managed in the world.
*Plus, I don't fancy hookworm or being taken hostage by a militia.

I shall not be preaching nor pontificating nor eating any of my own proteins but I shall be considering how Food is Managed as a Resource and how the Everyday consumer can create a discourse with those managers. And I shall be tightening my family's food budget* belt in an attempt to show some empathy with families who have to make hard choices about what they can buy to feed themselves. Also I am thinking ahead slightly: what if it does all go tits up and there is no longer any pata negra to be had on the high street and what if dairy farmers should get paid the real cost of milk production? One should just have to cope and those Ones with the knowledge and skills shall prevail.
*plus I 'm saving up for two weeks in Tuscany next year where I shall have my nose firmly in the trough of conspicuos, nay frivolous and fancy free, consumption.

Which brings me to two of my mother's bequests:* The Pauper's Cookbook by Jocasta Innes, Penguin 1971 and Crockpot Cooking by Mary Norwak, Futura 1977.
* or do I mean gifts? Can one bequest an item when one is still living? Mother this is a stylistic and rhetorical device, I am not asking for a grammar lesson.



watch this space

Singapore/Vietnam

Is it prudent to eat a mackerel, red onion and chilli puff pastry pie just because it is winking at me from a display cabinet here at Changi airport? It is 7.24 am and I have just necked paratha and mutton curry.

They care not for breath freshness on this continent so the pharangeal fragrance quotient is negligble.

Dunno. Is that even how you spell Mackeral?

So much food so little elasticity in the duodenum


Next stop Hanoi.

Heatwave Breaking, Mojo Coming back

Feeder are coming to town. http://www.feederweb.com/. ( do you know why they can't call their site simply "Feeder"? Let's just say it attracts The Wrong Sorts).
Back in July 2000 it was my great privilege to cook for the band and Gil Norton and crew for the recording of Echo Park at The Church Studios in Crouch End.
And now, having recorded, released and gigged around the world constantly in the interim Feeder are going to be fed by me again. Joy.
The band is currently on tour down here with the Soundwave festival and will be stopping by my kitchen for a bite to eat and Good Times next week.












I have my work cut out; our very good buddy bass player Taka Hirose cooks. I'd better sharpen up my Globals and get to Kailis for some export quality rock lobster before it gets exported.http://cookmejapanese.com/

So this is what they get up to on Saturday Lunch-times

Saturdays from 8 -12 I have the house to myself. I potter, do the drudgery, catalogue my beer-mat collection - all the usual solitary stuff. However, this Saturday Mr Wong and my sons invited me to see inside their world. They go to Kung Fu class, Piano lessons and worship at the temple of Target or Kmart (I'm far too English to do that, give me Argos any day) and before coming home they stop at the Collins Road Asian Enclave and eat at Bamboo.

Bamboo - Authentic Singaporean Cuisine. http://www.eatability.com.au/au/perth/bamboo-willetton/map.htm


Now, I go through phases where I can take or leave SE Asian cuisine. I have had more than the fair share alloted to most White Girls and I am very picky about what kind of places I will eat in. For me, the aroma of chicken broth or the sight of a stack of ice cubes in an cold Kopi-Oh does not evoke the same misty-eyed frenzy which affects my husband. A bowl of Heinz Tomato Soup and some Mother's Pride spread with Country Life would get me going, but I digress. Nor will I eat anywhere in which my forearms stick to the plastic table-cloth.

Bamboo is different. There are three locations; Perth CBD, trendy Subiaco and Asian-dense Willeton out in the 'burbs. That's where they go. This outlet is run by three Cantonese sisters from Christmas Island http://www.christmas.net.au/and furnished from Empire http://www.worldofempire.com/. It is stylish and spotless and bustling.

The menu is extensive but the men of my family almost always order the same thing: Wan Ton noodles, dry, with barbecue pork and Wan Ton noodles, dry, with crispy roast pork. Two iced Milos and an iced lemon tea. The Wan Ton are filled with a delicate pork mince and float in what I am told is the perfect chicken broth. The dry noodles get mixed in the soy sauce until they are perfectly golden brown. Everyone is very happy. This is the best food of this type in a 10km radius. The noodles, I am told by Mr Wong, are as good as the ones from the China Town markets in Sydney, only the one stall mind you and that was way back in 1993.



I chose Kway Toa flat rice noodles with beef, no egg. I first had this dish in the night markets in Sandakan, Sabah. Served in a plastic bag but none-the-less delicious because the great strength of these flat noodles is that they take on the taste of the wok like no other. As a consequence all the previous built-up layers and patinas of flavour and carbonisation and salt and oil from a properly seasoned wok are imbued on to their slippery surface. If the kitchen does not have an expert and fully focussed wok driver, then this dish will give the game away. Happily, Bamboo has just that.

My order comes out first. I get that smug grin which befalls the diner who knows they've made a top choice and I dress the dish with sliced pickled green chilis marinated in soy sauce.

see how they envy me

For dessert, the men of my family make the short journey to the next door store and indulge in Korean Ice Lollies; flavours and colours that immediately take one back to being 8 years old, flavours and colours that have been outlawed in Europe for many years. My sons eat them in the back of the car on the way home. Shark fin shapes made with a tangerine-flavoured blue-grey ice shell with strawberry-flavoured red jelly inside. Wholly and utterly unethical on every level, and a right proper treat and no mistake.


I grabbed a selection of Korean crisps, drawn chiefly by the graphics on the packaging. I have little or no idea what they will taste like, but then that's the fun of it.

does anyone know what is in these stunning cans?

We all arrive back home, and while the adults give their bellies an airing on the sofa the sons are on the trampoline at once. Strong stomachs and lots of stamina. Far more than I posses. I may go back to my pottering next Saturday and give my greed a rest. Oh, wait a minute, I 'll be in Bali next Saturday.

Low-Carb Lunches 1: Warm Prawn Cocktail

Ahhhh.... there's been a gap. I cannot find the copious notes I made from my UK trip. I haven't quite looked everywhere; I am postponing the crashing disappointment of realising I left them on the plane/taxi/duty free shop. However, they may turn up somewhere utterly unexpected. Like my Foo Fighters Tickets from April 2008. I put them somewhere for safe keeping while we went on holiday to Kota Kinabalu and the floor-sanders were in. I swiftly erased the knowledge from my mind, came back with 18 hours to go before the show and tried to trawl through a house already turned upside down because of the floor-sanding operation. One of my sons found them wedged right at the bottom of a bolster cushion inside the cover. I have eyed him with a shadow of suspicion ever since.

Anyway..... while I was preparing to ransack the soft furnishings I got hungry.
I am trying to reduce my carbohydrate intake to one serving a day. I am vain and slightly more upholstered than muscular and summer is coming. So I looked for lunch-time inspiration to London. Pret a Manger to be precise http://www.pret.com/
Anyone who worked in London in the 90s remembers their first Pret experience. Good bread, good fillings, easy to grab, made you feel like you were a little bit Continental, wrapped in spiffing cellophane so you didn't get grease spots on your desk and most importantly you could be in and out in 6 minutes flat so more time for lunchtime shopping/fags/flirting/shoplifting.

The book of the shop divulges all its secrets.

Not sure if that was an unwise move or a very arrogant one as Pret was so sure they could not be aped. For the eschewer of bread and carbohydrates in the middle of the day the fillings on their own make a wonderful lunch.

The first in the book is egg and bacon mayonnaise but that dish is dead to me ever since I witnessed at first hand the low habits and hygiene of the London pigeon (the Berkley Square mob to be precise), made the fowl/egg connection with the lumps in my sandwich and have never been able to countenance a boiled egg since. Scrambled is fine, it's just the white bit. And what those pigeons were doing to one another. Everyone has their peculiarities, that is one of mine. The next filling is, however, far more appealing; Avocado and Prawn. And since it has no yeasty cover it will be elevated to cocktail status.

The trick with prawn cocktail is not the prawns (in Britain we would use partially defrosted north sea ones and fancy ourselves exotic and erudite). Today I used frozen West Australian prawn flesh at $40 a kilo. I sauteed them in butter and olive oil with some torn kaffir lime leaf, lemon juice and salt and pepper.

The trick is not the salad vegetables, The Pret recipe calls for Cos lettuce leaves for which I substituted skinned Roma Tomatoes. ( reader, I shall admit this to you: I dislike lettuce. Well, I dislike the way I handle it. I 've never been able to treat it properly and nothing lettucey will ever come close to my first French Green Salad served between courses in 1979. I accept the Ponce Rating and I know my limits), half an avocado, paprika and the MAGIC ingredient Marie Rose Sauce.

Marie Rose Sauce or Cocktail Sauce is irresistable to humans. When I worked in backstage catering we would serve up goujons of snapper with slices of lime and a dish of Marie Rose Sauce in which to dip. Next to the Amelia Park Frenched Lamb Cutlets hot off the barbie this was always hands down the most popular item we could serve. Mick Hucknall demanded seconds. Alicia Keys' rhythm section grabbed handfuls. Only Diana Krall would not weaken. And the secret is ...... homemade mayonnaise, worcester sauce and tomato ketchup.

I made mine thus:
1 egg yolk
freshly ground sea salt and black pepper
a squeeze of lemon juice
a few drops of balsamic vinegar
10 mls extra virgin olive oil
20 mls peanut oil
dash of worcestershire sauce
good glug of Heinz tomato ketchup

Coax forth the mayo in the bowl with much patience and elbow grease, then stir in the last two ingredients. It should glow like a the flush of a lover and hold its shape like jelly.


Unfortunately I chose the rubbery- soft kind of avo and decided it would be better off having a tumble in the saute pan with the prawns along with the skinned roma tomato and the shredded basil I substituted for the Pret recipe paprika. The gentle heat really brings out the sweetness of the tomatoes.


It had texture, flavour, softness and crunch and most importantly of all enough Marie Rose Sauce to lick out of the dish for the finale.

OK, now where DID I put those notes? There are no curtains in my house so I don't have to scrabble behind any pelmets....

Semantics: disappointment, expectation and hardening the F up in Perth.

Bar & Tapas
Tell me, what does that suggest to you?
If you are European, especially Spanish or Catalonian it will be a strong suggestion, if Australian-Who-Has-Traveled it will be another thing, if it is Perth-CBD-Worker-Looking-For-A-Bar-And-A-Bite-After-Work it will be another.
Me - I'm a mongrel with my roots in north London, a few visits to Northern Spain at the very least. But I live in Perth.

So.... the chief thing I expected at http://www.andaluzbar.com.au/ was a) not to be kept waiting for 12 minutes for a glass of Tempranillo; one extra-odinarily pompous waiter took my order mutely, one inert bar-man and several intermittent staff later and I was forced to walk the 5 metres to the bar and pick up the glass myself. I know that this is hardly a hardship in the real world, I'm not waiting for clean water in a Haitian post-earthquake camp or anything, but still....

Bar AND Tapas.

This is a Bar
They choose to serve small portions of Mediterranean styllee food on mis-matched saucers and call it tapas (no baccalau, however the Berkshire pork cheek confit and scallops were good as were the chick-pea battered prawns - I presume that the chickpea element was besan flour).
But a Tapas Bar it is not.

This is a Tapas Bar

(I don't know who the pasty middle-aged woman at the end is)

The goods are on display, the dog can see the rabbit. There is no menu, one trusts the chef.

The wine is in tubs on the counter. One could help oneself, but one has an agreement with the Host; the customer will ask and the Host will pour at once. Not wait 12 minutes while the staff faff about.

This is tapas, this is what it looks like;
It ain't fancy, it's just the best of what the Host likes to serve.


That, mi amigo, is a plethora of fried protein coated in refined carbohydrate on sticks. Salty, crispy, delicious, honest. In the illuminated cabinet below is a selection of less robust items: vol-au-vents ( yes, vol-au-vents because they are popular and people like them and they contain a creamy, vinegary, filling perfectly) filled with crab remoulade, salami and potato salad, elvers and mayonnaise, need I go on?)

So, it is with initial trepidation over spoiling our evening yet resulting in the purity of an informed debate, that I suggest to my dinner date that either the term "bar and tappas" is misleading or that my European -flavoured expectations are simply out of place in this town. My dinner date works with words and concepts and design. He tells me the clue is in the punctuation; Bar amperzand Tapas. It is not a Tapas Bar. Well quite, I say, otherwise they would have had the cojones to put the tapas on display, right there in front of the booze whetting the appetite and assaulting the senses like a common street walker rather than coyly nestling between the leaves of a flock-wallpaper covered menu. Nor would one be at the mercy of the waiting staff but in the care of a Patron (pimp?) who is unashamedly displaying his wares.

Andaluz could be taken as a gravely disappointing misnomer, but as my dinner date reminds me,
this is a bar that does food in the middle of the Perth CDB. It is Wednesday night and it is buzzing: Job Done.
However I would be extremely interested to know how the seed of the vision of Andaluz started out in the owners' eyes. Seriously, I am very willing to have my European smugness knocked out of me. But I would advise that the owners tell the pot-wash guy not to leave the mop and tea-towel drop right outside the kitchen door. A small detail but nothing puts one off ones' head of veal and truffle oil dish like a dirty mop-head standing sentry at the kitchen.

I must share my delight at the growing numbers of Bars in Perth. Yes, a Bar. Where a grow-up can enter, sit or stand and buy a drink. It is heartening to see the stealth licensing laws are being used. And the interior decor of Andaluz is right on the pulse. The dark, bold hues of the walls and colour accents from vintage bric-a-brac is all the rage in the front parlours of Kensal Rise. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/23/anatomy-of-style-vintage

At the risk of sounding deeply condescending, and I really don't want to be that person as I do realise how fortunate I am to have got a permanent foot in the door of this country, I wonder if the owner's vision matched the end product his wait-staff supply. This is a mis-match I see time and time again in this city and I truly wonder why these gaps need appear. I am 99% certain the designer did not mean for the bar-staff to stash the paper wine lists on the lip of the gun-metal grey girder which frames the bar. Small details and hardly life nor death, but they must have mattered to someone somewhere along the line.
And speaking of lines, the bottom line is that I have to drive in from the 'burbs to Andaluz, I am not the tie-loosened white-shirted ideal customer looking for drink after work with a boudin noir rather than a pie for sustenance so really, what do I matter?

I would give Andaluz another crack, but with vastly different expectations.
Perhaps I just need to Harden The F* Up, Stefan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iweZ-o43wFU