Month in Review - March 2010

At last autumn is in the air - it is fractionally cooler, not quite so humid and daylight saving is about to come to an end. Time to give the salads a bit of a rest and actually start eating cooked, hot food again.
Herewith a summary of foodie happenings this month -
1.Every year I wait less and less patiently for the arrival of figs - and finally they are here, although not many! I've managed to make Fig Cake a couple of times already and have stored away some more figs in the freezer.
2. And quinces are available at last. Yesterday I baked some magnificent specimens which I bought at the Kitchen Cabinet  a little shop selling local produce attached to the restaurant at Old Parliament House.








I also bought some tomatillos having sampled them at Sunnybrae. We had some of them in a salad with avocado and cucumber which was very good but I have yet to decide what to do with the rest.



We were in Canberra to visit the exhibition of masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay at the National Gallery. And it was worth braving the crowds to see these works in the flesh - although I would have been more than happy to wait to see them sometime in Paris.

Paul Cézanne Kitchen table (Still-life with basket) (La table de cuisine (Nature morte au panier))

3. March was a very good month for reading. First there was the Griffith Review No. 27 entitled 'Food Chain' which as the name suggests was devoted entirely to writing associated in some way with food. Can recommend the article by Margaret Simons 'Sustaining a Nation'. 
Then the latest edition of Gastronomica arrived in the mail with more interesting and thought provoking reading - Why are there no Great Women Chefs?, and who would have thought that Sylvia Plath liked to cook.
Finally I got hold of a copy of Frank Moorhouse's Loose Living in which he chronicles our Australian hero's adventures in Europe. This is an odd little book but parts of it are absolutely hilarious.

4. Apart from the very good lunch we had at Cafe in the House in Canberra we also managed dinner at two local restaurants.
 Glebe Point Diner is consistently good but because they have two sittings for dinner  I was very conscious that mine wasn't the only bum that had been on the seat that night. Perhaps it is just me but there is a sense here that this is very much a business and although the food and wine are very good the atmosphere is a bit sterile. (And isn't $15 corkage for BYO just a little bit over the top? although it must be admitted that the wine list here is extensive and varied.)
At The Codfather (83 Percival Street, Stanmore) on the other hand the service was friendly and attentive, the food was excellent and the corkage on our BYO very reasonable. And you have to love the name.

Blogs and Blogging

During the month I've been doing a bit of Blog maintenance- changing things around a bit and adding some new favourites to the list of blogs I follow. All of which has given me pause to think about blogs and blogging in general.

I started one crumb at a time largely as a vehicle for my own writing about food. I wanted to hone my writing skills and improve my computer skills. I also wanted the discipline of writing on a regular basis and having to put my thoughts into some sort of logical order. As it has developed the broader idea of the blog as a diary and a record, a place where I can store ideas as well as photographs and art works, record events and references, has become just as important.

The blogs I follow obviously reflect my interests. In general I'm not interested in blogs devoted almost exclusively to recipes – I would sooner keep up with Nigel Slater in the Guardian or consult my own collection of books. I would rather read about the history of the dish and/or the ingredients or perhaps comparisons of versions of the same dish or even critiques of different recipe books (and in fact these are some of the areas I want to explore myself in the future). Nor am I excited by restaurant reviews – where the 30-somethings are eating, what they ate and who they shared it with isn't always riveting reading. (And where do they find the time and the money?) I am by no means against restaurant reviews and I do like to keep up with what's new and popular but  for general reading I would sooner Jay Rainer or Alan Richman or A.A. Gill even if there is little or no chance of ever visiting the restaurants they frequent. I also worry a bit about the trend to taking photographs of what we eat rather than taking the time to describe the food, that bloggers are spending too much time documenting and not enough time thinking (and I am not alone - see here).

The blogs I do enjoy reading are not cluttered with advertising nor do they confuse with too many extra pages and diversions. If I am going to take the time to read I like something that is well written and/or something that is thoughtful and informative. And so the blogs I reference here are ones that are updated fairly regularly (if not daily) and offer something of interest.

This month I have also started another blog  called Recipes for my children which you might not be too surprised to learn is a record of recipes I want to hand on to my children along with some family history and general, I hope useful, kitchen information.
As far as I can tell no one has read either of my blogs. I don't know that I would welcome comments anyway - certainly not if they are along the lines of 'great photo' or 'loved the recipe'. On the other hand genuine interaction, thoughtful comments which could lead to some sort of on-going conversation, would be appreciated.
In the meantime I'm not interested in advertising or making money -  I am more than happy to entertain myself with my own little on-line project.

Fearlessly eating at Sunnybrae

Over the weekend of 13th and 14th March, George Biron hosted the Fearless Vampire Killers lunches at Sunnybrae as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.

Sunnybrae is about my most favouritest place to eat and the chance to sample a menu featuring garlic in every course – except dessert – was too good to miss. There was nothing about our lunch on the Saturday which wasn't glorious – five courses spread over an afternoon of magnificent autumn weather with a 'Fearless Cookquiz' thrown in to provide a bit of cerebral stimulation.

(Tomatillo guacamole, smoked beetroot relish, tarama, smoked ricotta with samphire-cured ocean trout)

For me the most memorable dishes were the snapper broth with prawns flavoured with sesame and cumin seeds; the tomatillos – crunchy and surprisingly citrus-y; the watermelon and garlic salad with pomegranate dressing – another surprise of texture and flavours; and the amazing verbena-poached figs with liquorice labna and vanilla ice-cream. Lunch started with a 'Gartini' and the rest of the meal was washed down with some very tasty local wines 2006 Bannockburn Saignee, 2004 Barwon Valley Pinot Noir and 2007 Pinnochio Moscato to go with dessert.

Eating at Sunnybrae confounds my recent rant about the differences between eating in someone's home and eating in a restaurant. For most of us eating at Sunnybrae is as close as we will get to eating at home with George and Diane. The atmosphere is relaxed and home-like – Diane's artwork on the walls next to George's library of books, the warm and friendly greetings from them both, the cheerful and relaxed service, being able to wander around the garden and admire the vegetables – see where the tomatillos came from – and sip a glass of wine on the verandah between courses. There is a real sense that everyone involved in the occasion is enjoying themselves - the guests want to be there and the chef and his staff want to feed you and share their food with you – which makes for a very different sort of restaurant experience.

George is an intelligent and thoughtful chef and his wide ranging interests were well represented in the Cookquiz which was great fun. And thanks to some arcane knowledge and lots of judicious guess work we managed to come away with the consolation prize – one of Diane's Sunnybrae aprons and enough garlic to keep the vampires away for some time. (We toasted our success with 2008 Leura Park Bubbles.)

On the Sunday, flushed with success and seduced by the wonderful weather I had to make some purchases at the Lorne bookshop (while waiting for breakfast to be served next door) - Nigel Slater's Real Fast Puddings because I hadn't seen it before and I am a Slaterite, Jane Grigson's English Food because I didn't already have it and Lindsey Bareham's A Celebration of Soup just because it was only $10.

In defence of home cooking

Cartoon from Punch, March 5, 1952

Why would any one willingly invite perfect strangers into their home solely for the purpose of having them criticise the food that had been prepared for them? Why would you, except perhaps as a joke, attempt to transform your home into a restaurant?
Stranger still why would anyone want to sit in front of television and watch other people doing either or both of the above?

Programmes like My Restaurant Rules and Come Dine With Me are hardly edifying and I think are in some ways down right offensive. (Brian Whitaker takes a different view, but then he doesn't even own a dining table!)
For one thing the whole notion of food as competition is wrong. The home cook doesn't need to have their food compared to that of other home cooks let alone professional chefs. When we invite people into our home to eat we don't expect them to analyse every mouthful or comment on the presentation. Eating meals at home with family and friends is about nurturing, hospitality, commensality, about nourishment. Having friends for dinner is about more than just the food we eat; it's about sharing, about quite literally breaking bread together.

These programmes offer no encouragement to non-cooks - rather the emphasis on style over substance is intimidating. As Michael Pollan  has pointed out these programmes don't actually appeal to an audience who love to cook, rather they appeal to people who love to eat. What we learn from them is 'culinary fashion' not how to cook.
At worst it could be said that these shows denigrate the home cook, whoever it is in your household who produces the three meals every day. Good basic home cooking really isn't good enough. If you don't cook like a chef and present your guests with three course meals, each course utilising fashionable ingredients and glamorously 'plated', don't bother.

On the other hand if I were a professional chef I would be alarmed at the suggestion that anyone can cook like a chef - no formal training, no long apprenticeship required. Anyone can prepare food worthy of a restaurant - style wins out over substance again.

Eating out at a restaurant and eating at home are quite separate and unique experiences. Each has it's own set of rules and traditions. We expect some fundamental differences – where we eat is linked to who we dine with, what we eat, why we are dining together and when we eat. Sharing and hospitality have different meanings in these different contexts. In fact a restaurant is a business and successful restaurants, according to A.A. Gill are more about business than food.

My final gripe is that far too many television food programmes tend to extol extravagance and excess. The logical conclusion is that 'good' food revolves around fancy, schmancy, tricked about expensive ingredients rather than being food which is actually good for you.

Slice me, Zest me

Cressida Campbell; Pumpkin and cleaver.

Kitchen gadgets are the work of the Devil sent to tempt and tease until you actually purchase one. Once you lapse you are doomed to a life of regret and frustration. Buy in haste and repent at leisure. Long may you regret  the money which could have been better spent. Oft will you struggle with the frustration of getting the thing to do any of the tasks of which  you had expected it might be capable.
No one who cooks is immune from the lure of the kitchen gadget. I currently lust after my friend's gorgeous, new, apple green Kitchen Aid  mixer which leers at me from her kitchen bench. However loyalty to my 'retro' Sunbeam Mixmaster - we have been making cakes together for 35 years give or take a month or two - makes this one temptation I can resist.

Gimmicks aside there are, as the Mixmaster proves, some kitchen gadgets  worth possessing. My current favourite is a newly aquired Microplane zester. Having struggled for years with a little gizmo which was both difficult to use and almost impossible to clean I am now happy to zest anything and everything. The Microplane is effortless, and very efficient due to the fact that it is incredibly sharp - I am not game to have anything smaller than a lemon between me and the cutting surface.
Another favourite is my Zyliss V-slicer. My desire to own a mandoline was the butt of some  predictable family jokes until they actually bought me one. I had envisaged something fairly basic but the Zyliss is the Rolls Royce of slicers and mine cuts both slices and juliennes (if that is a noun) of different thicknesses. At first I thought it was a bit of a contraption and felt intimidated not least of all because I could barely get the thing out of the cupboard without drawing blood  (perhaps I just have a fascination with sharpness). But with a bit of practise I am now much more confident and wouldn't use anything else for slicing eggplant and zucchini and especially potatoes for a gratin.
So the Mixmaster, the mandoline and the zester get used regularly because thay all do what they are supposed to do and are designed to be efficient and easy to use. What then of the other bits and pieces of equipment which fill the drawers and cupboards? Would throwing them away compound the sin of greed with the sin of wastefulness? Surely my hope that I may find a use for them one day counts as a saving grace?

Food miles, and miles and miles

Last week at the green grocer's the asparagus was from Mexico.

At the Sydney Fish Markets the scallops were from Peru (who knew that there were scallops in Peru?) and the squid had come from Chile.

Can't we  live without scallops and asparagus?

Why have a choice of local or foreign squid?

Wouldn't people just buy something else if none of this imported stuff was available?