Dainty Sichuan

Well you folks were so unhelpful with finding somewhere for me and penpal Steve to drink. So I took him to try Dainty Sichuan. I think I almost killed him. Damn that food is hot. We were sweating under our eyelids.

But you know how I’m a little obsessive? Well right now all I can think about is when I can get back to Dainty Sichuan and get some more of that Chilli Eggplant. I’ve only eaten there twice. Not enough. Want more.. True it’s kinda painful dealing with the chilli there but I’m in love and I know that means pain. I’m not even sad about dumplings closing down. I’m on a restaurant rebound and I’m just thinking how if I eat there often enough my chilli tolerance will build up and the pain will be less.

If you’re not down with Sichuan (or Szechuan) cuisine then basically what you need to know is chilli. And szechuan pepper, which gives you that great tongue tingling strangeness. Dainty Sichuan is not particularly dainty – I saw plates heaping with food mountains – but damn is it good. There’s a pretty good vegetarian range and the staff are sweet once you finally get their attention. I think really they just avoid taking orders from honkeys cos they know we don’t speak good Mandarin.

So far I have eaten and loved the chilli eggplant, red hot tofu threads (!), garlic cucumber and red hot radish threads. The cucumber is a good refreshing break. A favourite among our party was the green bean jelly noodles. When our waitress read our order back to us she said “one jelly bean”. We loved that. They are thicker than your average mung bean noodle so you really get to appreciate the jelly texture – firm to the bite, yet giving. What else? Well they’re cold and there’s spicy sauce on them. Go the jelly bean. Just don’t make the mistake me and Steve did of thinking that because we ordered noodles we didn’t need rice. You need rice. And cucumber. Now go.

(It's on Corporation Lane, off Little Bourke. Where David & Camy/Winston’s used to be.)

help

Hey so I'm meeting my penfriend from Portland tonight for beers. Where should I take him? I want to show him somewhere good but I feel like all Melbourne's drinking establishments have gone yuppie and boring and maybe he won't understand the joys of Percy's. What I really feel like is a seedy dive bar...

soup

I'm all snuffly head full of mucus feeling sorry for myself right now. But I have the memories of a glorious weekend with hysterical ladies, insanely beautiful wild places and me hot missus to keep me cheery. Of course we had too too much food and ate ourselves into a stupor.

I think though, that the best bit had to be the wombats... so many wombats. See hungryhead for pictures of the cutest bleached blond surfie wombat you have ever seen. Damn I love wombats. They eat all the time too...

Anyway, people apparently want more recipes and less of me waffling so here's the delicious soup I made on friday night. Lish made this soup for me on marmalade night all that time ago and I was hooked. It's from the most excellent Moorish by Greg and Lucy Malouf.

Fennel Soup with Lemon and Cinnamon
Maree: "I was worried you were putting cinnamon in with those things but it's really good".

2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions sliced
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
2 leeks, roughly chopped
2 bulbs fennel*, sliced
2 potatoes, in chunks
1.5 litres stock
1 cinnamon stick
peel of half a lemon
1/2 tsp allspice
2 bay leaves
2 egg yolks
150ml thick cream
juice of 2 lemons
extra good oil
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp rough chopped parsley

*The recipe calls for 3 large bulbs. I tried that once and they disastrously didn't fit in the pot. This recent time I just used 1 bulb and that was fine. 2 would be good I think.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and saute the onions, garlic, leeks and fennel until they soften a little. Add the potatoes and chicken stock, then the cinnamon stick, lemon peel, allspice and bay leaves. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Remove and discard the stick, peel and leaves and season to taste with salt and pepper.
In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks with the cream, then ladle in a bit of the hot soup. Whisk together well, then tip the egg mixture into the soup.
Slowly return the soup to just below boiling, stirring as you go. Remove from the heat and add the lemon juice. Adjust the seasoning.
As you serve drizzle each bowl with your good oil - no really, do this it totally lifts the soup. Sprinkle with a little cinnamon and parsley. Yum. That'll make you feel less sooky.

do i worry too much?

Many would say yes. But when i can't freak out about the big stuff because it's too much I worry the small stuff. At the moment friends I'm worried by the sticker on Bicks pickles which says:

"NEW name, SAME quality"

Yup Bicks will be changing their name to Globus to "align itself to other quality products". I dunno. Globus pickles used to be ok, good even, but they ain't no Bicks. Who's to say they won't start messing with my favourite pickles?

Meanwhile enjoy the pleasures of Mr Pickles:

don't think i didn't

On friday I made a massive feast at the ranch. I think the premise was that I would make lunch in exchange for Tal working her magic with the haircutting scissors again. Suffice it to say I got completely carried away and made an Indian luncheon consisting of:

• Sweet sour chickpeas (no not dodgy chinese style but with shitloads of tamarind)
• Broccoli the Madhur Jaffrey way with chilli and garlic
• Eggplant fried all tender in a tomato and ginger sauce
• Raita
• Radish and peanut salad
  

And yes... CARROT HALVA!

Those capitals and exclamation mark show you just how excited I was about making a dessert from carrots. So excited that I kept running around going - "don't think those carrots aren't going to be dessert." To which people looked confused and later, just tired. "We know esther, the carrots are dessert... get over it already" their glazed eyes said. Maybe they were thinking carrots as dessert is old hat, like carrot cake or something... but really, this is a whole new world of vegetal dessert excitement.

And i'm here to tell you that all the double negatives were worth it. Don't think that carrot halva is not the bomb. So so good. I was so sorry I had halved the recipe.. it cooks down a lot and we hardly had enough. Don't make my mistake.

There are heaps of other recipes for this - some with condensed milk, some where you pressure cook the carrots. I'd be open to hearing about any other versions people have tried. Apparently in the Punjab they make this with purple carrots. Now that would be hot!


Carrot Halva (or Halwa if you prefer)
1 kg carrots
1 litre milk
1 cup sugar
100g ghee or butter
2/3 cup raisins or sultanas
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 teaspoon cardamon seeds
ground cardamon

First up you need to grind your cardamon - pull out the green husks as you do. Now grate your carrots and stick them in a pot with the milk. Bring it to a simmer. Now cook it very very slowly until all the milk is absorbed. Careful it don't burn. This will take forever. Enough time for you to make 3 other dishes for your feast. Or get a haircut.

When it's absorbed add the ghee and cook until it browns a little. Mine didn't really brown, but anyway, add the sugar and cook until it's thick and dry. Add the raisins, cardamon and almonds. Serve with a few more nuts sprinkled over the top and a sprinkle of cardamon. Pass around the ice cream.

Hell yes.

it grows

You know that feeling the day after the day after. No more seediness, and the sun's shining. You come home and there's time to play in the garden, to transplant little lettuces and not worry about if they'll get torn up by marauding chickens. The shit that ate your head up last week seems to have scampered somewhere on the dancefloor and you don't feel the need to worry about if it'll come back.

The plants are in so you wash the dirt off your hands and pick the leaves off the radishes, and the young shoots from the pea straw. The nettles you rescued from another garden are growing faster than myspace and you manage to pick a handful without any prickles. So it's into the kitchen..

The greens are washed and wilted in the water that clings to them. They're tossed with chickpea sprouts* and a diced radish. There's lemon juice, balsamic and some of the really good olive oil mum passed onto me. Oh and sesame seeds.

You know the feeling when you're cooking something really good from things you've grown yourself? When you've done unhealthy things to your body all weekend and no matter how hypocritical you just love the feeling of looking after yourself with vegetables and sunshine and maybe a kick of the footy after?

Well maybe it's just me, I shouldn't try and universalise... but I hope you have some similar feeling.

*Chickpea sprouts are so easy and good I can't believe I never ate them until this year. These ones were made when I soaked chickpeas and never got around to cooking them. Instead of leaving them in water to go fetid just drain the water off and then rinse once a day or so.

...

Today I was looking for my favourite Need poster. I found this great story by Rachel from the Need. It fills me with hope, wonder, a measure of self-doubt and also much joy. Maybe you'll like it too:

But rather than go off about Olympia's amazing sense of community and so on, I'm going to tell you a story...so one summer night a bunch of pale-faced dyed-black punker-dykes were hanging out when a gang of lumberjack dykes (that's what we called them) crashed the party and tried to start a rumble. They got away with a trophy and a handful of underwear. Thus began the Olympia Dyke Gang Wars - The Sleazy Fuckers vs. The Scrawny Wusses. You can guess who was who.

There was a midnight face-off in the empty lot behind Gold's Gym. We chased each other with crowbars around the parking lot of the adult video store. A hideous painting of a girl fucking an octopus kept turning up on porches all over town. One night the Sleazy Fuckers took a hostage (she was already in her pajamas) and returned her late that night with a series of polaroids of herself tied up and blindfolded in a dog kennel. P.S. she really liked it...anyway we finally declared a flag code - white on the right if you were open to ambush, white on the left if you weren't. We started hanging out in the Safeway parking lot on thursday nights, car doors thrown open, stereos blasting, the dudes in hesher drag - bandanas, mesh, moustaches, camaro mullets - and the dolls in anklets and heels and halter-tops. We arm-wrestled. We strutted around and played air guitar. We drank coke in a can. It was beautiful.

But eventually we got bored of play-fighting and started talking...now the Sleazy Fuckers were more on the activist trip, and the Scrawny Wusses played in bands and went to art school. We all wanted to do something huge - and what came of our collision/collusion was The Transfused. An original rock opera that took a year to write and another six months of full production - besides working and re-working the music and lyrics and plot, there were auditions, rehearsals, benefits, planning meetings...and we raised almost $40, 000 without corporate sponsorship. Olympia was transformed. Kids moved here to work on it. Everyone got involved somehow - fundraising, sets, props, costumes. The closing show culminated in a parade that took over downtown Olympia. It was indescribable, really. The Transfused couldn't have come together the way it did in anyhere else...Mount Olympus! Whose gods and demi-gods play out the ultimate fictions. Small towns have a protoplasmic quality you can actually feel - it's like functioning at the cellular level. Germination, infection, chromosomal deviation...but the downside of small town living is that it's real easy (apparently) to get comfortable. To settle. I think Olympia's self-made mystique is, at heart, a product of its culture of boredom. It's enough to make you crazy.

Oh please can we all stop with this crazy real life crap, move to the same spot and stage a rock opera? Or make Sandy's queer cowboy movie?

tea with sweet potato!

Yesterday I finally got to go to the Ten Ren Tea House for tea and snacks. I'd been hanging for a visit since I found out they did fake meat.

This stylish little place on Swanston St (146, btw Bourke and Collins) has such an extensive tea list it was making us feel like dumb honkies. What to choose? I resisted Kumquat, though I love the fanta-orange colour. Considered date and chrysanthenum for our health. But went for Sweet Potato Tea Milk tea with Pearl because I couldn't resist. Yes there were pieces of sweet potato in our tea! And in warm tea the sago pearls go delightfully gooey in just the slightest of ways. Good tea.

The food was crazy. And you know I love my crazy food but this was almost crazy in the wrong way. We had vegetarian green tea noodles and vegetarian lemon fish. The noodles were a lovely green colour but covered in a fairly disturbing sauce. It was kind of a vegetarian bolognaise - bits of fake mince and vegies. I think in a skip place I would have rejected it outright but somehow in this context it mostly just amused me. The fish was pretty good - two big chunks of tender fillet with a bit of sauce. This was served with rice and then three little side dishes. Oddly one of the sides was scrambled eggs with tomato.

Yeah, so I'm excited about the potential of tea house. I want to try the tea jellies and I want to try more of the different teas. You get complimentary green tea cookies with a pot of tea. So take me on a tea date?

Meanwhile on the interweb I discovered the lovely Emmy over at Fangrrrl . Lots of music writing. This post about the passing of Sleater-Kinney is amazing. It really made me feel the big hole they're leaving. I almost got teary at work. But then, in the context of today that's not that surprising.

actually...

Hmm.. so actually the Q&A on Electronic Intifada turned out to be pretty dry. There's a lot of other good analysis on there though.

But today I'm really getting a lot from Shax, a blog coming outta Beirut. Really good stuff. Thanks for the link Ash.

Food soon.. I promise.

contagion

Today, for work related reasons, I was in a Salvation Army church welfare office. On the bookshelf there was a big binder, like one of those workbook kits. It was titled How to be a Contagious Christian. Do you think I might have caught something in there?

I have been wanting to post for a while on my felafel tour of Sydney. But yesterday, eating a fine falafel platter at Tiba's and discussing my quest with Sarah, we realised that now is not the time to be debating the merits of Israeli versus Lebanese felafel.

You may find the coverage at Electronic Intifada more useful. I haven't had the heart to read much yet but the Questions and Answers on Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah looks promising.

this dirty queerdo loves dolly

Ok, the sydney food wrap up comes soon… for now let’s just say I think I am fatter. And I think I like the sun.

For now, from the lovely interweb comes yet, another reason to love Dolly:

Throughout the show, the entire crowd was on its feet and the lawn was no longer a quilt, but a sea of people that stretched way into the distance. Some found refuge (and a great view) in the trees, prompting Dolly to say, "Are those monkeys or people up there?" A group of women towards the front waved a bed-sheet sign that read "Dirty Dirty Queerdos Love Dolly" to which she replied, "Well, I love you too."
From Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

This comes via gordonzola who went to a Joan Jett concert where the fans were holding a sign saying “Dirty Dirty Queerdos Love Joan Jett”. Sadly Joan didn’t respond as lovingly as Dolly. There's an argument in this somewhere I think...

success!

Hey I thought my mission to learn how to make crepes was going to be an epic quest complete with training montages and crumpled up crepes being thrown into the wastepaper basket. Yes I know I'm mixing my genres but I'm in shock because I had my first go this morning and I am full of the glow of success. This is when mum's theory really pays off.

Crepes for beginners
3/4 cup plain flour
2 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup water
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salk

Beat the eggs and whisk in the flour, milk and water. Add the other bits and whisk it all real well so there's no lumps or nothin. Leave it to stand for 20 minutes. Or if your breakfast buddy shows up looking hungry like mine, 10 will have to do.

This batter is so thin it scared me but it works. Really.

Heat a crepe pan (yeah right) or heavy frypan (ok!). Add a little butter. When it's hot pour in some batter and tilt the pan so it spreads real thin. Mine went all sorts of funny shapes, dunno how you get them round.

Now the trick is to not cook them too much at all. Keep the heat pretty low. We want a very light brown on the first side and then just a few spots of brown on the other. This way they are nice and soft not crunchy like from those lame "creperie" places that have sprung up all over town. Add more butter when they start to stick.

Ok eat them now. We had a choice of blueberries, cream, maple syrup and of course, marmalade. You don't need to be so excessive. This recipe makes 10 crepes. I think I should have invited someone else to help me and Bindy eat them. Now i think I have to go lie down and recover.

I love webstats.. not just knowing someone actually comes here, not just the amusement of the strange search terms that bring you here but also occassionally looking at how many of you are, like me, doing this on work time.

So hands up:
Who's my fan from the Department of Premier and Cabinet?
Who's at News Ltd in Sydney?
Griffith Uni?
But wait, who the hell is visiting from the House of Rep's in the big ole U S of A?

my mama said

My mum often says that it's not a good idea to get your hopes up - then you might get disappointed. And if all doesn't go terribly wrong, well you'll be pleasantly surprised. People tell me this is not a good way to approach life but more and more lately I think she be onto something.

Recent examples:

1. Stick It - now, if I hadn't been expecting this to be the best film of the last 5 years would I have felt its hopelessness so deeply? Gutted.
2. Kimchi and Bab - Lish has been talking up this Korean for at least a month, without even trying it. I dropped in there for lunch today and found the Bibim Bap quite average. And only 2 side dishes served with it. Sad.
3. Last night. Cafe Romantica. Pizza. Beer. And then that stupid stupid penalty. Still, weirdly because I had been expecting the roos to get thrashed I felt ok about it. Is it really lame to just be happy with how well they played up until then?

Meanwhile some internet treats:
I know people have told me that Go Fug Yourself is not as amusing as I find it. But their touching tribute to Aaron Spelling via ugly fashion is too good. So if you were a Brenda and Brandon fan check out the 90210 fug legacy for some excellent package action from Bran or the Brenda special for a superb look at menswear gone femmey 80s style.

Tal made these cookies and had them couriered down to Romantica to sustain the fans. So good. Buttery and orangey. I am still confused that this jen-jen with a cooking blog is not the jen-jen.

Dear dear sandy is going off - not only did he post an excellent looking recipe for jackfruit curry but now he's becoming a mp3 blogger. I'm going to head up to Sydney on the weekend and try and have exciting enough conversations with him that I end up on the blog. Although he mostly blogs about annoying conversations. Hmm....

And some text message poetry from Sam who couldn't get out of bed to come to vegan yum cha because she was too hungover:

Cant deal bad equals cant leave bed for puke

(Actually John had to write it because Sam was too sick to text.)

THE GREAT DEBATE #1: fluffy vs. thin

Ok so being audience responsive as always, I thought I better address the mega issue of fluffy versus thin. No not hair types.. fluff beats thin there like rock to your scissors. I’m talking pancakes. Specifically I’m talking pancakes you make at home – eating out is a whole different post.

I’ll admit I’ve had some longstanding thick pancake loyalties which have been challenged by some recent crepe experiences. I’ve been forced me to look at where these prejudices come from. I think in my family of origin (to use my newfound therapist’s vocab) pancakes uncomfortably straddled the line between thin and fluffy. They were eggy but not crepes, they were thick but not fluffy. I mean, I’m no ingrate, I’m happy my dad made us any pancakes at all and his birthday special – with bits of apple in the mix – was pretty fine. But let’s just say when I discovered that with a bit of baking powder, some melted butter and a good whisking wrist you could get big fluffy pancakes that soaked up lots and lots of syrup I was as happy as a kid at the pancake parlour. (Lets not talk about when we dared Robin to scull the jug of syrup at that establishment).

So yeah, thick pancakes for me are all about the soaking up of real pure maple syrup. Sometimes though, I’ll admit it, they can be just a little too much to chow down on first thing. And not that popular with the ladies. Despite this creeping sense that maybe I’m backing the losing side, I’ve not yet strayed from my fluffy ways, partly because I’ve been intimidated by figuring out how to make crepes.

But the other morning I had crepes made for me that were so perfect and eggy and buttery and light. Wrapped around “the best marmalade in the world” they were just too good to be ignored. You know, you can eat a lot more crepes than pancakes. Which means a lot more marmalade. Time to learn how to make crepes?

So dear readers, let the debate begin…

Ps – I have also been getting into pikelets lately – maybe fluffiness but smaller. At the beach we had them with 5 types of jam and cream and that was a darn fine spread.

Pps – I suppose also, that faced with the dilemna of wanting to make the best of a gifted bottle of organic maple syrup, as I am now, I might also opt for some French toast. Made with challah or greek egg bread of course. Dusted with cinnamon… now that’s not sounding too bad at all.

crazy sticky bitter goodness

Sometimes I think working with my mate Lish is the only thing that keeps me sane at work. But I worry that actually somehow together we make each other insane. Like whose idea was it to make marmalade at 9 o’clock on a school night? It seemed like a good plan for a while but at 1 in the morning, half dozing, half watching the soccer as we waited for it to reach the crinkle stage.. well right then it didn’t seem so sane. We started to think of all our friends who hate marmalade. What were we doing? Why? Would it ever set?

All this is forgotten though when I see the look on people’s faces as they taste the product of our insanity and enjoy what one dear eater called “the best marmalade in the world.” And I have been obsessively eating it all the time. Oh it's so so good! Starting the day with this baby on tal's excellent crepes made my saturday. And don't even get me started on how great it is on croissants. Yes, maybe I did take a jar to babka the other day so I could have it on their croissants. Is that more insanity?

Mandarin Marmalade
(if you’re not lucky enough to have a mandarin tree handy use whatever citrus you can lay your paws on)

Marmalade is real easy, it always seems to set even if you have the panic moment that it won’t. All you need is a big wide and preferably heavy pot. I’ve seen a recipe that didn’t have my flesh scooping step but this is how my friend Clare taught me and it’s always worked for me.

So all you need is some fruit and lots of white death sugar. We started with 5kg fruit and made about 13 big jars of marmalade. It took about 4.5kg sugar. Ok, lets get started...

• Put three saucers in the freezer. (No this is not part of the insanity – you’ll see)
• Cut the fruit in half (across not lengthwise) and stick in a pot with enough water to cover.
• Boil until the fruit is soft but not falling apart.
• Drain and let them cool a bit. Unless you are crazy (see above) and want to burn your fingers.
• Now you need to remove the seeds. This is kinda fiddly – use a fork or something. It don’t matter if you miss a few, you can scoop em out later. Keep the seeds.
• Now scoop the flesh out and keep.
• Cut the peel as finely as you can be bothered.
• Weigh the peel and flesh. Throw it in the pot with the same amount of sugar – yup scary amounts of sugar is what i'm talking about.
• Put the pips in a bit of muslin or a clean tea towel, tie it and throw it in the pot.
• Bring to the boil slowly letting the sugar dissolve but then boil the fuck out of it for a long time. Watch the soccer. Drink tea. Stir it a bit so it don’t stick.
• When it’s starting to look a bit thick you need to start testing it. Put a small dollop on one of your frozen saucers and wait. After 30 seconds push the top with your finger. If it crinkles it’s ready. You see the saucer is very cool – it simulates how your jam will be when it has cooled. If it’s not crinkling stay calm and keep cooking, it’ll set.
• When it’s ready put it into warm sterilised jars and stick lids on it.

Now serve to wide acclaim and convert all your marmalade hating friends into lovers. I mean, marmalade lovers.

cupcakes for the ladeez

Now, with my reputation I am used to people asking me for advice about getting girls into bed. Oh yeah, that happens all the time. So I was not surprised to read Shannon's comment requesting a cupcake recipe. I think probably she's gonna do something really inadvisable with my advice but that my friends, is beyond my control. However let it be said that I would prefer in general that you all used my recipes for good and not for evil (or self-destructive angst creation).

So... Cupcakes.

Yes they are all trendy again but like stripy tops that doesn't mean they ain't good. And when the hipsters move on to the next hot thang cupcakes will still be sweet and small, conveniently portable and a hit with all those who like a bit of childhood nostalgia.

Now, as I said in the comments, I mostly like to just use a good cake recipe and stick it in cupcake shape. This recipe is the exception - I don't think a batter this plain would work in cake form but in a cupcake it's all you need. In fact, it's all about those cute little paper cases, the icing and silver balls.

This recipe comes from my sister Marion. She brought some along to a family night once when we were watching But I'm a Cheerleader. You know the bit where they discuss what their "root" is? And they're all talking about gender stuff and why they ended up queer? Marion turns to me and asks "what's your root?" We discuss the family myth that everyone wanted me to be a boy. Then Marion says "I always knew I was a girl" and ta-da..... pulls out a tupperware container full of these cupcakes all iced in bright pink. Yes, a perfect family moment - they were almost the exact kitsch pink colour as the uniforms the girls have to wear in the movie.

Anyway, I never let my gender identity get in the way of baking. But maybe you've felt constrained by the need to seem tough all the time? To wield the power tools not the appliances? Well this recipe is so easy you can start breaking outta that gender binary right now. If you wanna get the girl get your toughest apron out and get in the kitchen.

ain't afraid to bake cupcakes

• 1 1/2 cups self raising flour
• 1/3 cup castor sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 125g soft butter chopped into bits
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
  

for the icing:

• 1 cup thick double cream
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• pink food colouring

Light the damn oven and turn it to 180C. Get some tough little patty cases with really butch flowers or something and put them on a tray.

Beat all the ingredients up like you would some chick who you saw looking at your lady. Or maybe use an electric beater actually and beat them for 4 minutes on a medium speed cos violence is never cool.

Spoon the mix into the cases, they should be 3/4 full. Cook those fuckers for 20-25 minutes until they rise up to tell you that you rule, and they should be golden.

Let them chill out until they are as cool as you.

Mix the cream with the sugar and pink icing. Spread on the cupcakes and top with some silver balls.

Now go give some to your lady with some cheesy line like “cos you’ll always be my cupcake.” That should make up for being a stupid dumbass.

all creatures great and spicy

If shannon didn't have quite such a good turn of phrase i might not take her berating so seriously. But here she is reminding me that i have a blogging public and making me feel all guilty about neglecting you all... And if that wasn't enough she told me there's a blogging explosion and I'm missing out. If guilt wasn't enough of a motivating force, fomo^* sure is.

If I’ve been absent it’s only because I’m confused. It seems even this kind of vague and constantly qualified writing requires some sense of certainty and that, I just don't have.

But for now, let me tell you about my pets. Darling Satan (my cat) may still be with his foster family but since I've taken on my house's obsession for preserving I have a whole little menagerie to look after.

There's the sourdough starter, he likes to be fed rye flour every day and given a good belly scratch (ok, just a stir really). Then there's the sprouts (millet and rye berries at the moment) - they need a little wash every day. Out the back black olives are happily swimming in their bucket but they like their water changed every second day. And this weekend I started a new pet – little kim chi! She’s pretty low maintenance but I think it’s good to check in on her every few days or she might get sulky and go mouldy.

Adam inspired me to try my own kim chi because I totally scoffed the batch he made a couple of weeks ago – delicious. So here’s a quick recipe, because kim chi is the bestus most delicious thing ever. And it stops you getting bird flu.

For a ridiculously big batch you’ll need some ingredients roughly like this:

• 2 big heads chinese cabbage (wom bok)
• 1 large daikon radish
• 1 carrot
• ginger to taste
• chillis - 3 small ones?
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 onion

You can also add spring onions, jerusalem artichokes, celery or whatever you have around.

You'll need good big jar, crock or bucket. Leftover catering supply buckets from a deli or café are good because they’re made of food grade plastic

• Chop your cabbage and daikon up - big chunks is fine.
• Now make a brine with 3 tablespoons of salt and a litre or so of water - just boil, dissolve and let it cool.
• Cover the cabbage and daikon with the brine. Press it down with a plate and a weight to keep it submerged. If you're using a jar wedge something in the top to keep your goodies underwater.
• Leave overnight or for a few hours. Drain the brine off but keep it somewhere.
• Taste your cabbage - it should be softened a little and salty. We want noticeably salty but not grossly so. If it's not salty sprinkle a little salt on, if it's too salty soak in fresh water for a couple of hours before you continue.
• Slice the carrot and onion, crush the garlic and ginger and chillies and mix them all together with the cabbage and daikon.
• Put back in your container and squish it down real hard with your weight – I use a big 4 litre jar filled with water on top of the plate. Brine and juices should come out to cover it all. Leave it for a few hours as more brine will come out. If it’s still not covered add a little of the reserved brine.
• Stick your weight back on and cover with a cotton bag or something to keep flies out.
• Wait. The kimchi should be ready in 3 to 10 days depending on the weather. Stir the brine on top occassionally to keep mould from forming. Make sure all the bits are submerged and taste regularly so it doesn’t get sulky.

Ok, so that’s a bit of a basic recipe done from memory. Hopefully it makes enough sense to follow. The thing is, kim chi is one of my favourite things but i never thought i could actually make it. Turns out it's really simple. It even tastes good after a day when it's just lightly pickled. Also if it does taste a little fizzy after a while don't worry, that's just the bacteria getting active and it will actually taste better again a few days later when they die off.

For an even simpler method you can see this site which has very endearing photos. I didn’t know that in korea they have kim chi gloves for mixing the chilli through.

^*fomo - fear of missing out. as in "i didn't go to the party last weekend and i had the worst case of fomo."

to warm your toes

And so, the temperature drops on the abruzzo club clock (8 degrees last night) and our correspondent's mind turns to keeping her toes warm... Yes folks Melbourne autumn - sure feels like winter.

When I can't find a lovely lady to keep me warm I find that zupa ogorkowa (pickle soup) is the next best thing. I made some for darling Bindi, who has been in the surgical wars and she was as pleased as could be. I used the last of the summer's homemade pickles, added a little celery but no flour so it was nice and brothlike.

Another good way to keep warm is of course, in front of the oven. For Asha's Mexican dinner I made a batch of spicy chocolate gingerbread. The plan was to amp up the chilli flavours but instead, due to a bit of vagueness and ignorance I ended up with a crazy black almost liquorice flavoured cake. See, I just don't know that much about molasses and didn't realise how strong blackstrap molasses is until Adam raised his eyebrows at me chucking half the jar in. He had me totally freaked out, telling me nobody but him was gonna be crazy enough to appreciate the heavy liqorice flavours. But it mellowed out in the oven and was a big hit. It's moist and just doesn't taste like it looks.. People were impressed and said it tasted "adult". Personally I'm not so much into being an adult, unless it's in an adult bookstore way.. But the cake rocked. I made it with a ganache chocolate topping because I've found the gingerbeer icing disappointing...

Now, I'm off to figure out what you can bake with tamarillos..

wife-swappin'

oh dearie, I have been a bad blogger. if anyone cares, well I offer my heartfelt apologies. It's not for lack of baking either - I've been getting back into the kitchen in a major way. Soon, inspired by my latest soba and seaweed rye bread success I'm going to write a little guide to sourdough. There really isn't much better than a house that smells of freshly baked bread and the loaves are getting fluffier, sour-er and altogether better by the week.

Otherwise, well it's autumn and that means quinces (poached Armenian style with a little rosewater and lemon), hearty soups and feijoas falling from the trees.

Meanwhile can I say again how much I love the chocolate lady? today she has a post about the historic practice of box socials - a kind of wife swapping in which men would bid for a box meal (picnic) and the chance to eat it with its maker. the chocolate lady seems a little aghast at the misogyny of it but i want to throw one immediately. what a great fundraiser...

little bundles of joy

these little babies date back to long long ago.. i made them prior to the arrival of my favourite little baby. see in the lead up to my sister giving birth i was unemployed and anxious to be of some assistance. i wasn't sure what i could do to help - pregnancy being kinda a one woman job and all. then i remembered cooking - that old failsafe neighbourly help out. i think bringing people food in times of trouble is one of the best things you can do. even times of joy like breeding because people tend to get overwhelmed and are not necessarily in a real state to be cooking.

so anyway i snapped into action with a mission to fill marion and andy's freezer. and these little pirozhki from my new russian cookbook turned out so good. they are just a little flaky with moist fillings and the perfect size to serve to all those pesky guests who drop around to look at cute babies. plus i like the way they look all snug-as-a-bug.. just like isaac when he's all bundled up in his favourite cocoon impersonation. they freeze real good too. oh now i'm not scared of pastry i just want to make pies all day long.


Pirozhki
To make these I used a quick yeast dough - you could substitute puff pastry but they wouldn't be quite as good. Then I made a potato filling and a cabbage filling.. mushroom would also be great.

The recipes are below but basically all you need to do is get your pastry and roll it out until it's about 1/8 inch thick. I dunno how thick that is but i reckon 2 - 3 cardboard coasters thick is about right. Now use a big drinking glass to cut out rounds. Flatten them between your fingers and place a heaping teaspoon of filling in the middle. Fold the edges together and press firmly to seal. Then press the edges back against the pirozhok and pat it into a nice little snug shape. Place on a baking tray with the seam down. Brush your little babies with an egg wash (1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp milk) and bake them at 180C until golden brown - 25 to 30 minutes. Now freeze for your loved ones or just eat them. Maybe with some sour cream? Definitely with strong tea with lemon.

ps - my book also helpfully clears up some worries I'd had about pirozhki, pierogi and all that. basically in russian a Pirog is a big pie. piroghi is the plural - many big pies. Pirozhok is a little pie and pirozhki is the plural. Pierogi on the other hand is Polish for dumplings. got it?

Dough:
(according to my book this recipe is "well known to every working Russian woman."
1 package dry yeast or 2 tsp fresh
2 tsp sugar
2/3 cup lukewarm milk
1 cup unsalted butter - melted and cooled to lukewarm
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp salt
3 1/4 - 3 3/4 cups unbleached plain flour

In a large bowl combine the yeast, sugar and milk and let stand until foamy - about 5 minutes.
Add the butter, egg and salt and mix well with a wooden spoon.
Stir in 3 1/4 cups flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing real well so you can get a big strong forearm like a true russian woman.
Transfer dough to a floured surface and knead gently until you have a smooth, rather loose dough, about 3 minutes, adding just enough of the remaining flour to prevent sticking.
Shape into a ball, cover with a tea towel and let stand for ten minutes.
Divide into thirds, stick them in plastic bags and refrigerate until you're ready to roll.

Potato filling:
3 tbsp vegie oil
2 large onions, chopped oh so fine
4 large boiling potato, boiled and mashed
1/2 cup famer's cheese (this is an american term for a white firm cheese - I used a polish one from the market but use what you can find - nothing strongly flavoured though)
4 tbsp butter, melted

Heat the oil in a heavy pan and saute the onions over a medium heat for a good long time until they're all browned - it should take about 15 minutes. Now mix them with all the rest of the stuff and season it well.

Cabbage filling:
1/2 head green cabbage chopped up real fine
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp vegie oil
2 hard boiled eggs, also chopped finely
2 tbsp or more chopped fresh dill

Blanch the cabbage in boiling salted water for 3 minutes. Drain well and squeeze to remove excess liquid.
Heat butter and oil in a large frypan. Add the cabbage and cook, stirring, until soft and coloured, 15 to 20 minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Season well and cool before using.

feeling festive?

ok i'm not really feeling super festive either... but i made these lovely hamentaschen a couple of weeks ago for Purim, the Jewish festival of Esther. Yeah I really do have my own festival I'm not just being self-centred. It's all about how I was a really hot lover and persuaded the king not to kill all the jews. Well that's what I got from a cursory torah reading the other night.

Anyway, the food, the food.. Hamentaschen (=Haman's pockets) are meant to look like the hat that the evil Haman wore. Why are they named after his pockets then? I don't know.

I used this recipe from the pie queen and made the apricot filling she gives as well as a poppyseed filling of my own invention. The poppyseeds were a winner with my family but the apricot stuff was damn good too. And it gave me an excuse to buy the middle-eastern dried apricot sheets I'd been eyeing off for years. All in all the Hamentaschen were crowd pleasers, with their biscuity dough and sweet three sided hat-like appearance. And my housemate Adam kept saying I'd been doing biblical baking which was pretty cute.

Sorry for my lame posting absences.. I'll be back shortly.

good things

1. Fried haloumi served with apple sorbet.
At the greek place diagonally opposite Stalactites. We had to order this dish twice and it made Dan so ecstatic he couldn't pronounce orgasmic.

2. Sandy made his first cake!
First I got a text message asking if the Passionfruit Sponge was a bit hard for a first time baker. I felt mean but I had to say yes, it took me forever to get that cake right. Next day I got a text asking me what it means to cream butter and sugar and it made me nervous but he did me so so so proud making the Prune and Whisky cake. And the next day he said "this baking thing rocks! everybody loved it." Oh yes folks we have another convert.

Oh yeah, and my sister had a baby!!!! I'm still so vagued out i can't even tell you how awesome that is.

go postal

I was thinking the other day about what cakes are best for mailing. Because it's my favourite thing to bake for people and i'm not gonna stop just because of a little thing like distance. I remember a couple of years ago I was really impressed when S's mum sent her an orange and poppyseed cake for her birthday. I think the trick is to fit them real snuggly into whatever container you're posting so they can't move around. Anyway, I decided on Brownies this time because they age quite well, are solid and can be carved into cutesy little shapes if you're feeling so inclined.

Brownies of course are a bit of a holy grail type of baking - so often they disappoint, being too dry, not chewy enough or just not chocolatey. Extensive web research took me to this recipe from Orangette for "best-ever brownies". Too cocky? Maybe not because they were damn damn good. Don't think I didn't use 2 blocks of Lindt 70% proof chocolate though.

The best thing about these brownies, after posting them off to adulation, was freezing them into icecream sandwiches to put in my sister Marion's freezer. And now that she's popped my little nephew out she's allowed to eat them. They are so so so good frozen.

Chocolate Brownies
Adapted by Orangette from Baking with Julia and meddled with by me just a tad.
There's a tempting picture of these at Chef Kristy

1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
240gms unsalted butter
180gms best darkest chocolate you can find
2 cups raw sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 handful of chopped nuts - I used walnuts and pecans

Center a rack in the oven, and preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and salt; set aside.

Melt the butter and the chocolate together in a metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water making sure the bowl doesn't touch the water. Stir frequently. When the chocolate and butter are both melted and smooth, add 1 cup of the sugar to the mixture, and stir it for 30 seconds; then remove the mixture from the heat, and stir in the vanilla extract. Pour the mixture into a large bowl.

Put the remaining 1 cup sugar and the eggs into a medium bowl, and whisk by hand to combine. Little by little, pour half of the sugar and eggs into the chocolate mixture, stirring gently but constantly with a rubber spatula so that the eggs don’t scramble from the heat. Beat the remaining sugar and eggs on medium speed until they are thick, pale, and doubled in volume, about 3 minutes. Using the rubber spatula, gently fold the whipped eggs and sugar into the chocolate mixture. When the eggs are almost completely incorporated, gently fold in the flour and half the nuts.

Pour and scrape the batter into an unbuttered 8-inch square pan, a heavy non-stick one is good. Scatter the rest of the nuts on top. Bake the brownies for 25-28 minutes, during which time they will rise a bit and the top will turn dry and a bit crackly. After 23 minutes, stick a knife or toothpick into the center to see how they are progressing. They should be just barely set—not too raw, but still fairly gooey (mine took about 28 and were possibly a little mushy in the middle). Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack. When they’re completely cool, cut them into rectangular bars to serve. Or carve into love hearts etc.

For ice cream sandwiches cut them in half into thin slices and put a good couple of inches of vanilla ice cream in the middle. Re-freeze. Gobble. Collapse in ecstatic goodness.

cakes and the cake lady

I love geeks who cook. This is the insides of a PC in gingerbread!

And talking of genius cakes, Nat the cakelady is doing an art project with Jo where they hitch around Oystralia and talk to truck drivers and take pictures. Pay them a visit.

the less sweet beet?

You know, I really love silverbeet. I can tell it's love because I don't just like to eat it, I feel the need to protect it. I worry about how people seem to think of it as inferior to spinach. It's so unfair because silverbeet is better really - it doesn't turn into a little pile of nothing, it doesn't make your teeth go funny and fuzzy. Best of all, it's so easy to grow so you can always have some for all your greenery needs. Still being a bit homeless myself I went over to Marion's to pick some from her crazy overrun underloved garden and made pie. Pie making seems to be what i do these days.


Silverbeet Torte
My cousin Tessa made this for Chrismukkah dinner (see picture) and it rocked. We kept calling it a pie and she got a little irate and insisted we call it a torte. As far as I knew a torte was a cake. Dictionary.com agrees. But hey, if she wants it to be a torte that's fine. Either way it's real yum and has a great texture in the middle because of the egg and potato - it's a bit like spanish omelette in that way. I made the recipe as it is below but I'd probably make the dough without using a food processor next time as I think it was a little overworked. I made mine round as suggested and a little flatter - about 3 inches high.

Dough:
200g p flour
1/2 tsp salt
1+1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup cold water

Whizz flour and salt in food processor. Drizzle in oil and then water. Process dough for about a minute until it forms a ball. Remove to floured surface and knead for 2-3 mins until supple and smooth. Place in bowl, cover with cloth, refrigerate for 2 hours. Preheat oven to 200c & lightly oil a 28cm pizza tray (or whatever).

Filling:
150g silverbeet leaves and stalks (or rainbow chard), washed and drained
1 tbsp salt
1 medium potato (150g), boiled whole & roughly chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp chopped parsley (I used more of course)
150g crumbled "stretchy" cheese (fontina, asiago, mozzarella or feta - I used fetta and some swiss that was in the fridge)
freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg
2 tbsp extra virgin oil
sea salt

Finely shred and chop silverbeet. Place in colander and toss with tbsp of salt. Leave for 20mins, then rinse and squeeze dry (Tessa says you can skip this step but I'm such a stickler I didn't). Mix silverbeet with chopped potato, diced onion, parsley and cheese. Season with pepper. Whisk the egg with the olive oil and mix through the filling. Taste for salt.

Roll two-thirds of dought on floured surface into a circle to cover base of pizza tray. Spoon on the filling, leaving 2cm border of dough. Stretch back the edge of dough over filling pleating it as you go. Dampen with water. Roll remaining dough a little smaller and drape it over the filling. Press to seal with the pleated edge. Pierce here and there with a fork then drizzle top with remaining oil and scatter with a few grains of sea salt. Bake for 20 mins or until golden. Leave to settle 10 mins before cutting.

simple things

Simple pleasures like zucchini from Ruth's garden quickly browned then covered in mint, fetta and eggs for omelettes I could eat everyday.

Or tomatoes tasting good like you know they won't in a month or two so you grab some basil from the garden and a bit of cheese and have the best pasta ever nestled down in front of an old musical.

High Society was just perfect. There's Grace Kelly with her too perfect waves. How does she get her hair to stay like that? There's Frank Sinatra as the cynical little reporter for the gossip rag (damn he's short!). And there's Bing Crosby all romantic fool singing sweetly. It was great to see everyone being so enthusiastic about drinking. This is a movie not just with a drunk scene but a hangover scene too. Grace even has a memory blackout about whether she's gotten it on with Frank or not!

And then I realised that this movie is the forerunner to The OC. Frank and his photographer girl are the outsiders coming to Newport (yes, the same newport) expecting to hate the idle rich. They pooh poo all their luxuries in the excellent "Who want to be a millionaire?" The pretty rich girl has all the men falling all over her and there's a nasty patriach lurking. But then surprise surprise, these filthy rich mansion dwellers turn out to be pretty darn nice people too and they teach our working pals a thing or two with a bunch of great songs. Oh if only it was all that sweet and simple.

and more friends

a little plug for foodgoat who has been having the most brilliant photo posts recently. this excellent knifeblock for one.
darth vader out of butter. for two.
cakes that look like butter. for three.
and then there's an evil satanic child with peas.
go. go see...

guess who's procrastinating?

I am trying to write job applications and, taking Az's advice, I've been using the thesaurus to avoid repeating myself over and over. But it doesn't understand me! Like when I feel geeky saying that I'm "excited" by the potential of peer advocacy I look up excited and get:
- keyed up
- thrilled
- provoked
- agitated
or maybe:
"I am hot and bothered about the possibilities offered by such an approach."

Yup, now that's super professional. Gahh I hate doing the self-promoting schtick.

and on my right...

I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce the newest name on my links list - the chocolate lady over at In Mol Araan. I first read some of her work on a Passover survival guide my mum emailed me a few years back. Sure, Nell and I laughed at the idea of grilling matzah balls but you know, her soup recipe sure saved me some pain. That's why the chocolate lady says:
kikts in mol araan es zol zikh mertshem in gantsn oysvepn enker zup-bahole!

Or in English:
Come to In Mol Araan and watch your soup-angst evaporate!

Food and yiddish. And cute pictures. What more do you need already? More? Well she has a lovely way with words. In the current post she describes bleeding heart radishes as possessing a stormy pinkness. Ahhh, now that's the kind of wordsmithing to soothe my soul.

In other random internet news I found something actually interesting in one of the spammy comments I used to get. Apparently kimchi can cure bird flu:

"Quoting the team's test results, BBC said of the 13 chickens stricken with the influenza, 11 had shown telling curative effects after being administered kimchi extracts."

Now is that why Adam has those vats of cabbage fermenting? He is a bit of a survivalist.

please to the table

I'm trying to be grateful for how much time i have on my hands right now. It's kind of doing my head in having so little structure in my life but i know as soon as i get a job i'll be wishing i had more time for lying around, reading and cooking. So instead of moping - no actually, as well as moping - i'm living my life from a series of lists i made while i was travelling. There are pages and pages of them written up and stuck on my walls - things to research in the library, things to do right now, fun things, regular things, long term ideas and of course: things to cook.

The things to cook list is all the foods i dreamt of fondly while i was away and this walnut sauce was one of the first to make the list. "Walnut sauce?!?" everyone said yesterday when i pulled some out at the harvest festival. Ya huh. It's creamy without dairy, it's garlicky and it does something unexplainably sneakishly good.

I made this first for Chrismukkah 2004 from moro, which has the Turkish version called Tarator. Then I noticed a Georgian version in my new cookbook, Please to the table so I thought I'd try that. Please to the table says that at any good Georgian party you'll get at least three vegetables dressed with this sauce. They're called pkhali. I love it with roasted eggplant, or green beans or even thinned down on cucumber. It's also meant to be good with beetroots which i'll be trying very very soon. The main thing is to make the sauce 6 to 8 hours ahead so the garlic flavour settles and to serve it at room temperature.

Walnut sauce, georgian style
3/4 cup walnuts
4 cloves garlic
3 tbsps coriander leaf finely minced
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
pinch cayenne
1/4 tsp fenugreek
1 1/2 tbsps white wine vinegar
3 tbsps water or more
salt

Pound the garlic up in your trusty mortar and pestle. Add the walnuts and dry spices and keep pounding till they're all mushed. Add the water and vinegar until you have a sauce and then stir the coriander through. Mix through your chosen vegetables and chill for 6 hours or so.

Eggplant pkhali made a great starter the other day with warm bread - until me and Sammy pigged out on it too much and couldn't fit in the delicious cold borscht I'd made. Just chop a big eggplant or two in half lengthwise, prick with a fork a few times and whack it on a oiled tray in a hot oven. Bake until it goes all wrinkly and the flesh is soft and browning. Scoop the flesh out and mix with the sauce, thinking all the time about how the phrase "scoop the flesh out" makes you feel a bit wrong and kinda good at the same time.

crash landing

Killer says it's landing pain. Better than "adjustment angst". Whatever you call it though there's days that are ok, days that suck, moments of beautiful light and times that don't really bear describing. Then there's cooking. When I was away I realised I often undervalue the things that really matter to me. Cooking and gardening aren't just hobbies - they're work in the real sense of the thing... labour that creates something. My hands need to move, I need to feel I'm producing something and we all need to eat.

Wednesday night dinner... me and S. had to meet and talk. There are some things you can't say via text message. I changed the menu plan 5 times. I wasn't sure I wanted to make something really amazing if we would both feel too sick to eat. But then I wanted to make something amazing.

Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons still hasn't made it back to the library so I decided on the piadina with caramelised onions, walnuts and taleggio. Piadina is an Italian flatbread that was ridiculously easy to make - mix flour, oil and water; knead; roll out; fry in rounds. I'm cheese mad right now and taleggio might be my new favourite indulgence. It's creamy almost like brie but with more of an aged blue taste. And bubbling under the grill over a spread of caramelised onions and walnuts on the piadina... well it was so good it tasted amazing even on a clenched tight stomach. Maybe I was overdoing it because I needed to keep busy that afternoon or maybe it's that I don't know how to cook for two. But I couldn't help myself from cooking up some garden fresh zucchinis with mint and chilli, and Abla's fried cauliflower with tahini sauce. Rocket salad added the peppery greenness needed.

Later... things were going ok. As ok as can be expected. And there was this cake to bring us back to the table. It's good cake. The kind of cake that comforts, doesn't scream about itself but impresses quietly. I'm a big fan of yoghurt cakes and they're stupidly easy. That ain't a bad thing.

Yoghurt and Walnut Cake with Coffee Syrup
from Crazy Water Pickled Lemons

This cake is meant to be made the day before but I didn't read that until it was too late. It was still good on the day but better the next.

175g butter
175g caster sugar
2 eggs
175g plain yoghurt (preferably Greek style. the new Chris's yoghurt is awesome)
175g shelled walnuts
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
icing sugar

For the syrup:
275ml strong espresso coffee
75g caster sugar
2 tbsp brandy if you got it (I didn't)

1. Preheat your oven to 180C

2. Take 125g of the walnuts and chop em roughly. Yeah rough, they like it like that. Take the remainder and grind them in a mortar and pestle or somehow.

3. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue to beat. Stir in the yoghurt and nuts.

4. Sift the flour and baking powder and fold into the batter. Pour into a greased and lined tin about 8 inches across. Bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

5. Mix the coffee with the sugar and boil until it's reduced by half. Add the brandy.

6. While the cake is still warm pierce it all over with the skewer and pour the coffee syrup on. Leave in the tin overnight if you're that organised.

7. Unmould the cake and dust it with icing sugar. Serve it with more yoghurt or maybe even with the Leche Merengada you just made? (see below)

better than ice cream?

Ok, I've been wanting to post this since Chrismukkah because it's one of those little secrets I wanna share. The picture is awful I know - the white blob is what we're talking about, and then that's Marion's lovely pudding, and my new shirt.

Anyway, Leche Merengada is just one of the tastiest and refreshingest things ever. It seems really classy somehow and is perfect for the end of a massive meal when ice cream might be a bit too much but sorbet just wouldn't work with the pudding. It's from Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons which we got out from the library again. I fell in love with that book all over again and this is just one of the reasons why.

Leche Merengada just means "meringued milk" and it's easier too than a custard based ice cream. You don't need an ice cream maker or nothing. So if it's hot where you are trust me on this little secret and get to it.

425 ml milk
150 ml runny cream (not thickened)
150g caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp brandy
3 egg whites
ground cinnamon

1. Put the milk, cream and 100g of the sugar into a saucepan with the lemon and cinnamon stick. Bring to just under the boil, remove from the heat and let it infuse for about 40 minutes. Strain through a sieve and add the brandy.

2. Whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar until stiff. Fold this into the cream and milk mixture - it will seem impossible to incorporate, but don't worry, as it will all get beaten together during the freezing process. Now put it into the freezer and just beat it with electric beaters or a food processor every hour or two until it looks good. Maybe 4 - 6 or more hours? Or use an ice-cream machine if ya got one.

3. Sprinkle with cinnamon before serving or if you're feeling really hip the book suggests you can serve it with a shot of iced espresso over the top for a "blanco y negro."

walls and all

Reading the Brooklyn Dispatch i find this disturbing article from the NYTimes about architecture and the West Bank barrier wall. Should I be surprised to read General Chavez from the Israeli Defense Forces' Operational Theory Research Institute quoting Deleuze & Guattari? Talking of smooth and striated spaces, air surveillance and swarming soldiers.

And it's just a week or two ago I was learning bout the political distinctions over at liz's blog. Striated space seemed like the trouble then.. and things seemed more hopeful, more poetic. It's kinda scary to see leftist theory regurgitated by the IDF. Kinda very.

Ok, I'm no theory head it's true.. but i'm still trying to get smarter and Killer wants to go to Queeruption this year in Tel Aviv so it's time to get thinking, don't you think?

back. and fuller than ever

Folks i've missed you.
6 glorious months staying with friends, cooking on fires and a campstove that had a tendency to burst into flames. I missed baking.

Here's Rocky the crocodile oven mit with the first of two pies i've made in recent sydney visits. I'm hoping to get some kinda reputation in sin city. I made the pecan pie in december using stephanie the pie queen's recipe. It was some excellent pie, squooshy and caramellish with a bit more body than most because of the eggs i think. It should come with a warning though - this pie is almost all sugar products. We had to lie down afterwards but hey, there are worse things than a post-pie nap.

The best bit is that i'm getting over my fear of pastry. I used the pie crust recipe that stephanie has for her apple pie and well, it just worked. No fussin. It made two crusts so of course i had to come back to sydney to use the one i stashed in the lander st freezer. Last night i used it up with a cherry pie to celebrate all the plump and tasty cherries around. Couldn't find a recipe i loved so i made one up. It was delicious and lemony though i didn't calculate how many cherries i'd need very well. So it was more of a cherry tart - not quite deep enough to qualify as pie. Maybe tarts are more classy anyway?

Well, i'm out of training with this blog business but i'll be back soon with the successful chrismukkah recipes. 'til then, if you want to give it a go:

(She's My) Cherry Pie
1 pie crust
1 egg yolk
100 g ground almonds
lots of fresh cherries - maybe a kilo?
zest of one lemon
white sugar

Roll out and blind bake your pie crust for about 15 minutes at 190C. Then brush it with egg yolk and bake it until golden. This will seal it so it doesn't go soggy. Meanwhile pit the cherries, getting red juice sprayed over everything. Stick them in a pot with the lemon juice and a half handful of sugar. Cook them just til they collapse a bit. When the pie crust is done cover it with the almond meal. Add the cherries, but maybe not all the juice from the pot. Top with cute designs made in leftover pastry and bake at 180 for about 40 - 50 minutes. Let it sit a moment and then devour with thick cream or icecream. If you're lucky like us friends will drop by to help with the devouring.

au revoir...

hey folks,
i think the time has come to say goodbye. I'm leaving on Thursday for 6 months of road tripping around this crazy land so I don't think there'll be much blogging. And probably, there won't be too much high quality cooking for a while either. So thanks for reading, it's been fun to do.

If full as a goog does return it'll probably be in a different form - i like writing about food but i'm a bit sick of it too. I used to think I should keep all my other thoughts for zines and letters but lately i wanna be a part of the thinking blog world... wanna write all the stuff that's been taking up my headspace like thinking about infatuation, booty dancing, mail love and mechanics. So we'll see...

happy baking,
xo
esther

at last, cherry dumplings

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time might remember how Sarah and I tried so many times to go and eat at Cafe Armenia, a restaurant we'd come across when eating Korean in Carnegie. As with all holy grail type quests, we had been rebuffed many times. This was a restaurant that seemed to think nothing of ignoring its own opening hours, or having private functions... anything to stop us getting in and trying all the morsels that tempted us on the menu: beans with walnuts and garlic, pickles, pancakes and of course, cherry dumplings.

But readers, you will be glad to know that your nights of the laminex table can rest now because on Thursday Cafe Armenia was open! I would like to state for the record, that this is the raddest restaurant in town. It was like eating in someone's lounge room. Picture a small shopfront cafe; folky paintings of Armenia (we guess) on the wall, some odd carved knicknacks, plastic tablecloths. The place looks like it's been there since the 60s, even though it's only been opened a year or two. Down one side there's a bench and shelves topped with plates, plates like your grandma might have had, with gold rims half worn off. A plasticy stereo. Up the back some old men and a woman rant at each other from separate tables. In the middle a family with one child eat some seriously meaty looking soup from a big tureen. And over all of this hangs a big black cloud smelling unmistakeably of barbecue. Yep, the perfect place for a hot date. Sarah and I almost wet ourselves with excitement that we were actually in there!

Before we ordered we were served a big plate of flat bread with a little jug of a salsa like red sauce. Very oniony and delicious. We ordered most of the vegetarian options, forgoing potato dumplings to leave room for cherry. I ordered a mineral water - they brought us a Coles brand 1.25l bottle. Food came really fast - a bowl of delicous red bean, walnut and garlic spread. Then a plate of mixed pickles - "hot" he warned us. "It's okay, we like hot." "Eat it", he urged. I nibbled an end and nodded my approval. He seemed satisfied that we were tough enough, and wandered off. Next came two pancakes - much like blintzes, they were rolled around a ricotta and sultana filling and crisply fried. Served with sour cream on top they were awesome. Then there was a big fat cabbage roll, full of rice and yummy things.

I worried we were getting full. But the unobtrusive (absent) service gave us plenty of time to digest. And finally we had enough room to order cherry dumplings. In Poland these would be described as pierogi, or in Russia, as pelmeni - basically they were little half moons of a pasta-like dough wrapped around a great cherry filling. There was bite, there was real cherry lumps, and flavour. Served with sour cream they were about as heavenly an end to this holy quest as we could have hoped for.

So viva the Armenians. I didn't know much about them - somewhere between the Middle East and Eastern Europe? Turns out it's kinda in the middle of Turkey, Iran, Georgia and Azerbijan. Prone to invasion like my poor Poland, but I guess there are culinary benefits to having all those armies passing through. You can tell at Cafe Armenia, that it must be a land where they've taken the best from all around them. Meat eaters would be very happy too - lots of crazy stews and swords of bbq meat. But we were rapt too. I think maybe divey is my favourite restaurant aesthetic and it only made me happier when Sarah went out the back to the toilet and reported that the kitchen was like a family one, complete with piles of boiled potatoes everywhere and an old lady with bright red lipstick and a ciggy hanging out of her mouth.

come fry with me...

Feeling oily? John Travolta is, and so am I.

"A deep fried party? Who's stupid idea was that?" That's what I was asked on Sunday. Well, I think it was mine. And it rocked.

Yes kids, on Saturday Bindy and I went through with our crazy plan to have a deep fry party. And although it was really nuts, I feel a strange sense of smug self-satisfaction. I fear it says something bad about my life that turning myself and a dozen friends into ill greaseballs is what gives me a sense of achievement.

We made heaps of yummy stuff. We fried. We ate. We drank beer. We clutched our bellies. We groaned. Then we went off and partied like maniacs, with lots of grease to soak up all the liquor. And I woke up feeling awesome on Sunday morning. So who said oil is so bad for you?



Here's the menu:

• Arancini - lemon risotto rolled around mozarella and then crumbed
  
• Crumbed eggplant sticks and mushrooms
  
• Beer battered cauliflower and broccoli
• Battered olives
• Crumbed camembert
• Parsnip and sweet potato chips
• Battered mini-Mars and Bounty bars
• Battered Tim Tams
  
• Pineapple and banana fritters

Oh, it seems like there was more than that. I dunno. There was great aioli, sambal and pickles. Oh yes, we did batter and fry a dill pickle too. Tim Tams didn't really work but the olives were surprisingly good. I was happy with the batter. The arancini were awesome, golden and crunchy, then ricey with gooey centres of mozarella. And I was very impressed with the Japanese "bread" crumbs I used - extra crunchy.

There wasn't as much crazy random deep frying as I thought - you know, people pulling things out of the fridge and battering them. But it was really fun gathering round Bindy's cute 70s deep fryer (strangely called "Cook n' Clean" even though it did no cleaning). Another culinary dream achieved... next stop, bomb alaska?

I just feel bad that Bindy's house smells like a chip shop.

come fly with me....

Well, it has been a mega crazy weekend. So much fun I feel quite manic... Among many exciting happenings was my first decorated cake experience.

It was Marion's 30th birthday party on Sunday so I offered to make a cake. I was shocked when she said that Andy, her "I can't cook" boyf, claimed to have it "under control."

The next day I had about 5 phone calls from Andy looking for help and advice. He wanted to do a cake that showed Marion in either a sports car or a plane and he was thinking of just buying cakes and icing from Safeway. "Safeway? Nooooo!" I screamed, knowing that Marion would be very unhappy to cut open her cake and find it bland and foamy. So I stupidly offered to make the cakes and help him put it together.

5 cake batters, 4 bowls of icing and hours of gruelling labour later we had a cake that looked a bit like a 5 year old had designed it.



But Marion and the crowd were suitably impressed and at least it tasted delicious. For the fusillage I used 3 lemon cakes and the icing was flavoured with fresh lime juice. The wings are a simple chocolate cake with a thick icing made from real chocolate. Luckily both the cakes were pretty solid and easily carved by Andy, who did do a good job of wielding the knife. And the punters were more than happy to gobble it all up, leaving things looking a little sad.



Making the cake made me realise how the woman in The Hoursfeels when she gets all the crumbs in her icing. I'm sooo not a perfectionist but I was incredibly frustrated by how the icing dripped everywhere, fell off and generally looked a bit wrong. Luckily we served the cake in a dimly lit bar. Still, this decorating business sure is hard work and it gave me a heap more respect for my old housie Nat, aka The Cake Lady (scroll down for a pic), who used to spend weeks putting together her detailed little cake sculptures.

If anyone wants to cake recipes let me know and I'll post them. I mainly chose them because they are really easy to make and quite firm, but they're definitely good stand-by cakes to have in your repertoire.

Prune and Whisky Cake

I'm not sure if I can convey how wonderful this cake is. It's amazingly moist, with a great springy texture and the glaze makes it glamourous and just sticky enough. Plus, springing out of my excellent new bundt/kugelhupf tin it looks amazing.

As I mentioned in my last post, I did have a few problems with people who have weird issues about prunes. I blame those bad American college movies where they make prune/laxative jokes. But I really doubt prunes have any more dietary effects than dried apricots - they just got a weird reputation. Anyway, maybe you should tell people it's a plum and whisky cake. Half the people at the party I took this to didn't even know that prunes are dried plums. Although maybe it's better to tell everyone what's in it and then there's more cake for those who don't have such stupid prejudices.

With that disclaimer done, may I heartily encourage you to make this cake - it is just so damn good and mine turned out perfectly risen and formed with very little effort.

Prune and Whisky Cake
(adapted from the excellent Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts)

For the cake you'll need:

• 2 cups pitted prunes
• 0.25 cup scotch whisky
• 2 cups water
• 0.75 cup vegie oil
• 1.5 cups packed brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2.75 cups unbleached white flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 0.5 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 0.5 tsp ground cardamon
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup buttermilk (I used sour cream thinned with milk because that's what I had)

For the glaze you need:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 0.25 cup more scotch
• 0.25 cup liquid from the prune cooking

In a small saucepan, combine the prunes, whisky and water. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the prunes are very tender. Drain, keeping the liquid. Coarsely chop the prunes and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 10 inch bundt pan. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the oil and brown sugar with an electric mixer. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and other dry ingredients. Add the flour mixture the batter, beating until well blended. Pour in the buttermilk and beat until just smooth. Fold in the chopped prunes.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for at least an hour (mine took 15 minutes more). If you stick a knife in it should come out clean. Now cool the cake in a pan for 10 minutes. Then invert onto a serving platter and cool for 15 minutes more - still in the tin. Then remove the pan.

To make the glaze - combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Cook on medium-high heat for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat. Pierce the top of the cake with a skewer or toothpick in 10 places. Slowly pour the glaze over the cake, allowing it to soak in.

Serve to ooohs and aaahs. (with or without mentioning what's in it.)

is baking becoming a problem?

Nell asked me this yesterday when I told her I was going home to bake for the third time in the week. "Hmmm. Every 48 hours." she said "Could be a cause for concern."

Do I bake when I feel upset or angry?
Possibly. But it works.

Does my baking cause injuries?
Well, just a couple of burns. And a belly.

Am I binge baking?
No I never bake more than 6 cakes a night, unless you count cupcakes.

Are friends or co-workers worried about my baking?
Hell no, I don't hear any complaints from those doing the eatin.

On Wednesday, for Eve's birthday I made these cupcakes.
What is with that American thing where white cakes are Angel food and Chocolate ones are Devil's food. White-supremacy with your baking? Yes please. But the cupcakes were great. Very childhood tasting. And they travelled well so I could take them to dinner.

Friday, I made an amazing Prune and Whiskey cake in my brand-new kugelhupf tin.
(Or bundt tin if you prefer.) This was an adaptation from the prune and armagnac recipe in my desserts book. I'll post the recipe soon as I can because it was a winner - it looked awesome and was moist, sticky and irresistible. (Despite all the rude comments people made about prunes... c'mon, they're just dried plums!)

And yesterday I baked this cake - a Spicy Chocolate Gingerbread.
I think all the other perfectly risen, well formed, easy to turn out goodies had made me over confident. This brought me back down to earth - it sunk in the middle like a swimming pool. I blame the weirdo silicone bakeware my Mum gave me. But it tasted bloody delicious, had a real chilli kick and was gobbled up appreciatively by housemates and my guest.

This week I think I'll have to make some savoury foods.

drooling and mashing

Well I've been spending far too much time cruising the innahnet looking at other people's blogs. It's enough to make you drool. Of course I don't have any sensible way of keeping track of them all - I just jump around and then forget where the good ones are. But here's a little roundup. I won't be adding all these to my links - no offense it's just there's so many better collections of food links out there. And discovering is half the fun.

With its reviews of cheapo dumpling joints and chinese bakery good Grab Your Fork is right up my dark alley. If only it was Melbourne based instead of Sydney.

You'll notice I've been referencing Niki lately. Since the treacle stout cake I feel I owe her bigtime because that is one recipe that will stick with me.

Neiko's blog Nordljus is insanely pornographic - you have to see these food photos to believe 'em. Some of the recipes are a bit too fancy for me to ever try but I'm going to make the brown bread icecream tomorrow I think.

What I Cooked Last Night is a fellow Melbournian. And gave props to Scheherezade, my favourite old school restaurant. So they get a return visit.

And lastly, I love the writing at Pie Queen. The post on Red Velvet cake, Dorothy Allison and trash cakes was great. I wanna get to know this queen.

And now for a great picture:

It's no wonder my housemates were worried there's an alien in the house. But don't freak out - it's just celeriac. I think I'm gonna get off this computer now and go cook this little baby up. Probably the same way I made it last weekend - boiled with potatoes and a some whole garlics. Mashed with soy milk, butter, mustard and lots of salt. You know this cold weather sure is making me cook. If you're good soon I'll post my killer chickpea dish which I made again last night.

chocolate chilli time

You want more chocolate goodness? Well so do I, and I like my chocolate hot!

Yesterday Bindy and I finally made the brunch I've been planning ever since my sister gave me a churerra for christmas. We had churros and thick dark cinnamon hot chocolate. Churros are one of my favourite types of donuts. I think the translation that the churrera gave of "extruded fritte-finger" doesn't quite do justice to these long crisp fried delights. Ours weren't perfect, being a little too crunchy and not quite moist enough in the middle but they were pretty damn fine. Washed down with some excellent thick spicy hot chocolate they were a feasty brunch.

Anyway, for those of you who aren't lucky enough to have a churrera, or who don't want to be deep frying, I thought I'd include another excellent way to eat chocolate with a latin touch.

I first got excited about chocolate with chilli when I tried Charmaine's choc-chilli ice cream way back in high school. It was a hot fave for over a decade and I remain devoted to this taste combination, even as it has gone mainstream. (witness the chocolate chilli Tim Tams if you will.)

These cookies are a bit of a pain to make, mainly because they need flipping over, but they're not difficult and they are extremely popular. On a long car trip to Lismore one summer Camilla managed to polish off a few dozen in the front seat before the rest of us had even had seconds. Luckily it makes close to 12 dozen cookies.

This recipe is adapted from Mexico: The Vegetarian Table, a book well worth finding.

Chocolate Chilli Cookies

• 270g dark chocolate

• 1/4 cup water

• 4 cups flour

• 1/2 cup cocoa

• 2 tsp pure chilli powder

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp cayenne

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 12 tbsps butter (1 1/2 sticks)

• 1 1/2 cups sugar

• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

• 2 eggs

• 1/2 cup pure icing sugar

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Set aside. Sift together the flour, cocoa, chilli, cinnamon, cayenned and salt. Set aside. Using electric beaters if you have them, beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs and water then the chocolate. Add the dry ingredients in a few batches, beating it really well after each addition. It should make a pretty solid but slightly moist dough.

Divide the dough into 4 equal parts. On a lightly floured surface roll each into a big brown poo of a log – it should be about 12 inches long and 1 1/2 inches high. Place the logs on a tray, cover with a plastic bag or something and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 2 – they need to be firm but not hard or the next bit won’t work.

When ready to bake preheat yr oven to 350F. Slice the dough logs into 1/4 inch slices and arrange on ungreased baking trays. Bake them until they go a bit lighter and are crusty around the edges – 6 minutes. Now take them out and, trying not to burn yourself, flip them over. Bake for another 8 minutes or until they’re not wet in the middle. You might want to undercook them a bit for extra chew - or try different timings on different batches and see what you like.

In any case, when you think they're done remove 'em from the oven and let them cool on the tray for 5 minutes before moving to a plate. Sift the icing sugar over them. (I normally skip that bit). These keep fairly well in a airtight cookie jar if you want to take them to school for play lunch or something.

the recipe everyone wants

Chocolate Guinness Cake
Prompted by Niki's excellent stout cake, I thought I'd post my recipe for a guinness cake. This came to me from my sister, who got it off her friend Maria, who got it off a woman named Karen. Which just goes to show how good a cake it is - the kind where everyone wants the recipe. Like Niki's cake it's a piece of piss to make and very very moist. Excellent for chocolate cravings and also a good cake to take to dinners or whatever - people always seem quite impressed by it.

My chocolate cake rule is it ain’t a chocolate cake if it doesn’t have chocolate in it. I won’t stand for none of those brown cakes that just have a few tablespoons of cocoa in them. This is the cake exception that proves the rule. I think it's because the guinness makes it so moist, and then you pour heaps of chocolate over the top!

You be needing:

• 175g plain flour

• a pinch of baking powder

• 1 tsp bicarb (baking soda)

• 110g butter

• 250g dark brown sugar

• 2 eggs, beaten up

• 200ml Guinness (or another stout)
  

• 55g cocoa

• 200gm dark chocolate

• 1/2 cup cream

• 1 extra tbsp butter

Now, line your cake tin well with some spare paper and preheat your oven to 180C. You need three bowls. In the first one sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarb. In a biggish one cream the butter, sugar and eggs. In the third bowl mix together the Guinness and cocoa – don’t beat it too much as you want the Guinness to stay bubbly. Now mix all three bowls together, adding them alternately to the biggest bowl. Stir it as little as possible. Pour it into your tin and wack it in the oven. It should take 45min until it’s not gooey in the middle. Leave it to cool for a bit and prepare the icing: in a double boiler melt the chocolate, add the cream and extra butter. Pour this chocolatey goodness all over the cake. It will set a bit as it cools but it’s good wet too. Top with strawberries or kiwi slices or something for true fanciness.

baking again

Well I know I've been a little slack of lately - I've barely been cooking - both because of running around like crazy and because lately Texta's mum has been visiting and cooking all day every day. Now, I'm not about to complain about a constant variety of curries, chutneys and delicious spicy fried potatoes but I do feel a little ungrounded when I don't cook.

So Saturday morning I forced my way into the kitchen, grabbed a spare stove burner and a corner of the table and whipped up this cake from a fellow Australian blogger. It's a treacle, stout, pear and spice cake... oh yes! It's a dark, moist gingery cake and the pears are delicious. I've been looking for a good pear cake recipe for a while so I am very very happy. And as some of you would know from my chocolate guinness cake days, I love a good stout cake. Of course, the fact that it is incredibly easy to make was pretty nice too. I suspect it's one of those cakes that is virtually foolproof: it doesn't have any egg white whipping or tricky bits. So expect me to be bringing this to all sorts of events this autumn.

And maybe I'll post the chocolate guinness cake recipe soon as a comparison.