what am i, chopped liver?

Well, preparations for the Polish/Russian birthday feast are well underway. I made this vegetarian chopped liver and it's pretty tasty. For anyone who doesn't know - chopped liver is a traditional Sabbath dish for Eastern European jews. It's thought that Pate might have originated in this dish, also made by Jews in France long ago. And of course it's become a classic NY deli sandwich - chopped liver on rye, with lettuce, tomato and sliced onion.

I first tried vegie chopped liver at B & H Dairy, an awesome little Kosher diner in the East Village. There's no meat at B & H, just amazing Challah french toast, greasy blintzes and a changing roster of wonderful soups - Borscht, Matzoh Dumpling.... And I love the flirtatious old guys there.

Anyway, the chopped liver recipe above is well worth a try even if you don't have a nostalgic longing for B & H. Think of it as a walnut and lentil pate if that makes it seem more appetising. Sarah was a little disappointed because she'd always thought chopped liver referred to little jelly-ish cubes of liver... somehow "what am I, cubed liver?" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

We also spent Saturday night cooking - making and freezing a big batch of Pierogi. I love Pierogi, which are kind of Polish ravioli - little half-moon dumplings that can be served fried or boiled. We had three fillings: sauerkraut; potato and dill; and apricot and cottage cheese. We used this recipe and it wasn't nearly as tricky as I thought - it just takes a little while. We tripled the dough quantities, which is why we were still boiling them at midnight. Sarah was much better than me at rolling the dough out thinly so we have a variety of dumplings. I guess that's what home cooking is about though - they don't look like they came out of a packet.

Ooh yeah honey, we're gonna be a feasting.

a polish russian feast

Oh, I gotta stop stealing these tacky internet images I know... but what's a girl to do?

So the birthday plan is this: I'm going to break out all the infused vodkas I've been making. The cherry one is going to be a winner I know. And there'll be a big long table spread with zakuski, the little appetisers that go so well with vodka. Being vegetarian I'll be skipping the most popular options - caviar and herring, but my love of pickles will overcome that. So far the spread looks like this:

* pickles (cucumber and maybe tomato)
* beetroot salad
* russian potato salad
* carrot salad
* blini - mini pancakes with dill and sour cream
* spicy georgian red beans
* walnut spread
* egg salad
* vegetarian chopped liver
* pickled mushrooms
* cucumber salad
* radishes and other crunchy vegies
* bulgarian fetta

There'll also be chlodnik courtesy of Marion, which is a wonderful cold yoghurty soup with cucumber and beetroot. I'm also considering a few more substantial dishes like cabbage rolls and pierogi, which I'm a bit nervous about - I'm terrible with pastry, but I gotta have dumplings yeah? I'll be doing a trial run this weekend. Wish me luck.

on latkes and donuts

I love my mum. Not just for everything she taught me about eating (and cooking), but for the cute clippings and links she sends me. Today, in the spirit of Channukah - we have the thrilling article Latke vs Hamentash: A Materialist-Feminist Analysis. [Latke are the grated potato pancakes eaten at Channukah, Hamentashen are small pastries eaten at the festival of Purim]

Check this choice quote:

The material conditions of latke production are stressed in the best-known analysis of the latke as a factor in the oppression of women, Emma Goldman's famous "blood of our foremothers" speech (with which I assume many of you are familiar). In it, she asked, "How much of the very blood of our foremothers' knuckles have we battened and fattened on every Chanukah, for surely their lifeblood is invariably an ingredient in our latkes? Could oceans of applesauce or mountains of sour cream ever fully mask the salty tasteof the tears of our "onion-grating sisters?"

Of course, I was a little upset about the discussion of Purim (the festival of Esther) in which I'm described as a "male-identified scab." That's what you get for being a beautiful virgin bride - jeaulous feminists!

Anyway.. how can you not love Channukah - a festival devoted to oil! Last year, due to a disaster with ordering the ponchke (traditional Polish donuts), we hit upon a new tradition - Marion ran down to the Italian pasticceria on Smith St and they whipped up 20 fresh Italian donuts (I think they're called bombolini). So we got to wash down our latkes with ricotta donuts as well as the more traditional jam ones. Now if only I could find a place that made my Roman favourites - donuts filled with Nutella!

I'm still finalising the menu for my Russian/Polish vodka feast so all suggestions welcome.

viva polenta

Photo nicked from silvasonic. Thanks. Sorry.

So I've been on a wheat and sugar free week. The lollie jar at work was getting to be too much my friend. The weekend was hard - it was so hot that all I could think was "gelati, gelati...". But a gorgeous bbq breakfast at Jessie's helped - haloumi wrapped in fresh vine leaves was my big contribution and we all agreed it will have to become a regular on the summer barbie circuit.

Now I'm starting to feel heaps more energetic and enjoying living without the constant sugar craving. Plus there's the whole self-control kick... oh dear.

Going wheat free, my biggest friend this week has been polenta. I had a great dish at Sonia's house on Monday night: Polenta with Haloumi, vegies and caramelised onion. And even better - on Tuesday she brought me lunch at work: polenta with eggplant parmigiana. I forgot how much I love eggplant parmigiana - I thought my Mum had cooked it so much I'd never eat it again, but I was wrong. But back to Polenta: this stuff is the bomb! Eating corn based food always makes me feel really good. And if you have a slab of set Polenta in the fridge you never go short of a meal. Sometimes I grill a piece up and have it with spreads for breakfast. Last night we had it grilled with a leek, mushroom and cream sauce. Or you could make Eggplant Parmigiana and have a real feast.

Polenta

All you really need for this is polenta (cornmeal), salt and pepper and water. It's even better with lots of cheese - parmesan or fetta - but that depends how much of a health kick you're on.

You could use instant polenta but I haven't tried it yet. All the recipe books say that you need to break your arm stirring the polenta constantly, but if you have a good heavy pot it doesn't seem to stick that much.

1. Put 8 cups of water in your big heavy pot and heat it up.
2. When it's hot, but not boiling, add 3 cups of polenta. Add it really slowly, stirring with a whisk to avoid any lumps. Add salt and pepper here as well. You can even cook it in stock like my housemate if you want.
   
3. Cook the polenta on a medium heat for 30 - 40 minutes on a low heat. Stir it as often as you can. If it gets too solid you could add a bit more water.
   
4. When the polenta stops tasting like raw maize it's ready.

You can serve the polenta sloppy - which is like a delicious Italian mashed potato - just add heaps of cheese and butter. Gorgonzola is ridiculously good in this. Generally though, I serve it firm. Pour the polenta into a lightly greased baking dish and leave it to set in the fridge. Once set it can be sliced up - into slabs or triangles or whatever - and grilled or fried. I prefer grilled. Then serve it with something saucy, or turn it into a vegetable stack, or spread some avocado on it and call it breakfast. Sonia also recommends adding fetta and olives before you pour it out to set - haven't tried it yet but I can imagine it's great.

Yum.

shiokadelicious!

Sometimes I'm not sure why I feel the need to add more words to the innahnet.. there's so many people who do it so well.

Today's find is shiokadelicious! This great site seems to hail from Singapore as is full of great foodie rants and recipes. I am tempted to run home from work now and make Snake Beans with Egg, followed by Kek Batik - a great looking Bruneian cake that seems to be a cross between a rumball and a brownie. As the author said - how can you not want a cake made from condensed milk, Milo and Marie biscuits!

(Shiok! [shee-oak] (adj) colloquial Straits Chinese/Malay; fantastic; marvelous; an exclamation of enjoyment)

Roses and rhubarb

From Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons comes this great dish. An updated version of rice-pudding with rhubarb that transforms it from English boarding school into Mediterranean delight. I made it to take to Eve's the other night and it was all polished off in a second. It is really easy and very delicious - the rice is creamy and custardy and the rose flavoured syrup works surprisingly well with the rhubarb flavour to lift it out of the everyday.

I bought gum mastic from the turkish grocer on Smith St - a few spoons of yellowish clear lumps cost me $3.50 but I do think the taste it adds is worthwhile if you can find it. It's one of those subtle tastes that you barely notice but it is distinctive - just reminds me of Greek desserts or Turkish delight. I think it's a resin from some kind of orchid. If you can't get it just leave it out.

Rizogalo with Rose scented Roasted Rhubarb
(Rizogalo is a Greek rice pudding)

• lots of rhubarb cut into 10 cm lengths (I used about 900g)
• 150 ml water
• 200 g sugar
• 1 tbsp rose water70g short grain rice
• 850ml full cream milk (I used soy milk and added a dollop of cream)
• 55g caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp mastic (ground in mortar and pestle)
• 1 egg yolk
• 60 ml double cream

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. (350 F)
2. Put the rhubarb pieces in a baking dish. Cover with sugar (200g) and water (150ml). Seal with foil and bake for 30 - 40 minutes.
3. Cover the rice with water and bring to the boil. Boil for 5 minutes and then drain.
4. Heat the milk with the rice, sugar and mastic.
5. Bring to a boil and then simmer gently until the milk is absorbed. It takes 15 - 30 minutes. Stir occassionally.
6. Take the rice off the heat.
7. Mix the cream with the egg yolk and then add to the rice. Turn out into a bowl to let it cool.
8. When the rhubarb is roasted - soft but still in distinct pieces - drain it, keeping the juices.
9. Boil the juice down into a syrup. Add rose water to taste and then pour the syrup over the rhubarb.
10. Serve the rice and rhubarb in two big bowls garnished with rose petals.

Did you notice I learnt to post photos? Now I just need someone to buy me a digital camera so I can record my efforts.

It seems early but the apricots are here! I've generally thought apricots aren't worth eating unless you have a tree but at a Sydney Rd fruit shop I found some with the most amazing flavour. I've been guzzling them all day, making infused vodka with them, and rushing back to buy more when I'm in the area. Now it feels like summer!

Give me your groats

Firstly, props to Bindy- she just finished her exams and came through on her promise to make me a chocolate souffle. It was great - it rose high, was chocolatey and melty. She used this recipe from Recipe Zaar. We thought maybe it wasn't chocolatey enough - but really it was great and enough to give us a big chocolate buzz. Not too hard either - despite all the scary vibes that surround souffle I've never seen one fail.

Lately I’m getting back to my roots – wanting to eat and learn about Polish (and Russian) food. Inspired by another great library book - A Year of Russian Feasts - I've been dreaming of a big feast for my birthday. I'm thinking a massive table spread with zakuski - Polish antipasto. Beetroot salad, pickles, Blini... And lots of vodka. On Sunday I made some infused vodkas to go with the feast - lime, cherry, ginger, honey and cinnamon and chilli flavours.

Feeling all Polish, I decided to made some Kasha for dinner. My Mum hates Kasha(buckwheat) but I think I want to eat more. It's a traditional Polish dish where the grains are cooked like rice and served in many different ways. This recipe is very straightforward and would be great with a big eggplant stew, or served as part of a bigger Eastern European style meal. It'll taste even better if you use wild mushrooms, or a stock based on dried mushrooms - but it's great as is.

Kasha with Musrooms and Leek

• 1 cup whole buckwheat groats (from a health food store)
• 1 - 2 leeks, finely sliced
• 2 - 3 big handfulls of mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cups water or stock
• 4 - 6 tbsps butter or oil
• half a cup chopped walnuts, lightly toasted
• 1 tsp salt
• sour cream

1. Melt the butter in a big pot with a good lid.
2. Fry the buckwheat gently for 2 minutes.
3. Add the mushrooms and leek and fry until soft - maybe 5 minutes.
4. Add the water and salt and bring to the boil.
5. Add the lid and turn the heat down.
6. Cook for 10 -15 minutes until the groats are cooked through - they shouldn't be chewy or mushy.
7. Leave to sit (with lid) for 5 minutes.
8. Serve with the walnuts on top and pass the sour cream.

Mmmm.. yum. Nutty goodness.

a proper tea party

why do anarchists drink herbal tea?
because proper tea is theft.

( say it outloud)

Well Sunday's afternoon tea was awesome - most of my favourite people gathered together and completely off their faces on sugar!

The passionfruit sponge was my best yet I think. And Sarah made some great lamington’s – I’ll post that recipe here soon. As well as the food we made (see the other post) we had:

• Lemon meringue pie by Jessie


• The most delicious rum balls ever by Gab


• Mini-apple pies by Texta


• Mushroom and Jarlsberg quiche by Ruth


• Asparagus and peas by Eve


• Curried egg sandwiches by Em5000

Yeah it was a damn huge feast. I could barely even fit a scone in. And there was only one dish brought that didn’t fit out theme – a mediterranean plate of toasted pita, eggplant, peppers and rocket – quite delicious really but not very “proper”.

Lucky there was only one aberration – my control freak side had been worrying a lot about how to get everything to fit. What do other people do about this? Cook it all yourself I guess. We had allocated dishes to most people but you can never tell who’s going to rock along.

It was all great though, and the effect of too much tea and too much sugar was wonderful to behold. Costumes were great too – lots of cutesy aprons and old-school dresses. Wish I had a digital camera so I could show you - but damn I love my friends. And my girl. At 3pm, as we madly buttered bread for cucumber sandwiches, dipped lamingtons and made little pea tartlets we looked at each other and thought "who else would be crazy enough to do this?"

broadly speaking

Well, it's spring and that means broad beans. The garden is full of these little lovelies and because I'm growing them I can pick them however I want.

Tiny ones are lovely just boiled for a second and dressed with butter and lemon.

The medium ones made great pasta the other day. I used the little ones that are gnocchi shaped and just threw the beans and some asparagus pieces in a couple of minutes before the pasta was done. Drain and stir through plenty of salt and pepper, oil and lots of fetta chunks. Oh yeah!

And for the big fat beans? Well broad bean dip is pretty hard to go past. Eve dropped some around the other day - lovely and garlicky. I'm pretty sure it's just beans, lemon juice, olive oil and masses of garlic.

The hardest thing is resisting picking the pods too early - they look so big but it's all padding and the beans are still tiny inside.

a tea party

Sarah and I have long talked about having a 'proper afternoon tea' and finally - this Sunday - it's going to happen. We're aiming for a cross between old English and Australian colonial style and trying our hardest to not be too pedantic. This is not easy for us - we had fears of people turning up with Rice Paper Rolls or something. But it's shaping up quite well. So far the menu is:

• Scones (with jam and cream)
• Passionfruit sponge
• Lamingtons
• Lemon Meringue Pie
• Homemade Ice Cream
• Cucumber Sandwiches
• Egg Salad Sandwiches
• Mini Quiches
• Asparagus
• Mini Pea Tartlets

We've had some trouble coming up with savoury ideas but I think it's looking pretty good. Maybe we need something more chocolatey? I've been practicing the Passionfruit Sponge - once for Sarah's birthday and once for my housemates. Here's the recipe:

Passionfruit Sponge
This seems to be a traditional Australian cake. As I'm not a traditional Australian I'm new to making it. In my family cakes were more likely to be serious dense things with poppyseeds or cherries but I'm trying to assimilate - I swear I am. And I'm learning that a sponge cake doesn't have to be a disappointing tasteless stale thing - it can be fluffy sweet and soft.

This recipe comes from The Age and is by Loretta Sartori. The article ("Whip it Good"!) has heaps of good tips for making sponges and a few other recipes so it's definitely worth checking out. Here's the recipe I used:

• 5 eggs (large)
• ¾ cup castor sugar
• ½ cup custard powder
• ½ cup cornflour
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Real cream for whipping - about 350ml
• Homemade apricot jam (I just used a fancy bought one)
• Icing sugar
• Butter
• Passionfruit pulp - from 3 passionfruits (or a tin if you really can't find any)

1. Preheat oven to 175C
2. Butter and flour your tins. Springform is best. Make sure the bottom is thoroughly buttered.
3. Separate the whites and yolks, set yolks aside.
4. Sift dry ingredients three times.
5. Whisk the whites until soft peaks form, gradually adding the sugar.
6. Add the yolks to the whisked whites, mixing until combined.
7. Remove from the mixer and fold through the sieved dry ingredients very gently.
8. Transfer to tins.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes for the small cakes or 35 minutes for the large.
10. When cold, slice into three layers.
11. Spread first layer with homemade apricot jam then whipped cream; position second layer on top and repeat. Add third layer.
12. Ice top layer with passionfruit icing: sift icing sugar and mix in passionfruit pulp. Then add melted butter to make it a runny consistency. Spread quickly over the surface and allow to run down the sides. Chill cake before serving.
    
    Yield: 2 x 20cm round tins or 1 x 28cm round tin

The hardest bits for me is folding the dry ingredients through - how do you get it all mixed in without flattening the eggs? I also had a bit of trouble removing the cakes from the tins - I think I need to butter them more. But once it's all sandwiched together it looks truly impressive. And it tastes great.

Taco's galore

One thing I love about the blog world is that there's always people more obsessive than me. It's reassuring and it's inspiring. Over at Becks & Posh (cockney for "nosh") there's a great photo spread of the The Halloween Mission Taco Crawl 2004 which reminds me of everything I love about being a touch crazy about food. People in great outfits running around eating lots of mexican - what's not to like?

Speaking of Mexican, I'm relieved to say that Melbourne finally has another place that actually makes real (soft) tacos and other proper Mexican food. Los Amates is at 34 Johnston St, Fitzroy - just opposite Casa Iberica, my favourite Latin foods store.

Shane, Sammy and I tried Los Amates a couple of weeks ago and were pretty impressed. There was a slight ordering mishap - when we discovered a bit of ham on our vegetarian platter - but the chef himself came to make it all okay. The food itself was great and reassuringly free of mounds of melted cheese. I'll need to go back again to really suss out the different options because the menu is pretty long and we were a bit too drunk to be discerning. I remember some great sopas - little flat tortillas with a topping of salsa verde. And good fresh red salsas too, although disappointingly mild.

The prices are Fitzroy-ish but you can't blame them when all the dodgy Mexican restaurants charge more. And the menu has a really cute note - "if you like it, tell all your friends because we really need to send some cash to our relatives in jail in Columbia." How can you resist that?

When I'm not eating

When I'm not eating, or thinking about food, I do spend a lot of time listening to strange music I find around the place. Hunting new choons I came across the wonderful list of food songs at Pop Heaven. I was hoping it would be actual songs but it's joke titles. Still, you can't beat "Chutney's in Love" or "Jumping Flapjack" for punny greatness.

If you want actual songs, recently I've been hanging at:

Cocaine Blunts and Hip Hop Mixtapes - great rare hip hop joints and lots of cassette only tracks and The Number One Songs in Heaven - beautiful soul and gospel action

Pizza madness

Lessons from last night's pizza party. Making pizza for 30 when you only have 2 shelves in your oven is not the best idea - but it was my darling's birthday party so I wasn't too upset about spending the night in front of the oven for her.

Marion's new topping tip is gold - Taleggio and Cime di Rapa.
Taleggio is a melty slightly stinky cheese - like a very aged brie. It has a lovely pinkish rind and is going to be a new favourite indulgence of mine. I found it at Mediterranean Wholesalers (Sydney Rd, near corner of Victoria St) where you can also pick up a jar of Cime di Rapa - basically turnip greens marinated in oil with garlic and chilli. The combination of the greens, which are quite bitter and sharp, with the melty cheese is just wonderful.

Other toppings we had:
- pumpkin, rocket, fetta and pinenuts
- potato, caramelised onion and rosemary
- tomato, bocconcini and basil
- tomato sauce, mushroom, fresh mozarrella, garlic and olives

I'm still not super confident making pizza - it was hard to get the base cooked perfectly without burning the toppings. Also sometimes the potato and pumpkin pizzas were a bit drier than I've had them at my favourite pizza joints. But the crowds were happy and well fed and I'm definitely inspired to try again soon.

Any pizza advice would be much welcomed.

Where do they come from?

It's hard to resist reading the referrers report at my net stats people. I love the person who searched for "what are the goog positions for making love" as much as the many who were looking for pumpkin scones.

But thank you to food porn watch - a very impressive list of recently updated food blogs and to KIPlog's food blog - a never ending source of eating and cooking including debates on vegetarianism and a link to porno cookies. really.

If you came from either of these two - then welcome. And if you're looking for "goog positions", sorry.

Shopping Lists

Well, I've collected a few. I know the infamous zine queen Vanessa Berry used to collect them. But of course someone has taken it to a whole new level. At grocerylists.org there are 500 scanned shopping lists. I love it.

The problem with trying to be less slack at work means I'm more slack at updating this site. I wanted to post about the Rhubarb Cake I made on Friday, a recipe for the brilliant Mexican Garlic Soup shane's been making, and the yummy mini-filo cigars I took to dinner on Sunday. Oh and I really need to post on the Passionfruit Sponge I made yesterday - trying to be a good assimilated Australian was really very stressful. So hold on.. I'll be back to tell you about them. And tonight's pizza making party - I'm going to try Marion's suggestion of Italian marinated turnip tops (Creme de Rapa?) and Tallegio. Mmmmm.

Too full?

Well it's been an epic weekend for eating. Visiting with Sarah's parents in scenic Tasmania where we were spoilt to the point of pain. You don't see me saying no to cake very often but this was a different case. Sarah's Mum had clearly been preparing for days. Here's my highlights:

• Lemon and Coconut Tart - this flat little tart greeted us when we staggered in from the plane. It didn't look to flash but it was zesty and the coconut gave it great texture.
  
• Homemade Dolmades - I found these when I was guiltily riffling through the fridge. Sweet and lemony with lots of pine nuts.
  
• Lasagne - I forgot how good mushrooms are in lasagne - big chunky juicy bits.
  
• Cauliflower Italienne - it didn't seem that Italian, more classic skip cooking but I loved it. Cauliflower with onions, tomatoes and lots of olives (the Italian bit) smothered in bechamel and baked. Yes it sure was a cheese-fest.
  
• Ginger and Lime Creme Caramels - these were a standout winner - so smooth and creamy. Very gentle flavours infused into the milk. Served with home bottled cherries!
  
• Orange and Poppyseed Cake - there's good poppyseed cake and there's not. This was good - soft and zesty. Runny cream splashed on made it soft and puddingy.
  
• Artichokes - I picked these myself from the garden outside. Big purple spiky ones that came up so well just boiled and dipped into garlic butter. How perfect is a vegetable that gets better as you work your way through from the outer leaves to the tender ones to that little heart inside?

Phewww - lucky we had all that fresh sea air to help build up an appetite. I was seriously worried about my digestion for a while there. Not that we didn't run to Bismi as soon as we got back (848 Sydney Rd, Brunswick). And I've decided the stuffed Roti (with Chickpea and Potato curry inside) is my new favourite. Make sure to order the raita - it's full of radish and onion and the best I've ever had in a restaurant. And yes, I introduced Sarah to the Roti Bom - the shortest way to make yourself completely munted ever! Viva condensed milk.

And also - me and Nell once tried to list all the types of dumplings we knew. We tried to cook a lot of them too. If you're a dumpling fiend too you might appreciate this list over at Seattle Bon Vivant. There's also a recipe for a goats cheese dumpling served with Pistachios and Honey that looks awesome. Although Nell and me did argue about whether you can bake a dumpling. Ahh classifying things, how I do love it.

disappointments and condensed milk

well there have been some disappointments this week. Of course in the land of electoral stuff everything went to shit.

And in the food universe - Cafe Armenia was closed when we tried to go there on Saturday. We reached the end of a 4 hour op-shop trek well and truly ready for some cherry dumplings but it was not to be. Lucky I scored that great tuxedo and hot-pink cummerbund to cheer me up. So it was off to Grandma Kimchi again and some very satisfying lunching was done there. I think their cucumber kimchi is mindblowingly good - crunch, hotness and cooling perfectly matched.

Wednesday night me and Nell trooped off to Ong's food court (under the Mercure Hotel, Lt Bourke St btw Swanson and Eliz) to see if it could be the place to move our regular weekly dinners. Goldan Fork , which is a branch of the brilliant Bismi provided dinner. I love this place - you can watch them making roti and dosai on the big grill in front of you. Watching the chef turn a ball of dough into a giant crispy thin pancake or a sweet flaky soft roti is great.

We had Chickpea Masala Dosai. These are one of my favourite finds of this year. $5 gets you a footlong crisp dosai pancake (about 200gsm thick) wrapped around a moist chickpea and potato curry. Sambal, coconut chutney and chilli sauce round it out. So damn fine. And finally, who knows why, I had room to try the Roti Bom. The roti here are always awesome - you can get them stuffed with curry, or garlic, or tamarind... But the sweet ones have been disappointing so far, even the milo one was dry and had hardly any milo. Roti Bom is a winner though - wrapped around butter and sugar and drenched in condensed milk. Yes, it could stop fragile hearts.

We decided against moving Wed night dinners to Ong's. Although there's a lot of good food there the atmosphere at night is really lacking and it seems that with everyone ordering their own food from the different outlets and jumping up to get it when it's ready we'll lose what's nice about all sitting down together and sharing a regular meal.

Last night I remembered how good spring is and how wonderful risotto is. While Sammy and Shane drank beer and entertained me I stirred. A plain risotto made with Massel's fake chicken stock and just a few asparagus, a bit of zucchini and broccoli thrown in towards the end. So velvety and perfect. The key I think is to have good stock (even if it's powdered) and throw in lots of butter and parmesan to melt in before serving. Won a few fans in the loungeroom with that.

suburban paradise

Oh boy am I excited. Marion gave me a tip-off that KimChi Grandma had been reviewed in the age. Had a read and I was tempted - good Korean, not too flashy - only catch was it's in Carnegie. Luckily I somehow convinced Sarah to go on a pilgrimage - we had a walk on the beach on the way and suburbia wasn't too bad at all - lots of promising looking op-shops.

KimChi Grandma It was just what I've been craving - packed out (on a Tuesday) with Koreans and skips, speedy service, masses of side dishes... not too wallet busting either ($30 for 2).

As usual the side dishes were the highlight - and there were 7 complimentary ones! Great cucumber kimchi, asparagus with chilli, lovely radish slices, eggplant, some wacky honeyed potatoes, beansprouts with seaweed and regular cabbage kimchi! To wash them down we had a tofu dish very much like Agedashi Tofu, potato noodles (!) and a stew based on kimchi with vegies and a bit of rice cake. Everything was simple but with very good flavour. Mixed up with the sharp and chilli tastes of the sides, rice and that awesome corn tea - such a bloody feast.

Oh how I wish that KimChi Grandma was around the corner from my house. They even have ice cream mochi - the little dumpling cakes filled with red bean ice cream that I used to get in Footscray. So if you happen to be in the south-east cruise down to 125 Koornang Rd, Carnegie for a feast. Apparently there's one in Box Hill too. Oh shit - a Whitepages search just revealed one in the city - 145 Bourke St... maybe I should have done my research better. Don't tell Sarah.

Well, there is a reason we had to trek to Carnegie - the other thing that's got me totally stoked is Cafe Armenia which we stumbled across - across the road from KimChi Grandma. Sarah and I had to admit we didn't even know where Armenia is - I said Middle East, she said Baltic. We were both kinda on the right track - between Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Anyway the place is only a year old but looks like a relic from the 50s - handpainted Armenian (I guess) landscapes and old plates with gold rims like my grandma had. And on the menu, besides the endless meaty stews and bbq platters - cherry dumplings, pancakes with potato, walnut and bean spread!!!! So saturday will be an op-shop crawl and Armenian lunch. I am truly overexcited... Will let you know what it's like.

mmm pickle soup

I've been writing about pickles so much on this blog I can't believe I haven't posted this yet.

I discovered pickle soup (zupa ogorkowa) at Borscht, Vodka & Tears when Marion and I went there earlier this year. I was smitten - a slightly thickened broth packed with potatoes and grated pickles. Just the right amount of sour mixed with the dill flavour to make a winter favourite.

So I went digging for recipes. There's a lot of variations - some thicken the soup with eggs, or flour. Many have celery, some add leeks which I'm keen to try. The version I've been making has won a lot of converts. Sarah makes it endlessly and Shane just asked me for the recipe. It's a great soup for when you're feeling sick - a kind of vegetarian chicken soup replacement.

A note on ingredients:

• Using instant stock makes this very quick but of course using real stock would make it so much better. The traditional recipes recommend beef.
• You need pickles that are good and sour - not sweet. Bick's Polski Ogorki are good, so are the tinned Israeli ones you can find at some supermarkets. Avoid any Australian ones unless they come from a good Polish deli.

Now go get:

• 6 cups stock (I use Massel's fake Chicken)
• 1 medium carrot, diced very small
• 1 big potato, diced smallish
• 1/2 onion minced
• 6 big pickled cucumbers, grated or finely chopped.
• pickle juice from jar
• 1 cup sour cream and more to serve.
• a little flour
• dill
• butter

1. Heat the stock up and add the potato. Leave it to simmer while you saute the onion slowly in some butter.
2. Add the carrots to the onion for a minute, then the pickles.
3. When the potatoes are almost tender add the carrots, onion and pickles to the pot. Continue to simmer until the potatoes are nice.
4. Mix two teaspoons of flour with the sour cream then slowly stir into the soup to thicken it.
5. The sour cream might break up and look a bit mucky but that's ok.
6. Taste the soup and add some of the pickle juice to taste - the sour taste should be distinctive but not outta control.
7. Serve with masses of chopped dill, rye toast and more sour cream for the dairy pigs.

This is a very easy soup - it's the pickles that make it taste so good. So feel free to muck around with the recipe and let me know how you go. Other thickening tricks could be good too if you want it thicker - this version is still very thin.