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Kell
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1) where in the world are you happiest?
Tragically, but honestly, at home with Jerad. Usually home has the ability to be a happy place no matter where it's situated. Beyond that I am happiest in my hometowns of Sydney and Bowral, and in the cold desert air at Joshua Tree. 2) name three things you absolutely love to do (cheatery ahead!)
• I like quiet time to make fiddly things with my hands - creative things, like creative projects, or cooking. I particularly like to attempt intricate and involved things, and I enjoy mundane things like pulling the flesh out of a lobster shell, or making tortellini.
• Travel and walk... together. I will go almost anywhere, and enjoy aspects of travel that many find tedious, like being in airports, riding in trains, and being lost and confused. I love everything about travel - the fear, the homesickness, the excitement, absorbing new sensory experiences. I can easily walk from dawn to dusk in a new place. This contradicts what I said above, doesn't it? I like to travel, and I like to go home, and then I like to travel again...
• I love to think and discuss - I love hypothetical scenarios, talking about possibilities, ethics, proposals, cultures, histories and policies. I like ideas and learning.
• I love to eat amazing food. 3) do you have fond memories of your childhood?
Yes, really great memories. Actually, almost no bad memories. I spent long summers roaming a rural region with a gang of friends, building shelters and avoiding snakes. I had a lovely home life with a family who I loved. My upbringing was strict and a lot was expected of me, but I had a lot of fun, and there were always a lot of magical things to look forward to, like family gatherings, Christmas, and holidays. 4) your ideal vacation would be (unlimited time and money)...
This would be my dream come true. Jerad is coming with me. I would want to pack a backpack well, buy some comfortable boots, and hit the road with no real plans. I would like to travel through South America, Asia and Africa. I want to see Turkey, India, Iceland and Russia, and I'd like to re-visit Malta, Italy and Tokyo. I could probably manage two years of nomadic living... if I didn't have cats. 5) what fruit best describes your personality?
I dunno... banana? Something not everyone likes by itself, but goes great in banana bread and milkshakes? Mushy. My skin is thinner though. |
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The mornings here have been so cold. Not American cold, but really cold to get up, and have breakfast without a heater. Jerad hoodied up this morning - gotta keep those ears warm!   And here I am, with little Henry stuffed up my top, like stolen goods.  Speaking of large things... here is Poly, warming her soft-brie belly in the winter sun  and little Ed, looking handsome  Last week I stripped the spare bed of its sheets, and came back from putting them in the wash to find Poly had made a dumpling out of herself between two pillows. I love that girl. I took better pictures than this one, but I love the crazy glow-eyes on this one.  |
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I've gone all sort of perverse and domesticated. Last weekend Jerad had one clear Sunday off, so I spent the entire day Saturday shopping, cleaning, doing laundry and running other errands so that we could enjoy a Do Nothing Sunday. It was a special, bent kind of happiness - waking on Sunday morning in an immactlate apartment, between fresh, fluffy sheets, reading the paper in bed, cooking a lazy well-catered breakfast and generally acting as though we'd checked into a nice hotel. we were able to say, at a healthily ripe mid-morning hour "What are we going to do today?", and not permit any "But first we have too..." moments. Don't hafta do nothin'.
We went to Tamarama and did the cliff walk, ocean air and sunshine. Later, we drove to Newtown to a new Mexican place called Guzman Y Gomez, which PRAISE THE LORD, actually serves a semblance of Californian-styled Mexican hole-in-the-wall food. Lovely clean flavours, and wonderful things we haven't eaten since being in LA like tomatillo salas and fresh corn tortillas. Food of this kind is so common in LA to almost the poit of tedium, but in a nation where Mexican, or even TexMex means nachos made with something resembling bolognaise sauce, a nice, simple pork and chipotle taco is a happy, happy thing. |
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I feel so tired at the moment. I think little Henry is renovating within, or at least drawing quite heavily on my resources. I picture my interior like the bottle in "I Dream of Jeannie", lots of velvet drapes and upholstered divans. It's probably more like a dark, tropical aquarium. I have had a little trouble sleeping of late, waking in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep for hours. Then last night I went to bed at a ridiculous, kid-ly 8pm, slept for 10 hours, and awoke still feeling depleted. If I don't stay focussed throughout the day, I notice that I can spend a long time staring into the middle distance with just a brain full of static. No... not static, worse. As I was walking upstairs to get a cup of tea, I realised that I had the swelling orchestral music from "Days of Our Lives" circling around and around in my head, like bathwater going down a drain. Has pregnancy melted my brain?
Besides that I feel so well, and realised this morning that I love being pregnant. It's really such an exciting and nice state to be in, and to share with Jerad. It has a lovely anticipatory aspect to it like the wait for Christmas. I have to go to the hospital a lot to see the midwives, and I love it because I always come away with new news about Henry's growth or development. I just hope that he born a healthy kid.
Jerad started a new job - he's the Sous Chef at a pub called the Paddington Inn which the new owners, having remodelled extensively hope to transform into a gastro-pub. They're allowing Jerad some creativity, which is wonderful news. He's already added a Braised Beef Cheek to the menu, and I'm certain has many more ideas. I just want him to be happy, and they seem accomodating about his need to be home three weekdays starting later in the year to look after kid. He's always happier when he's in a position to be creative. I think most people are. I once read an abstract of a study with the claim that people in rote, repetitive jobs can be the most depressed and suicidal in the workforce. For example, people who work processing food on conveyer belts in factories can quite often suffer depression, because very little personal satisfaction can be extracted from an experience with very little self-determination. I think this is why you can see people investing special, personalising flourishes to mundane jobs. A friend of mine at UCLA worked for a few years tiling roofs to save for college, and he told me he used to sign underneath the last tile he lay down on each roof. He felt proud of the job he'd done on each one - they guy is going to be a great animation director in the not-too-distant future, but I guess the point is, he applies creativity and care to everything he does.
In my research work I'm discovering that Deign for children is not so much a field which is currently in existence. There are few books or points of reference to how design can be crafted to appeal to children. I guess that the field isn't saturated is a blessing. |
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Our little un-born junior is of the male description. A little boy! So yes, we can't wait to meet Henry sometime in late September, early October.
I attended an ultrasound yesterday with Jerad and my Mum - 'twas lovely. Henry was just relaxing in there, sucking on his fingers, crossing his ankles, rolling around. He even did a funny little Marcel Marceau with his hands against the uterus wall at one point. I love him. The visit was almost two hours long, with the sonographer measuring all his internal organs, checking that everything is as they should be, which I can happily say, they are.
His little heart is beating, beating and it looks like the machanism in a watch - a hummingbirds heart. Jerad said "If all goes to plan, that little heart will be beating like that for the next seventy or eighty years..." an amazing thought. Once set into motion, life is a perpectual motion machine of sorts.
He has a lovely profile, with a pretty nose and lovely hands and feet. By the grace of god, his feet have arches, which Jerad's don't ;) I have never seen such flat feet as Jerad's - long, thin and flat, just like a rabbit, perfect for running. But Henry seems to have little arches, which is preobably a good thing! I hope Henry is as nice looking as his Dad is though, and if we're lucky, he'll inherit that illuminating smile.
I wish we could have has pictures from the ultrasound, but it wasn't possible. My new due date is September 30. Today, Henry is 15cm long. He's not destined to be a tall man, but certainly a loved one.
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I bought a Baby Bjorn last night so that we can strap our baby to our chests while out in the city. Something about these makes me think of Hezbollah extremists.  |
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It's been a while since I posted any pics, so here are a few from the last month or two in random order.  This remarkably vivid blue picture is of our dear friend Jen Yu, cooking us a wonderful Chinese meal while visiting with us in Sydney. Come back soon Jen.  After having his second bike stolen, Jerad just kind of gave up buying replacement bikes and built this one from scratch. Personally, I'm amazed that a person can build a bike from bits and pieces.  Last Saturday was one of thoise grey, drizzly nights so Jerad cooked up these lamb shanks for dinner - slow roasted with vegies and served with polenta. The meat was so tender that you could have eaten it with a spoon. I love winter food.  A blurry photo of the best smile I know.  This is my Dad on a boat. He looks happy, doesn't he? He's on the boat because it's his 60th birthday in June, so we got together with my Mum, brother and sister-in-law and hired this boat to go sightseeing on the harbour for the day. I think Dad loved it. The weather looks grim, but it was actually perfect - cool and grey to start with, clearing to a lovely sunny afternoon.  Here I am helping my brother, Cam, navigate out of Rose Bay. The mission was to complete the day without striking one of the multi-million dollar yachts on the way. Or at least to not get caught. I jest.  I don't know if they recommend steering with one hand and your head out the top of the cabin. Oh well. Cam did well all day with the sailing.  The lovely Heidi.  Is there a happier sight? We putzed around to the Fish Markets and picked up some fish and chips for lunch. Here are Mum and Dad ferrying the greasy goods to the dock. I like how the plate is bulging out at the bottom. Yum.  Heidi and Dad - I have the best picture of Jerad on the boat, but it's on Mum and Dad's camera. Once I retrieve it I'll post it.  And here I am, ten minutes ago, with some evidence of pregnant tummy. I must say, this dress is not so bump enhancing, so it may look like I'm not all that big but I have a fair-sized belly now. |
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Rage is an amazing Australian TV show where they play music videos all night on Friday and Saturday. Friday is new music and randomness, Saturday is a guest programer. It's so great top see the videos that certain musicians pick, and currently they're running a compteition where you can program Rage, if you submit 20 songs they like. Here's what I entered:
September Gurls – Bigstar Hot Burrito #1 – Gram Parsons Enjoy the Silence – Depeche Mode Oliver’s Army – Elvis Costello Before Too Long – Paul Kelly I’m Almost With You – The Church She Digs Her – You Am I Lord of Overstock – Guided by Voices No Aloha – The Breeders LA – Elliott Smith Eon - Supergrass Down Like Me – Ken Stringfellow The Concept – Teenage Fanclub Hoodie – Lady Sovereign That’s Entertainment – The Jam Elevate Me Later – Pavement London Calling – The Clash William, It Was Really Nothing – The Smiths Underwhelmed – Sloan Picnic By the Motorway – Suede |
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It's been a while, and for those who have noticed, my apologies - I've had a lot to do and think about in the last couple of months, and have been busier than I ordinarily would be. I'm pretty sure everyone is aware at this point, but I am four months pregnant, and happily so. Jerad and I have no idea whatsoever what to expect, which is probably a good thing, because it's too late now!
I have a little belly too, which is (mostly) new for me, so I'll have to take a picture. At week 17, I have no real symptoms, except tiredness, and a lust for carbs, and I'm well on my way to my next scan at 20 weeks, when we can find out the gender. Or find out an approximate gender - you see this scan caused trouble for my friend Juuj, who recently gave birth to her baby daughter "Elsie", except "Elsie" turned out to have additional boy bits, and therefore insisted upon being called Oliver. A little surprising for all concerned, so as to whether we feel comfortable sharing the gender... undecided.
Last week was an extraordinarily bad week for me. Nothing very serious happened, for which I'm thankful, but enough little and worrying things happened in a small period of time to make me feel really miserable, and in no mood to start posting again. I also have a pretty tenuous grip on my emotions at the moment, which pretty much guaranteed tears at all the small and frequent barriers I encountered. I seriously lost my sense of humour.
But it's a new week, and life is good.
I'll post more often - thanks for reading. Also... I have been cooking... it's autumn here, so I'm making lots of soups and things which may not be of interest to my Northern pals, but I will post about the experiments anyway. |
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The second installment in this series of kitchen tales (working title: Disasters and Abject Failures, Let’s Cook!) recalls the worst dinner service I’ve ever worked, a night where the entire kitchen completely ceased to function and fell into a sweaty, smoke-tinged, screaming chaos, from which none of us believed we would ever emerge. And yes, for those of you wondering, it was completely my fault. The French restaurant I was working in was run by a slightly mad and absolutely brilliant English chef, Matt, who’s cockney whit encompasses such an astounding range of insults and profanities – in at least four languages – it’s impossible not to admire, regardless his insinuation you prefer sex with animals to the company of your girlfriend (and he knows this, he tells you, because he’s intimate with your girlfriend). We all told ourselves we put up with it because he was teaching us so much, and is so well-respected in the Sydney restaurant scene that merely having his name on your resume will open doors for you. These things are true. Closer to the bone, however, is that we all loved it, lived for it, were fired up by the sort of personal, honest cruelty normally reserved for blood relatives. These were not the trials you endured with coworkers, they were emotional trauma that make people family. Matt’s Sous Chef, Steve, a six-foot-something Canadian from the cultural no-man’s-land of Saskatchewan, had, in addition to helping run the kitchen, three primary roles: First was food cost/wastage control. God forbid you ordered more of any one food item than you were going to use that day. “What do you mean you need a box of fennel? I’ll get a half box. DON’T run out.” Not even God could save you if Steve caught you wasting food. His second role, equally important, was quality control. Steve has this supernatural ability to know when you’ve not done something properly. He’d be on the other side of the kitchen plating food yelling for more duck jus, hot plates, calling dockets, while, in a rush, you start cooking scallops in a pan that isn’t quite up to temperature – and he’d know it. It must have been the pitch of the sizzle or the smell of something not caramelizing at exactly the right rate, and he’d turn, point and shout “NOOOO! GET IT OUT OF THE PAN!” (though with his accent he said “oot”) “OOT! IT’S NOT HOT ENOUGH, and you know that.” Third, Steve’s simplest (and I suspect favorite) responsibility, was to dispense verbal abuse in the rare moments when Matt had nothing to say or paused for breath. Any normal dinner service, therefore, consisted of the two of them calling dockets, directing waiters, plating food, and taking turns ensuring that you’ve absolutely no doubt your work is neither fast enough nor good enough. On this night, our problems emerged almost immediately after the start of service. It was the new dish on the hot entrée section, my section, and everyone was ordering it. “ORDER IN! One gazpacho, one rouget, and one gnocchi! ORDER IN! Oysters and a gnocchi!” The menu shorthand necessary during service belies the true nature of Matt’s style of cooking. When Matt shouts “rouget” he wants a pan fried fillet of the little red fish atop a warm saffron pickle of baby carrots, pencil leeks, shallots, and white asparagus, garnished with marinated and slow roasted whole cherry tomatoes, basil purée, deep-fried parsley, and a shellfish jus. My new dish was even more complicated. I’d been a bit worried about the dish since my day began at 8:00 a.m.. By adding the dish to my section Matt had effectively doubled the amount of work I had to do in a day. For the gnocchi dish I had to joint, brown, render, and then slowly braise ox tail, cool it, pick the meat, and reduce the braising liquid to a jus. I had to poach, peel, and then slice beef tongue, purge snails, mix up café de Paris butter (a herb butter with no less than twenty ingredients), portion and pound out wagyu neck minute stakes, and make an onion cream sauce reduction, which then went into a CO2 powered whipped cream gun. Of course there were the herb and parmesan gnocchi (roast potatoes, pass through a fine sieve, mix, pipe through a pastry bag, blanch, shock in ice water, dry, and portion). And then there were the sweetbreads. Sweetbread is the culinary term for the pancreas or thymus gland of a young cow and I can only surmise that they must have such an attractive name to help one forget what is actually being served. I’d never cooked sweetbreads before, and when I opened the butcher’s bag I was greeted by a mass of pinkish-grey, mucous-covered, gelatinous, opaque, segmented flesh, which seethed and slid in such a convincingly alien-egg-sack-like manner I didn’t know whether to drop the bag and flee or clamp it shut to prevent the sweetbreads from doing the same. My fears aside, the sweetbreads needed to be poached in a court bouillon – a vegetable stock, heavy on aromatic herbs, containing acid of some kind, usually lemon juice – then they were pressed, cooled, their fatty and sinewy membranes peeled away, trimmed, and portioned for service. Later they will be pan-fried until they are crispy on the outside and decadently creamy on the inside – they are a true delight. By 6:00, ten hours after I started, I was “boxed” as we say – section set up, standing at my stove with no further prep to do. Technically, I was ready for anything. “ORDER IN!” Matt absolutely bellows out dockets. “Beets and a Gnocchi! Ok Yank,” I’m the only American in the kitchen. “You’re on.” “Gnocchi” meant this: Heat a pan until it is smoking hot. Season the steak, oil the pan, quickly sear the steak, thirty seconds on one side, ten on the reverse, and leave it to rest in warm place. In another pan on medium-high heat, pan-roast the sweetbreads which you have first patted dry and dusted with flour, when they have good color, throw a knob of butter, a sprig of thyme, and a crushed clove a garlic into the pan and flip the sweetbreads, foaming in butter until the entire surface has an even, dark golden crust, careful no to burn the thyme. Now is a good time to make sure the onion cream gun is still hot. Meanwhile in a small pot warm some jus and picked bits of ox tail. At the same time, in yet another pan, on medium heat sauté the gnocchi until lightly colored, flip, add butter and the sliced tongue, toss till warm through and drain off the excess butter. In another small pot, warm some clarified garlic butter and gently poach the snails. Now assemble the plate: steak down first, then a seemingly random but always identical arrangement of snails, gnocchi, tongue, tail, and sweetbreads on top. Finish with a sprinkle of parmesan, crispy sprig of thyme, oxtail jus, a slice of café de Paris butter, and a few squirts of onion cream foam. Easy. Easy except that the dish required five pans and I only had a four burner stove. Ok. I’d just have to rotate through the components. What about the other dishes on my section, some of them two or three pan dishes? Rotate faster. Right, here we go, steak is on, snails in, sweetbreads on, steak flipped, steak out, gnocchi on, no color on the sweetbreads yet, gnocchi flipped, tongue in, jus hot, tiniest bit of color on the sweetbreads, tail in jus, gnocchi and tongue out, still not enough color on the sweetbreads, come on, jus off, snails out, steak on plate, why won’t they color, tail, tongue, gnocchi, jus, foam, and parma, all plated, strategic spaces waiting for the soggy, pale brown sweetbreads. Crank the heat, wipe the rim of the plate to look busy, flip the sweetbreads. Shit. Burnt. “YANK!” Matt’s spotted my mistake. “What are you DOING? Even heat, you worthless knob. They’ve got water in them. They FUCKING PISS OUT WATER. That’s what sweetbreads DO! They won’t caramelize until you cook out the water. It’s going to take a while, get them on first thing.” New pan on, sweetbreads in, wait, wait, wait, finally colored, flip, foam, re-warm the rest of the dish, re-plate and send. “ORDER IN! TWO GNOCCHI! ORDER IN! ONE OYSTERS, ONE GNOCCHI! That’s three gnocchi, cocksucker, and this time without the carbon.” Pans on, sweetbreads in, slowly, slowly browning, still manage to cook and plate all the other components before the sweetbreads are ready, but the timing is a bit better; at least nothing is burnt. I wasn’t able to reflect on this minor success because in the time it took me to cook and plate three orders, six more gnocchi orders came in. Each time I got a group out, a greater number of orders have backed up, my timing was still off, and I, as well as everyone else in the kitchen, knew I was falling dangerously behind. “YANK! You are well in the shit now. Give me two gnocchi and three Rouget. PRESSÉ” The starter section was divided into hot (me) and cold (William) starters, and I could sense, though I didn’t have time to look, that Will was ready and waiting on my plates to finish several tables. I, in turn, was waiting on sweetbreads to finish my plates. “WHAT’S GOING ON OVER THERE, STARTERS?” Now Steve was yelling too. “GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER! LET’S GO!” More orders in. More gnocchi. A group of four, then a group of two, then six,. All the while, each group of tables was taking too long, holding up each successive wave more and more, until eventually orders were coming in nearly a quarter of an hour before I had a chance to even start cooking them. In desperation I threw eight or nine serves of sweetbreads in a pan and watched in horror as the flour from the sweetbreads and oil instantly transformed into a rolling sea of bubbling paste. “GET FIVE GNOCCHI ON THE PASS NOW!” Matt, roaring now, face red, hadn’t seen my pan of splattering glue. Steve had. “Throw it out,” Steve said. The man who served roast potato skins for staff lunch so that nothing is wasted wants me to throw out nine serves of sweetbreads. That’s strange. What was even stranger, and what had me most worried was that Steve was no longer yelling. This was a completely new development. He’d gone past screaming, or he’d decided that what I needed was some help instead of more yelling (this in strict contradiction to conventional kitchen wisdom which states more yelling fixes everything). “Start again,” he was almost whispering now, “and don’t put so many in a pan at once.” It continued like this for another hour and a half. I just couldn’t get my timing right and nearly every table in the restaurant waited too long for their food. At some point I looked up (god help me why did I waste the time it took to look up?), and the entire kitchen had stopped. I was taking so long to get starters out that there were long gaps when no tables were ready for mains. In a kitchen, to stop is to die. No one, not even the dish hands, would look at me. I knew it was my fault, but what I desperately wanted was a sympathetic glance, one reassuring smile, from anyone. Finally, one of the pastry chefs, Al, came to help me. I cooked, he plated. Clawingly, achingly, screamingly, we started to pull service out of my nose dive when Matt shouted “WHERE ARE THE TWO GNOCCHI FOR TABLE 31?” “Uh…? Two gno…” “WHAT THE FUCK! I SENT THE REST OF THE TABLE! THEY’VE ALREADY GOT THEIR FOOD! WHERE IS IT?” “It’s in the pan chef!” A small lie, as I was just putting the various components in the pans as I spoke. I waited for it. Waited for the yelling, waited for Steve to come crashing down on my section, waited for the inevitable shouted insults and public humiliation, but it didn’t come. What followed was the most terrifying silence I have ever experienced. The only sounds in the kitchen were the gentle roar of my four burners on high, hiss splatter of water coming out of sweetbreads, and the heavy, metallic scrapping of my pans as I tried hopelessly to speed-cook all the components of a gnocchi dish. And then, sweating draining off my nose into the cluster of white-hot pans on my suddenly tiny-looking stove, praying I didn’t burn anything, I could sense him standing behind me, towering over me in that deafening silence, inflated by his rage. I could hear him, his English teeth clenched together, drawing in a great breath, and I braced myself for the onslaught. When he leaned in close I could feel the heat of his angry breath on my ear and he whispered, almost a sigh that was somehow clearly audible to the rest of the kitchen: “If you don’t get those gnocchi on the pass in two minuets,” and here he grabbed my kitchen timer, set it for two minuets and hit start, “I’m going to fire you, and the guy next to you,” jerking his thumb angrily at Al who’d come to bail me out. Those two minuets boiled away so quickly. By the time Matt walked away and Al and I had exchanged terrified glances, we’d lost half a minute. 1:30. 1:20. Plates down, steaks finished. 1:10. 1:00. Shit! Get the oxtail in the jus! :55. :50. Flip the gnocchi. :45. Steak plated. :40. :35. Gnocchi out, snails out. :30. Gnocchi, tongue, tail, snails, plated. :25. :20. Jus. :15. Onion foam. :10. Butter, thyme sprig, parmesan sprinkle. :05. Sweetbreads. Oh god the sweetbreads. Please let the sweetbreads be cooked enough. Please. Turn them out of the pan and… they’re perfect. Holy shit they are utterly perfectly golden crisp. Look at that! Perfect! “TIME’S UP! WHERE THE FUCK ARE…” “On the pass chef!” I thrust the plates at him; he barely glanced at them. “Good. Now give me three gnocchi and two rouget.” And like that it was over. Well, the yelling was over, but the night wasn’t. I still had to fight, with Al’s help, to drag us all out of the pit I thrust everyone into. The entire kitchen, in fact, had to fight, since I’d so ruined any semblance of rhythm for the night’s service. We’d continue fighting until sometime after midnight. When I finally lay down in bed, Kell woke enough to murmur “How was your day?” Though I’d never admit this to any of my coworkers, there in the dark, well after 2:00 a.m., replaying the evening behind my closed eyes, I allowed my self one self-pitying sob and responded “I don’t think I can do this anymore.” And then I went to sleep; I was due back in the kitchen at 8:00 a.m.. |
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I had a really interesting catch up from high school on Saturday. Now I haven't been in high school in fifteen years, thank goodness, and I don't stay in touch with many of the people I attended with, which is mostly good. Nigel was a great guy in school, but because of how he was back in those days, I've always wanted to know how things would turn out for him.
In Year 7, they would make us all line up in height order for our school photos, that way bthey could wrap the line into the bleachers, and have the tallest kids in the back, and the shortest ones standing or seated in front. This was an annual embarrassment for Nigel, a girl named Adelheid and myself, who pretty much rotated around the bottom position for the first four years of high school. The smallest kids in our grade.
Nigel was, and is, a science and computing genius. I'm not using the word genius flippantly, but to qualify it, believe me, he really nears true genius. We had to sit state-wide physics, chemistry and biology exams, which were opperated as a competitive quiz. Nigel routinely scored marks like 99.85%, or 99.786%.
To be continued... |
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It's raining very hard today, which we absolutely need. The cooler, darker weather has made me start to feel ready for autumn - I think I'm over summer now. It seems like I haven't had much time to do any cooking lately. I think I'm going to have to give my new schedule a few weeks trial before I can really figure out where all the hours of my day are going, and put useful things in all of them. I think I just need to understand what I have on my plate, and whether I can stomach it all. |
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Posted comment about Anna Nicole two days before she died.
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Non-sequitur riddled post ahead.
Jerad and I had a short holiday last weekend. We spent Friday at the cricket (Australia lost!) and headed to the Hunter Valley on Saturday morning. Late Saturday there was a festival at Bimbadgen Estate, so we set up camp on the grass and saw The Church, Paul Kelly and The Pretenders play. On Sunday we drove around the wineries - Brokenwood, Tempus Two, McGuigan, Tyrrells, Scarborough... actually I lost track after the first few, but we tried a lot of outstanding wines and enjoyed ourselves heartily. Pokolbin is quite a strange place, actually. Never has a desitination had so much and so little at the same time. There are more wine estates than you could possibly take in over a week, but no petrol station or stores. I really enjoyed doing nothing, taking a nanna nap, and eating out a lot. It was dreamy, and I particularly liked being away during ordinary week days - so tranquil. We saw kangaroos and lots of frogs. The weather was extremely hot, so we did a lot of milling around, dangling bare feet, sipping water, looking into the horizon.
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The devil is... not some suavely suited businessman, offering absurd tempatations like world domination, Anna Nicole-like inexplicable fame or virility. Nor is he some kind of red, horned frat-boy, plying the least subtle peer pressure on you to be bad. He's not even some goateed mouth-breather, whispering naughty impulses into your ear. The devil is more clever, devious, and considerably more mundane. The devil is, in fact, an annoying co-worker. You see, I probably wouldn't take candy from a slick suited yuppy without asking a few questions, and I'm far too square and disciplined to just be naughty and tip a cow over or something, because some silly faun with a pitchfork told me to, but a really, really anoying co-worker could, hypothically, make me do things I'm not proud of. Things the devil would want me to. Like occasionally wishing a visitation of weak bowels on a person. Or, for example, moving things around an office to make them mystifying to a person.
Thank you for reading my entirely theoritcal, deeply superstitious musings in a non-judgemental way, because, you know... not that I ever would or anything. |
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I took some pictures this week, but was too busy to post them until now. For that reason, this post will probably leap around wildly, and not make a whole lot of sense. For example, here's a little gift I made on Monday for Jerad's cousin Jenny, who just gave birth to her second daughter Ally. It might be a hard to make out here, but it's a little singlet and hat which I bought and made some little rosettes for. Quite sweet?  On Tuesday we went down to Bondi Beach after work to eat at a new Burrito place and take a walk. Burritos are very uncommon in these parts, but two places have opened up recently, so we'll try the both. The BOndi place was pretty good, actually. I was really impressed that they used corn tortillas for their soft tacos, because I've looked everywhere for those, and as far as I can tell, they aren't available to buy. Jerad makes his own. They kind of went a bit troppo on the Prawn Quesadilla though - literally! It had pineapple in it. Ick. Anyway, here's the lovely Bondi Beach... a city beach, keep in mind, at dusk on Tuesday evening.     Earlier, we stumbled across and an amazing reproduction of the sphyinx and pyramids in Giza. Cool huh? It's got as much facial detail as the real thing!  Walking around the suburb of Bondi, we saw this incredible plant, unlike any I've ever seen before. Such a beauty, with clustersof frangipani-like flowers and a trunk which resembled a boab, but covered in fierce spines. There was a shirtless old man, prhaps Greek/Italian/Maltese leaning on the fence nearby, pondering the tree, and it turns out it was his home. He claims someone in the neighbourhood comes by at night and squirts it with poison to try and kill it. He couldn't say why. Was he guarding the tree? Curious. He had no idea what type of tree it is, and he said that someone gave it to him as a gift forty years ago. I think it more likely that he smuggled the seeds back in his pocket from a holiday destination. No matter, it was a beauty and so unique!  On Wednesday Jerad and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary with a quiet dinner at home. Jerad cooked a really indulgent meal, starting with homemade parpadelle withgrated fresh Perigord black truffle. We both agreed that we had never had the luxury of eating as much truffle in one sitting - it was extremely decadent. Truffle, by the way, is $2,570 per kilo in Australia. Little wonder then that Jerad bought one the size of a golf ball. You can't mess around with truffle, that flavour can't be beat. I reckon Jerad has mastered pasta now too - it's just absolutely perfect.  Perhaps unwisely, this was followed by our traditional anniversary dish, Lobster Thermidor.  When I figure out how, I'm going to post a little video of how Poly responded to the lobster much earlier in the day. It's comedy gold. Well, looking back on it this way, it certainly looks like we live the good life, but you know... no one takes picturesof the hours they spend studying, cleaning their home, or navel gazing. After the whole lobster and truffles thing, I'm just afraid of being beheaded like Marie Antoinette for losing touch with the people. |
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Recently, at the Italian seafood restaurant where I work, one of our regulars – a radio personality and something of a local Australian celebrity, we’ll call him Mr. L – came in with his wife and two friends for lunch. Mr. L invariably orders the grilled ciabatta with cherry tomato and basil salsa, despite the fact the dish has been missing from our menu for a little less than six months now. He’s that kind of customer. I’m not sure whether he doesn’t know or doesn’t care that it is no longer served in the restaurant. I suspect both. Whatever his excuse, we expect to have to cook outside the menu when Mr. and Mrs. L rock up. And most of the time, that’s ok. Our kitchen is divided into four sections: cold starters/salads, the least technical and easiest section in the kitchen, hot starters/pasta, a demanding, speed-essential section with lots of intricate pan-work, desserts, prep-intensive but plop-and-serve plating for a breezy service, and of course mains, my section. All of the fish and meat as well as the accompanying sauces and garnishes come from the mains section. On any given day, with specials, lobsters from the tank and special lunch menus, mains may be looking after nine or ten dishes, twice that of any other section. In addition, the chef on mains calls in orders, organizes the timing for the entire kitchen, and ensures that waiters take the right food to the right tables. To be fair, when the restaurant is busy, two people work the station, one cooking, the other plating and directing traffic, dividing the load, allowing more focus on both sets of tasks and many fewer mistakes. This wasn’t a particularly busy day, however, and I was alone for Sunday lunch service, and should have had no trouble cooking for the eighty or so diners we had booked. We started out all right, the first dockets coming in early, customers ordering well – oysters followed by entrées followed by mains, giving me plenty of time to seal and rest steaks, allow fish portions to come to room temperature so they cook evenly, ever so slowly render duck breasts for perfectly crisp skin and verging-on-rare flesh. If you plot the number of dockets over time during any three hour service, the distribution would form a classic bell curve, the highest point being about 1:30 p.m. for a typical lunch service. Sometimes though, as happened during this service, all the customers sit down and order at roughly the same time, forming a spike on paper and what we call a “shit-fight” in the kitchen. At 1:15 we’d served about twelve customers and nearly cleared our docket rail. By 1:40 the entire entrée docket rail was full and our docket printer wasn’t slowing up. Between them, the cold and hot entrée sections kept up admirably well. They grouped tables together, sent out twelve or fifteen plates at a time; the waiters only just able to run the food and get back before the next group came up. All the while I’m calling out dockets and sending food: “ORDER IN! Two carpaccio, one calamari, two tagliatelle, FOLLOWED BY, one ocean trout, one snapper, a t-bone medium rare, and a duck. Table 611 on the pass! Starters, get that asparagus plate up! ORDER IN! Three linguini, two no entrée, FOLLOWED BY, two kingfish, one well done, a flounder, a t-bone medium, and a sirloin blue. ORDER IN! One vongole…” As meat comes on order, I start to cook it immediately, so that while the customers are eating their first course, their steak is cooking and resting in a warm place. When they are “called away,” that is, ready for their mains, the meat has become perfectly tender and moist, and no one has to wait too long for their meal. Subsequently, on top of calling dockets, plating hot entrées, and directing the waiters, I was now trying to keep track of a dozen or so steaks on my grill. Table by table the food went out and, suddenly, or what seemed like suddenly, there was nothing. The printer had stopped, we had all the entrées out, and all the steaks were resting. And not a single table had been called away. For the time being no one had anything to cook. It was nearly silent; a stretched-out instant not unlike those agonizingly long seconds between the moments, say, when you hit a pothole on your bike and when you grind face-first into the ground. I had that mid-air, slow-motion, floating feeling looking at the dockets flapping in the hot kitchen breeze, and, in a curiously detached manner that so often characterizes these moments, thought that, waving there, somehow they reminded me of Buddhist prayer flags. In what can only be attributed to a combination of the heat, my rising panic, and my thoughts of eastern philosophy, I unexpectedly recalled a passage I read once in the Tao Te Ching, a traditional Chinese Taoist text: “Ruling a kingdom is like cooking a small fish.” Admittedly, I remember the quote mostly because of my confusion upon first encountering it. What my philosophy teacher had to explain to me, and what is probably obvious to you, is that when you cook a small fish, the less you poke it and flip it and shake it the more it will stay intact. Therefore, a good ruler will meddle as little as possible, intervening only when the fish needs to be turned, and no more. Given that I never planned on ruling a kingdom, I didn’t see how the advice applied to me. As I moved up in the hierarchy of the kitchen, I began to understand how the passage was relevant to me. Any sort of management is almost universally better when minimalist, and I make a conscience effort to supervise accordingly. More recently, as I am asked to lead the kitchen more and more often, I realize the line is also about the degree of difficulty of ruling. To sauté a small fish properly, so that the skin is crisp and brown, but not scorched, and the flesh is just cooked, but never dry, takes practice, skill and finesse. So too running a kitchen. Too much or too little involvement and the whole thing might fall apart. These, at any rate, were the thoughts firing around in my brain in those free-fall seconds before it all began to happen. Tick, tick-tick, tick, tick. “MAINS AWAY 616! MAINS AWAY 201! MAINS AWAY 314!” One after the other the printer spewed them out. I was firing garnishes as quickly as I could heat pans. Sautéed chestnut mushrooms with white truffle butter in one, warming crushed potatoes and sweet-and-sour eschallots in another, grilling asparagus, all the while firing group after group of fish, skin side down, on my beautiful, chrome plated fish flat-plate. I must have had a dozen tables on the go at once. My grill was full, ocean trout and snapper and kingfish and swordfish all tucked in neat, space-efficient rows. Counting the flounder in the oven, the resting steaks and duck breasts, I had about forty meals cooking. It actually looked like I was going to pull it together, I was working so quickly, completely focused, keeping it all in my head “First two trout, one king, and a medium rare, then one snapper, one swordie, then a duck, three flounder, one trout, and a king….” I felt good, really good. Then HE ordered. “Chef?” Jack, one of our waiters was holding a docket I didn’t hear come in. “Chef? This is a VIP, Mr. L. He’s in a hurry, and its mains only.” I grabbed (maybe “seized” is a better word) the docket. Mains only gives me no time to remove the fridge-chill from the fish, to rest meat properly, I was praying no one on Mr. L.’s table ordered a t-bone well done. Two flounder, one ocean trout, and a snapper (see waiter). “What’s this ‘see waiter’ shit?” “The snapper,” Jack said, “is skin off, grilled, and no mushrooms, he’d like a bit of undressed lettuce on the side. Diet. Please, it’s a rush.” Of course, special order, I’m buried here, and he’s in a rush. Brilliant. When I turned, grumbling, back to my fish grill, I froze. It was gone. I had it all in my head and now I’d lost it. What order was it coming up in? More importantly: in what order did I fire it? It was like some nightmare version of the card game memory, rows and rows of fish, each with different cooking times and I’d forgotten what was where. I started flipping fish, taking them off the grill, checking for done-ness, putting them back on, flipping again. I shouted at everyone in the kitchen. “Cold starters, give me three mixed salads and two radicchio salads! Hot starters two sides of beans! Pastry! I don’t care what you are doing; get your ass up here and plate! “Shaun! Stop washing dishes and get me some more leeks, and a tray of ocean trout!” I didn’t know what I was plating. I just started to put food and dockets on the pass and told the wait staff to figure it out. Somehow I found a spare few seconds to cut the skin from a piece of snapper and slap in on the grill. Snapper is such a beautiful fish. The skin roasts to a brittle, deep-honey brown and the flesh is cream white, sweet and flakes off in large, moist chunks. I started Mr L.’s naked little fillet on what would have been the skin side, and left it to plate a few other tables. I must have rushed, or not been concentrating, because when I flipped it, the fish flaked, as snapper does, right in half. In a panic I tried to push it together, was a bit too forceful and broke the end off one of the halves. That’s when things really started to go wrong. I lost my, what should I call it, my touch? My timing? I burnt an entire pan of sautéed cavalo nero, let my duck jus boil over and carbonize on my flat top, splattered scalding olive oil up my right forearm, tore half the skin off a flounder as I was plating it. Standing there, steaks waiting for sauce, blisters forming, pans smoking, I couldn’t think of anything I hated more than that little, skinless, piece of fish. We, of course, eventually made it through. You always make it, sometimes as a champion more often not. I did get something out of the whole miserable situation. In the middle of it all, waiters asking “How long on 514?” and “Where’s the kingfish for 103?” garnish burning, food going to the wrong tables, fish over cooking, undercooking, Mr. L.’s snapper nearly disintegrating, food going cold, plates too hot, it occurred to me with a painful clarity that I’ve had it all wrong. The excerpt from the Tao Te Ching is not about the difficulty of, or the manner in which one should rule a kingdom. No. The passage, obviously written by a frustrated cook, means this: ruling a kingdom, caring for a nation of people, governing international affairs, national budgets, politics, and all the rest is as easy as cooking a tiny piece of fish. That is, it isn’t. |
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Obviously, I have nothing against freshly prepard food, made from scratch with quality ingredients. More accurately, it's pretty much an obsession. I also like fine dining and am an appalling snob for chi-chi gastronomic indulgences like truffles, sashimi, soft rind cheeses from France, and oysters. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
But really, sometimes nothing will quite do like some kind of mass produced "food" straight out of the box or can. I would like to know what crappola you like to eat, the only qualification being that you should be able to stand by the idea that making the dish/item fresh would just be a disappointing shame.
Here's my list:
* Canned tomato soup - I make it with half a can of milk, and half water, and I could in all seriousness eat it three nights a week in the winter. I don't, because it's just drinkable ketchup, but I could.
* Supermarket tubs of pasta salad - my pasta salad is never that good, mainly because it's usually way too posh, has too many real, healthy vegies in it, and lacks that creamy/sweet thing that the pre-bought stuff has going on.
* KFC Coleslaw - I'm just starting to gross you out now, aren't I?
* Canned Baked Beans - I made my own last year in my crock pot with molasses, a smoked bacon bone and all sorts of other delicious things. I ate them for a few days, then couldn't cope with the flavour overload anymore. I think there's nothing quite like a dinner of canned baked beans, and hot, buttered toast on a rainy night.
* Canned Braised Steak and Onions - I'll admit this is the worst of them all. No one on earth likes this product except me. It's all due to good-will BS&O fostered with me on many Army Cadet and Wilderness camping trips when I was growing up. I had the huge fortune in those days to have a sort of jaffle iron (grilled sandwich iron) which you could stick into a camp fire to make toasted sandwiches which were really more like little pies in that the grilling process clamped the whole thing shut. Everyone wanted to be my friend because of that thing - while everyone else was trying to heat can of beans in pathetic, passive-aggressive little embers, I was making delicious pie thingies with my jaffle iron. BS&O was standard Australian Army Cadet issue food - looks like dog food, homogenous, and just plain strange in concept. But can I tell you - in those jaffles things, it was the king. I still buy BS&O every now and make jaffles to recapture the whole experience.
* Curry Rice-a-Riso - So yummy. The best thing if you don't feel like doing much more than mixing a packet with water and heating it up. I think they call this Rice-a-Roni in America. I know you'll think "Hey, why not just mix orzo and rice and cook it up with your own flavourings - can it really be that hard?" Well no - but for some reason, the seasoning in this particular product is yummy. It's perfect for eating while on a coach watching some awful shite made-for-TV movie with a name like "Who Will Bring Baby Home?" (these movies usually star the Rise-a-Riso of actresses, Valerie Bertinelli or Judith Light)
I'm sure I can think of more...
Now you.
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I often feel that Australasia is such a perfect description for urban Australia. Once in the country, Australia become like the Australia people preceive from a far, native trees, bush people, farms, beautiful country towns. Sydney, in many parts, feels like South South East Asia. Yesterday I went to the markets solo, as Jerad had to work. I took the opportunity to take some pictures to capture the wonderment that is the produce at this time of year. I have by no means captured anything even approaching full coverage of the experience. The pictures also don't give a sense of the market vibe - shopping at Paddy's is not for everyone, and it's nothing like the posh foodie glamour of the Farmer's Markets I loved so well in the States - yesterday it was extremely hot (90) and crowded. There's a bit of push and shove involved. One must be extremely deft in the manouvering of their cart, and know just how to catch the eye of much-in-demand giver of change. A lot of the people who work at the market are absolutely top-notch people, who I enjoy seeing every week. It's not a place for diletants to browse around, sniffing selectively at rare, organic produce - this market will offer you a firm smackdown if you pause in uncertainty for a minute.
The stands are generally just the opened fruit crates stacked on tressles. The people who re-stock the top of these tables will not hesistate for a second to push you firmly aside to get to the produce they need to replenish. I'm prepared to take just about any level of abuse because the prices are in many cases a quarter of the supermarket, offer way more diversity, and presents un unrelenting parade of the best, most tears-of-joy inducing produce in all of Sydney.
This is my herb guy - he's an absolutely grouse guy, and always throws in extras.
and here's his towering stand of herbs. If you can't see what you want right on top, I guarantee it's in there somewhere. He always has what we need.
The chive grasses I've been discussing with Jen - so many kinds. What are they all for? All I know is that my cats like 'em.
More Chinese greens and fried tofu.
and STILL more Chinese vegies - I like these ones steamed with a drizzle of seasame oil and oyster sauce.
Check out the variety! No excuse to not eat lovely, healthy vegies every week. It need never be boring.
Papayas from sunny Queensland. I wish I liked them, but to me they just smell like vomit. Such pretty, pink interiors though.
Young coconuts, and Chinese melons.
Homeboy sells me my fruit.
Check out the black plums, apricots grapes and nectarines on his stall.
My favourite summer stone fruit - nectarines. They're at their absolute pinnacle at the moment - fragrant and sweet.
Jerad's favourite - white peaches, with some glorious white nectarines in the background.
I realised yersterday that I didn't show the after shots for our spare room, once it got all the pukey green kicked out of it. Here is is in all it's crisp, white splendor - thanks Yankee Mom and Dad.
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