my sweet strong beautiful brave aunt.
6.03a.m.
Author Archives: ragingyoghurt
Filed under cake
(past christmastime at mediterranean wholesalers, or whenever really, you can pick a little cake from the display and sit yourself down at a table at the coffee bar. the pistachio bigne comes filled with a smooth custard of palest green, and encrusted with chopped nuts like so many barnacles. do not feel like you must order a hot chocolate to go with. it is made with cadbury’s powder, and even then, not nearly enough of it. if it’s still close enough after christmastime, they will sell you a generous slice of panettone for a dollar to go with whatever beverage you end up with.)
in the weeks leading up to christmas, we embarked on a mission of reconnaissance at mediterranean wholesalers. down the back, where it’s normally wafers, stood a great wall of panettone. there was plenty to choose from, but our choice was mostly immediately clear: the etna. the year before, we saw actual etna from a great distance as we rode the sicilian railway from agrigento to catania. now was our chance to observe the volcano close up. the box was very persuasive: see how the candied fruit dances above the cake, just like an erupting volcano! before we left for the countryside, we returned to the shop to claim our own.
in fact, this was one of those times when the product matches quite closely the depiction on the packaging. despite the manhandling at the cash register, it was more or less perfect when unwrapped. the food technologists in italy are doing a sterling job. it was melty hot outside, but the stabilisers in the vanilla icing — rich and creamy — worked hard to maintain the illusion of a snow-capped mountain in our kitchen.
underneath, the chocolate cake was the bready sort, not too sweet and possessing a pleasant cocoa flavour. much of the sweetness came from the hidden reservoirs of blood orange sauce, and the candied… something.
it wasn’t orange peel; my memory seems to recall the packaging listing maybe arrowroot as an ingredient.
it made for a run of festive breakfasts as we counted down to christmas, but all too soon, it was gone.
2012 clicked over without too much of a to-do. i think it was about 11.55 on the night of 31 december when i went to bed, no longer willing to play the guessing game of “will harlan wake up for a feed in ten minutes, or three hours?” i heard the fireworks going off in the city. harlan awoke about two hours later. but it’s not like we’ve been having an uneventful summer.
just shy of xmas, we hightailed it out of the city, into the northeastern corner of victoria, where the boy has a little patch of dirt. we brought along our kmart xmas tree, and scattered a handful of presents underneath. then we got along with the business of a summer holiday. bike rides for some…
and dipping our toes in sunshine at the nearby woolshed falls…
(while others of us dozed in the shade of the björn)…
(and elsewhere).
there was the endless washing of washers.
evenings, we walked the town, listening to birdsong and spying on wild bunnies. around the train station it’s rife with bunnies.
during the day we hid from the heat, or we searched out local delicacies. at the aldi in wodonga, we bought ham steaks and maple (flavoured) syrup and a six-pack of mince tarts. dinner sorted, we said, pleased, as they came up the conveyor belt. (though we were kidding — dinner was at the local chicken shop.)
another day, i came across a wonderful mulberry dacquoise at the beechworth pantry. crunchy hazelnut meringue sandwiching fat berries in cream. there may be no better cake in this pocket of victoria.
and then there was christmas, at the town called the rock — a glut of prawns and an endless supply of miniature chocolate bars. there was lemon tart and cream sprayed from a can. there were presents, oh my word, yes.
back in chiltern, we resumed the evening strolls. the weather had cooled down some and everything was green,
green,
green.
so guess who doesn’t have diabetes anymore.
there was cause for a celebration a couple of nights ago (not the return of normal blood sugars at that stage, although i’d had my fingers crossed for the last week and a bit following my post natal glucose tolerance test), and we found ourselves around a table at hellenic republic, bathed in the golden light of the early evening, with lamb and potatoes and cypriot grain salad (and cabbage salad, yes, and eggplant dip and calamari and octopus, and hell why not, a spanakopita and three lamb chops), and these amazing chargrilled green chilli peppers all smoky and succulent. the platters are small at hellenic republic, but when one of the birthday girls orders double of everything for the table, you suddenly find yourself approaching a dangerous level of satiety.
dangerous only because you must leave room for dessert. the kid and i are never two to go past a mess, so we got the hellenic mess to share. unexpectedly, it was plated in a bowl — a jumble of rosewater meringue, orange blossom jelly, vanilla-infused cream and a dribble of strawberry ouzo sauce poured at the table. (the waiter dispensed it from a small bottle, and i thought he might leave it after the ceremonial pour, but no, he whisked it away.)
mmm… it was a lovely mishmash of flavours and textures. the pistachios were crunchy to offset the crisp meringue; the jelly was wobbly and ethereal. in fact, the delicate orange blossom flavour was probably a bit overwhelmed by the strawberry sauce. but then i was a little too: the ouzo made my belly clench. perhaps if there had been more cream…
no matter. it was gone in minutes (the kid had three helpings), helped along by a pot of mountain tea. see how pretty, the basket of pale green herbery. the internet tells me it is ironwort.
it was still daylight when we left the restaurant. it was a jolly walk home.
Filed under around town, lunch, misc
it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, except now that i write this, i see that it was actually five weeks ago, gah.
my olds were in town, as were the boy’s, and an aunt of his, and a cousin, and we thought we might wander into carlton for a catch up and celebratory luncheon. pizza and gelato were on the horizon (essentially, a replay of the kid’s birthday do some weeks back, but without the paint), but i knew that we would never get into D.O.C. at peak lunch hour. so we tried the aunt-recommended place, and when that proved to be a heaving mass of lunch crowd, we crossed the road to the place previously vetted by the boy’s parents: cafe trevi.
what it had going for it was that it was empty. where it fell short — way, waaayyy short — was the food. the boy and i shared a couple of pizzas, and they were so awful we couldn’t bring ourselves to finish them (and you know, just for perspective, on the occasions that i’ve had say, domino’s, i eat until it’s gone). the bases were sturdy, bland dough trays on which some nasty plastic cheese was melted, and toppings — some strips of leather masquerading as prosciutto for instance — artfully arranged. the others seemed to be enjoying their food, so perhaps we just ordered the wrong things.
however, everybody agreed that the mixed salads were dismal: some roughly chopped pallid iceberg, a couple slices of cucumber and a wedge or two of anaemic tomato, carrot sticks, and — here’s the kicker — dressing perched precariously atop the lot in disposable plastic tubs, one of balsamic vinegar and another of commercial salad cream. low fat mayonnaise, even.
i must say i took a perverse pleasure in dipping carrot sticks in the salad cream. maybe i even enjoyed it, far more than i did the pizza anyway.
dessert down the street at casa del gelato almost made up for it. but not really, i was so grumpy.
last sunday, the boy proposed a carlton excursion, which began with an expedition through the melbourne cemetery. i love a good cemetery: that old one in the middle of athens, where the boy and i wandered 11 years ago; paris’s pere la chaise, in which my sister and i became lost, and cold, and hungry one wintery afternoon in 2007; waverly cemetery in sydney, the site of a fine twilight picnic overlooking a chinatown cream cake and the crashing waves of the tasman sea… good times!
melbourne general cemetery is a world class cemetery. the internet tells me it was established in the 1850s, and that it houses around half a million. what i can tell you is that it is a wonderful collection of gilded script in slabs of marble…
it’s a place where all the branches of christiandom exist peacefully…
there is a chinese section,
and a jewish section.
many angels, some beheaded.
it was shortly after we discovered the amazing shrine to elvis presley — a grotto covered in succulents and engraved marble plaques that looked like velvet elvis paintings — that we realised we were hungry. we meandered through the historic gravestones…
…to the exit, and found ourselves on lygon street just before three. and then after some discussion, we found ourselves at D.O.C. negotiating pizza.
sadly, the special from the other time — porchetta with mustard fruit — wasn’t on the menu, however there was a most agreeable offering of parma ham with buffalo mozzarella, fresh figs and a pungent undercurrent of gorgonzola. we were similarly smitten by the porcini pizza, which included a melange of mushrooms, all cooked to perfect succulence on a white base. the kid had her own margherita, because some things are just too delicious for her. case in point: unsatisfied even with this plainest pizza on the menu, she removed every basil leaf before it was deemed acceptable. by the end, we were so satiated we couldn’t even manage gelato. still, it was the birthday pizza luncheon that was meant to be.
four months ago, i got an email of just two sentences: “…just been diagnosed to have possibly lung cancer with metastases to the spine. i feel so bad we did not take her back pain seriously, attributing it to the hard physical housework she’s been doing.”
during the week just past, an update: “…sadly not responding to her treatment. yesterday’s scans show that the cancer has spread to her brain, liver and more bones, and fluid has collected around her heart and in her lung. she remains brave and is taking whatever comes.”
at what point does living with cancer tip over into dying from it? i am not convinced it is all just a state of mind.
Filed under around town, lunch
so yes, i’m afraid i wasn’t so good at being confined. (and that’s only 4 weeks according to chinese tradition. we were chided by some lebanese ladies at the kid’s school for bringing harlan out to the twilight picnic a couple of weeks ago — “we don’t let the babies out until after 40 days!” they said, and, “put a hat on him — he is cold!”). the monday after the saturday birth, i was trawling the aisles of bas foods with my mother, in search of treats (peach nectar, pistachios, and ülker chocolate biscuits). in the couple of weeks that followed, i turned down my mother’s numerous offers of sesame-oil-ginger-chicken — instead, we did the rounds: mr close, lux foundry, arcadia…
surely this is as nourishing (and heaty!) as anything soused in ginger wine? behold the baked eggs at arcadia, on gertrude, which come with a 25-minute-wait warning. i picked the option with the lentils, and there must’ve been almost two cups in there, buried under the eggs, all salty and herby and crusty-topped. (the surface was all salty and stinky, from a layer of melty taleggio.) it tasted so deliciously of hearty good health that the sheer volume of lentils never got boring (the intermittent pieces of juicy celery helped).
this dish proved easy to eat with one hand, as the other hand occupied itself with the intricacies of breastfeeding. i ate every last pulse, and every last herby leaf from the sprig, and then rolled up the street to bask in the friday sunshine.
“this is the last thing i will cook for you,” said my mother, before bustling into the kitchen. it was lunchtime, her final day in melbourne after five weeks of maternal duty. she had come to cook confinement food, but the first half of her time here, there was no kitchen, and the second half saw her in delicate negotiation with the boy to see who would flex whose culinary muscle on any given night. in the end, i think she only managed sesame oil chicken with ginger, stewed pork, bak kut teh, and a couple rounds of turmeric salmon. the bottle of ginger wine she’d brought with her was only half gone, the additional two bottles i received as a gift, completely untouched. her mission to brew up vast quantities of tong sam and longan tea was aborted — the vile memories of this peculiar beverage from seven years ago still lingered in the back of my throat. while still in singapore she had discussed this tea, enthusiastically. “no,” i said. so she arrived with a kilo of the herb (and four bags of dried longans). “no,” i said. so she asked again and again over the next fortnight. “no,” i said, “but are you asking until i say yes?”
“no,” she said, “but i couldn’t remember what we had decided, and i wanted to make sure.” i wonder if the wonderherb tong sam is as beneficial to short term memory as it is to milk production.
this past saturday she had planned to celebrate harlan’s month on earth with a party (when i’d told her i didn’t really have anyone to invite, she volunteered a few of her family friends and distant cousins). there would be ang ku kueh, and red eggs, and curry chicken with nasi kunyit and roti jala.
in the end, there were just red eggs, and no guests. pinkish eggs, really, when the dye didn’t quite take. the recipe called for them to be boiled for 35 to 40 minutes and then immersed in a dye bath. somehow they ended up being cooked for a good hour or so — impressively rubbery things, with thick grey circles surrounding the yolk, and blotchy patches of pink in the whites where the dye had come through the cracks, and a mildly sulfurous aroma. i’d be eating rose-tinted egg salad wraps and cold, sliced boiled eggs with matching beetroot on toast all week.
saturday evening, party plans scuttled, i took my mother to cumulus inc. for dinner, where she paid. the next morning, after she arrived back in singapore, i received a txt informing me that she’d left the roti jala mould in my kitchen. perhaps i will have curry and roti jala in my future after all.
plus i may have to make this soup again — tasty and calming enough to eat beyond the period of confinement.
marinate minced pork with cornflour, sesame oil and salt. fry julienned ginger in sesame oil, then add chopped garlic and salt. add the pork and fry until not quite browned. add water and bring to the boil. simmer. add meesua. serve with baby cos leaves (or baby spinach, in this case), and… a spoonful of ginger wine.
happy full moon, sweet baby!
Filed under lunch
now here’s a bunch of vegetables that puts the aforementioned hospital veggies to shame.
the other tuesday saw me strapping on the baby and heading into the city for a wander. after stopping in at outré for a squizz at the tattoo art exhibition — which of the angelique houtkamp prints do i want the most? — it was still early enough that lunch at earl canteen seemed like a good idea.
turns out it was a great idea. in an effort to teach my eyes that they aren’t in fact bigger than my stomach, i turned a blind eye to the seductive salads in the counter display and only ordered the trout nicoise sandwich for luncheon, all fishy, oily goodness. it came as a sturdy plank of red-onion-flecked focaccia, filled with fat fillets of freshly seared fish, nestled warm in a ruffle of butter lettuce and mayonnaise. there were green beans and slices of tomato, though not nearly enough of them. perhaps it was just as well — any more and i would’ve had trouble eating it with one hand, as one must do, with a baby in the other. thanks, earl of sandwich!
when we left just before the lunch crowd, i must’ve still had a hankering for beans because the big green salad came with. later in the afternoon, sitting on the couch at home feeding the baby, i could not have been more pleased with the great pile of perfectly blanched green beans and asparagus spears, and strips of grilled zucchini, atop a bed of mixed leaves and herbs. the little tub of light, lemony dressing provided just enough of a glisten. i can’t say who enjoyed afternoon tea more that day, but i suspect it was probably me.
a few hours after harlan was born, while we slumped dazed and confused in our palatial birthing suite, an attendant brought a tray to the bedside — breakfast!
i lifted the lid on the plastic bowl and was rather pleased to discover a heap of rice bubbles. there was also a tub of peaches, and a tub of milk, a grainy roll, a pat of butter and a foil pack of strawberry jam. all in all a low-fibre, high-sugar meal befitting a world class healthcare provider, yes. i pretty much inhaled breakfast — it was all gone in a little over five minutes.
when lunchtime came round, i was excited to read “HONEY CHICKEN” on the sheet tucked beneath my tray. i had visions of golden, glistening, batter-coated chicken lumps. i lifted the lid to find this:
this sinewy looking mass of muscle, deathly pale against its bed of rice. despite its woefully unappetising appearance, the meat was actually moist and tender, and had the faintest taste of honey on its surface. alas, i cannot say the same for the vegetables. they just tasted of good health, in the blandest possible way.
it was around this time that i txted the boy — who had by this stage extricated himself from the miniature couch where he’d been reclining and gotten himself back home to install the recently procured baby capsule in the back of his truck — and begged him to bring me fruit and the packet of ülker chocolate biscuits lurking in the pantry.
that evening, the meal slip read “SWISS STEAK”, which promised a slab of tender meat covered in a rich mushroomy gravy, and fat slices of mushrooms. instead, it turned out to be a slab of meat, yes, held together with a fat vein of gristle, and doused in a bewildering sweet and sour sauce. i ate around the gristle and sauce, and then, having learnt my lesson from lunch, i turned the pat of butter for the dinner roll out onto the rice and vegetables, peppered and salted the whole thing, and rendered it palatable.
dessert was a tub of cold set custard — the highlight of the meal, really — and a red delicious apple, which is my very least favourite kind of apple on account of its complete, ironic undeliciousness.
i was pondering the random selection of meals that i’d been subjected to as i gazed out at my city sunset view, when an attendant came by and placed a sheet of paper on my bedside table. a menu! for the next day’s meals! it all became clear: up until now, someone else (a computer?) had been making the choices for me — here was my chance to see if these hospital meals could be more enjoyable if i got to pick what actually showed up.
so for lunch the next day, i chose irish stew, and for dinner, the hungarian goulash with mashed potatoes, followed up by that compelling custard on both counts. breakfast had already been decided for me, and i was greatly saddened to discover a pair of weetbix in my bowl the next morning, which is my very least favourite kind of cereal on account of its complete undeliciousness.
alas, i was cleared for discharge the day after that, so i will never know if the falafels in tomato sauce were any good. the irish stew was, and the goulash too, which was delivered while kid #1 was visiting, and met with her approval.
my last breakfast, on monday morning, i was back on the rice bubbles. they really do snap, crackle and pop!
and then we were off, me and harlan, back into the big wide world.
