i’m filling in a questionaire at the moment, and the number one question is: what is your secret food shame? it took me aaages to think of something. i mean, i eat a lot of crap, but i’m not necessarily ashamed of it. i recently came to the conclusion that my favourite food may well be hot chips, but i wear that badge proudly. (figuratively, mind; i might now have to set about making an actual thing with a pin in it, oh boy!) i don’t like oysters? is it not possible to have a dedicated interest in food while studiously avoiding those slimy, putrid bivalves? sure!

and then it struck me: my secret food shame is that i horde food. i don’t mean to. behold, this rather dramatic looking chocolate mooncake that i won off grab your fork way back in — ahem — september last year. where does the time go, i ask you!

do not fear. it has been cryogenically preserved in my fridge, still sealed in its ornate plastic packet with its little sachet of desiccant. i broke it open this afternoon, desperate for a mid-annual-report-layout snack. the bag emitted a barely perceptible sigh as i cut it open; at last the mooncake would fulfill its destiny.

it was the smell that struck me: an aroma so rich and chocolatey that i was surprised when i bit into the skin, and discovered it actually wasn’t. instead it was mild and cakey, with an undercurrent of regular mooncake pastry. no, the chocolate lay beneath.

GAH. a big, moist mouthful of fudgy chocolate. mmm… quite trufflicious. and here’s the surprise: a pure white heart of mochi. well, ok. so i wasn’t so surprised. having eaten a couple of them not quite — ahem — six months ago, i knew of the chewy treat within. and also, there’s the sticker on the pack that says, “o-mochi mooncake”.

yes folks, this is mooncake innovation at its… well, that level a little way short of “finest”. the mochi isn’t really there for flavour i think, but it does a good job breaking up the mass of sweet, sweeet, flavoured lotus seed paste — mellows out the flavour while providing some thought-provoking texture. and how striking it is, against the chocolate.

i like it. taste aside, i love the sharp impressions in the skin, from the mould. it looks like it’s been carved out of ebony, no? the macha omochi mooncake looked to be an objet d’art crafted in jade. when mooncake season comes round again, i’ll be looking out for these in the usual chinese grocery shops.

so yes, i am a little bit embarrassed that it’s taken me six months to eat it. but hip hip hurray for those food technicians who engineered this long life mooncake, still delicious after all that time.

anyway. the reason i’m filling in this questionaire is that a picture i submitted on a whim to eat. drink. blog. was selected to be part of the SBS photo exhibition at the inaugural australian food and drink bloggers’ conference in melbourne this coming weekend. hopefully it doesn’t melt away into a little puddle, my snapshot of a watermelon and pineapple ice pop, amongst such illustrious, gorgeously styled, DSLR macro company.

it was the evening my sister returned from a day at the blue mountains. she had been perched on a grubby metal step — hell, let’s call it the floor of the train — for the duration of the journey back to the city, and been kicked by a rat-faced little boy with a filthy mouth to match. after which there was another lackluster ride on another train — a sushi train — for dinner; it was the second last day of the old year, after all.

and so she and the frenchman tumbled back to the house, and frenchie took his place on the blue couch with the red controller and earned himself another five mario stars, and my sister handed me a little package wrapped in a purple paper bag.

i shook it, as i asked, “can i eat it?”

“well…” she said.

“oh! is it matches?” i ventured.

i felt the exhalation more than i heard it.

“but wait ’til you see them,” she said.

“are they pink?”

but she had no chance to answer, because i had slid the box open, and there they were.

it was exactly as it had been a couple of weeks earlier, when my aunt brought my grandmother ’round for a little birthday morning tea. after the sour cream fruit loaf which my aunt had made — un-iced, though solemnly adorned with whole pecans — my grandmother was presented with a few wrapped-up parcels, and as she ran her hands over each one, she pronounced decisively, and uncannily, “purse,” or “cookbook”. clearly, i have inherited her gift.

i immediately jumped up, struck a match, and lit my new oolong-flavoured candle. everything was nice.

and now, two weeks into the new year, things are still nice, though rather a lot hotter than i’d like, especially today when the trains running through western sydney were not air-conditioned, and i thought i might just vapourise on my way home from facilitating an image-making workshop with some young, especially giggly muslim girls in granville.

things are nice, with the intensive swimming classes, and the lemonade icy poles, and the giant red megaphones in the shadow of the opera house, and between it all, i find i haven’t the time — or, alas, the inclination — to blog anymore. shame, i cannot tell you about the salty peanut butter cup taste test, or the wonderful lunch before the crazy-ass thunderstorm, at gastronomia pelagio. what about the cabbage salad at pompei, which turned out to be a great mound of shredded cabbage, dressed simply with a truffled olive oil and garnished with a few planes of parmesan? almost as delicious as the prosciutto and fig pizza one plate over. (let’s not even talk about dessert — a scoop of peach sorbet nudging a scoop of pistachio, both as creamy lush as they were intense.)

it’s not that i would not like to keep telling you stories. but i think that i must step away for a moment, just a quickstep in the vast scheme of things you understand, until the sky is less burny, and my time management improves, and i figure out the terrible minotaur’s labyrinth that is customising a wordpress template.

and when i return, i will drag an rss feed out with me! yes!

in the meantime, other wordy girls will tell you many a fine story, and point you in the direction of a good feed too.

and because i am never far from the innernet (as much a blessing as it is a curse, i tells ya), i might post an update or two on my brand spankin’ new ragingyoghurt facebook page. ok, just for you, a photograph of the cabbage salad goes up as we speak.

and yeah, what the matchbox said: thanks, for coming by. it pleases me that you do.

normal transmission will resume… some day.

hem. i’ve been hiding.

you know how it is. you go away for a few days. and you come back, but don’t tell anyone, and over the next couple of weeks you realise how unfettered you feel without the blog attached. and then a couple more weeks go by, and then a couple of months apparently — some people have been counting, evidently, and leaving heartfelt secret messages on their blogs — and suddenly, you’ve even forgotten what size to crop your photos, necessitating some resaving of pictures so you can post them.

i really didn’t know if i’d be back. i hadn’t planned it, but along the way, as i luxuriated in this pocket of time that not writing afforded me — a pocket of time that i squandered finally finishing “gilmore girls” and starting “six feet under”… and laying out an annual report [note to self: send invoice] — becoming a reader of blogs rather than a writer of one became a very attractive option. (i also thought of maybe writing this as an anger blog rather than a food blog after an encounter with the ridiculous and exasperating seagull woman of darling harbour on an excursion to the aquarium a few weeks ago.)

well. it could still happen i suppose.

but not today. today, i bring you macaron! we stopped by the lindt cafe at cockle bay wharf after the aquarium, me and the kid, for a dark hot chocolate and a babycino. they had recently introduced a new macaron flavour — blackcurrant — and had organised a festival of delice to celebrate. the festival, as far as i could tell, consisted of a free third macaron for every two you bought. i think that perhaps stretches the conventional definition of “festival”, but at the same time, i wouldn’t turn down a free macaron. so, fine.

they look like fat, perfect specimens, don’t they, nestled in their fancy lindt-paper-lined box? but their shells were brittle and hollow, and their fillings unyielding, though undoubtedly quite tasty. tchk. i ate them during a workbreak the next afternoon, swiftly and joylessly. i wished they could all be zumbo rice pudding macaron.

do you care for zumbo?
- bloody hell. it’s all you write about. enough already.
- it’s all you write about, but i like it!
- zumbo? hadn’t noticed a skew. just keep doing whatever it was you were doing.

but i called them up on monday and grovelled a little bit, and a couple days later, my parcel showed up, from the good folk at penguin: a handsome hardcover called, “alone in the kitchen with an eggplant: confessions of cooking for one and dining alone” (edited by jenni ferrari-ader).

“look!” i said to the boy, “people send me books now, because i am media!”

“you mean, because you have a blog?”

“yes?”

“that’s ridiculous,” he said.

which maybe it is, a little. after all, i mean, who am i?

well, never mind me. here is a collection of 26 essays, personal stories from an eclectic mix of writers including amanda hesser (food editor of the new york times magazine), nora ephron (chickflick writer), haruki murakami (tedious postmodern novelist), and steve almond (whose book “candyfreak” — a brief history of regional american candy — i am also currently in the middle of). i am reading them as the editor intended — in order — and a handful of chapters in, have encountered someone who ate asparagus every day for two months, someone who was happy to subsist on crackers:

…most nights i did not feel fancy at all. i ate slices of white cheese on saltines with a dollop of salsa, then smoothly transitioned to saltines spread with butter and jam for dessert. i would eat as many as were required to no longer be hungry and then i would stop.
- ann patchett

…someone who relied on black beans throughout grad school, someone — at last — who didn’t make eating at home alone seem quite so dire:

my home-alone dinners are often composed of one or two flavours, prepared in a way that underlines their best qualities. eggs are high on the list. i rarely eat breakfast but i adore eggs and there are very few opportunities to eat them at other times of the day. so i might poach one and lay it on a nest of peppery or bitter greens. i might toss a poached egg with pasta, steamed spinach and good olive oil, and shower it with freshly-grated nutmeg and cheese. or, i might press a hard boiled egg through a sieve and sprinkle the fluffy egg curds over asparagus. – amanda hesser

which is the way it should be, no? when else are you going to get the chance to cook exactly what you want to eat, without having to take into consideration anyone else’s particularities? the week i had to myself, that week boy and kid were away, i made spaghetti with shredded brussels sprouts sauteed in rocket pesto, and a tofu green curry with as many green vegetables as i could pack in. i’m sure i would’ve made several more meat-free, veggie-packed things, but i also had to fit in some leisurely solo cafe meals, a vegetarian dinner at BBQ king — it can be done!, and adriano zumbo, three times.

this is a book about how food fits into people’s lives. there are no glossy photographs of tasteful little dinners and convenient lunches, but there are recipes now and again, for such things as roasted beet and cucumber salad with ricotta salata, truffled egg toast, kippers mash, yellowfin tuna with heirloom tomatoes and oil-cured olive and caper salsa. see, it doesn’t all have to be about drinking your lonely way through a giant pot of soup.

though it could be, if you wanted it so. it’s not so horrible to eat alone, is it? don’t you? (and what do you eat? tell me. tell me!)

and that is why this book is such an enjoyable read: all those dirty little dietary secrets. and, ok, all the moments of glorious self-discovery. it’s like reading food blogs! at its best, it’s like reading orangette.

i am looking forward to the penultimate chapter, “instant noodles” by rattawut lapcharoensap, because actually, that is one of the things i like to eat best, when i have the pleasure — the luxury — of being home alone.

i stopped by my new favourite shop the other day — adriano zumbo — for a chorizo-and-olive baguette, to have with a bowl of the cauliflower and cumin soup i’d made the day before, with a whole cauliflower i’d bought for $1.82.

down the other end of the counter, a vision in pink caught my eye. little blocks lined up in a tidy row, and at the very front was a little card that said:

WIMBLEDON
pain d’epice and pistachio base, baked white chocolate cheesecake, raspberry mousse, creme fraiche.

ostensibly a white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake. a fairly classic combination… but with all sorts of insane detail. look! plump raspberries. chopped pistachios. white chocolate shards with arty marbling. squiggles of pink-tinged creme fraiche.

it was a fairly straightforward transaction up until this point: i was immediately won over by this cake, i had to have one, i placed my order…

and then the counterboy said, “that website, ragingyoghurt, is that you?”

GAH. sprung.

happily, the only chastisement i received was, “stop calling me ‘the counterboy’!”

so, the boy behind the counter, his name is charlie. and in case you were wondering, the macarons that day were mandarin, and hazelnut.

but i had my mind on other things.

and so a month goes by. it kicked off with a txt from a concerned well-wisher, letting me know that all the pictures on this page had been replaced by a dramatic highway-by-night photograph. dramatic indeed! my domain had quietly expired, who knows when, and evidently my registrar is not the kind that sends out a renewal reminder. after an almost frenzied exchange with the helpdesk, who helpfully sent an email which confirmed, “your domain name expired. you were supposed to log in and renew the domain…”, i typed my credit card details into a box, hoped for the best, and then left a few hours later for new zealand.

my good mother is visiting this month. her first week here, we did the rounds: about life, circle cafe, bar contessa, david jones food hall… we had every intention of doing sopra, but barrelling up crown street, we passed by bills and our plan came undone. she’d been talking about trying the ricotta hotcakes for years, and i figured it was now or never. and now, perhaps, never again; is it neccessary to have that much pancake on a plate? tchk. we shall try again for sopra this friday: as part of the sydney italian festival, they are presenting “special prosciutto menus“!

we had cupcakes from cupcakes on pitt (the promising sticky date cupcake was a bit dry and quite heavy and strangely muffin-like — i am not recommending it; the strawberries and cream was much more delightful — pretty pink cake with fresh cream and a single sliced up strawberry), and cupcakes from the colonial bakery at the milsons point train station (the lemon cupcake had a generous dollop of whipped cream and a splodge of dayglo yellow lemon jellycandycurd), and then my mum briefly talked about a new cupcake cookbook and how she might buy it and bake cupcakes in her impending retirement. (she has since recanted, and will now be baking muffins, which really sums up the difference between us, i think.)

we did circle cafe again…

and for a week in-between, we went — my olds, my kid and me — to new zealand, where babycinos are called “fluffies”, and the marshmallows that come with them are invariably a little stale. the lamb is delicious though, in all its forms: lamb pie, lamb burgers, more lamb pie, lamb salad. somehow i photographed none of it.

this lamb salad is from about life, and is one of the best things i’ve eaten, ever. tender roasted meat, shaved fennel, pomegranate seeds, this gorgeous beast i captured.

it paused briefly today — blue sky! sunshine!! — to allow us to stroll boldly up the hill splashing in puddles, before laughing in our faces and raining on our heads. still, we made it to bakers delight, as directed by the kid.

“bun shop? ok. bun shop!”

and then the supermarket, where everything was on special, and where maeve sat in the pram, docile, ok, content, gnawing on her bun while i walked the aisles thinking of all the possibilities. at the checkout, an elderly european woman said to her, “oh you are very selective, picking out all the chocolate and raisins.”

but they were actually olives.

i recently learned, via tomatom.com, that raging yoghurt is one of the top 20 food blogs in australia: i scraped in at 19, woop. ed succintly summed up the blog in one word: “cakes”. so i unleash unto you, the ragingyoghurt cupcake tshirt, featuring a drawing you may recall from the other month.

there was the dubious (but welcome and gleeful, oh yes indeedy) honour of being someone’s “sad little fetish” at the sydney morning herald blogs. and then being quoted on rice bowl journals about running amok in the aisles of mr wong’s grocery. why, it made me feel like i had cake in my belly.

thank you for coming to read. i will tell you about the dondurma, and the lemon buttermilk ice cream, soon.