“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!

two tram rides later, i filled two bags with kitchen-organisey stuff — acrylic boxes for sorting, little shelves for stacking — and ate a three course meal at the ikea cafeteria: garlicky prawn skewers on a bed of barley; a greekish salad; a tub of yoghurt.

missions accomplished, we picked the kid up from school, my mum and i, and then, when he returned from work, the boy drove us all in his spankin’ new truck to pick up the baby capsule from the rental place. we had reservations for dinner after, at a greek place in moonee ponds; the seafood platter was better than i remembered.

and then we were home, and we took ourselves to bed, and just before i fell asleep, at 11.30, i felt the slightest twinge in my belly. i gave it little thought — i’d been having braxton hickss for weeks, and i was a whole week away from the official due date, and seven years ago the kid took three days coming; i was hanging curtains on day 2. i didn’t even have a bag packed. a couple of hours later though, i realised that these contractions actually hurt! plus they seemed to be coming, and then going, with a rollicking regularity. i got out of bed, and paced. “i’m feeling contractiony,” i told the boy. i bustled about then, making my way through the checklist in the pink book i’d gotten from the hospital some months before but hadn’t really read, putting stuff in a bag. around 2, things were hurty enough that i called the hospital. i was asked questions about how far apart the contractions were, and how long they were lasting. “maybe five minutes apart?” i said, “and lasting, i dunno, like, 20, 30 seconds?” the nurse on duty replied good naturedly, “you should come in when the contractions last 60 to 90 seconds. and they will be toe-curlingly painful. we would not be having a conversation like this, if you were ready to come in.” so then i thought to time the darned things, and wouldn’t you know, they were 60 seconds long, some even 70 or 80 — i’d just been counting them out too slowly in my head. i kept packing my bag, and counting out contractions, whimpering a little, breathing deep, and then i called the hospital back. it’s true: it’s harder to speak when you’re ready to come in. i checked to see if my toes were curled. it’s undecided, though my back was in spasm. my mum was asleep on the sofabed in the lounge as we snuck out the door. “we should tell your mum we’re going,” said the boy. “hmmyesss,” i replied, “but then it will take you 20 minutes to explain to her what’s going on.” “ok, then let’s go,” he said. and we were off, me, in the back seat on all fours, on a bed of towels to keep any waters breaking over the spankin’ new upholstery, though they did not. we got to the hospital, and i paused to have a contraction against the plate glass window. the triage nurse had my file on her desk, waiting for me. out back, a midwife checked my cervix, and suddenly sprang into action, ushering me into a wheelchair and walking us efficiently — ok, let’s call it running — to catch a lift upstairs. “don’t push!” she said. she tag-team-transferred me to another midwife in another room, who said, “push, except when i tell you to stop.” and so i did. and then there was a head, and later i would be told that the head was still in its bag — the waters didn’t break until the head was out, in this sac, with amniotic fluid swirling around it like a scene from science fiction. (“it’s very good luck!” said the midwife.) i wish i could’ve seen it. but i was standing braced against the bed, one foot on the ground, the other on the mattress, pushing, and then stopping, and then waiting for another contraction to push the body out. and another. and then there he was, kid #2.

harlan. 5 november 2011, 3.41am.

the kid turned seven during the week. se7en! i’d thought i might have a new kitchen in by today, or at least new kitchen cabinets, but no. in fact, i had no kitchen, and no cabinets — just a big empty room with an assortment of wires and pipes sticking out of the walls, and several large holes in said walls where the previous beige tiles and their grey grout — and occasional blue and yellow chequerboard accents — had been gouged out.

still, it was a good day for a party.

it is important when one has no kitchen, to plan a party with minimal cooking. actually, no cooking whatsoever. my party prep in the morning involved emptying bags into bowls, and the cursoriest bit of cutting up fruit. probably should have emptied a couple more bags; the gummy lollies — two bowls by this stage — were the first to go.

fun activities of the night before, after removing the last vestiges of debris from the ex-kitchen, included making pizza bunting for the backyard clothesline. you see, it was a pizza party!

the kids were herded out back for a spot of pizza craft — a free flow of red paint in lieu of passata, a stack of sticky circles and origami paper, some tubes of glitter and a bowl of spangles, and six rounds of cardboard. there were crayons too, but they melted in the late morning sun.

i ordered three of domino’s finest over the phone, and then i joined in the crafty mayhem. here is my neat and tidy sausage and mushroom pizza:

and here is the freeform expression of a wild-and-spirited guest, who started off with a pretty conventional pizza, and then painted over the lot with red, and then most of a bottle of craft glue, and then stuck to it as many sheets of coloured paper and circle stickers as she could:

it’s all in the process, innit? amazing.

and then i scrubbed the thick circle of gluey paint and fairy dust off the table, just in time for the pizza delivery.

there was cake after, of course, after the aforementioned wild-and-spirited guest scaled the cubby house and then the fence, and danced provocatively upon the neighbour’s shed. a rainbow ice cream cake which made another girl sad because she doesn’t like ice cream, and whose candles were prematurely blown out by the wild-and-spirited guest and had to be relit…

nonetheless, i think it probably worked out in the end. happy birthday, kid!

i’m getting that feeling now, of having to cram the sydney experience into the short time left we have in this fair city. in the last four months, for example, we have been to the maltese cafe on crown street, thrice. that’s a lot of pastizzi.

i should perhaps have introduced the kid to this hallowed bastion of crunchy little pastries a little earlier. i used to come here back in the 90s, when i laid out pop magazines up the street, and the whole artroom would break out at lunchtime and split a plate of pastizzi. good times.

it’s nice sitting here, in this slightly shabby room, with an assortment of savoury (and sweet) pastries before you. it will please you to note that the china is heavy and, crucially, mismatched.

15 years ago, the pastizzi were 30 or 40c a piece, and you could feed three hungry flying monkeys for just over $5. now, one pastizz will set you back $1.50. no matter. the decor is still mostly 15-years-ago, and besides what can you get for a dollar-fiddy these days?

on her first visit, the kid was surprised to find that the mushrooms in the chicken and mushroom pastizzi were distinctly inoffensive. by her third visit, it was her standard order.

i do like the cheese and spinach pastizzi, with its light and slightly tangy filling, and i’ve also been reacquainting myself with the stodgy delight of the pea pastizzi, stuffed with the best murky-green tinned mushy peas. all the more delicious dipped into the intense tomato sauce (remember? you used to be able to order “a bit” of sauce, or “a bowl”.)

the apple pastizzi, filled with sweet stewed apples and sprinkled in sugar, is a treat in itself, but on our outings the kid understands it is to be eaten for dessert, only after she is finished with the meaty one.

we ordered a couple of ricotta and blueberry ones the first time round, but it was rather heavier on ricotta than it need to be (and consequently, somewhat lighter on the berries).

the pastries are always hot, and if you are lucky enough to have it straight out of the oven, the friendly man behind the counter will caution you that it is especially hot. oh, delicious crunchy flaky pastry.

the last time we were there, this saturday past, the kid said, “i LOVE this place. i think that we cannot move to melbourne anymore.” i know exactly what she means. round the corner, some well-stenciled graffiti reminds me why coming to surry hills feels a little bit like home.

and the sydney experience continues. the maltese cafe is just far enough away from gelato messina that the stroll down oxford street then victoria street will make it possible to have a delightful second dessert (or y’know just dessert if you were sensible enough not to have apple pastizzi at lunchtime).

last saturday there were so many new flavours that i had to have a three-scoop cup just to feel like i wasn’t missing out. in case this ended up being the last time i got to come to messina (probably not though), i finally indulged my fond memory of the coconut-lychee gelato. it was just as wonderful as i remembered.

i had a small taste of the sprightly and refreshing pink grapefruit and aperol sorbet — “hello sailor!”, it was called — but decided that i’d have to have the peach and amaretti. oh! it was peachy, and studded with crunchy chunks of crumbled biscuits.

a scoop of rosewater and almond praline gelato in the most agreeable shade of pink rounded out the selection. the delicate hue echoed the very faint flavour of rose, which seemed overshadowed by the aggressively crunchy candied almonds.

the kid had her own yoghurt and berry cone, and nursed it by the plate glass window in the back, utterly fascinated by the freshly churned gelato coming out of the machine in the kitchen. we watched as they dispensed cherry, and then coconut, and then once the coconut was all done, the gelato man came out front to the counter and proferred a cone of it to the kid.

we ambled out then, back into the sun, towards more sydney experience (pumpkin sourdough at infinity, a modest selection of chocolatey treats at kakawa, and then a stroll through hyde park for a gander at the archibald fountain). the coconut gelato was impossibly smooth and lush.

reading of dawn’s art collection over at handmadelove reminded me that i’ve been meaning to photograph my cake painting for the longest time. this is what greets me each morning when i wake up, and what sends me off to dreamtime as i lean over to turn off my lamp each night.

strangely enough, i have never had a cake dream. perhaps my average daily cake intake is enough to keep it permeating my subconsciousness.

i remember discussing the painting with the artist, lucy culliton, whom i was lucky enough to meet at the gallery, and who was kind enough to counsel me through choosing which of her paintings i wanted up on my wall. she had originally painted the background pink, she said, but right at the end, had decided to paint it over with white, allowing the barest whisper of pinkish hue to show through.

i like the pale primaries of the painting: pink, blue and yellow rallying round the golden crumby cake.

perched on top, an old advertising card for tea, procured at arthur’s circus a little while ago, and a vintage price tag that my kind sister mailed me last year.

elsewhere in the house, the art is not quite as fancy, but i love it anyway. here is the wall above my computer, filled with stuff the kid has done, mostly from last year at preschool. i’ll be sad to take it all down when we pack up the house, but we’re fast running out of wall space anyway.

i recently started the kid her own tumblr page for her current output, but so far have been not very good at scanning and uploading. it couldn’t be that hard for an almost-six-year-old to learn to use a scanner, could it?

more pink cake! we found ourselves in newtown on friday afternoon, quite famished, and stopped into black star on our way to an errand. being close to the end of trade, there wasn’t all that much left in the counter. on the counter, however, was a large jar of macarons. such pale, encrusted beauties. when i learnt they were rose and lilac, i was a little bit hesitant, because apart from rose, i am not a fan of floral flavours in food.

i should not have worried. the biscuit was crisp and then chewy, and then all heady rose perfume wrapped up in smooth ganache.

it was so good in fact, that post-errand, even with the sidewalk stools piled up high and the countergirl wiping down the counter for the day, we sweet-talked our way into buying another one.

on saturday, an impromptu and fun excursion with my cousin took a displeasing turn after lunch when we found no cake in the city.

no. cake.

to be precise: we did not want dried-out-from-sitting-in-the-display-case-all-week cake (city center); we did not quite want fancy french moussey gateaux (the rocks); we did not want spongy airline chinatown cake (chinatown). two of us wouldn’t have minded cupcakes, but one of us has an ideological issue with them. so we went our separate ways and in lieu of cake, the kid got her first pair of lace-up shoes: silver all stars.

zoom-zoom.

and we saved the cupcakes for sunday. this is what you get when you rock up to cupcakes on pitt and tell them you don’t need a box for your cupcakes because you are going to eat them right away: a little cardboard cupcake caddy. adorable, no? my zero-packaging plans were derailed, but if i remember to tuck it into my wallet, i will always be ready for a cupcake on the run.

i expect i will always be ready for this raspberry cupcake: moist raspberry cake, and a fat swirl (and then some!) of raspberry buttercream. infinitely pleasing, and gone in four chomps.

but we haven’t been making a habit of sailing off to bedtime on a big maudlin cloud, no. for example, mere pages before charlotte was dispatched, we read of templeton’s all-night bender, eating discarded fairground food. there was an illustration on the page: a line drawing of the corpulent rodent.

“he looks like matt preston,” the kid said.

“rat preston!” i countered.

oh, how we laughed.

ah, life after masterchef. what to do with the extra six or however-many-hours-it-was per week? i must be finding something worthy on which to fritter it away, because i have absolutely nothing to show for it.

the kid, on the other hand, assures me that she will be participating in junior masterchef as soon as she is able. so we shall spend the next two years in training. i set her dicing bacon, and then slicing olives, and not three olives in she had sent the knife into her finger, and was whimpering in a most pitiful manner. she spent the rest of dinner prep curled up on the couch, finger aloft, watching “snow white”.

she had really been counting on callum winning, and in the week before the masterchef final, had prepared this drawing celebrating his victory. judging from the masterchef logo on her shirt, i think she had projected herself into this reality too. in this reality, i wear tiaras and long slinky gowns, and my hair goes down to my feet.

ahhh… disappointment on all counts.

i’m not doing a very good job of being here. on the other hand, i’m doing a sterling job of not being here. i mean, i have been here, only i’ve been working. that 300-page textbook job evolved — over more 1-and-2am bedtimes than i care for — into a 384-page textbook job. it’s not over yet, but it is back in the hands of the editorial department, for now.

a couple of weeks ago, i wasn’t actually here at all. i was in melbourne, where the tree outside the cottage industry shop on gertrude street is adorned with a patchwork of lace doilies, and the adjacent sign post wrapped up in a crocheted cozy. all very apt, for the proprietor of cottage industry, one penelope durston, crafts the loveliest arm warmers in a mindboggling range of dusty hues. i must not give in to them, because i already have three pairs of arm warmers, however a couple of years ago i did surrender to a rather fetching shopping bag she’d made out of two vintage tea towels (one was covered in fancy historical teapots and the other presented a nautical scene involving lobsters and lobster pots).

but yes, now i’m back in sydney, with a little breathing room, and where it turns out another pair of arm warmers would not be unwelcome when the temperature dips treacherously at night.

no matter, i turn on my electric blanket before taking the kid into the shower, and then after she’s all clean and shiny, we tuck ourselves into bed and read. we’ve just finished “charlotte’s web”, and towards the end, i started getting that feeling of needing to put the book in the freezer. but we bravely pressed on, into the face of certain death.

afterwards, the kid was subdued, and ventured, “i have a sore throat. you know how sometimes when you’re sad and your throat hurts?” she touched the base of her neck. mmmyes, i was certainly familiar with that feeling.

i could put it down to sleep deprivation. or maybe just the passing of time, or youth, or spiders. maybe the thought of being not here, some day six months from now.

it’s been quiet ’round here, i know. well, not so much literally: we’re currently a week into school holidays, so it’s round-the-clock chatter (and singing, and shrieking) from at least one of us. the other of us has been afflicted with the endless lurgy, and then somewhere in there, halfway through the course of yummy yellow-brown antibiotics, i started laying out a textbook on managing blood-thinning medication. 300-odd pages of text and tables and fun diagrams with lots of arrows. lots.

i am less than halfway through, and it may turn out to be 400 pages after all.

i can’t work during the day, so instead we do school holiday things like wake up at 9.30, and eat brioche and apricot jam, and go to the art gallery, or see children’s theatre… this afternoon we walked through misty drizzle to see mr freezy down at the sydney theatre company, in which a high-octane tale of an ice cream scoop unfolds, as does a great mess of flour and sprinkles and jelly babies and drinking straws, and a chocolate-iced donut is thrown into the audience.

afterwards i had a hankering for an eton mess and tried in vain to find the fratelli fresh down by the pier so that we could go to sopra — does anyone know where exactly it is? but anyway, the rain kicked in a couple more notches and sent us scurrying back into the city, where, oh hey! central baking depot.

moments after we plonked our umbrellas in the bucket by the door, the skies broke open. but we didn’t care — i had just enough cashmoney for two hot chocolates and a slice of blueberry-cinnamon-apple butter cake. the large hot chocolate is only a dollar more than the regular, but twice the size, and fully chocolatey. and just look at that cup — so covetable with its heavy china and gold trim.

on monday, it was too wet to sit outdoors with a pie floater from across the road, but we armed ourselves with BBQ pork buns — the baked kind, with the sticky glaze — from furama cake shop in chinatown, and holed up inside the powerhouse museum for several hours. the fashion week exhibition was good fun, and the 80s exhibition was more sensory overload than trip down memory lane, but it was the interactive batik design simulator which held the kid’s interest for more than fifteen minutes. that and the wonderful school holiday activity inspired by sonya gee‘s historic matchbox project.

$2 bought us an empty matchbox, a seat at the big table, and a steady stream of crafty supplies. the kid set out to make a robot cat, but in the end, it was just a regular cat… with a hidden stash of jewels in her slide-out belly. (it’s on until 18 july, if yer interested.)

and in-between? there’ve been rides on the flying fox in victoria park, a mid-week dimsum feast with grandparents, two loads of laundry in the face of the rain, and a little bit of a thrill to finally read myself in print (PAN magazine, last seen at magnation in newtown). also, i’ve been trying to see how best to get any work done during school holidays, but my shortlived experiment involving working until 2am has proved to be unsustainable, with me stumbling somewhat dizzy and nauseated through the rocks today, after just three late nights.

saturday morning, we’re headed to melbourne for week 2 of the holidays. i wonder how many pages of book layout i can squeeze in before then.

ok, fine. we watch “masterchef“. even though i hate the clunky musical cues, the repetitive editing, the explanations and narrations by the contestants even as the very events unfold right before our eyes… the kid does not really mind — she usually gives her own running commentary over the top of the soundtrack anyway, though the appearance of the burning m logo and the cut to ad break at dramatic points sends her into conniptions.

last year, we went through a stage of playacting “masterchef”: i’d serve up breakfast, and she’d say, “now tell me, poh, how did you make this jam toast and hot chocolate?”

“well, first i got a piece of bread…”

this year, she has been documenting the action with the occasional masterchef drawing. here you see the judging of the recent onsite afternoon-tea challenge. we were very impressed with callum’s crown jewels rendered in the medium of macaron. so were the judges. WAW!*

*pronounced: WOW!