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so, golly, it was just about a month ago that we were in melbourne. warm-and-sunny-in-the wintertime melbourne, whoulda thunk it. we did such typical school holiday stuff as go the the circus (the amazing circus oz, with no horses or elephants, but wonderful and strong girl-acrobats, and funny and hot — h.o.t. — boy-acrobats, and a rocking live band) and hide out in the tim burton exhibition on the one day it did rain.

first off though, we braved the sunday crowds at the queen victoria markets. i don’t know how i never noticed this before, but in-between the boreks and bratwursts there is a stall — colour of earth — that offers a big range of ready-made pizze. what made the choice even more boggly of mind is the number of different bases available. there were regular bases in white and wholemeal, but then there were a number of gluten-free bases. now, my normal reaction to a gluten-free version of something which is not traditionally gluten-free is to grimace and turn away, however these bases were a rainbow of happy toy colours, corresponding to their flavours: black rice, corn, pumpkin…

i couldn’t go past the beet and meat: hot salami, fetta, capsicum, zucchini and olives on a bright pink beetroot base. they didn’t heat it up for quite long enough in the oven — the center of the bready round was stone cold. however the bits around the sides had developed a pleasing crust around the chewy, slightly mochi-textured interior, and the toppings were generous and fresh.

a couple of days later, we caught the tram to port melbourne, and then made the long trek along the beach to st kilda, just so that we (ok, i ) could get ourselves a kugelhopf from monarch cakes.

they sat in the window, like puppies in a petshop, waiting to be picked. all slightly misshapen in that lovingly handmade way. i picked my cake, and the countergirl weighed it.

“this one’s a bit heavier, because there’s more chocolate inside. is that ok?”

more of that thick, sludgy chocolate wrapped up in chewy, sugar-dusted yeasty cake? well, yes! she rang me up, and that was the week’s breakfast sorted.

one afternoon, we showed up at journal, by the door of the melbourne city library in flinders lane. it was packed to the point of throbbing, and the chatter and clatter of peak lunchtime was more than a little confronting. a harried waiter pointed us to two newly vacated seats at the corner of a large communal table, and then disappeared into the crowd for some 20 minutes before coming back to take our order.

which gave me plenty of time to consider the chalkboard menu. i picked the endive salad, expecting a few leaves on a plate with a dribble of dressing. so i was surprised and pleased when a great mound of shredded endive was delivered, barely concealing many strips of prosciutto, walnuts, and clumps of mildly musty blue cheese. a textural masterpiece! there was even bread, for mopping up the tart dressing.

it was delicious, but i must admit, there was so much of it that towards the end, it almost became boring. almost. nevermind, dessert would surely recalibrate up my palate.

because journal sits within that 10-metre city block of tasty treats, all we had to do was go round the corner, and buy ourselves a little cupcake each, from little cupcakes.

i had the bite-sized pistachio cupcake: moist, nutty cake with exquisitely piped frosting, and a gem of a pistachio placed just so. perhaps next time i’ll be having the large pistachio cupcake.

and then yes, the drizzle kicked in, and we hightailed it to the bowels of the australian centre for the moving image, where we admired the very large and very strange body of work that tim burton had created since even before he went to art school. drawings and models and costumes and statues, and clips of edward scissorhands and alice in wonderland, and a perplexing japanese-slash-new wave version of hansel and gretel that the kid quite enjoyed.

(though i suspect her favourite part was actually the back room with the low tables and pots of textas where ordinary folk like us could sit and draw their own monster outcasts.)

the exhibition goes until mid-october, and i’m recommending it if you like tim burton, or strangeness, and monsters, and drawing.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 12 August 2010 at 11:48 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, lunch, trip

last friday, i thought i’d partake of an experiment in which i try to ascertain if it is possible to have lunch across town in the few short hours when the kid is at school. i’d been interested in the modern british food at bistrode for a while, and they launched a $30 two-course lunch deal a short time ago, and deborah‘s clever sister had recently been appointed head chef, hurrah, so that’s where we went.

walking up the leafy back avenues of surry hills reminded me how much i miss this part of sydney. back in the day, i walked these streets for treats: a greek biscuit here, a plate of 30c pastizzi there, a bit of sauce on the side, a magazine at the taylor square newsagents, a mosey in the pop shop on oxford street –

say! did you know that the pop shop, which closed down a few years ago, has reopened on crown street? it was totally my favourite shop on the oxford drag back in — sigh, the 90s — and my heart sang like the rainbow flag out front when i got off the bus last friday and saw it right there in front of me. it is a smidgen smaller than the original shop, but still chock full of tchotchkes, pop cultural references galore, bacon-flavoured mints and bandaids… i picked a constructible drinking straw set for the kid, and when i got to the counter i asked the counterman how long they’d been open there. “almost a year,” he said. “wow,” i said, “that means i haven’t been this way in at least a year.” “well,” he said, “then you should get out more.”

quite. treats were still here for the taking.

we were seated just a whisper before noon, at a table by the front windows. we were offered a smile, a bottle of water, and warm bread and butter. the restaurant is a small, welcoming space, elegant yet utilitarian, all dark wood and white tiles befitting the old butcher shop it once was. as the room filled up over the next hour, the shiny surfaces threw the sounds of lunchtime back in a most cacophonous manner. we took advantage of the early calm to consider the menu.

“i think,” said deborah, “that i need to try the brains.”

a suggestion that i approached with an open mind.

my first ever experience with a brain — we had a hemisphere each; that’s them up top — was… surprising. i was surprised by how creamy it was, and what a mild flavour it had. i was surprised too, when i cut it open, and there, almost imperceptibly white on pale grey, were the perfect petals of the cerebral structure. i wasn’t quite grossed out, but the sturdy shell of tasty crumbs and a good smear of the luscious tartare sauce certainly made it more of a treat. the furthering of my food education, courtesy of the chef.

next out was a portion of hot-smoked eel perched daintily on a bed of thick-sliced beetroot. oh it was delicious: all at once salty-fishy-sticky-smoky, perfectly balanced and well served by the barely dressed salad and the knob of sour cream.

we moved effortlessly into the set lunch proper. there were two choices of starters: a salad of roasted jerusalem artichokes and oranges, and a rabbit and pancetta terrine. so we ordered one of each to share. both were some kind of wonderful, but the terrine was perhaps more wonderful, with its tender chunks of meat interspersed with whole hazelnuts.

at this point we were four courses into our two-course lunch, and although everything was light fantastic, we were starting to feel the tinges of satiety. so we were thankful for the pause in the service before the main courses arrived. but then i checked my watch, and discovered — horrors! — that it was five minutes to two. i wondered how quickly i could eat a plate of food.

i must admit that when i read the menu, i was somewhat underwhelmed by the options for mains: sausages and mash, and fish and chips with mushy peas. good winter grub, sure, but darned our luck that day was sunny and warm. we picked one of each anyway, and were pleased to discover that the two fat sausages were herbed and meaty, and the mash was velvety.

the fish — a generous serve of three fat fingers — was firm and meaty beneath the crunchy crumb, and the chips were a large potato cut into four. i wish i could have eaten much much more of the mushy peas — their verdancy belies the amount of butter i’m sure must have been whipped into them, albeit with a light and skillful hand.

in fact, i wish i could have eaten much more of everything, but the combination of too many appetisers and rather a lot of meat and — crucially — the fact that when i next checked the time it was twenty past two (!) meant that i was suddenly saying goodbye in a great hurry, and slipping out the door, and running up to the main street to hail a cab that would take me through the city and across the bridge (anzac, not harbour) to the school gate to retrieve the kid, phew.

so, um, yeah. i guess my experiment was… not exactly a failure, but i’m kicking myself for missing out on the flourless chocolate fondant with dark chocolate sorbet (i think the other dessert option might have been gruyere and oat biscuits). well fine, i doubt i could have fit it in anyway.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 20 June 2010 at 12:11 am

permalink | filed under around town, lunch

back in sydney, i wasted no time in recapturing a little bit of european je ne sais quoi. a week after touching down i talked singapore girl into a spot of luncheon at le grand cafe. we have figured out by now, that the best time for lunch at le grande cafe is “early”. just before noon, there are no queues, several empty tables, and a glass case full of options.

all morning, i’d been thinking of the terrine and cornichons that i’d enjoyed on a previous occasion. i considered maybe branching out and trying the duck liver parfait with brioche. however, once i discovered that the baguette on offer that day was filled with duck confit, my choice was made.

they showed up at the table a little while later, one for each of us. the sandwich had been freshly toasted, and there was a satisfying crunch to the baguette before it gave way to succulence: i was pleased to find that the bread was generously buttered, and the filling dressed with mayonnaise, and of course, to start with, there was a good amount of naturally occurring duck fat. it all made for a very moist and tasty mouthful. the slices of crisp, sweet onion provided a good foil to the fat, as did a little dimpled bottle of orangina.

we had planned ahead and picked our desserts when we ordered our sandwiches at the counter, to save us from rejoining the queue when the lunch crowd eventually swept into the cafe around 1. the attentive waitstaff brought them to the table as soon as we were done with the baguettes.

for me: the caramel tart, which turned out to be more of a very nice pastry shell filled with a sort-of creme brulee. the surface of it lacked the crackly, sugary shell of a proper creme brulee, but the mild caramel flavour and light custardy texture was pleasing all the same. the jaunty little beret of a biscuit bore a striking resemblance to a cookie from famous amos.

singapore girl had the petit pot au chocolat, which turned out to be too much chocolat for a girl who had just eaten a baguette filled with three kinds of fat. beneath the nutty crumble topping was a deep expanse of rich, dark, chocolate. at the bottom of that, was a puddle of thick caramel. perhaps she should not have also ordered a hot chocolate as a postprandial bevvie; there was still a good amount of pudding left when the waitress came to clear the table. (by contrast, the caramel tart was completely gone.)

we rolled out the door then, and had barely gone ten metres when we came across gaffa, three floors of art space / shop / cafe housed in a handsome pink heritage building. downstairs it’s little rooms of covetable and affordable contemporary jewelry and objet d’art; upstairs it’s galleries (and studios) around a central sunlit airwell.

one of the exhibitions we perused most appreciatively was food&company, an unprecious curation of food-related stuff: photographs, drawings, tiny interactive installations, and some lovely crockery. here’s the flourishing, by gemma o’brien.

ahh… so nice to see the flourishing of unstuffy, inspiring art space in the heart of this grimy city.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 22 May 2010 at 12:21 am

permalink | filed under around town, art, cake, lunch

for ten days, i’d had it in the back of my head that i had to make a visit to peyton and byrne. there are four locations within a small area of central london, but all of them were just a little too out of the way on any given day. so when we were given three extra days of london, i took it as a sign, and made a special stop at the kings cross tube station on day number two, so that we could walk over to the st pancras train station, and lunch at P&B.

it’s like walking back in time, entering this large room with all the cakes and slices in the window. against the gleaming white-tiled walls, the wooden shelves are filled with colourful cartons of store brand tea, and jars of jam. and chocolate bars wrapped in plain white paper, in flavours such as orange marmalade, or caramel.

there are artisanal potato crisps and fruit juices and ready-made sandwiches in the back, and hot pies and sausage rolls behind the counter; the choice was quite overwhelming. but i was mindful of my sister’s observation that we had barely eaten any british cuisine in our time in london, and ended up with a cold pork pie from the refrigerated shelves. the kid gamely picked a sausage roll as big as her head.

it was a very pleasant lunch, sitting in the wire chairs outside the shop, within the sunlit atrium of the train station. the solid puck of a pie was filled with great meaty chunks and a herby bouquet. the pickle was bright yellow and bitey, and full of still-crunchy vegetables. i wish there’d been more of it.

when we were done, we went back into the shop and stocked up on a few comestibles: chocolate bars, a jar of chocolate-pear spread, and a cupcake. (back in sydney, i would submit the receipt to the travel insurance company, to be compensated for meals during our volcano-related delay. they would graciously accept it, and categorise the expenditure as “snacks”.)

and then we went back underground, and resurfaced at covent garden, where we spent not quite four hours at the excellent transport museum. interactive displays of centuries of public transport. some quite lovely historic posters advertising tubes and trains. lovingly restored vintage buses! stuff you could sit in! they really don’t make stuff like they used to… but the life-sized model of the contemporary bus was quite the win.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 17 May 2010 at 11:11 am

permalink | filed under around town, kid, lunch, trip

ten days into our london holiday, i found myself on hold on the phone, cup of tea going cold, waiting to speak to the airline about possibly resheduling our flight home. we were due to leave that night, but the airports were still closed due to ashy skies. three hours and forty-two minutes of hold music later, i had five minutes of pleasant chat with a helpful man in india, and hung up with a numb and sweaty ear, and a new departure date three days away.

with a whoop, we pulled some clothes on and burst out into the sunshine. the columbia road flower market would still be on for a good three hours or so. though of course, we weren’t there for the flowers, oh no.

i still had fond memories of my cupcake at treacle from four, count ‘em, four years ago. where does the time go, i ask you. such worrisome concerns dissipated as we moseyed about the shop, which seems to have doubled in size since our last visit. there were some very covetable bits of crockery on display, as well as candles in such flavours as cucumber sandwiches.

and there were the cupcakes, in two sizes and several variations of chocolate and vanilla, displayed in large drawers behind the glass counter at the front. the smiley shopgirl was dressed up like the technicolor 50s, and gamely encouraged us to choose exactly which cupcake we wanted. mine was perfectly nice — the cake itself had a light chocolate taste and a fine, crumbly texture, and there was just enough of the not-too-sweet frosting — although much of my enjoyment came from standing in a doorway, trying to keep out of the way of the flower market crowd, by a window display of novelty puppy dog mugs.

i had also been looking forward to visiting rob ryan‘s shop, ryantown, which did not disappoint, filled as it was with his wonderfully schmaltzy papercuts. even the plate glass window was not spared, nor a very desirable umbrella with £45 price tag.

resisting the urge to buy stuff makes me hungry, so i was pleased when we made it to the end of the road, and my sister pointed out campania gastronomia, where lunch could be had. ’twas a homely sort of place, with rickety old tables and chairs, yellowing snapshots tacked to the wall, and a clatter of mismatched cutlery and vintage china. every torta and pudding on show looked hopelessly homemade too, in a good way, mostly.

but we wanted savoury. to share, a very pleasing antipasto board with three sorts of cheese in different degrees of stinky saltiness, and as many kinds of cold meat including great pink circles of pistachio mortadella. there were slippery strips of marinated capsicum, and olives, and hunks of bread drizzled in oil, and even after that, i still thought that i’d be able to tackle the sausage risotto.

i was wrong. it was a veritable lake of salty, buttery rice, with nuggets of meaty sausage all the way through. it was delicious, and i wished i could’ve eaten more of it. as it was, i couldn’t eat more of anything, not even the fat chocolate biscuits i’d seen on the way in, sandwiched with ricotta, and then wrapped up in a twist of greaseproof paper.

we were all smiles though. we felt like we’d won the grand prize, not having to get on the plane that night. the possibilities were endless.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 14 May 2010 at 12:51 am

permalink | filed under cake, kid, lunch, trip

what is that? gliding by — whoosh — so sleek?

one afternoon, after spending rather a lot of time in the harrods toy department, we crossed bromptom road to forage a luncheon at harrods 102, a bustling foodhall with such offerings as roast meat sandwiches, gelato, krispy kreme doughnuts and a yo! sushi train.

but we perched ourselves on the high stools at the other conveyor belt, the one loaded with fattoush, and skewers of meats, and lurid neon pickles. yes, ESH: eat•simply•healthy is a mezze train! well, i was excited. there was a swarthy man behind the grill, ready to make us hot food from the menu, but we chose to dine off the train.

the kid wanted some lamb sambousek, so we picked a plate of mixed fried things first up. unfortunately these were colder than room temperature, and hard, so we turned our attention to the grilled chicken skewers. served on a bed of couscous, these went down much better. after i pulled the saucy stewed beans off the conveyor belt, my tastebuds really came alive.

is there more than novelty value to this? i must say, i would have kept grabbing stuff off the train if i wasn’t constantly keeping an eye on the coloured rims of the plates, and referring to the price list, and converting what sounded like a reasonable price into australian dollars. and — perhaps more pertinently — if it didn’t seem like i’d have to eat everything on the counter, when the kid finished her meal too soon after the beans were set down. apart from the unfortunate appetisers, the food we had was tasty and well-presented, and the portion sizes more than satisfying.

i was sad to miss out on the plates of hommous and baba ghanouj that went by, artful swirls with tantalising puddles of olive oil in the centre, crowned with fat chickpeas. there was also a good selection of revolving desserts: variations on the theme of baklava, as well as semolina pastries and milky puddings. all this passed us by.

but you see, we had to play wisely: the laduree concession was just across the road.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 11 May 2010 at 11:16 pm

permalink | filed under lunch, trip

we were only scheduled to be in london for 10 days, until eyjafjallajökull erupted and gave us a bit of a bonus extra holiday. before then, we operated on a strict program that had been planned and refined over the preceding months, via a very comprehensive spreadsheet. with first day brunch at ottolenghi done and dusted, we found ourselves on the train, richmond-bound, for second day lunch at petersham nurseries.

out of the station, we walked down the high street to get there, and along the river, and through a muddy paddock, and up a dusty driveway, and through a little of the nursery, and arrived in good time to be shown to our table in a large tentish room with a dirt floor (a tent festooned with enormous bunches of fresh flowers, and strewn with mismatched furniture of varying vintage). my sister thought it was important that we have bread and butter, and lemonade, and quick! and then there they were.

the menu was streamlined – just three options for each course — and according to one of the nicest waitresses in the world, might change from day to day depending on produce available. friday, i was lucky enough to have…

fried artichokes with a caper and mint dressing
such a riot of crispy edges and zingy flavours! such a joyous jumble of leaves! the play of textures was fun indeed as i mix-matched artichoke outsides (brown and crunchy as chips) and insides (pale, soft, and mildly tangy) with capers and lemon juice and minced-up mint leaves that no doubt found their way into all the crevices of my teeth. smile!

grilled sardines with aioli
you know, it looked modest on the plate, and felt light to eat it — all those lemony, fish oily flavours — but golly, i was stuffed when i was done. the sardines were plump and moist, and the sauteed chard yielding, and the lovely dollop of aioli — so full in the mouth, i only needed a little dab on each forkful of fish, and made it last right ’til the end.

almond tart
we had been excited to read it on the menu, and gleeful to see it at the table — this sturdy wedge of pastry with the lazy slurp of cream and candied orange syrup. it was even pleasing to eat, but alas, in the end, the crunchy pastry shell filled with dense frangipane, rough-hewn nuts and rind completely vanquished us. we probably would have appreciated it more on its lonesome, with a big cup of tea, and not the legacy of three fat sardines and as many crisp-fried artichokes.

stracciatella ice cream
truly, the surprise winner of the show. the ice cream — presented in a heavy drinking glass — was super premium, rich and creamy, and served at exactly the right, just melty temperature. mixed very generously into this were more bits of good dark chocolate than you’d think necessary, or possible. the ice cream makes its way down your throat, and then the shards of chocolate melt away and linger on your tongue. blissful, it was, even when the pain of distended belly kicked in. i could not stop eating this.

it looks simple, does it not? this food? there was nothing extraneous on the plate; each course just a tumble of a few flavours, and no adornment except for its necessary elements. but it all looked beautiful, and tasted much more wonderful than what you might expect from such spare plating. everything that could be eaten — with the exception of the noble almond tart — was.

they serve coffee from a cafetière here, or any number of floral infusions. no, not a single normal tea, grumble. so i picked mint from the list recited by the waitress, and was brought a comforting pot of green. a fine way to conclude a meal in the middle of a garden centre on a sunny springtime afternoon.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 4 May 2010 at 11:00 am

permalink | filed under ice cream, lunch, trip

in the days leading up to easter, the cupcake bakery made me an offer i couldn’t refuse. from their gleaming little outpost in the myer-to-QVB walkway, rows of festive cupcakes beckoned. this one, a chocolate cupcake with tiny speckled chocolate eggs nestled in an enormous swirl of pink frosting, pretty much grabbed me by the face and told me i should take it home.

so i did, and the kid enjoyed it very much. she was kind enough to allow me a small bite of the cake, as well as one of the eggs, so i can tell you that the cake was light, and not as dry as it has been on occasion, but the egg, alas, was compound. still, it was all the fuel she needed to put the finishing touches on her hat for the school easter bonnet parade to be held the following day.

and would the rains hold? would sodden papier mache crises be diverted? yes.

and now, some days later, we find ourselves at the mercy of this fickle singaporean weather. it was hovering around 30 when we arrived a couple of night ago. yesterday it was rainy, and almost refreshing. today it’s back up to 34. there is most of a big, fat rava masala dosai under my belt — it cost all of $3 — and i’m struggling against the urge to have a big, fat afternoon nap. the battle could go either way.

next stop: old blighty.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 5 April 2010 at 6:10 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, kid, lunch, trip

i clicked on a random link today, and it took me to a website about school lunches, and then i clicked on a link from there, and… did you know there’s a whole genre of blogs out there devoted to documenting school lunches? fascinating!

the kid brings a packed lunch (and recess) to school each day, in her rather fetching apple print insulated lunch bag. within this are two or three smaller boxes. the biggest one always contains a sandwich: her favourite at the moment is cheese and apple, but on heavy rotation are cheese and cucumber; ham and tomato and cucumber; vegemite and cucumber. she really likes cucumber! last monday, she had bak kwa and cucumber, on infinity bakery pumpkin sourdough, but that was a special one-off. the sandwiches are almost always made on grainy wholemeal bread (is the bread helga’s? ja!), with butter, or kewpie mayo.

dessert is fruit: cubes of melon, or apple slices. sometimes grapes or berries.

recess is usually fruit too, but sometimes it might be a squeezy tube of yoghurt, or a box of raisins. did you know you can get raspberry-flavoured raisins in the supermarket? they get raisins, and then coat it in raspberry flavour. the package shows a large grape bisected at the mouth, about to eat a raspberry — amazing. occasionally, there will be a sweet biscuit in a little strawberry-print paper bag.

reading the school lunch blogs made me think about when i was at school, and wonder what we did about food safety and insulation in the tropics. and then i realised that i never did bring lunch to school. when i was in primary school in malaysia and singapore, there was a morning session and an afternoon session. the various grades were divided up, i guess to prevent overcrowding, so if you were in primary 3, you might be scheduled for morning school that year, while the whole of primary 4 would be in afternoon school.

morning school started at 7.30 — it meant waking up to darkness at 6am — and went until 12.30 or 1pm. afternoon school operated from 1 to 6pm. throughout my school career, i ate lunch at home, before school or after, depending on which session i was cursed with at the time.

i did have recess though. i still remember — not fondly — the slightly sour taste (and the slightly furry feel) of warm water or cordial that had been sitting for a few hours under my desk in a plastic water bottle.

once i came into the pocket money, i bought little tumblers of overly diluted rose syrup cordial from the drinks stall, for 10c a pop. the drinks aunty would have a raft of these scuffed plastic tumblers laid out before her on her stainless steel counter, and a pile of cold, wet coins. it was the perfect accompaniment to a soggy curry puff (bar the crimped edge — that was satisfyingly crunchy) stuffed with nothing but curried potatoes.

i’m sorry to say that i also had a predilection for the spring rolls from the fried stall. these were not your ordinary spring rolls, mind. sure, you could have had one filled with shredded vegetables, but more often than not, i ended up with the one stuffed with diced spam. or curried potatoes…

i really like curried potato!

my favourite recess snacks were the little packs of nutella with the foil tops you peeled off and the little plastic spatulas to facilitate eating, and packets of fried noodle cakes — mamee — that you ate crunchy out of the bag. sometimes i ate them together. take that, chocolate-covered potato chips!

as i progressed through high school, i started staying after class for extra curricular activities, and so had more of a chance to eat at the school canteen. it was a large open space with a roof but no walls, with several rows of long tables and benches, and a bank of independently run stalls dispensing all manner of noodles and ricey dishes (also, a drinks stall and a particularly well-stocked snacks stall — chips, puffs, biscuits, candy, nutella, pickled plums…). i usually had a plate of fried beehoon, rice vermicelli cooked extra extra stick-in-your-throat dry, with the barest of garnishings: a handful of limp beansprouts, tails still attached, and a clump of shredded omelette, all for 30c. no-one cooks beehoon as dry as that beehoon aunty at CHIJ toa payoh in the late 80s. i miss it, still.

i must say, i was slightly horrified today as i read the school lunch blogs, but my trip down memory lane is looking decidedly more like the path to ruin. it’s probably a good thing that i ate most of my lunches at home.

here are some of the more riveting school lunch blogs i found today. on the back of jamie oliver’s TED prize speech, a change is surely in the air.

- 6th graders from NY document their daily lunches
- non-judgemental roundup of school lunches form around the world
- a teacher raises awareness about school lunches, by eating them
- gaijin english teacher eats japanese school lunches
- two blogs about the state of affairs at DC school kitchens

posted by ragingyoghurt on 26 March 2010 at 11:10 pm

permalink | filed under kid, lunch

quick! before i disappear down another warren of werk…

the next day, i finally made it to black star pastry. i’d known about this pastry shop for almost 18 months, but never felt compelled to make the trek to newtown. clearly my devotion to grunge only extends as far as listening to 20-year-old pearl jam records and harboring a secret penchant for plaid flannel shirts. the main drag is such… a drag, but a little way down australia street this comforting little nook welcomed us with aircon and neat rows (and bounteous jumbles) of sweet and savoury treats.

the kid made her choice — “sausage roll!” — within seconds of eyeing the pie cabinet in the back before whisking herself back out onto the footpath. meanwhile, there i was, nose to glass case while she sat almost patiently outside pondering the philippe starck gnome stool. my gaze hovered between the black olive baguette stuffed with streaky serrano ham and parmesan, and the golden brown wheel of pastry by the cash register.

you will see that the pastry won, an intriguing wedge of organic weed strudel served with a slab of fresh ricotta and a dollop of plum relish. (i did not enquire about the provenance of the weeds, but i trust they were not related to the scrabbly shoots at our feet.) despite being served at room temperature, the thin pastry still delivered a compelling crunch. the dense and tangled filling, eaten alone, tasted dark green and pleasantly bitter. smeared with ricotta and the sticky sweet and tangy relish, it took on a whole range of complex and happy flavours and textures in my mouth.

by this stage, deborah and LJ had shown up, weak and exhausted from their encounter with the predatory car salespeople of parramatta road, and clearly in need of sustenance. they ended up with a lamb pie each, because deb felt that it might be something they wouldn’t want to share. quite. what showed up was a sturdy-looking puck of a pie, all puffy and golden, filled with tender shredded lamb and vegetables in a light sauce. no gummy meat adhesive here!

it was with regret that i scraped the last strand of bitter green weed from my plate; the silver lining was dessert! my mind was set on the strawberry, watermelon and rose cake, for i had been thinking about it since seeing it over at the unbearable lightness of being hungry many months ago. it was every bit as dreamy as i had imagined: layers of light, nutty dacquoise sandwiching cream and thin slices of fresh watermelon. the combination of creamy and crisp and juicy and sweet was most agreeable, though i failed to detect any discernible rose flavour. the kid began a stealthy attack on the top of the cake, poaching a strawberry, then a half blueberry, then a pistachio, then — brazenly — another strawberry; i had to fend her off with a fork.

she had ordered the vanilla pannacotta topped with a delicate lime jelly into which slices of papaya and slivers of fresh ginger had been set. alas, it proved too gingery for her, and she abandoned it a little way in. i wasn’t quite willing to do an outright trade, but sampled enough of it to report that it tasted fruity and fresh, with a definite bite from the ginger — a perfect treat for a hot afternoon, until the pannacotta liquified beneath the autumnal sun.

when the kid had eaten as much of my cake as i’d let her, she turned her attention to deb’s tarte tatin. again, the pastry was golden brown delicious, and the enormous chunks of soft, caramelised apple most divine.

i may have to rethink my aversion to newtown. perhaps it will not seem quite so out of the way if i make it the destination. black star is surely worth the buses and trains, the grit and the smoke, the draining crush of humanity.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 23 March 2010 at 2:52 pm

permalink | filed under around town, cake, lunch

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