Entries Tagged 'Contributors' ↓

Helen blogs at the Cast Iron Balcony, where you are most welcome to go and sit and have a glass of Rough Red or Bombay Blue, or perhaps a VB or Little Creatures ale, and chuck gumnuts at RWDBs and effing idiotic op-ed writers or bloggers passing in the street below. Although she describes herself as a political blogger, Helen often ends up posting on a whole lot of miscellaneous stuff. Small potatoes, you might say. Here’s a post on what to do with small potatoes.

He’s a complicated man, and no-one understands him but his woman…

Melbourne-based Perthling, musician, audio engineer, teacher, drunken dilettante and lover of all things thingy. Most pertinently food.

The picture left shows what he would look like with no beard, and somewhat less evidence of food.

Also going by the name of Fancy, your latest contributor finds himself equally at home screaming at the white maggots through a mouthful of lukewarm 4&20 at the MCG, as he does sweeping majestically into the lobby of Jacques Reymond and demanding their most available table at the first reasonable convenience. No, not that sort of convenience.

Contributions may range to the growing and preserving of things, but in the interests of ‘balance’, he has agreed in the main to represent the meat eating community.

While he doesn’t wish to usurp the authority of his esteemed host, he would nonetheless direct readers who object to people killing, cooking, eating (and writing about killing, cooking and eating) animals to refrain from fanning the flames of their outrage, by the elegant expedient of not reading the posts.

Please enjoy his first post, Wee Little Fishies Done Quite Rightly.

There will be a prize for guessing the reference in the title. Unfortunately, it is commensurate with the difficulty of the challenge.

There’s something about fish on the bone that really works.

I know some folks don’t like seeing the remains of an entire animal on their plate, but the Dustbin of History awaits them. Such squeamishness betokens a deeper malaise - as they watch us inhale our quails and spatchcocks and whitebait, you can rest assured that they hate us for our freedoms. Just watch them is all I’m saying. Have you noticed that their eyes are too far apart? QED.

Anyway, strolling through the Queen Vic markets with my Lady Friend one day, bratwurst roll in hand, sauerkraut and mustard in my moustache, we happened across a mighty shoal of wee little leatherjackets. Now back when I was a kid in WA, this family of fish (or genus?…. um… *googles*…genus! - Meuschenia) were rightly prized for their succulent flesh, and as a bonus their eponymous skin could be sun-cured to make crappy, stinking wallets for sweetly indulgent relatives to discreetly bin.

Over in the southwest of WA, though, people wouldn’t keep them under 25cm or so, on pain of a humiliating public upbraiding from one of those self-styled enforcers from the Angling Gestapo (guilty as charged, m’lud). These critters at the Vic were weeny little things, maybe 15cm long, and half of that the head. So me and the LF put our heads together, and devised the following recipe, fashioned from our shared love of seafood and citrus, mine of saffron and hers of low-fat meals. The only other bit of food writing I’ve ever done was entitled Cooking With Fat, so I hope you can all appreciate my generosity of spirit on this last point. Anyway, on with the show…

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I first encountered Harry’s writing at the now-defunct Back Pages blog during the 2004 election, and have been a fan ever since. He is very handsome for a nerd, which may explain his current employment as a part time scrotum model. Or not. I feel it’s proper to disclose that I have met him in person and, as it happens, have seen him with his trousers off. While I am able to vouch for his general good looks, I must confess to have paid inadequate attention to vouch for his employability.

He blogs at The Adventurerer, a travel blog about a boy who came home, where the following post first appeared, and also at the marvellous group blog For Battle! I would like to apologise for the number of commas in that sentence, but I’ve had some wine (like you hadn’t guessed that by now!) and it isn’t immediately apparent to me how to do it better. Suggestions gratefully accepted. Youse know who youse are.

Overpriced and crap.

Is there a tapas place that actually embodies the spirit of what tapas actually is, ie cheap finger food while you drink and chat?

I don’t think so. For some reason everyone thinks tapas should be overpriced and an all hoitytoity playground for self-consciously dressed people to dick swing.

Last night I went to Subsolo at 161 King St, Sydney.
Substandard.

$30 each got four people:
A beef skewer with five bits. Not top grade beef. Some marinade.
A chicken skewer of six bits. This was quite nice.
Two very small slices of french stick.
A small bowl of salad leaves presumably so we could put meat bits on-a-bed-of salad. Also included was one half artichoke and ONE green olive.
Good sized platter of indifferent paella including four mussels and about six prawns.
Bowl of green beans with onion.
Bowl of potatas bravas (chopped baked potato with a chili tomato sauce).

What a bunch of cheap-skates. The cheapest vegetables in the world, and not even lots of them (to paraphrase a Woody Allen joke).

As bowls were being cleared we started asking if the main was coming.
No, that was not the entree. It was the whole meal.

What sort of a tapas place does not have:
a) bowls of a variety of olives
b) bread and oil to dip it in
c) chorizo
d) mushrooms for anybody but particularly when we requested vego options.
d) something fancy that makes you go “ooh! Haven’t had that before”?

I’ll tell you what sort of place: a shit one.

Don’t go.

Hopefully the new winebar licenses will see real tapas come to Sydney instead of this overpriced crap. It’s meant to be seasonal peasant/fisherman’s food you bunch of pretentious dickheads!
if you don’t have salt and pepper whitebait (the fish is $6 a kilo) when it’s in season then you deserve to be firebombed.

Unimpressed, Marrickville.

Dr Sista Outlaw is the kind of woman you want on your side in an argument, educated, informed and utterly bloody ruthless. However I would not advise playing Scrabulous with her if you wish to retain any sense of dignity or self respect.

She is the single parent to a particularly nice son, and they live in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. She is a superb dinner companion, and also makes the best Christmas Pudding you have ever had.

Her name comes from her revised relationship status, formally shifting from sister in law to Ampersand Duck to sista outlaw status, a role that sits more comfortably on her shoulders.

Ampersand Duck is a book lover, book maker, book designer, artist and letterpress printer. Her beautiful website is here and her personal blog here. She also writes for Sarsaparilla.

She is my dear friend and close neighbour - exactly the kind of person you want living around the corner. Although she is a very good cook, she sadly cannot hold her piss.

I’m very excited to welcome another contributor to Progressive Dinner Party, Kirsty. She blogs on life, the academy, food, and the long road of the commuter at Galaxy of Emptiness and is also a contributor to the pre-eminent Australian culture blog, Sarsaparilla. Kirsty is a television scholar, which is one of those careers that sounds utterly fascinating but is something of a challenge to explain it to your Aunty Ethel.

Her“Gastropod” series at Galaxy long ago revealed her as a talented and thoughtful cook, and I’m thrilled she’ll be doing some food-related writing here too. Her first piece, the interactive “Chopping Board” appears below.