To the people, food is Heaven

A few days ago we went to stay with my old friend Tallullah (not her real name). She is a very old and dear friend, but has always been a rotten cook. In fact until recently the only interesting thing she’d ever put on a dining table was her naked self and her moistie of the moment. It was a crap old share house table and of course it broke.

Would you believe they then proceeded, lust undiminished, to the kitchen table and then broke it too? Well, they did. What propelled this concupiscent wreckery to the realms of share house legend was that they had resorted to busting tables only because the entire household - four flatmates and one weekend guest - had scored on the same evening. At a bar called, “The Private Bin”, about which I shall make no further comment. Tallullah, while a resident, had got home too late that night to enjoy the privileges of her own bed. (So you see why I did that with her name, now, huhn?)

That was nearly fifteen years ago, and Tallullah’s cooking has come a million miles from the two minute noodles and sliced up oranges she used to serve for dinner. Last week we had a very tasty lasagne - she told me she’d been working on improving her cheesiness, and the cheesiness level was excellent, intense and creamy but still light. She’d also made a beautiful salad of chunks of avocado, tomato, and cucumber with butter lettuce. Tallullah’s known me for a long time too, so she waggled a bottle of “Fat Free French Dressing” at me and said “You don’t want this, do you?”

No.

Continue reading →

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…

Continue reading →

Oh dear.

I appear to have bred a tiny Jamie Oliver.

Ah Spaghetti Bolognaise! The bachelor’s friend, muse and destroyer of waistlines. Here I offer a hot new take on an old favourite. All measures are calculated for two people of firm appetite with enough left over to fill a few jaffles on a hungover late winter morning.

This one’s a bit tricky though as it involves not one (1) but two (2) hotplates. You’ll need all your project management skills here.

Continue reading →

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.

“Yes, yes,” he said curtly. “The crossroads. There’s a devil. So you want something from me, man?”

Start with a joke, and finish earlier than your audience expects: there’s some free and eternally wise advice for formal speeches, drinking sessions, striptease and blog posts. Thank me, reader, when you next rrrrock the microphone at the wedding of your unlovely relative, and give me praise when you next set the roof of your company’s boardroom on fire. With your presentation.

In this edition, Kate makes a class inquiry, Wendy wonders about whiskies, and Mindy asks about old cold black gold.

Continue reading →