#123 - Traditions, A rose by any other name and Family Fun

(But first - Sunday Brunch by the Sea)
It's tradition that on my last Sunday at home, we have brunch down by the ocean.  One of the big draws is the omelette station in which, as per my request, Chef S always squishes my omelette so that it isn't runny anywhere.  About a year ago he was promoted to a different service so I was very happy to see him.  Even better, he remembered both my omelette and me (it's so nice to be appreciated!).  Another member of the staff was kind enough to have refilled the fried rice tray because he saw I was getting ready to fill my plate.  How did I know?  Because he told me so when he saw that I had already started to fill my plate - so of course I had to add some of the fresh fried rice to my very full plate, so that his efforts were fully appreciated.  (It's so nice to be missed and even nicer to be spoiled - a girl could get used to this in a hurry!)  So although this was originally intended to be Round 1, unfortunately I was defeated by the enormous omelette topped with house salsa, fried rice, crispy bacon, sauteed mahimahi with tartare sauce (not one of my usual choices) and lots and lots of coffee.  Thanks Chef S & D!  By the way, that's a dinner plate, in case you can't tell by scale.

Porn is porn is porn (aka Is porn, porn?  In which some names sound much more exciting than the actuality)
Kind of like the Sex Party in Australia (apparently not the fun kind, but I couldn't tell you what they are - no one could tell me when I was at the voting place last year either).

The other day our dinner plans went a little awry.  How, you may ask, when all we needed was some chicken breast.  I'm not sure how it happened, but at Safeway, the chicken was still frozen - as in, I could see the ice crystals (really, how good will the meat taste?) so I went to the second store which didn't have anything free-range / organic / something which didn't sound like it was full of hormones.  So you think it's no worries, there's another one down the road.  No chicken breasts at all, frozen or otherwise!  1.5 hours after leaving home and buying everything except the chicken, we gave up on that idea and had to come up with a quick last minute dinner idea.  The result:  ginger, garlic and green onion (spring onion to my Aussie / UK friends), salt and a little oil.  On everything.  And it appears my niece has a good palate - she wanted a bit more salt on everything (my Mom said it was too salty)...oh dear.  You win some, you lose some.  A friend said that I am a "food porn producer.  Or culinary porn."  Another friend calls it "gastroporn"  - which makes me wonder a little at the whole "...I can't define what is pornography.]  "But I know it when I see it."  - Potter Stewart, opinion in Jacobellis v Ohio (1964) [NB:  I got this reference from Wikipedia - aka I don't really care what the answer is, but I cared that teeny bit enough to look it up.]

Then later that night, my niece asked me in her little voice if I could "please cook for me".  I asked my sister if she had asked my niece to ask me to cook for them - as Lil Sis said, "I didn't, but it's something I would do."  Well yes, that's why I asked...

Comfort food / family fun in the kitchen
Today was cold and rainy - and since we had a couple of hours until dinner time and no one felt like doing anything elaborate, we settled on meatloaf.  I've been meaning to try the bacon wrapped meatloaf for over a year now so we tried it today.  Lil Sis likes meatloaf because it's a good way to hide lots of vegetables although I haven't noticed that her children need much encouragement to eat their veggies.

Even better, my niece and nephew each like to help in the kitchen and they love to wash - I heartily encourage it!  So they washed the vegetables and did the all important taste test once the mixture was done and a little bit cooked off (shades of LCB cuisine classes...)  I have a feeling that each of their first memory of me will be the sight of me standing by the stove - and all I can say is, there could be worse first memories so I have no objection to this one.

Superbowl is coming up and although we haven't managed to settle on a party plan yet (will there be one for commercials?  That has yet to be determined) the bacon experiment was also a trial run for any sort of party:  meatloaf cooked in a muffin tin lined with bacon.

One of my classmates from LCB will be leaving (has left?) Dome restaurant and of course I had presentation envy so we dolled up the meatloaf.  Previous failures at finding baby / micro-greens notwithstanding, I have seen them in several places the last couple of days so I of course they made it onto the plate.  You think that they would be a complete waste by my niece actually wanted some of the little plants for her plate (of course she didn't eat them - but she did eat her other veggies...)

The thing with presentation is that you already have to have an idea in your head.  Since I couldn't decide (and falling back on my "why choose if you don't have to" philosophy) I did a couple of different variations.

Of course the large meatloaf took a lot longer to cook - the bacon lattice didn't turn out quite the way I had envisioned it but that may have something to do with the really large chunks of fat that I removed from the packet of bacon.  My recommendation if you like to trim off the excess fat from the bacon like I do:  buy two packs of bacon so that you have some back-ups for the lattice.  This one went into the fridge for tomorrow so we'll let you know how it turns out.  For the English / UK / Aussies, this will be burnt and unfit to eat.  For (most) Americans that I know, this is about right since we like our bacon crispy - maybe not this crispy?  Only a tasting will tell.

On the agenda for tomorrow - more fun in the kitchen involving lots of butter (testing different types, naturally, all in the name of research), cheese and all the things doctors, nutritionists and dieticians tell you are bad for you.

Until next time, may you have happy family hang-outs and fun bonding time!

#121 - And the partying continues - well, the eating anyway...

And a party is...
One of the really nice things about being home with family is that we have lots of cooking parties.  That is to say, since we cook together, I consider it a party.  Perhaps the definition needs to be revisited at some point but for now it's a delicious argument to have.

In which we argue through food
My Dad has been wanting to cut down our kaffir lime tree.  My Mom disagrees.  I happen to like being able to pick my own leaves and the fruit (you don't use the juice, just the zest).  Lil Sis had bought some lemongrass earlier this week, in the hopes I might be inspired to make something with lemongrass and kaffir lime.  She was hoping for shrimp but since I found out my Mom doesn't like shrimp (only last year - how have we not known this until now???) and BS was already planning to make misoyaki butterfish (which he doesn't eat, by the by), I thought I should make some chicken.  Chicken seems to be a relatively inoffensive meat and it takes on the flavors of the kaffir lime and lemongrass really well.  Not to mention, I wanted to try a spicy version with Red Hot (same sauce as for buffalo wings, which I love).

The resulting dinner was spinach and artichoke dip by AA (see left) - vegetarian, right down to the bacon bits in it; BS's misoyaki butterfish - yum, more for those of us who eat it; kaffir lime and lemongrass chicken (with and without spicy sauce); and broccoli with garlic and olive oil.

Dad hasn't suggested cutting down the kaffir lime tree again but now I have to wonder if he will suggest it on every trip if the answer comes back via family dinner...

Then a night of take out (Cheesecake Factory which I still find uninspiring) before a dinner by Lil Sis.  She doesn't seem to enjoy cooking much, which I just don't understand.  I do understand how something can taste better when someone else cooks it.  There are several things which I can never do as well as the originals which I found - a girlfriend's tuna sandwich (I did it exactly as she did it and I've yet to be satisfied with the result); a classmate's Malaysian chicken rice (he said it's not as good as his Mom's and mine is so not as good as his!) and whether this is a matter of technique or the fact that someone else cooked, it's a little hard to say.

Dinner #2 - Lil Sis's beef stew with red wine and kale (aka how to make vegetables palatable to your children.  And your friends.  And your older sister.)
Tonight I didn't get around to taking photos the first time around or when everything was laid out and looking pretty.  However, I did get them the second time around.  I've always had a theory that when someone doesn't like something (and it's not attributable to an allergy or a really bad experience with said food) it's usually because it hasn't been cooked well.  I don't have many dislikes (okra - ew! and super bitter veggies) but kale was on the list of non-favorites for a long while.  So of course the first time I heard "kale" as an ingredient in beef stew, I was a little dubious.  Evidently this dislike was shared by my niece and nephew (4.5 and 2, respectively) - but they will eat it in this form.  Of course the competitive nature took over...er, that is to say, I wanted to encourage Lil Sis so I tried her stew.  All I can say is, she can add kale to my stew any time!  She didn't even have to hide the kale - it just needed to taste good.

And to top off her Domestic Goddess persona, chocolate chip cookies!  I don't make chocolate chip cookies so I am very impressed.  Not to mention, they are delicious (you have to taste it!) and there are quite a few of them.  Speaking of which, it's a good thing they stayed at her place instead of coming home with me or else there might have been a milk and cookies time before bed.  As it is, they are on the list as a treat for tomorrow when we need to have Elevensies / morning tea / afternoon snack / dessert / no excuse needed.  By the by, Lil Sis says she can't cook.  So if this is her not cooking, I'm happy for her not to cook for me any time!

Until next time, may your arguments and "not" endeavors be as successful as ours!

#100 - Total indulgence

What I make for dinner when I'm alone:  leftover rice, sauteed Brussels sprouts and heated tuna/potato patty from a deli downstairs.  Haven't figured out how to keep the Brussels sprouts from going dark-ish green while they cook - bright green and they're still a bit too raw and bitter.  Wondering if that's the reason some of the slightly fancier restaurants sometimes serve their brussels sprouts as individual leaves... 

Today's experiment - how many oysters are enough?
2 dozen.

But first - a day with lots of cute and furry animals
In all fairness, the unmitigated pigginess was inspired by the fact that when we got to Taronga Zoo yesterday morning, most of the animals were having their breakfasts and when we left, they were eating lunch.

The koala is Darwin - just finished his breakfast so he was feeling happy and mellow.  The Tasmanian devil was looking for breakfast.  Mava (?) the California sea lion (complete with massive bark) was jumping for treats and the snow leopard was having lunch when we left.

Starving and tired, quick dinner near Chinatown - one of the few places open all day for food, instead of 5pm (or later) for dinner.  Dinner was rice and veggies in a hot pot, plus BS's favorite man doo.  Early dinner, then asleep in time to qualify as senior citizens.  I think our dinner was too early for an early-bird special...


Total Indulgence

Today was Darling Harbour and indulgence day - a dozen Coffin Bay oysters and a dozen Sydney rock oysters for a taste test...the Coffin Bay ones are yummier - so another 2 dozen to bring home for dinner.

GY started with a meatloaf sandwich - my first meatloaf, with onion gravy which I actually made for dinner a few nights ago.  He didn't like the amount of alcohol in the gravy, but it was much better once we put it on the meatloaf.  Then coffee in the city, before the walk around Darling Harbour and towards the Sydney Fish Markets.  We took a wrong turn, but eventually got there.

2 hours of grazing - a massive lunch rush and we got there just in time to get our starters, then he went in to get something else because the table we found were for Peter's customers only.  Deep fried snapper and fries to follow the 2 dozen oysters.  There was a discussion as to whether that would be too many oysters, except that we shared a dozen before the symphony the other night and we could have had more.  The snapper was deep fried whole, so we had to take it apart.  Luckily, one of us knew how to debone the fish.

A few laps around the Sydney Fish Market later, some mussels, then shopping for tonight.  No point in shopping when you're hungry, you end up buying lots of crap.  We bought fresh scallops, crab meat and more oysters - because a dozen each wasn't enough.  Of course that much food means that a massive nap is in order before we even attempted to do a little bit of grocery shopping.

A much better effort today - woke up some time after 5:30, but in time to make it to the shops to pick up the remaining ingredients for dinner:  a variation of oysters Kilpatrick (no Worstershire sauce, but very crunchy bacon bits) and home made California rolls.  The whole fake crab thing doesn't work for me so we got real crab for the California rolls.

GY made super crispy bacon bits and baked some of the oysters - close tie to see what we preferred.  I think we'll have to repeat the experiment, but probably not for a while.  He doesn't want to seem to see another oyster for at least a few months and I have to admit that I'm ready for a change.

So until next time...oink, oink.

#42 - Bring on Superior

The break between terms has ended and I am now back in London - warm, sunny days and little humidity.

The primary purpose of having gone to Sydney to see my grandmother was only partly successful due to the very sensible (but unfortunate for me) policy of not allowing people into the nursing home if they might be sick.  In my case, the persistent cough which has dogged me for the last however many weeks (is it 8 yet?)...so, an almost, but not quite, fail on that score.  The cough has finally departed - just in time to begin Superior with a clean bill of health.

Other things I have done on the trip:

• Seen my grandmother as much as I was able, as well as other familial commitments;
• Seen a great many friends (obviously) - and thanks to all of you who made time to see me at such late notice;
• Helped people pack, move and unpack, to varying degrees;
• Attended to certain social commitments with family friends;
• LOTS of administration (it's amazing how mail can pile up when you go away, despite the invaluable and immeasurable assistance by a local friend who checked and forwarded a great deal of my mail);
• Made it to ballet class!;
• Cooked - just a few things, but I have further battle scars as a result;
• More cleaning...but normal stuff - I think the OCD has been slightly lessened due to the entirely differently league of gross out factor in London;
• Organising home and the kitchen cupboards again - London has been a great lesson on how much stuff we have, but don't need;
• Lots of coffee and food - (Is it redundant to write that?  Reminds me of that song - I don't remember who sings it - which goes "if you don't know me by now, you will never, never, never know me...")
• Trying to remember where I put what - it's like the children's game, Memory - only with a whole apartment;
• Attended a committee meeting for Young Lawyers and started taking steps to return to work for next year (including a networking event - I have a huge intellectual crush on a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia - listening to him answer a long convoluted question with a couple of precise sentences reminded me of the inspiration which led me to my career despite an avowal to do anything but).

As part of my last day in Sydney, I had lunch with JelLo at Jazz City Diner in Sydney - see the link:  http://www.jazzcitydiner.com.

Jazz City Diner

It was our second time there.  The first time, it was because I had to try the Jonny burger (aka BBQ beef burger) which was delicious - especially since I had it with delicious crispy onion rings (not greasy) instead of the sweet potato fries.  We tried a nod to healthy eating by adding a salad to the mix - also yummy and just what I wanted to balance out the meat and the crispy bacon on my burger.  Yes, I had bacon - the first time JelLo saw me eat pork ever.  I'm slightly ashamed of myself - a burger, onion rings, salad and tasting ribs (which were absolutely beyond delicious - if it didn't sound pretentious and wannabe-food-writer, I might even venture to say they were sublime).

This time I tried the fried chicken with waffles, spinach and maple syrup (syrup on the side, of course - channeling my inner Sally from When Harry Met Sally), JelLo had the Jonny Burger and we shared a vanilla milkshake - they even divided it into two glasses for us, a definite plus.  I happen to love fried chicken, so I ate it on its own instead of dipping it in the maple syrup.  Some people go for that but I've never really gotten into the sweet and savory at the same time - it's too confusing to my tastebuds.  Anyway - yummy for everything - the Belgian waffle was crispy and had the deep pockets to hold as much (or as little) syrup as you want.  Then the (unanticipated) star of the show:  the vanilla milkshake.  Dan, the chef owner, makes his own ice cream.  The milkshake was vanilla-y, creamy and very, very more-ish.  It's a good thing JelLo and I decided to share.  Otherwise I would have tried to have the whole thing by myself - a bad idea when it was a struggle to get through my waffle.

Preparing for the final stretch

There are some differences from the last time I left Sydney, of course.  For one thing, my grandmother has had a birthday.  For another, there have been several other deaths of which I was informed during the course of this visit, some expected and some not.  There was actually time to finish cleaning my apartment and tidying it up a bit before I left.  And of course, this is the final stretch with only a short time before I return to Sydney.

It's strange how time seemed to drag at certain times during the year but looking back on it, everything has gone by in a flash.  It seems like just yesterday that I was getting ready to start Intermediate.  Tomorrow I start the first day of Superior - a gallop to the finish which will leave most of breathless from the amount of work we have committed ourselves to over the next 11 weeks.

The flight from Sydney was pretty uneventful except for the 400-mile diameter thunderstorm our pilot detoured around, rather than flying through.  It's a decision I can wholeheartedly agree with given the turbulence we caught during the detour.  I could feel the plane shuddering and see some of the parts where the joints were in the body which looked like they were moving in different directions.  Hopefully that was more a result of bleary-eyed observations in dim lighting rather than the plane actually doing what it looked like it was doing.

I can't tell you what the jetlag is like just yet as I've only been on the ground in London for just over a day.  It is warm, sunny and not humid - a perfect summer weekend.  My taxi driver from the airport yesterday asked me whether I liked London, Sydney or Hawaii best.  I couldn't tell him if I liked any one more than another because they are all so different and call to corresponding parts of me.  There is always something to love about a place and I have been learning to appreciate everything as it is - both the good and the sometimes less good.  I can't remember if it was a thing about Japanese pottery where sometimes they would make a small imperfection in an item - the imperfection making it more perfect than if it had been left blemish free.  That wasn't articulated very well.  Perhaps it's better to repeat the old saying that you can't appreciate happiness fully without sadness to provide context and contrast.

It is now a civilized hour in London, so I am off to the markets to see what has changed (or not) since I left over 3 weeks ago.  Apologies for there not being any photos but rest assured that they will start to go up again from next week.

So until next time, don't worry, be happy...