Archive for the ‘food as love’ Category

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Sweet success: A&U annual bakeoff

July 25, 2009

cakesallThis week the Empress and I found ourselves bestowed with the extraordinary honour of judging the Allen & Unwin staff club’s Annual Bakeoff.

We arrived at Cake HQ to find a staggering twenty-seven entries awaiting consumption - from cakes and tarts to flans, shortcakes, cheesecakes, friands, cupcakes, meringues, quiches, biscuits, strudels… in three categories - Savoury, Chocolate and General.

The task was almost overwhelming, but like the truly professional gutses we are - and despite the growing threat of sliding into diabetic coma - the Empress and I made our way through the blind tasting, separately keeping our scores out of 10 each for presentation and texture, and out of 20 for flavour.

stephjudgingWorking diligently through the morning with valiant A&U staffers slicing off slenderer and slenderer slivers - and fending off contestants desperate for their morning tea outside the door - the Empress and I were gratified to discover, when comparing scores, that for each category we had picked the same winner, and our scores were within one point of each other’s.

The standard, it must be said, was exceptional. It’s our first year of judging, but the bakeoff has been an A&U fixture for some time apparently, and competition is fierce. The winning entries were within one point of each other on the scale, and then from the three we had to choose one overall 2009 Bakeoff Champion.

And the winners were …

cakewinnersBy a whisker, the three winners were:

Savoury - Lou Blue’s Quiche Lorraine with Pancetta

Chocolate - Anthony Bryant’s Triple Chocolate Praline Tart

General - Catherine Milne’s Clementine & Almond Syrup Cake with Chocolate Ganache

The overall champion, by the slenderest sliver of a hair’s breadth, was Catherine’s clementine cake. (And it turns out this was something of an upset win - apparently for the past several years Anthony, who also entered an incredible chocolate and cherry cake and a divine rhubarb and amaretti tart, has been the unstoppable reigning champ. Next year’s bakeoff should be very interesting as he attempts to wrest the crown back!)

clementinecakeOnce the presentations were made and the hordes descended on the entries for morning tea, the Empress and I prised a few recipes out of the contestants, some of which happily are available online.

Turns out that Catherine’s unbelievably moist and complex clementine cake is an Ottolenghi recipe, and can be found here; and Anthony’s incredible praline tart (the silkiest, most satiny smooth filling ever) is from Gourmet Traveller a couple of months ago and is available here.

choctart

All in all, it was an astonishing display of skill, nerve and flair. The Empress and I have begged to return and offer our greedy evaluative skills for the A&U staff club’s Great Curry Contest - can’t wait!

Oh, and in case you think all this gustatory grandeur might be a little decadent, it also has a higher purpose: everyone who joined the morning tea festivities gave a donation to Sydney PEN, and every one of the many A&U staff club activities for 2009 raises some moola which will go to Sydney PEN at the end of the year.

Hey, I sense the opportunity for a Sydney PEN fundraising challenge! Any other Sydney publishers willing to take on the A&U master chefs in a publishing industry bakeoff? Let me know - Steph & I are more than willing to go the extra mile and extend our judging skills across the land!

Posted in dessert, food as love, generosity, recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

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Neil Perry’s lamb, mint and pea pie

July 9, 2009

lambpie(or How I Got My Bottom Crispy)

I wanted to make some freezable food for a friend’s father who has been having a rough time, so I turned to an old favourite, this lamb, mint and pea pie from Neil Perry’s Good Food - it is a chunky, hearty little number full of comfort, but with the zing of the mint to give it a lift.

The only trouble is that I hate pies that have no bottom - in my book that’s not a pie, right?

And as I am no pastry-chef (my sister, on the other hand, makes the best flaky pastry this side of paradise) I pretty much always use the frozen stuff. (Except for one great pastry made with suet for rabbit pies - hmm, must get that one out again. Sooo delicious.)

Anyway, even with frozen pastry I have too often failed in the past to get a crispy bottom (vale Mrs Slocombe), and as the only thing worse than no base on a pie is a sludgy, undercooked one, I determined to get it right this time. And it worked - shortcrust pastry on the bottom, which I made sure for once to really thoroughly blind-bake, which also provides an excuse to use my lovely ceramic bauble pastryweights. And puff pastry on the top, well-brushed with egg wash.

And if I say so myself, these little babies turned out beautifully crisp on the base, reasonably rich on the innards and suitably golden on top. And if you cook them in these disposable aluminium trays you can chuck them in the freezer and then distribute to the needy as your heart desires.

PS: As I keep saying, just buy Good Food - it’s a great book; every recipe is a winner. Saves faffing around all over the internet…

Posted in food as love, meat, winter food | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments »

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Best kitchen-warming gift in the world

June 7, 2009

Last night we christened our finished new kitchen with dinner for eight [plus four kids, who spent the evening rushing between playing Abba records on the turntable in the studio and bashing away on musical instruments in the spare room, which is still piled almost to the ceiling - literally - with crap, outdoor furniture, washing machine etc. Two of them spent several hours perched precariously atop piles of junk, sitting in a washing basket playing the xylophone and maraccas while Senor made very sure their parents didn’t see.

dicky garlic1dicky garlicAnyway - our friend Ricardo, the Lunging Latino, showed up with the most beautiful present. This is one of the first bulbs of his home-grown organic garlic, grown in a pot in Balmain. It’s too beautiful, almost, to use. But of course we will. I’m going to save one of the little cloves to try to grow some myself.

Thankyou Dicky! And while we’re on the topic, can someone tell me the best way to store garlic? In the fridge or out? Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in food as love, generosity, growing food, vegetable | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments »

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Meals as emblems

April 22, 2009

waitingroomTwice in two weeks I have heard public readings from Gabrielle Carey’s new memoir, Waiting Room, about her mother Joan. Once was at the launch, and today was at Caroline Jones’ talk about her own new memoir about her dad, Through a Glass Darkly: A Journey Of Love And Grief With My Father.

Both memoirs are about an adult ‘child’ dealing with the illness of a strong-minded, forceful parent, and the unexpected grief that results. And both readings from Waiting Room - one from Gabrielle herself, the other from Jones apropos of her own strange adventures in grief and bereavement - were about food.

I was struck by these choices - the same passage, about the kitchen, and I realised that some of the strongest writing in Waiting Room plays out in domestic duties, and in the inheritance of those routines of the kitchen, seemingly so commonplace, yet so resonant with symbolism. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in food as love, non-fiction, writing | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Voyage round Fenella’s kitchen

April 15, 2009

peter-jugs-bowl1A couple of years ago I read a wonderful feature in the Good Weekend about cooking - it seemed to capture everything I felt about the pleasures of cooking - aside from the actual eating, that is!

The article, Voyage Round my Kitchen was by one of that mag’s star writers, Fenella Souter, and she has very kindly given me permission to reproduce it here. It’s a witty, moving and beautifully written exploration of the pleasures and consolations of cooking, and as a piece of food writing it’s gloriously untainted by the stink of fashion or snobbery or celebrity - depressingly common in Australian food writing I reckon (the Empress’s regular SMH Three of a Kind column excepted, I hasten to add!). The article is in a PDF file here that takes a little while to download, but be patient, it’s worth it.

A little taste:

As anyone who likes to cook knows, the kitchen is full of therapeutic pleasures. The familiar swift and competent movements of hand and knife; the invigorating beauty of a group of plump aubergines or elegant artichokes or voluptuous yellow quinces; the reassuring smell of frying onions or the yearning fragrance of poached peaches; the zen-like calm that descends as the cook oversees some delicate operation, for nothing focuses the mind like watching a custard thicken or caramel brown; the feeling of accomplishment, indeed of love, when all is done and the meal is laid on the table for the pleasure of others, or oneself.

I realise I’m painting a rather rosy picture here – relieved of such kitchen staples as boredom and resentment, griping children, grated fingers and burnt potatoes – but you get the drift. While cooking is not principally a cure for misery, it can cheer you up wonderfully. The Joy of Sex was a bestseller, but so was The Joy of Cooking. Ideally, one experiences both, but we may have underestimated the second as a helpful tool in life and marriage, even if the first is lacking. It’s surprising the subject doesn’t come up more in marriage counselling.

There’s lots more - just read it. You’ll love it.

Posted in food as love, non-fiction, Uncategorized, writing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

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Helen Garner’s glass of orange juice

April 9, 2009

orange-juiceThis week, happenings in the lives of others have reminded me about the beauty of a compassionate act in the face of an unbearable thing … a dying friendship, a ghastly stranger, a rejection, an illness, a death. Back on the first aid food track I guess, food being such a simple way of making an offering - peace, sorrow, love. After I wrote the first aid food post I recalled a glass of orange juice in Helen Garner’s The Spare Room, a book that is partly about wishing to find compassion in yourself when it is most needed, and finding it lacking.

In the book, following a desperate week of caring for her friend with cancer, Nicola, who is suffering horrendous pain and enduring a bogus and terribly painful alternative cancer ‘therapy’, Helen escapes to a small family birthday party at her daughter’s house next door, while Nicola sleeps in Helen’s spare room, exhausted from another day of brutal ‘treatment’.

The rain kept gently falling. Mitch brought me a glass of sparkling shiraz. Soon the dinner was on the table. All was orderly and festive. There were sixty-four candles. The effort to blow them out made my head spin.

Every half hour I ran home to check on Nicola. The first few times she was asleep. Then i found her sitting on the edge of her bed in the dark, eyes closed, spine bowed, hands folded in her lap. Her loneliness pierced me.

‘What can I bring you, old girl?’

‘In all the world,’ she said in a slurred voice, ‘I most would love a glass of orange juice.’

I squeezed the last two fruits we had, and brought her the foaming glass. She drank it sip by sip.

‘That,’ she whispered, ‘was the freshest, most delicious orange juice I’ve ever drunk in my life.’

I tucked her back into bed, and she subsided with a sigh.

When at ten o’clock I came home for good, I stood outside her door for a long time and listened to her slow, snoring breaths. One day soon they would stop.

Anyone who’s cared for a seriously ill person, I reckon, will recognise stuff in this book whether they like it or not. But hopefully you recognise not just the unexpected discovery of great ugliness in oneself (that’s the real, uncomfortable truth of the novel for me), but some of these small moments of beauty, and love.

Posted in fiction, food as love, health, writing | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

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First aid food

April 2, 2009

When I think back to the days after my husband’s father died a few years ago, two things stand out in my memory among the many kindnesses bestowed upon us.

One was my friend Anna showing up ever so briefly on the doorstep with a (fantastic) seafood curry and her two girls proffering a homemade card to tell Sean they loved him and were sorry; and the other was opening the door, about to embark on another funeral-related errand, to find a Tupperware container of the most delicious homemade chocolate-chip biscuits. They had been made by the girlfriend of a bloke Sean worked with a year or so previously. We lived on those biscuits for days, and on the kindness that sent them for much, much longer.

Another time, one of the few occasions I’ve been really sick, with borderline pneumonia, my friend Jane showed up with a tiffin, one of those beautiful tall layered stainless steel stacks of tins with a handle that locks them all into a little tower. Each layer contained some morsel of goodness - soup, a little casserole of some kind. I could barely move, and had no appetite at all for any of it, until the last layer revealed a twist of greaseproof paper with a tiny handful of perfectly dry roasted unsalted cashew nuts. Few things before or since have been as nourishing to the body and soul.

And on the other side of the coin, I confess that when I hear of a calamity befalling someone I love, my first thought is: Cook something. Mostly it’s because one feels so useless - when your beloved friend is in hospital, or bereaved, or having some other kind of horrible time that you can’t do anything about, cooking a freezable meal and leaving it on the doorstep can make you feel like some kind of loving, but not demanding, presence. Even if the person has no appetite and ends up throwing your food in the bin, the gesture has been made. But often they love it. Or if they can’t eat, their beloveds who are looking after them can. And if what you make is freezable, they can toss it in there and forget about it until they do have the desire to look at food again, but not the energy to cook.

The best form of delivery is unnanounced, unobtrusive - pretty much, hopefully, invisible. The recipient should not have to talk to you or even know you’ve been there. Texting the person about the package’s presence on their doorstop is acceptable after the fact (leave it in a chiller bag if you’re worried about perishability). This can be difficult for people in security apartments! In which case I would arrange by non-verbal means to drop it off, and make sure to hand it over and leave - kisses optional, but you can’t let them make you cups of tea or go to any other effort for you - it defeats the purpose. Oh, and use disposable takeway containers that don’t have to be given back.

Anyhoo - here are my Top Five Foods to Cook for Someone in a Crisis.

1. Syrian chicken (the Karen Martini dish that is my heroic mainstay for anytime, anywhere, that everyone loves) with accompanying box of couscous and very basic instructions.

2. Osso bucco or lamb shanks, with a separate container of creamy mashed potato - comfort food to the max.

3. Risotto - mushroom, radicchio, whatever (I leave out the parmesan to add at the end, but supply it separately, already grated, with a note).

4. Pasta sauces - any kind, but the ol’ puttanesca (anchovies, olives, capers, all our salty friends) is hard to beat. Make sure you leave pasta too, and Parmesan.

5. Soup - tomato & lentil, minestrone, or chicken & vegetable. A good chicken soup really, really does make people feel loved. Strange but true.

Hmm, lots more to add here now I think about it. My sister Bernie’s fabulous easy chicken pie with green peppercorns, for one thing. And another beauty, a Neil Perry lamb, pea and mint pie. And chicken cacciatore. And lots more …. looks like I may need to continue this list another time. And I bet you have some things to add, don’t you?

Posted in food as love | Tagged , | 4 Comments »

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