But, it seems that after much conversation and a 19-year long existential crisis, I have somehow roped myself into a trial in the kitchen of Matteo's.
Erm, help?
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
What I Don't Dig On.
I almost forgot it was the heart shaped season until I went to work today. Everything was heart shaped and then...the photos of the heart shaped food.
The heart shaped pancakes, the chocolates, the boxes, the dumplings, the pastries...flower arranged in...
yes...
the heart shapes.
Everything that you would be eating to harden the heart came as a heart.
That is what I don't dig on.
The heart shaped pancakes, the chocolates, the boxes, the dumplings, the pastries...flower arranged in...
yes...
the heart shapes.
Everything that you would be eating to harden the heart came as a heart.
That is what I don't dig on.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Don't you fuck me in my town!
I have a theory that every food blogger is secretly an alcaholic. Why do I bring this up? Well, I just found out five minutes ago that Jerome of St Jeromes...or Saint J's (as the hipsters call it) has just bought the almost-recently abandoned Rob Roy.
As with many people, I have a love/hate relationship with Saint J's...as well as Sista Bellas and the recently anointed Shittown. Actually, I hate Shittown. Normally, I would be lapping that shit up but it all just smells like cash-filled gimmick to me. A copy of a copy of a copy of itself, being too comfortable and living within its unexciting and tired expectations. As with my generation, these places are tired, uninspiring and disaffected. Also, disturbingly comfortable. It's the hidden cash beind the cashlessness that is trying to be projected.
See: everyone who does the Streetparty thing.
See: everyone at Melbourne Uni/RMIT.
See: everyone 20 and under.
I can rant and rave at you about how I was one of the firsts to go to Saint J's when the rat shit was still washing down from where the now-outside bar used to be, there was no clear tarp and the outside was filled with soggy couches. But, as with many places which have now made a name for themselves, it has been done again and again and again and again.
It's boring.
I am sad at this new discovery for 2 reasons.
1- Jerome is building a franchise and I can see he is just trying to do his thing. The bar thing. Whatever. He can do what he wants and facilitate underage drinking with the shredded, beautiful people in the city if he likes, but that is technically my backyard. He's at the head of my hood and now he's trying to ram me up the ass.
2- The Rob Roy will never be the same again, with its knowingly sticky carpet, great sound system and surprisingly good and semi-unknown bands. I have started many love affairs and had a lot of cheap eargasm in this place. I don't want it to be fondled and deconstructed (or most likely left as is, after all the fittings have been ripped out) and hailed as the new Jeromes.
He is trying to be the Con Christopolus of the bar world, sans wonderment. I think we have found a great comparison to heaven and hell.
Drink up, before it is all over children. Crying shall commence in five....
four....
three...
As with many people, I have a love/hate relationship with Saint J's...as well as Sista Bellas and the recently anointed Shittown. Actually, I hate Shittown. Normally, I would be lapping that shit up but it all just smells like cash-filled gimmick to me. A copy of a copy of a copy of itself, being too comfortable and living within its unexciting and tired expectations. As with my generation, these places are tired, uninspiring and disaffected. Also, disturbingly comfortable. It's the hidden cash beind the cashlessness that is trying to be projected.
See: everyone who does the Streetparty thing.
See: everyone at Melbourne Uni/RMIT.
See: everyone 20 and under.
I can rant and rave at you about how I was one of the firsts to go to Saint J's when the rat shit was still washing down from where the now-outside bar used to be, there was no clear tarp and the outside was filled with soggy couches. But, as with many places which have now made a name for themselves, it has been done again and again and again and again.
It's boring.
I am sad at this new discovery for 2 reasons.
1- Jerome is building a franchise and I can see he is just trying to do his thing. The bar thing. Whatever. He can do what he wants and facilitate underage drinking with the shredded, beautiful people in the city if he likes, but that is technically my backyard. He's at the head of my hood and now he's trying to ram me up the ass.
2- The Rob Roy will never be the same again, with its knowingly sticky carpet, great sound system and surprisingly good and semi-unknown bands. I have started many love affairs and had a lot of cheap eargasm in this place. I don't want it to be fondled and deconstructed (or most likely left as is, after all the fittings have been ripped out) and hailed as the new Jeromes.
He is trying to be the Con Christopolus of the bar world, sans wonderment. I think we have found a great comparison to heaven and hell.
Drink up, before it is all over children. Crying shall commence in five....
four....
three...
Friday, February 8, 2008
Seasonal Therapy.
My fridge looks like it has swallowed the market about 5 times over. This just means that I have not yet been able to go through all the produce I purchased on the weekend. I am getting a little paranoid about my cherry tomatoes of both varieties because of the hot weather and their place in the cupboard.
*Beware, tomato rant in next paragraph*
Now, my housemates just asked me why I keep tomatoes in the cupboard, rather than the fridge. Well, basically, I DON'T KEEP MY TOMATOES IN THE FRIDGE BECAUSE THE TEXTURE CHANGES AND THEY TASTE LIKE BALLS OF SAND!
So, obviously, they don't keep as long.
I have been a little foggy as of late and having a constant existential crisis working 8-4:30 as a Discharge Initiation Officer and needed some food therapy. So, in the space of 3 hours, I made 3 things out of dying produce. Somehow, I thought that clearing the fridge would clear my head.
I decided that the tomatoes were the main issue, as well as the dying basil and the left over pine nuts of last week...and one of those hundred cheeses I have should be put to use. Not to mention the figs that I should really deal with and possibly use up some of those 4000000 blueberries I have stashed in the crisper. (That was the only place they would fit, ok?)
I ended up making pesto, with macadamia as well, 6 blueberry and 6 fig friands and a caramelised onion, olive, cheery tomato and goats fetta tart.
Pesto:
1 bunch basil
1-2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
1-2 tablespoons toasted macadamias
2 cloves garlic
2-3 tablespoons grated parmesan (I used reggiano because it was lurking around in the back)
olive oil
salt
pepper
I pounded the garlic and a pinch or 2 of salt in a mortar and pestle and added the nuts without puverising them. I decided that my miniature mortar and pestle couldn't house all the ingredients, so I threw it in the blender. I then added the basil with a stream of oil to get it to the right consistency, stirred through the cheese and then added a few grinds of black pepper.
Don't ask me why I felt the need to put macadamias in there, I just felt like it.
Friands:
2/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup sifted plain flour
1 cup sifted icing sugar
4 egg whites
75g melted unsalted butter
2 figs cut into slices
blueberries
-Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease 2, 6 hole (large) friand pans.
-Mix the flours together with the sugar and stir in the egg whites till combined. Add the melted butter and stir together.
Ideally, I would have preferred to have grated some lemon zest in here, but alas, I am sans lemon.
-Spoon the mixture in the holes 3/4 of the way and arrange the fruit over the top. I did three slices of fig and three blueberries per friand.
-Bake for 20-30 minutes, allow to cool in pan and snarf.
(Now, I'm going to make a mayonnaise or hollandaise with the egg yolks. Looking at the asparagus that I have in the fridge, probably a hollandaise....but on the other hand, I still have potatoes left, so why not a salad? I am somehow still thinking hollandaise. )
Tomato, caramelised onion, fetta tart:
Now, here is a confession. I saw a picture of this in this issue's Gourmet Traveller while trying not to work, hiding in another level's break room, so this was inspired by a most likely hair-sprayed version I glanced at a few days ago.
3 small spanish onions, halved and sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
sugar, sprinkle
red wine vinegar, splash or so
150g kalamata olives, self pitted
thyme, leaves of...2-3 tablespoons
150g roma cherry tomatoes, halved
100g cherry tomatoes, halved
Filo pastry (just what I had, but I am sure a fresh batch of shortcrust would work just as well)
Butter, melted
3-4 cubes of Merideth Goats Fetta, crumbled
-Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius.
-Caramelise the onions and garlic by cooking them on a low heat with a generous amount of oil, a sprinkling of sugar, then deglazing the pan with a splash or two of the vinegar. Cook the vinegar out, you'll know what I mean.
-Stir in the olives, thyme and season with cracked black pepper.
-Now, lay and butter between sheets of pastry in a pie dish. Enough to be sturdy, but not too little for the ingredients to fall through when you serve it.
-Scatter the onions on a layer in the bottom, top with halved tomatoes, crumble fetta over the top and bake for 25-30 minutes.
-Eat it, fatty. Serve in quarters.
Now, everyone can pat my back at how amazing I am for actually keeping track of quantities and attempting to write recipes.
*Beware, tomato rant in next paragraph*
Now, my housemates just asked me why I keep tomatoes in the cupboard, rather than the fridge. Well, basically, I DON'T KEEP MY TOMATOES IN THE FRIDGE BECAUSE THE TEXTURE CHANGES AND THEY TASTE LIKE BALLS OF SAND!
So, obviously, they don't keep as long.
I have been a little foggy as of late and having a constant existential crisis working 8-4:30 as a Discharge Initiation Officer and needed some food therapy. So, in the space of 3 hours, I made 3 things out of dying produce. Somehow, I thought that clearing the fridge would clear my head.
I decided that the tomatoes were the main issue, as well as the dying basil and the left over pine nuts of last week...and one of those hundred cheeses I have should be put to use. Not to mention the figs that I should really deal with and possibly use up some of those 4000000 blueberries I have stashed in the crisper. (That was the only place they would fit, ok?)
I ended up making pesto, with macadamia as well, 6 blueberry and 6 fig friands and a caramelised onion, olive, cheery tomato and goats fetta tart.
Pesto:
1 bunch basil
1-2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
1-2 tablespoons toasted macadamias
2 cloves garlic
2-3 tablespoons grated parmesan (I used reggiano because it was lurking around in the back)
olive oil
salt
pepper
I pounded the garlic and a pinch or 2 of salt in a mortar and pestle and added the nuts without puverising them. I decided that my miniature mortar and pestle couldn't house all the ingredients, so I threw it in the blender. I then added the basil with a stream of oil to get it to the right consistency, stirred through the cheese and then added a few grinds of black pepper.
Don't ask me why I felt the need to put macadamias in there, I just felt like it.
Friands:
2/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup sifted plain flour
1 cup sifted icing sugar
4 egg whites
75g melted unsalted butter
2 figs cut into slices
blueberries
-Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease 2, 6 hole (large) friand pans.
-Mix the flours together with the sugar and stir in the egg whites till combined. Add the melted butter and stir together.
Ideally, I would have preferred to have grated some lemon zest in here, but alas, I am sans lemon.
-Spoon the mixture in the holes 3/4 of the way and arrange the fruit over the top. I did three slices of fig and three blueberries per friand.
-Bake for 20-30 minutes, allow to cool in pan and snarf.
(Now, I'm going to make a mayonnaise or hollandaise with the egg yolks. Looking at the asparagus that I have in the fridge, probably a hollandaise....but on the other hand, I still have potatoes left, so why not a salad? I am somehow still thinking hollandaise. )
Tomato, caramelised onion, fetta tart:
Now, here is a confession. I saw a picture of this in this issue's Gourmet Traveller while trying not to work, hiding in another level's break room, so this was inspired by a most likely hair-sprayed version I glanced at a few days ago.
3 small spanish onions, halved and sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
sugar, sprinkle
red wine vinegar, splash or so
150g kalamata olives, self pitted
thyme, leaves of...2-3 tablespoons
150g roma cherry tomatoes, halved
100g cherry tomatoes, halved
Filo pastry (just what I had, but I am sure a fresh batch of shortcrust would work just as well)
Butter, melted
3-4 cubes of Merideth Goats Fetta, crumbled
-Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius.
-Caramelise the onions and garlic by cooking them on a low heat with a generous amount of oil, a sprinkling of sugar, then deglazing the pan with a splash or two of the vinegar. Cook the vinegar out, you'll know what I mean.
-Stir in the olives, thyme and season with cracked black pepper.
-Now, lay and butter between sheets of pastry in a pie dish. Enough to be sturdy, but not too little for the ingredients to fall through when you serve it.
-Scatter the onions on a layer in the bottom, top with halved tomatoes, crumble fetta over the top and bake for 25-30 minutes.
-Eat it, fatty. Serve in quarters.
Now, everyone can pat my back at how amazing I am for actually keeping track of quantities and attempting to write recipes.
The Local...the local...the local.
The rain has come, which means that I can transform, once again into a giant blue triangle (we're talking in terms of coats here).
With another visit to the Hotel Lincoln after shearing one side of my head again, so I look like a wonderful Asian cyborg with an undercut, my Wednesday night became quite decadent. I met up with the usual food suspects and after a few ummms, ahhhs and Asahis, the four of us decided on:
-Duck and cherry pie served on a celeriac mash with a thyme jus x 2 (I was one of the 2)
- Fish of the day. Whole pan fried flounder with bok choi and XO sauce x 1
- Southern Indian Prawn curry with garlic Naan x 1
-Asahis x 12
The duck pie was very rich, as you would imagine. It was wrapped in puff pastry (I suspect out of a frozen block) and tore apart into shreds once you cut into it. The celeriac mash went very well with it and there was hidden wilted spinach between the pie and the mash. The only complaint I have is that the jus wasn't very thyme like, it seemed like they just threw it in at the end. Also, it was very salty.
I sampled some of the prawn curry. It came with naan, raita and steamed rice. The curry was very coconutty and, yes...rich. The raita was wonderful and as one of my friends pointed out, the star of the dish. I sampled the overly oily naan. It tasted like pizza dough that had just been thrown in the oven in a thicker shape and doused in oil and garlic at the end.
Despite this, it was a great, cheap meal and I guess a little rich for a Wednesday night.
We rolled home...to the other side of the street and slept it all off.
With another visit to the Hotel Lincoln after shearing one side of my head again, so I look like a wonderful Asian cyborg with an undercut, my Wednesday night became quite decadent. I met up with the usual food suspects and after a few ummms, ahhhs and Asahis, the four of us decided on:
-Duck and cherry pie served on a celeriac mash with a thyme jus x 2 (I was one of the 2)
- Fish of the day. Whole pan fried flounder with bok choi and XO sauce x 1
- Southern Indian Prawn curry with garlic Naan x 1
-Asahis x 12
The duck pie was very rich, as you would imagine. It was wrapped in puff pastry (I suspect out of a frozen block) and tore apart into shreds once you cut into it. The celeriac mash went very well with it and there was hidden wilted spinach between the pie and the mash. The only complaint I have is that the jus wasn't very thyme like, it seemed like they just threw it in at the end. Also, it was very salty.
I sampled some of the prawn curry. It came with naan, raita and steamed rice. The curry was very coconutty and, yes...rich. The raita was wonderful and as one of my friends pointed out, the star of the dish. I sampled the overly oily naan. It tasted like pizza dough that had just been thrown in the oven in a thicker shape and doused in oil and garlic at the end.
Despite this, it was a great, cheap meal and I guess a little rich for a Wednesday night.
We rolled home...to the other side of the street and slept it all off.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Amendments
Last night I ended up serving the fish pie (which turned out very nicely, especially along side a few gin and tonics) with a witlof, necterine and chevre salad. Lightly dressed with extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of lime.
This evening, I rubbed spices all over the perch, pan fried it and served it along side blanched asparagus and gai larn (I couldn't decide, so I went for both) with a generous squeeze of lemon.
Simple. Fresh.
I need some beers.
This evening, I rubbed spices all over the perch, pan fried it and served it along side blanched asparagus and gai larn (I couldn't decide, so I went for both) with a generous squeeze of lemon.
Simple. Fresh.
I need some beers.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
I will it to be winter.
It is humid and disgusting, being a 31.5 degree celcius day with a thunderstorm a-brewing. If it broke out, I would consider it perfect weather.
My braindeadness at work is slowly killing my soul. My enjoyment of the day is absuing business bankers and laughing at the stupidity of argibusiness managers that think that they can discharge a cow. Again, it only sounds dirty. If it actually were, I wouldn't hate my job.
There are only so many things I can do at work, and with it being completely dark outside, and overly air conditioned inside, I can't help but think it is winter. This is why I am going to make a leek and fish pie with the ingredients I bought.
Oh yeah, add leeks and asparagus to yesterday's list.
Anywho, this is what I plan on doing:
Making a garlicy potato mash to top the pie with, using the rockling fillets and slicing them up and arranging them on the bottom of a pie dish. Meanwhile, I'll saute off some garlic, onion, and leeks and pour over some cream and mix in some dijon till it boils. Finally, I'll break up some cheese into the sauce so it thickens (trying to go away from the flour thing, I want to feed my housemate who is gluten intolerant) and pour it over the fish. Then, I'll quarter a boiled egg and put it over the top, squeeze over a bit of lemon and top it with the potato mash. Bake it in the oven on around 200 for approximately 20-30 minutes.
I'll probbaly serve it with a simple lemon and rocket salad.
As previously stated, I'm not really a recipie person and I do everything by eye. Use your imagination and make up some of your own quantities.
While all this is going on...I am still going to hope for rain.
My braindeadness at work is slowly killing my soul. My enjoyment of the day is absuing business bankers and laughing at the stupidity of argibusiness managers that think that they can discharge a cow. Again, it only sounds dirty. If it actually were, I wouldn't hate my job.
There are only so many things I can do at work, and with it being completely dark outside, and overly air conditioned inside, I can't help but think it is winter. This is why I am going to make a leek and fish pie with the ingredients I bought.
Oh yeah, add leeks and asparagus to yesterday's list.
Anywho, this is what I plan on doing:
Making a garlicy potato mash to top the pie with, using the rockling fillets and slicing them up and arranging them on the bottom of a pie dish. Meanwhile, I'll saute off some garlic, onion, and leeks and pour over some cream and mix in some dijon till it boils. Finally, I'll break up some cheese into the sauce so it thickens (trying to go away from the flour thing, I want to feed my housemate who is gluten intolerant) and pour it over the fish. Then, I'll quarter a boiled egg and put it over the top, squeeze over a bit of lemon and top it with the potato mash. Bake it in the oven on around 200 for approximately 20-30 minutes.
I'll probbaly serve it with a simple lemon and rocket salad.
As previously stated, I'm not really a recipie person and I do everything by eye. Use your imagination and make up some of your own quantities.
While all this is going on...I am still going to hope for rain.
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