Hello dear, neglected readers. Sincere apologies for the absence of late - I hope you will forgive us. By way of explanation, Tara and I have been busy jet-setting, adventuring and of course eating our way across Vietnam and Cambodia. Admittedly I have been back in the country for over three weeks now, but I've been busy moving house and am yet to establish a home internet connection. I have a stack of fantastic food-related blog posts planned, all inspired by fabulous Vietnam and moderately less fabulous Cambodia (which tried to kill me, but I loved it anyway...) but as I'm writing this post from an over air conditioned magazine store in Melbourne City, I've decided to keep things brief. Please enjoy this photographic taster (pardon the pun) - with more South East Asian delights to follow soon.
Happy New Years, kids, I hope you've had a good one!
It's going to be a bit quiet on the blog front this month, I'm afraid, my fellow blogger and I are ditching this scene for an elephant ride and a tailored pinstripe suit. Yes, we're heading to 'Nam. And Cambodia. Vietbodia, as we have taken - hopefully endearingly - to calling it.
We (and another dear friend) are lucky enough to be spending the next three weeks running around South East Asia. We're hoping to see - and eat - an awful lot, so I'm sure we'll have plenty of posts in store for you when we get back. To prepare for the trip I've been spending hours googling pictures of SEA and hitting up Travel Wiki for advice...
We'll be visiting the stunning Angkor Wat
And perhaps Dam Sen Water Park: "this water park" says Travel Wiki, "offers some truly unique water slide experiences (including the amazing "Space Bowl")! The slides have been badly designed and it's a common sight to see someone clutching their head when leaving them. Restaurant, health services, and animatronic dinosaurs are on the premises. Admission is height based." If not for the head injuries, then certainly for the animatronic dinosaurs.
We're hoping to survive crossing the street. Travel Wiki says, "To cross safely, judge gaps in the traffic and proceed with care - give oncoming vehicles ample time to see and avoid you, or try to cross with the brightly coloured and revered monks."
We'll definitely be hitting up some markets. Although TW warns us that, "Beware that DVDs and CDs you buy in Phnom Penh have a minimum 33% failure rate; with sunglasses bought from roaming street vendors it is 100%. Watches also approach 100%, including those bought in the Central Market."
Beaches and boat rides. TW recommends snorkeling, fishing, boat rides, hot-springs, and much more. Perhaps the most appealing option is this: "Get a group together and rent out a captain for about US$40 for a best sailing experience."
Colour and light - that's what I'm dreaming of. I also wouldn't mind eating here, "Butterflies Garden Restaurant, in Siem Reap. A small garden enclosure filled with butterflies and excellent fare. The restaurant employs local disadvantaged youth to catch butterflies, which are released at 11AM Mon-Thu into the garden."
And I fully intend to come back with my elephant license.
Well Christmas Day 2009 has come and gone, a fact I can scarcely believe, because not only does the passing of Christmas signal the end to another big year, but it also means that I have successfully pulled off my very first Christmas Lunch. That's right people, my lovely lady friend and I were in charge of Christmas Lunch this year, we wrote lists, made a few confused phone calls to our mothers (How long do prawns keep in the fridge? What's the name of that sauce you make? Are they pine nuts or almonds in that salad?) and after a lot of shopping and menu-planning, settled on a Christmas picnic in the park.
Fresh Fruit & Cheap Wine
Veggies ready for the oven
I'd highly recommend the Christmas Picnic idea: for starters we didn't have to prepare much food - just some salads and roast veggies, the rest we bought from the markets. Because we cut down on the amount of cooking required, we weren't trapped in our teeny-tiny kitchens with our ovens pumping all day, and we even fed our stinky prawn carcasses to some very happy local magpies, no cleanup required. The weather was bliss, the park was beautiful, and I didn't have to clean my lounge room in anticipation of an onslaught of guests. This picnic idea? Total winner.
Cold Ham - Poor Delicious Piggies
Cheeeeesee!
The Menu:
- An assortment of cold meats, cheeses, bread and dips bought from Melbourne's multitude of excellent fresh food markets.
- Four big salads (wild rice salad, pear and walnut, tomato and feta, and fruit salad too)
- A kilo and a half of fresh prawns, complete with home made Rouille.
- Roast veggies (the only addition to the menu that required the oven)
- Choc-Ripple Cake (still delicious, even after a rough commute to the park)
- A truckload of red wine, and G&T's in the esky.
I Love Choc Ripple Cake
I'm really pleased at my first Christmas Lunch. The food and drink: plentiful. The fuss: minimal. Weather: Bliss. Plus because we pulled if off, my Lady Friend and I are officially Queens of Christmas, until we either fuck up royally next year, or let our parents take the reins again. How very merry.
Between a broken - in fact, somewhat on fire - laptop, overseas adventures and long hours at the library, I'm afraid I have been neglecting you terribly. But there are many whistles and milkshakes on their way to make up for it.
In the last few weeks I traded in my small city in for this island paradise
Waiheke Island: perhaps the greatest proportion of vineyards to landmass that I've ever encountered. Also beaches, jungle, mountains, family, food and hedgehogs.
I saw the marvelous Animal Collective in Melbourne Town
They were as good as this pictures suggests they might be.
I saw this incredible, beautiful film, and then had to run through Melbourne with an unfortunate case of cryface to make it in time for my flight.
It was so worth it.
And I've started making plans for christmas. Like most of my plans on any given day, they involve baking. I am contemplating these delicious gingerbreads
Last weekend I paid a visit to the fantastic Melbourne Design Markets. I paid a visit specifically to purchase Cookbook, a darling little collection of recipe cards from Melbourne designers Wolfgang & Shlomo, hand printed using the old letterpress at the Melbourne Museum of Printing.
Cookbook is pretty much the most exciting purchase I have made this year. It combines two of my very favourite things, beautiful design and delicious food. Featuring linocut artwork by four talentedMelbournedesigners, and recipes from localfoodroyalty, the pages of this beautifully printed collection are just so darn pretty, unwrapping my copy set me all aquiver with excitement.
The traditional letterpress printing used to create Cookbook lends each recipe card an organic, textured feel, entirely in keeping with the earthy homestyle recipes inked on each page. I can't wait to try the delicious sounding "carrots cooked in earth with wild onions and clover" - and I'm eager to sink my teeth into the utterly enticing "white chocolate, macadamia and butterscotch tart".
I am completely in love with my Cookbook, and I urge you to get your hands on a copy, if you can (The Narrows Bookstore is the only stockist I can find). All profits go to The Australian Aids Fund, a worthy recipient of your hard earned, and unwrapping your copy of Cookbook for the first time is so totally satisfying, I promise your money will be well spent.
When I was a youngin' one of my favourite books was The Witches by Roald Dahl. Growing up, my sister,my friend and I spent hours "brewing" dirt, sticks, detergent (and on one memorable occasion, my grandmother's expensive collection of Lancome cosmetics) into "potions". We kept spell books, recited incantations, and read and re-read The Witches until we were just about able to recite it word-for-word.
Now that I'm all grown up I don't have the childlike abandon required to permit myself to run about the house tipping this, that and the other into my cauldron, gleefully proclaiming magical skill (a lamentable side effect of getting older is that potion preparation at the age of twenty-two gives the impression that one is just a little "off"). Instead, I bake cakes, cook dinners, and tonight I made chai.
To my mind, the enjoyment of chai is as much in the preparation as it is in the consumption. Meditatively stirring a pot of chai, breathing in the smells of warming spices, is about as close as I can get to brewing up a potion without freaking out my boyfriend or cooking up my cat. I've heard it said that you know you're getting old when you get excited at the prospect of a warm cup of tea. Well folks, I'm undeniably getting older, but I get excited for chai not because I'm ageing, but because it lets me indulge my inner eight year old for a little while.
What you will need: This recipe makes enough for four cups of chai, or thereabouts.
2 cups of milk (Bonsoy works well, for those who like soymilk)
1 1/2 cups of water
Two heaped teaspoons of good quality loose leaf black tea
Four or five cardamom pods, bashed so they're split open
One cinnamon stick, or about half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
One three centimeter piece of fresh ginger, peeled and bruised slightly to allow it to release its flavour
Eight to ten cloves
Just a splash of vanilla essence (or some vanilla beans, if you have some)
Two large desert spoons of sugar, I use brown or raw sugar because I prefer the way it tastes. Some people prefer to use honey, but I think it overwhelms the spices.
What you will need to do:
Preparation is so simple, it's really just a matter of throwing everything into a pot and simmering until ready - more or less the same method I employed when brewing up potions in the back yard with my sister! Add all of the above ingredients to a pot and slowly raise the temperature until your chai is simmering (don't allow your chai to boil as the milk may burn). Stir constantly for around fifteen minutes, then strain. You can serve at this point, or else transfer back to the pot and whisk until it is a little bit foamy. Home made chai is so much better than the bought stuff, and it's such a lot of fun to make. Enjoy.
. One of my favourite food discoveries of recent years came via Stephen Fry in the pretty good film of the very good book, V for Vendetta. In this particular scene, Evey is staying with TV show host Stephen Fry (I’m sure his ‘character’ has a name, but let’s stop pretending he’s not just playing Stephen Fry!) and he makes her breakfast: eggs fried in a hole in a slice of bread.
You’ve probably – unlike me – heard of it before. It’s pretty genius, after all, and comes with a slew of cool names. Toad in the hole. Eggy in a basket. One Eyed Jack. Hobo Toast. Not sure how that last one came about…
Needless, to say, upon tasting the Hobo Toast, Evey flips out. “V made me breakfast just like this!” She points out, a fact I am conveniently ignoring to write this blog. “Maybe I am V?” Stephen retorts. Well, you certainly have the same talent for breakfast. I tell ya, put me in a totalitarian world, and I am totally shacking up with the one man who can source butter and eggs. And homoerotic art.
There are a million ways to make it, but this is how I do it. I would recommend using that bread you made, remember? Honestly, unbelievably delicious. If not, any other thick sliced bread.
Melt 1 tbsp butter in a frying pan until it begins to bubble.
Cut or tear a hole in a thick slice of bread. The hole will probably be around 3ish cms in diameter, but to be honest: it doesn’t really matter.
Coat the bread in the melted butter, and fry on one side until crispy.
Flip the bread over, and break an egg into the hole. Fry until the egg is a bit more than half done. You should be able to see the egg cooking from the bottom up.
Flip again, cook until you think the egg is done to your liking. This is usually ascertained the scientific way, by poking.
Add salt, pepper, and then pick it up with your hands and eat it. And watch Stephen Fry in a sketch from A Little Bit of Fry and Laurie telling you how to be gorgeous:
Thanks, Stephen Fry! You can also see him on QI, series F, screening on ABC every Tuesday night at 9:30. Catch up on missed episodes here.
A Whistle and A Milkshake is a blog dedicated to good food and good music, two things that the lovely ladies behind each post enjoy very much indeed. Ellen sips her milkshake down south in Melbourne, and Tara whistles a happy tune across the nation's capital. They hope you like good food and good music too.
