feasters of habit

I have been thinking about habitual meals.  Characteristic foods that you can expect to share with persons or places.  They are reminiscient and they are rhythmic, these meals – marks of your history together and reassuring constants in your relationship.  We build little custom culinary habits with each person with whom we share meals regularly, habits that address the way our food is prepared and by whom, the way we serve it, the way we talk about it.  There are certain things that are best experienced with a particular person, and I often save them for the right situation, or construct one and ask them to step into it.  Or things you only eat in a certain person’s kitchen.

I can’t even think about how to begin to share my long long list of reminisciences and recipes.  As soon as I open my mind’s catalogue, the routes to those memories split and sidetrack and they scatter about.  I could make that a feature here, write about it once a fortnight, once a week, and then maybe hope to wrangle some of those experiences.  But there are a couple of them which brought this whole topic to mind – ones I have pictures to illustrate – so I’ll start there.

full lesbian breakfast (imperial), with tomato relish

Lesbian breakfast.  A loosely-structured morning meal based around pieces.  Geographically and seasonally variable, made by and / or eaten in the presence of lesbians (and their allies).  I trace this back to some Los Angelina femme friends, who are some of the classiest, most interesting (if occasionally over-the-top, but as I said, Los Angelina) eaters I know.  A few of us shared some turning-point food-politicizations, and so my adult food life began in their presence.

Lesbian breakfast is built around, but does not always include, these items:

fried fake meat
a fried egg
fresh tomatoes on toast with flaked salt and coarse pepper
fresh greens
Earth Balance and / or Veganaise (both unavailable in the southern hemisphere)
hash
plunger coffee with milk, orange juice, or black tea

One of the pleasures of lesbian breakfast is the agency it offers.  The fluidity of components and ingredients.  Its subjectivity to whimsy, and to leftovers from last night’s dinner, from which the hash was made.  During my time with the founding madres of this dish, it was often consumed 1) stoned, and / or 2) alongside planning of the day’s activities.  I don’t really know what lesbian breakfast is doing over there now, but I have come to adapt it for my more antipodean tastes and ingredient options.  The image above makes use of baked beans (Eden Organic, with sorghum and mustard, from the tin mentioned below) and derives from both English and Lesbian traditional breakfasts – perhaps even equally.  Which, for me, invoked the thought experient of ‘full lez’ versus ‘half lez’.  Also, I should admit that I ended up swapping the artisinal tomato relish from that really nervous lady at the farmers’ market for sweet and vinegary tomato sauce.

Since I left the company of los angelinas, I tend to consume lesbian breakfast alone.  A few housemates know it by name and note its presence when they see it, and perhaps I just haven’t been as much of an ambassador for the dish as I could be.  But then I suppose you’d also have to wake up within a certain meterage of my kitschen to partake…and that’s all I have to say about that.

flavours of the farm

Flavours of the Farm.  This, too, is a meal concept, but the ingredients are a little more constant and the variability is pretty much seasonal.  I’ve been eating this on my farm visits for as long as I can remember them being habitual, though I’m not sure when the dish was formally named.  It’s a simple Thai-style soup, its flavours fuelled by the abundant availability of lime leaves and lemongrass, and the eager consumtion of coconut products by inhabitants of the region (today I saw my first tub of coconut yoghurt in the grocery store).

There’s a basic list of ingredients, and you pretty much just put ’em in a pot and cook ’em.  Vee makes a spice paste of the alliums and aromatics and fries it off first, then the liquids and simmer simmer simmer.  This is a slow meal – you want the herbs to infuse, so you let that sit for as long as you can bear it.

stock
coconut milk
lime leaves
lemongrass
lemon juice & zest
garlic
onion
ginger
seasonal veggies, mostly green and orange in colour
tofu, sometimes chicken
rice noodles (at the very end)

This meal is fresh, it’s warming, it makes use of the things that grow on the property, and it can feed a lot of folks for a little bit of money, which feels safe and accessible.  And it’s got mileage as leftovers, which is important in a place where ‘snacks’ are not constantly stocked and the fridge is not really for extended stays.  If you want it to be light, it can be light, and if it’s the middle of winter and you wanna get really full so that your body produces a bunch of heat doing the work of digesting it all, you can do that.  It’s a regular feature of farmfoodlife.  You do that, and then you do something really extravagant like a roast for 8, just to keep things balanced.

Now of course this matter of giving some thought to one’s feasting habits, rituals, and inter-courses is obviously has bredth and depth, and maybe some of those ways-of-eating need some re-figuring from time to time.  The point, for me, is to draw attention to the ways in which food is brought into – or a foundation for – a relationship, and to really know who I’m eating with and how we’re doing it.  Perhaps that will bring a little more presence into those interactions.  I’d love to hear some of your own habits of feasting with your folks.

28 november 09

On November 28th 2009 I cooked a BBQ for three friends.  The warmth in the kitschen was so pleasing.  This is one of the rare exceptions over the last couple of months that I have cooked dinner at home (yes, I’ll stop crapping on about that soon), but had there not been other mouths I probably wouldn’t have.  I have always struggled with the concept of cooking for one.

next best things

Before this weekend just gone, it had been a very long time since I had cooked for myself.  I believe that at least four solid weeks went by without me ever having made myself dinner.  If I think about it too much, it’s upsetting and frightening.  But I have also had the privilege of maintaining a general state of wellfed, thanks to some other fantastic cooks in my locale.  And so I’d like to thank the following folks who have been cooking for me when I haven’t been cooking for myself.  It is because of you that I never have to resort to frozen meals, kebabs, or other bullshit excuses for food.

Pollen Industries, Fitzroy.

At least twice a week I walk to Pollen with an empty plate in my hand and return to my desk with a whole bunch of really fresh excellence.  Today I took takeaway containers because bike transport was to be involved, but I can assure you that it looks even better on a plate.  What they do is simple, fresh, wholesome, and energising.  Lunch on Brunswick St is limited, especially if you don’t do conventional wheat.  Yes, there is lots available, but about 90% of it is shit.  If you eat a meatball wrap from Alimentari, your day actually gets harder because you feel heavier.  If you eat a patty and some salad from Pollen, your day actually gets easier because you’ve eaten things with energy in them, things that are alive and thereby life-giving.  The flour is freshly-milled, which is what started me own my own little trip of milling some of the flour for Nice Biscuits, because living flour is so much better than the dead stuff in the sack.  The coleslaw is so fresh and perfectly seasoned with black pepper, and everything just has a bit of kick to it that I really appreciate.  I’ve been going on two months having the same lunch a few times a week and I am so not bored.  There’s also the added bonus of going to a place that is solidly invested in building community in conjunction wth building business, so I feel like I’m going to visit my friends, who are going to give me delicious food and loan me a cookbook.  They are also kind enough to sort me out with grain mill needs, and sometimes they let me sell my biscuits there.  But mostly they just make really delicious things.  And while I don’t usually go there at a time of day when I want coffee, the artistry with which their shots are poured sometimes makes me have one anyway because they just look so nice.  I promptly regret that because it is more heavily caffeinated than your average shot, but while I’m having it, it’s very nice.  If you’ve been skeptical about their coffee in the past, perhaps try a macchiato – I think that particular roast might be better served on its own that with a cup full of milk.

Singh’s Indian Takeaway, North Fitzroy.

I’ve toned it down over the last week or so, but at the peak of my relationship with Singh’s, I was there maybe four or five nights a week.  I have never had better Indian food, anywhere.  Please note that I have not been to India.  When I was on the anti-fire diet, the only takeaway I could eat, anywhere, was mild dahl makhani, and when I ordered it the boy who answers the phone came to know my name and voice.  He’s got glossy, flowing locks and sometimes asks me if I’m married.  After dahl makhani, my most-ordered items are lamb biriyani and hyderabadi chicken.  And they have coconut and coriander chutney, which I have yet to figure out how to produce in my own kitschen, even though I know what’s in it.

Verde Provedores, Daylesford & Melbourne Community Farmers’ Markets

The dips lady (her name is Kylie, but I don’t think I’ve ever called her that) makes fresh dips each week and distributes them to a whole bunch of places, including some of the Organic Wholefoods shops (I think Smith St carries them) and the MCFM markets.  The inventiveness of the flavours really struck me from the time I started attending the markets a few years ago – I think cucumber, yoghurt and borage flower is the one that really displays her capacity for combinations.  You can eat them straight up with bread or crackers or use them as a side dish or sauce or sandwich spread.  They allow me to still feel foodie-ish even when I am contributing absolutely nothing to food as an institution.  Kylie has also been really supportive of Nice Biscuits and offered to help me set up wholesaling in Daylesford, and is always giving me well-grounded pep talks cos she once did what I’m attempting to do.  Also, she selects her own produce and I really trust her food ethics, which makes eating her products feel really nice.

Moroccan Soup Bar, North Fitzroy

This is a northern suburbs institution, and has been an average of a once-a-week thing.  The only way I could eat there on a regular basis is to take it away, because they are constantly booked out.  For the uninitiated, you take your own containers and tell them how many people you’re feeding.  Come back ten minutes later, pay what they think it’s worth by looking at it for about half a second, and that’s it.  It probably takes longer to get through the traffic from one end of the restaurant to the other than it does to actually do the transaction.  One day you may pay $20 for two people, another you may pay $15 – so don’t expect consistency, and be grateful for the times when you pay less.  The place is insanely vibrant, the staff is so matter-of-fact and capable, and the whole spirit of goodwill upon which the place was founded and has continued to run for over ten years is quite palpable.  They’re busy so they’re not gonna chat with you, and the whole flurry of energy is pretty intense, but the food is incredible.  The menu does change a bit from time to time but mostly you know what to expect – chickpea bake with yoghurt and crispy little pieces of pitta bread; moroccan couscous with stewed root veggies; lentils with saffron rice; cauliflower bake; and lately they’ve been doing an okra dish, which pleases me immensely.  If it’s sunny you can go and sit in the Edinburg Gardens and have a Moroccan picnic.

It’s reassuring to know that there are always people around me whose cooking resonates with my really base desires about What to Eat.  I am thoroughly appreciative of the ease with which I can hold out my bottomless bowl and have it filled, over and over, by people who love what they make.  As much as I’d like to be self-sustaining when it comes to sustenance, I know that now is not the time for that, and the next best things are so satisfying that I’m happy to take my time getting there.

this is what 85 mermaid cut-out cookies looks like

One of my more ridiculous undertakings of late was a supplementation of the Jessie Ngaio experience with biscuitry.  Her ‘Cold Salt Skin’ exhibition opened on Friday, and we thought ‘what better way to enhance the already-psychedelic mermaid artworks than to pump its viewers full of sugar?’  There was also wine.

I know that there was at least one coeliac in the room, and for me that’s enough to make the whole operation gluten-free.  Dietary accessibility is the coolest.  And really, no one should be able to tell that they’re gluten-free, because they should not taste like your archetypal crumbly dry rice flour-y mess that is what most coeliacs are fed.  I’ve come to trust the Gluten-Free Girl as a good starting point for GF translations of classic recipes, and while I think her flagrant use of sorghum flour does impart a very particlar flavour to the products of her recipes that doesn’t always please me, I am very grateful for access to her approach to gluten liberation and I think she’s doing good work.  And so I used her recipe for cut-outs, substituting half white rice flour and half almond meal for the sweet rice flour, which I have not yet been able to find in Melbourne.  The frosting is a standard buttercream.  Edible glitter was also involved.

This, despite being one of the most labour-intensive things I’ve done for someone else, was totally fun.  It’s not exactly my style – or at least I’d like to think so – but anything with repetition is something I can really get into for its more meditative qualities.  Also, pastry bags are good fun.  It became quite an assembly-line process with a very definable rhythm, and seeing all of these little creatures take shape was a trippy process.  I tend to think that about all baked goods that are made to look like living things.  Putting faces on gingerbread koalas at Each Peach is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done.  Try listening to Bjork’s ‘Oceania’ and looking out over a sea of mermaids.  Freaky shit.

But the best good fun of these was watching a gallery full of folks take pictures of them with their phones or pick up a tray of them and serve them to their fellow patrons.  They went quickly with few casualties and they seemed to please people.  Especially the person they were most meant to please.

I can’t help but feel that they look a bit Communist.

starting slow

If there is one thing which I hope will always ground me in regards to my thoughts and activities with food, one principle I always anchor myself to in whatever culinary projects I undertake, it is slow.  Presently I’m in a state of frenzy, trying to get all of my food business in order and to fit in a bit of food pleasure here and there.  And lots of people want things and that is an affirmation but it’s also still a little unsettling that this will probably take right off out from under me and I’ll need to work out how to handle that.  Right now it’s pretty speedy, so it’s almost silly to talk about slow.  But I’m going to do it anyway, because it’s important to keep it present in what I’m doing.

This morning I had a chat with one of these kids which, coupled with their kick-in-the-pants roast, was an exhilarating start to my day.  They’re about 8 days young I do believe, but their foundations are much older.  They’re grinding their own wholemeal, using eggs from a friend’s farm, picking out their own produce, and keeping things small and slow, which is a big statement to make on Brunswick St, where ‘turnover’ has a lot of currency.  They’re interested in the nutrtitional value of what they make – half of the operation has a background in nutrition and ingredients are chosen accordingly, which is one of the most exciting things I’ve ever heard.  But it’s done in a crisp, brightly-coloured way – not the dim green-and-brown nuts-and-seeds nag-champa’d hippie standard I associate with that perspective on food.  Their doors are wide open and I’m sure they seem to be making stacks of friends.  I’m so pleased that they’re in the neighbourhood and I hope I get to bake with them someday.  Their presence on Brunswick St makes me feel at least 50% better about having to spend time in Fitzroy.

I guess what I liked most about the impression I got from Pollen is that they’re just going to do what they want to do, and if it’s not what you want, they’re going to tell you where you might find what you want.  And this is the sort of thing that is going to foster that ‘organic and complex’ nature that Bookchin has been telling me all about.  A whole bunch of small and specialised people creating a network which, as a whole, satisfies the needs of a community.  This, I suppose, is what I appreciate about the culture of slow food, or of a well-organised market, or any sort of food infrastructure which is based not on competition but on community and cooperation.

And in the midst of all of this setup and branding and showing my worth to the markets I want to be a part of (which includes ‘researching the competition’), this is something I need to meditate on.  I need to offer the things I am most in love with and curious about, not just the things I know I can sell.  I need to specialise and perfect my own creations and learn to pass people on when what I do is not for them.   I need to choose what I make carefully and experiment with intentionality.  Those are things that I already know, but sometimes I just need to repeat the mantra.

on the shelf

There are lots of little things that you meet along your eatings that just slightly alter the way you know food and the tools you use to think about it.  I suppose this is what I was referring to when I talked in my last post about ‘elevating your game’, but it’s not just your ability to create with food that is elevated – it is your inner sense of what it means, your ways of talking about it, of filling out the space it can prospectively occupy in your life.

I’ve never made something for more than 10 people at a time.  A project like that, of course, is gratifying, especially when you know all of them and you can see the way it affects them.  Last week I moved out of my sort of private sphere of edible influence and into something a little bigger than myself and my friends.  So now people might be eating things I’ve made at their desks with their tea or at the table with their oldest friend or maybe if they’re like me they’ve scavenged something special they will share with a very particular person and at the time that it’s shared all of their attention will be on it.  That, of course, is a grandiose way to think about it, and I’m also feeding gingerbread to children who are only ‘hungry for biscuits’ and any biscuit will do, and a whole bunch of other slightly less calculated needs-based transactions.  But just having the option to feed someone something without the silly formality of having to know them first is, for this moment, a bit of a rush.

Last week I put some things on this shelf, and was a big enough douchebag to then go back and take photos of it:

Things were pretty much all good and no disasters.  I hesitated to tell many people about this job until I was sure I would still have it after the first day.  There is some part of me which does lack confidence in something I know I can do because I have no ‘credentials’ or place in ‘the industry’ or any of that rubbish.  I think there is some element of my perception of this general ‘scene’ built around the cafes in the northern suburbs, which align with my perception of the art scene in Melbourne, which is that it’s primarily a matter of networking and that your craft and passion and integrity is a secondary element.  Then again, what the fuck do I know?  But there’s also just the part of me that steps inchoate into anything which brings my heart out of its private place in my chest and sits it, uncaged, in some sense of ‘public’.  Pride and fear and all that shit.

Thankfully, I’m somewhere where I like the people I am feeding, I like the space in which I’m feeding them, and I like the process of creation.  There’s a fair bit of slowmance in it all.  I’m making my own apple juice for spelt blueberry muffins and grinding my own clove for pumpkin pinwheel.  There’s an appreciation for backyard produce and for imperfect, even downright munted expressions on the faces of bite-a-koalas.  Well, it’s permitted, if not appreciated.  The kitchen doesn’t feel terribly unlike my own, and that seems affirming.

And so there are some new foodscapes, and therefore some ideas about how to read and navigate them.  I’m thinking about roles in urban food chains and about mobile food units (MFUs) and about the recipe as a piece of intellectual property and the matter of accessibility and how many delicious things are easily vegan and liberated from the gluten regime and more and more about the relationships built around food.  Like the ones I already have, and how I can bring some of them to Each Peach and make them try something they’ve already had and love it again in a different place.  Here’s a slice of pumpkin roll, and the way it can be finished so perfectly for the picture.

ginger cake

I have considered the possibility that Nigel Slater is the only man I will ever need in the kitchen.  I am gagging to be proven wrong, because I think boys are hot in the kitchen, but so far, no one has exercised such a perfectly flirtatious, pragmatic, and sensual balance of both culinary and textual sensibilities.  Also, he takes pictures. Well, I think he takes the pictures, because he talks about them without crediting anyone else with their existence.

I read Toast when I first started cooking seriously in 2004.  It’s a beautiful book, smart but still fluffy, and very sentimental.  He does the same sort of ‘I am very smart and practiced at my craft but I am also sensitive and sometimes make myself quite bare’ thing that makes de Botton appealing to me.  I’ve had The Kitchen Diaries (above) about six months now and it’s got some oil stains and smears of chocolate in its pages, and still I have many more messes to make.  He’s got the localvore / amateur gardener thing built in, and this particular book is a close look at how he eats, day to day, and that’s the stuff I want to know about.  It’s also just rich, and that’s how I like food to be.  His ‘value for simplicity’ is about really tasty, fresh ingredients, so I think miso is about the blandest he gets in the entire book.  I admire this.

It’s a very British cookbook, and I quite appreciate that.  It’s totally about what’s locally available, and it’s eager to appreciate traditionally British food items carefully.  I didn’t realise how much I appreciated spice cake until I made this for the first time.  It’s since become a staple.  So very crowd-pleasing, warm and comfortable and surprisingly light for the ingredients list, which is full of very heavy sugars.  The scent of it baking has a radiance to it that turns the whole house warm.

I repeat his recipe by the book, because he wrote this book so nicely, and the text is part of the experience.

Nigel Slater’s ‘Double ginger cake’

I am rather proud of this cake.  Lightly crisp on top and with a good, open texture, it is light, moist, and delicately gingery.  It will keep for a week or so wrapped in paper and foil.

self-raising flour – 250g
ground ginger – 2 level teaspoons
ground cinnamon – half a teaspoon
bicarbonate of soda – a level teaspoon
a pinch of salt
golden syrup – 200g
syrup from the ginger jar – 2 tablespoons
butter – 125g
stem ginger in syrup – 3 lumps, about 55g
sultanas – 2 heaped tablespoons
dark muscovado sugar – 125g
large eggs – 2
milk – 240 ml

You will need a square cake tin measuring approximately 20-22 cm, lined on the bottom with baking parchment or greaseproof paper.

Set the oven at 180 C/Gas 4.  Sift the flour with the ginger, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda and salt.  Put the golden and ginger syrups and the butter into a small saucepan and warm over a low heat.  Dice the ginger finely, then add it to the pan with the sultanas and sugar. Let the mixture bubble gently for a minute, giving it the occasional stir to stop the fruit sticking on the bottom.

Break the eggs into a bowl, pour in the milk and beat gently to break up the egg and mix it into the milk.  Remove the butter and sugar mixture from the heat and pour into the flour, stirring smoothly and firmly with a large metal spoon.  Mix in the milk and eggs.  The mixture should be sloppy, with no trace of flour.

Scoop the mixture into the lined cake tin and bake for thirty-five or forty minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.  Unless you are serving it warm, leave the cake in its tin to cool, then tip it out on to a sheet of greaseproof paper.  Wrap it up in foil, and, if you can, leave it to mature for a day or two before eating.

I can’t.  Someday I’ll try though.

My only modifications to this include extra stem ginger – even half a bottle if you think the idea of many tiny chunks of ginger in a warm cake sounds really appealing.  I love it that way and I think that sentiment is shared by the friends I feed.  I also leave out the sultanas, which I try to keep out of most things. I have discovered that I like this more in a bundt pan because it does have a tendency to be unevenly baked if you have any problems with oven temperature.

It goes quickly, but if anyone is so bold as to allow it to mature, which is actually a very mature behaviour, I’d love to know about it.

Hopefully a certain someone (she’s in the upper right-hand corner, baking for that one in the middle) will offer a gluten-free version, and I’ll be able to provide it here.

ladies’ high tea

In the midst of all of this dietary restriction, there was scheduled a ladies’ high tea at my house.  Even if I can’t eat it, I love baking for people.  I come with a family history of bakers and I reckon I’ve got some chops.  Many, many baked goods shall grace wooden spooning, ones I make myself and ones I’ve foraged for.  I prefer not to go a day without a cake or a pastry of some description, and I really don’t ever have to.  Except now.  But I’ve made a gluten-free baking friend who will apparently teach me to make decent cupcakes.  Most cooks I know don’t recipe-swap with the other humans in their lives as much as they look things up online, and maybe that’s a little sad.

Here’s a little flickring of photos.  It was a lovely little spread as we now have a housemate with extravagant and delicate china teacups.  She doesn’t know we’re not allowed to have glass.  A very femme setup, you see.  Girls know what girls want.  To eat.  There was talk of hopes and dreams of someday maybe please a KitchenAid mixer.  These are lines of conversation I can relate to.

Recipes are to follow in separate posts.  It was gratifying to make both the everyvores and the dieteers happy.  I am going to make that ginger cake again when this mess is over.