foodish thoughts for today

1. i am so tired of seeing gordon ramsay's ugly mug everywhere i look.

2. take note racv club: i hereby declare a war on any dish with a menu description including the word "foam". it's not cool, it's so over, it's so common, it's not distinctive, it sounds REVOLTING, it does not tempt me, it puts me off. face it, when el bulli did it, it was "fresh, innovative and different." though i wouldn't have ordered a dish with foam then. now everyone else, including the racv club, is jumping on the old foam bandwagon, it just reeks of desperation and pathetic derivation.

[starts lobby group called "fuck foam, let's get back to real food"]

3. unless you order a la carte at di stasio, the staff will rush you along in quite a rude manner. won't go there again on principle.

4. at mirka's you can go and sit at the bar and have a coffee and one of their divine bombe glacees.

5. baked beans on rice with some cheese on top (and for moi, sea salt and cracked pepper) is a perfectly acceptable sunday night meal.

6. making traditional italian sausages is a somewhat erotically charged activity and weird when you "do it" with your in-laws.

7. 40+ kilos of pig meat MAKES A LOT OF SALAMIS.

8. aldi fruit is shit.

9. eating "potato jewels" from aldi, then south melbourne market dim sims, then 1/2 doz coffin bay oysters from south aus, is possibly the strangest meal i've had on a friday night for a while.

10. vegemite toast is just not the same without butter.

and isn't the weather glorious? love, love, love how the city looks, and the sky behind it, as we drive around the lake to msac on a monday night.

must. take. camera. next. week.

fuck foam - the emperor's got no clothes

i know i have touched on my hatred for "gastronomic" foam before.

and i know some people are creaming their jeans about ferran adrià's visit to australia.

i know his restaurant el bulli in spain is the current bee's knees eating spot, with a waiting list for 12 months or some rubbish.

but know this, chefs of the world:

restaurants where you have to eat in the dark, are bullshit.

restaurants where there are 84 courses, with matched wines, are bullshit.

restaurants with menus that list every single fucking ingredient including palm sugar, are bullshit.

restaurants which feature dishes blending ridiculous tastes and textures, are bullshit. i'm not saying i can't appreciate innovative when it works. but parmesan and banana? beetroot and chocolate?

come on.

restaurants which promote descriptions like this: crunchy dehydrated tomato flakes, of biological origin with an attractive bright orange colour. Crutomat does not add acidity and brings out the full flavour of the tomato, giving a fantastic texture to pastries or preparations. Available in elongated flakes. Keep in a cool dry place. Ingredients: 400 g Tomato Flakes: tomato flakes, corn starch, sugar are bullshit.

give me a good beef burgundy. give me a good soft poached egg. give me a good tasmanian or coffin bay oyster (not sydney rock.) give me a good medium-rare fillet steak. give me a good duck confit. give me a good chicken casserole. give me a good slice of beautifully grilled fish, with garlic and oil. give me good potato mash. give me good green beans. give me a good, simple salad, with oil, salt and lemon. give me a good slice of bread, with real butter. give me a good souffle. give me a good cheesecake. give me a good bombe alaska (oh, mirka, here you excel.)

give me good service, but not hovery, obsequious, poncey, naffness.

give me the feeling of your geniune enjoyment of your job, not the feeling that you wish you were at home with beers and a pizza in front of australian idol.

don't flirt with me, i won't like it and neither will my husband. but i can flirt with you, and you and he can cope with that.

don't ever, ever fucking raise your eyebrow at my choice of wine, or wanting something that you think doesn't go with something else.

and don't use the words "foam", "froth", "clouds", "molecular", "spray", "frozen air" or "acqueous" when you want me to eat something on your menu. "smoke" is also dodgy when used as a noun.

follow these instructions and you will have, in me, a happy customer.

thank you.

i know he looks like he's wearing clothes. that's just the illusion.

Monday-itis antidote

It's simple don't go to work.

No, it's not that simple. I'm working Friday so I've done a day swap HOWEVER it means I didn't have to heave out of bed and do the nomal Monday morning thang. It did mean, though, that I had to:

- still get up at 7am to check on Princess and do a "go-to-school-or-not" assessment. She stayed home. She has been having night sweats for three nights, had a raging temp on Sat night (or was it Friday?) and has a sore throat and headache. I swear, the girl has no immune system, and part of me worries about that one time a friend breastfed her (without my permission, I might add) when she was <1 year old, and another part of me worries about all the champagne I drank before I knew I was pregnant (Christmas/NYE in Sydney) not to mention the hessian sack of oysters I ate from Merimbula after coming home. Too much zinc can affect foetal development? So I'm takingher to the doc. We did go on Friday and were told that there was a tiny spot on one tonsil - maybe it's tonsilitis now?

- go to my mother's and help her change her sheets as well as dust some up high spots at her place

BUT it also means I've got the papers and can read them over lunch, I can now do some writing AND it also means I was able to spend more time finessing my new hair. Yesterday I chopped it off (it was mid-way down my back and bush like no other) while now it's a bit Blondie, shoulder-length messy bob with some longer bits at the front and a bit shorter at the back. I've done a pretty fine job if I may say so. Secret #1 - dressmaker shears for dealing with the bulk during stage one. Secret #2 - nail scissors for shaping. I read once that Sharon Stone cuts her own hair at the front with nail scissors. I've got pretty wild hair so it's ok to do this; I wouldn't recommend for people with normal hair. But I've saved a bunch of money and have a good story to tell.

So that's about it. Busy few weeks coming up. The Little Man finishes primary school, the two girls finish Year 8 and Year 9 respectively. We have birthdays galore in December, and next weekend Clokes is taking moi to Nobu. We had a reservation at Bistro Vue and I said no. I'm an incorrigible snob (I didn't want to go because it's the "lesser of the two" though truth be told the menu suited me better - no foam that I could see; but also they do early and late sittings and I didn't want to be rushed. So hah. Cancel that baby.)

- oh, one more thing. Is it wrong to feel relieved having almost finished my ex-step-sister's first book (collection of short stories) and realise that we don't write nearly the same, and while I can appreciate her wry humour (she really is alot funnier in her writing than I remember her being as an 11-year-old) and that she is a talented writer and story-teller, she hasn't at all written anything like my book. Not wrong, normal right?

Happy Monday.

gigi guest post - "my garden"

hi everyone. i am gigi, a gorgeous yet modest golden retriever. i am thirteen months old, and i like bones, digging and jumping up on new friends.
this is a picture my mum took of me a few days ago.















this is one of the doors they don't let me in.

i like to get really close to my family.

















like really close.

if i can sit on you and lick your face, then my world is complete.


















 this is my water bowl. well, it's me with my water bowl.
















this is just my water bowl. often i like to dig in my water bowl and all the water comes out. then my mum has to fill it up again. this is a fun thing to do
















this is an old footy bladder i found near the tennis court. the tennis court has a lot of bushes around it, and i can get in there and find lots of stuff. mum calls it junk but i call it treasure.
















this is a rubber coil. i don't play with this one much. i don't know why. maybe because mum bought it from the shop, and it was expensive. i just like my "treasure" because i find it myself. satisfying. and unique.
















this is what they call a "kong". again it was expensive and i'm not really that into it. unless you put peanut butter or another expensive dog-foam-type product which comes in a canister inside it. then i lick it out. it takes about five minutes, tastes yum, is supposedly good for my dental hygiene. and then the kong just sits on the grass. again.
















this is a duck they gave me. i used to chew this alot, but then i grew out of it. don't know why they leave it outside. i'm all grown up now, and that's a puppy-toy.
















this one is a rope. it's kind of cool. i like to play with this one, it's nice and heavy so i feel tough when i carry it around. it's fun to toss my head, and then roll around with it. mum and i have a game where i get it, and go up to her, and she laughs and takes hold of the other end. then she pretends to be a dog and growls and tugs. she's pretty funny when she does it. so we play tug of war. i do it for her.
you can kind of see my legs here.
















this is a lobster. i got this for my birthday in november. you can't really see clearly but i have chewed off some of his legs. isn't that what you are meant to do with lobsters?*
but i really like this guy, i have had lots of fun with him. mum would toss him through the air for me and i'd go and fetch him.
don't mind his wide-eyed stare. he's ok, really. i didn't scare him, we are good friends.
















i was going to make a competition to see if anyone could guess what this is, but mum said i have to get off the computer. and that this is just a one-off guest post. so instead of having to guess what this is in the bottom of the wheelbarrow, i'll just tell you.

it's chewed up bits of plastic planter pots.
i just love plastic planter pots.
but mum's worried i might get a bowel obstruction if i eat too many of them.















one of the best things about being me is i have my own pool. i don't really mind that it's a hand-me-down from my older sister. i've been really enjoying it the last week or so, let me tell you.
















i get really excited by the water, and i dig, and i dig, and i dig.
















 then i get tired and i sit for a while. then i dig some more. eventually i get really tired.
















oh, i amost forgot to show you my wood.
when mum first saw it she thought it was something dead or part of a skeleton. but then she looked again and realised it was a very precious piece of old wood, from my treasure-section of the garden.
















i love my wood.
















i love my wood.
















the only other thing i've got to show you really, is my tomato plant.
this is me with my tomato plant outside another door they don't let me in. well, they do actually, because this leads to the laundry where i sleep. but there's another door inside this one.
that's the one they don't let me go in.
i guess it's ok.

mum thinks the tomato plant is hers, but i'm just waiting until the fruit is red, then i'm getting stuck in. hey, did you know tomatoes are a fruit? freaky! i think mum's forgotten i did that at the other house where there were cherry tomatoes. eat them off the plant, i mean.
i love cherry tomatoes. i love cherry tomatoes.
see ya!


* a bit of dog humour

Friday

Things facing me today.

In a little while, I am going to pick up Princess from my mum's place and we are going to drive to Canberra. My brother lives in Canberra and my sister and her family are there visiting. I had planned to go up this past week but couldn't because I was working.

But then the Cats got into the Grand Final.

And I know everyone will be at my brother's watching. Us three kids haven't ever watched Geelong in a GF together before. My sister and I went to the 1995 Grand Final. There is a photo of us and our devastation afterwards. When Geelong played Hawthorn in the 1989 Grand Final I was on a road trip to Lake Eyre with two friends, and on that Saturday we drove four hours or so to a pub that was showing it. We sat in the mostly empty front bar and drank beer and then went and kicked a footy with the aboriginal kids outside afterwards. Two years ago, we were in Istanbul and couldn't find a tv showing it. There were phone calls to my dad and brother who were both there but not sitting together. And last year, we were at friends' watching, and that of course was depressing.

So I figured this might be the last chance for a long time? It would be a really feel-good moment to all be together if they win.

So I formed a wild and crazy plan to drive up there, check into a motel nearby, lie low and then about an hour before the game, ring their doorbell and just be there. Mad and spontaneous.

Great plan, innit?

Booked the motel, printed out google maps, have a little bookshop to visit half an hour out of Canberra tomorrow morning, a little side activity.

Princess jumped on board and is very excited. I had to tell my mum, and yesterday my Dad (because he asked me and Princess to the Parade today. Never been to the Parade, never want to go) and I swore them to secrecy.

I want it to be a complete and utter surprise and my sister and her husband and children are all very loud people so it will be effective and satisfying.

EXCEPT for my fucking tooth.

I went to the dentist Wednesday morning for further work on a root canal. I wasn't in pain, just having to floss frequently because the tooth had chipped. But it wasn't bad, he said, luckily I hadn't cracked the tooth, blah blah blah. He cleaned it out (again) and while it didn't hurt, it was unpleasant. I'm not good with things in my mouth. I think I've mentioned here before I used to have dreams of my mouth and throat being filled with cotton wool or barbed wire or broken glass and me having to breathe around it all the while trying to pull the stuff out.

If I believed in previous lives I would think I was probably buried alive, with dirt filling my nose and mouth and throat.

I also have a fear of me or someone I'm with choking on food and dying.

The tooth was ok when I left. It was ok for the rest of that day. A little tender but I wouldn't say painful.

Yesterday I went to work, and it was still the same, ok but not terrible.

Then last night, Clokey and I went out to dinner.

We went to a new place in Fitzroy Street called Waldorf diner (they really shouldn't call it a diner, just Waldorf would be fine) and enjoyed the food. Sausages, bread, all made on the premises. Slow-cooked food, beautiful pork-belly, divine beef carpaccio. Only one mention of "foam" on the menu and it wasn't really; more a potato puree and yummy.

The tooth was fine. I chewed on the other side, but no real problems there.

We came home, to watch the Footy Show (I couldn't bear it, what a horrible show it is, all the prancing around of the "hosts" it's like watching a neighbourhood kid's concert) and we had some ice cream.

Maybe it was the ice cream, but my tooth has gone from not terrible to very terrible.

Before I turned my light out in bed last night, it was so painful, I couldn't read my book. I took two Nurofen, and that must've helped because I managed to sleep until 5am when it woke me up.

Since then, I dozed, and now I don't know what to do.

I am miserable right now with this tooth, and I am in the comfort of my own home with my dentist virtually around the corner.

What will I be driving off to?

Is there dust in Canberra?

What will the weather be like?

Will the Cats lose?

Will it be worth it or will the whole weekend be a disaster?

Is my tooth a bad sign?

I feel a wreck, so tired, with a headache (referred pain?) and a tooth that's killing me.

All I want to do is crawl back into bed, but I need to get in the car and drive all day.

Was it the ice cream that triggered it?

Will it settle down again if I avoid ice cream? (Easy enough to do.)

What should I do?

I'm a stubborn person. Once I get an idea in my head, I don't want to change a plan. Especially when it involves such delicious surprise and fun.





UPDATE - my lovely dentist rang back, he is going to organise some antibiotics and Panadeine Forte for me. He thinks working on the tooth has stirred something up, and the antibiotics will help. I am anti the antis, but in matters like this, I will take them happily. So yay, let me go now. Get ready, get the drugs and head off. Will report back Monday.

Go Cats.