Nourish Me

new/old haunts

It feels good to be back on the other side of the highway. Even though I werk on the posh side, know that shopping strip about as well as I will ever know any in Melbourne, living there was, somehow, not exactly right. I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney for gawdsake. Little wonder I never quite belonged.  

Home, of course, is the country but for the foreseeable future we will still need a place in town from which to operate and the last place was a horror story. The tiny, badly appointed kitchen turned out to be the best thing about the place; the bathroom walls running with water whenever it rained was ultimately soul-destroying. Rent may have been ultra-cheap, but it cost us dearly in mental energy. Last week we moved to a place we now own. Run down but quiet and shady and very private. 

Schmoo and I went for a walk on Tuesday, a short one, exploring new/old haunts. For years we lived in Caulfield and we know these pathways well. Familiar garden styles - less polished, un-designed - and lovely rambling houses, streets with funny doglegs and dead ends, yeshivas and proper milk bars. Flats everywhere. Autumn leaves left in piles where they fall. I very nearly cried.

The new kitchen sink is wonderful. WONDERful! I sleep deeply in the bedroom and wake, refreshed, early enough to get loads done before I tram to werk. The bathroom is dry where it should be, in need of some work but the bath is perfect, a delicious place to soak and float ones feet.  

Dust settling, brain slowly coming back...all is good. Breathe in. Breathe out. Back to normality at long, long last.         

   

new

Cheap peaches bought hopefully from South Melbourne market, too early in the season, and lacking proper pits, they disappointed, even though I knew they would. (Nonetheless, I still feel conned)

(New (city) sink = swoon)

This new place was, once, a proper worker's cottage, and, channeling some sort of old school vibe (man), I slice and chop on a butcher's block outside under the tin awning on warm nights; I feel it's a nod of sorts to the women who cooked outside over fire before electricity changed the world.

(Have I shown you my bird-and-bauble thing-y before? He never fails to make me smile) 

 And a quick radish salad, veg all our own, grown in the country, eaten in the city on a recent hot evening.

p.s. An Honest Kitchen, Seasonal Desserts is now available in print. It's beautiful. Just so you know...   

 

introductions are in order

Really, really looking forward to the dust finally settling in the new abode, but everything's unpacked, a substantial amount of stuff was given away, the windows are flung wide open on this gorgeous, sunny morn and, for the most part, we are all pretty happy about the move.

In fact, I'm beginning to think that we have become, much to my surprise, Expert Movers. Even the removalist blokes - Mick and Mick, I'll have you know - were impressed by our speedy, tidy 'tude.  

I am also really, really looking forward to introducing the new kitchen sink (yes, I'm already in love with it), but most importantly of all today, I want to introduce you to an amazing woman, one who has made the already rather lovely project that is An Honest Kitchen that bit more, well, lovely.

Meet our WONderful, talented, and frankly amazing designer, Luisa Brimble. She takes a mean photograph herself as you can see from the photo below. And she loves film. One morning a couple of months ago I woke to an email with a proposal for collaboration that made me gasp one minute, then pick up the phone to Kathryn the next. Luisa gets what we're doing, and she brings a lot of experience and, I must add, class to her role. We cannot wait to show you what Luisa's done with our words and photographs...how lucky are we? 

     
photo © Luisa Brimble

 

 

 

it never rains,

it pours, or so goes the saying. Even though the sun is shining and it is a stunning 28 degrees today, work, as ever, must go on. I've been being filmed cooking (!) something I hope to share with you as soon as it's up on the web, and Kathryn and I have been beavering away on recipes, on testing them and photographing them and, I am pleased to say, we are close to being d-o-n-e, thankyouverymuch. Which is good, and somewhat of a relief because right, smack bang in the middle of the final stages of An Honest Kitchen, we will be moving to a new city place. I can't wait to share with you what the next edition is about - I know you're going to love it, and Kathryn has outdone herself with the recipes - but here is an outtake I've been thinking about quite a bit of late.

I'm SO ready to move, but it's only 10 days away. Luckily, I'm not one for nostalgia, so I hope you'll bear with me for a while, and if you hear me moaning about it any stage, please, feel free remind me that the next place is better than this, and cheaper, by far, to boot. There's even a tiny garden. What's not to love about that?

 

 

kitchens i have loved

A few days ago, chatting with Fiona and Ganga about moving home, I realised that I've moved 15 times in the 20 years since that first awful student house on Cleveland Street, next to the petrol station, right near the corner where the semi-trailers would turn, compression brakes hissing all day and night, making their way to the airport. 

That's a lot of kitchens. 

Some I have fond memories of - a galley kitchen in Clovelly with Em, and the huge slate-floored number we shared in Camperdown in third year - some not - the less said about the dark one in Bondi, the better, though I dearly miss my then-flatmate Shane - but each of them offered some kind of lesson. The one in Peter's drawing of me up there was the first really grown-up kitchen I've had, with its view onto a neighbouring orange tree, wooden benches I would lovingly oil in big, sweeping arcs, and the first dishwasher I'd ever loaded. I hardly knew what to do there, it all functioned so smoothly.      

I've worked with gas ovens, electric ovens, and scarily wonky ovens. One particularly stubborn beast I had the pleasure of learning twice over in different cities. (Obviously the cheap-skate landlord special.) I've had electric elements that take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get going (equally, an age to slow down), and gas burners that, if one wasn't careful, could singe the eyebrows of innocent kitchen bystanders. The one thing that all of these situations has taught is that, no matter what, food is cooked when it is cooked.  How often I've wanted to write, "bake at a moderate temperature until cooked", no hand-holding, no precision, just ready when done. Wonkiness, you see, is the best of teachers. But I'd never dream of leading anyone astray. We all learn in our own way, at our own pace.           

Still don't really like dishwashers. Rather do it by hand, not in order to martyr myself to some antiquated kitchen cause, but because I like washing up, it's what I know, and I like the rhythm it gives to the day.  There are times when you give in to the machine, but really I just like to get my hands in there, to get them working. Come winter, hot sudsy water warms cold fingers, too.

Mostly what I've learned - perhaps the best lesson of all - is that it doesn't matter what kitchen you have. What matters is that you use it, that you cook and feed and be kind to yourself in it, no holds barred. There's no better cure for almost anything life can hurl your way than a well-cooked, home-made meal. Glad we're staying put for a while.

Paring back

Measurement in cooking is a tricky business. Navigating the international differences in basic measurement can be a minefield, especially in an active online world. The Australian tablespoon is a heavyweight, weighing in 1 teaspoon heavier than the 3 teaspoons the rest of the world deems fit which, like our collectively expanding national waistline, seems unnecessary given that 3 teaspoons is a more than adequate (and simple to remember) measurement. I'd defend fiercely our entirely sensible, evened-out 250ml cup measurement, but our tablespoon seems over the top. Paring back, using my nana's 3-teaspoons-as-tablespoon spoon, has been a sensible, and successful move. 

Being quite the seasoned mover - at least once every two years for the past (oy) 19 years - I also know a thing or two about paring back a pantry. There's a wonderful passage at the very back of Edna Lewis' Taste of Country Cooking, an eloquent note on baking powder, written in 1976 because her favourite brand was being discontinued due to the 'rising cost of cream of tartar', that I'd like to share a portion of:

For my tastes, double-acting baking powder - the only kind you'll be able to buy now - contains so many chemicals that it gives a bitter aftertaste to baked goods...If cream of tartar is available, good results can be achieved by mixing 2 parts cream of tartar with 1 part baking soda, and using this in place of baking powder in the same amount the recipe calls for.

So, ditch the baking powder and make a batch of your own, I say.

State of the garden(s)

Now. I wouldn't like to offer the false impression that the garden is calm and neat, and ordered, and tidy as it is here, photographed post an epic mow and an equally epic weeding session two weeks ago, because that would be, well, false. It's just that I am trying to remember the garden as it was then, rather than as it is now. Turn your back for even a moment here and your rocket will bolt, sending up those pretty flowers you see in my header, nodding about on their long stalks, rendering their leaves below almost inedibly hot. The calendulas will go completely mad, and the cauliflowers you nursed from seed will turn into strange, feral beasts, no longer fit for consumption.  

Things are a bit of a mess. Abundant, yes, from all the rain, but unlike AOF's garden bounty, mine is suffering from serious neglect.

Oy. There's a lot going on. 

Anyway. There's good news elsewhere. The new garden - the first I will actually be staying with for many years to come - has a healthy, slightly neglected rhubarb patch which I brought back to life over the weekend. In the process, I found two strawberry plants, full of new growth and in need, I think, of a few friends. My hands may be ripped to shreds from pruning back a couple of overgrown climbing roses (must take the gloves next time), but it was deeply satisfying work. Have mentioned how much I love pruning?

What I thought were 8 orchard trees turns out to be 11, though I've no idea what kind yet. I could borrow a book from the library and find out what they are right now, but I think I'd rather wait and see. More fun that way. The gate fell off its hinge and there's a bird (maybe more...) living in the roof, but those are minor worries that, given time, we'll sort out. The best bit? The water. Ten huge tanks, all absolutely full-to-overflowing, the water inside cold and deliciously clean.

Move # 2, this weekend. To say I'll be pleased when it's all over is an understatement...

Rosh Hashanah

Sunlight is, at long last, streaming through the windows, hitting the floorboards and rebounding, sending gentle arcs of light into corners of the house that have been dark and dingy for months. Cobwebs cringe in the illumination, but they've never really worried me. I'm a spider-lover from way back. With windows and doors flung wide open, pot plants holding them in place, not even the wind that swoops through the yard, rattling the upper branches of the trees as it heads toward the house, can dampen my spirit.

Tonight is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and for the first time in a week, our evening meal will be child-free. Ordinarily it would pass unnoticed - just another holiday he no longer celebrates - but warmth and light and impending change have made me crave a small celebration of sorts. It's not my thing, Faith, but I do hold faithfully to the little rituals in life that, for whatever reason, mark significant moments. Spring; a house in the country; these are things worth marking in our own, small way.

Over breakfast I pulled out my favourite Jewish cooks; Claudia Roden (rituals, meaning) and Nadine Abensur (inspiration, depth of flavour). Round things, sweet things, not a hint of bitterness lest the year ahead be similarly tainted was what I came away with from Roden, but dinner itself will come, with considerable adaptation, from the divine Abensur. Individual b'astillas of waxy potato slices - golden from a winey, garlicky, 20-minute braise - with wilted spinach, caramelised onions, and bound with a tiny knob of soft goats cheese and coriander. Wrapped in layers of filo, and then pan-fried until crisp and burnished. Blindly hunting around the back of the saucepan cupboard on my knees turned up a blini pan bought years ago, used the sum total of once, then subsequently forgotten. Perfect size. There will be stoved baby turnips on the side (a bunch of beauties I've not yet tackled) and some tiny baby carrots, too.

For later, a metricised version of Alice Medrich's whole wheat sablés, a recipe you can find here, via The Wednesday Chef, (de-chocolatised in the interest of a sweet year ahead) but I think you should buy the book. It's a cracker. 

Here's to New Beginnings, for one and all.

Chocolate chip cookies

Packing may be good for the soul, but it's also pretty good for the blog, it would seem. Cleaning out a folder a couple of weeks ago, my long-lost chocolate chip cookie recipe simply fell into my lap. See? Couldn't be happier. 

It's pretty basic, and, being famously slapdash with the precise rules the art of baking requires, I subbed in bicarbonate of soda (the best cleaning product known to man) for the baking powder. In the oven, they quickly spread, turning into one giant, rectangular cookie. Hilarious, but no matter. Cut into squares while still warm, they were just as edible had they been perfectly round. Room to move within a recipe always makes me happy. Wholegrain spelt is my preferred flour here.

Chocolate chip cookies

125g of softened butter

3/4 of cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp of almond/vanilla extract

1 cup of flour

1 tsp of baking powder (or bicarb soda...)

1 cup (mixed) of chopped chocolate, chopped nuts/dried fruit

Set oven to 200 C. Cream butter and sugar, add egg and extract. Fold in remaining ingredients. Tablespoons, rolled, then flattened on a greased/lined baking tray, well-spaced. 12-15 minutes. Cool on rack.    

Found

Found this note among a folio while tidying this morning. Glad I kept it.

Lucinda,

I think you need to be more concerned with the act of drawing. I think that these works try too hard to be "finished" and resolved. Work smaller more intensely and make mistakes. Look at Henry Moore. Sheets and sheets of studies. Variations by the hundreds. Thinking visually!

Relax - enjoy!

Terry