Nourish Me

On the first day of an Australian heatwave, you shut and darken all the doors and windows of your home. Underneath the corrugated iron roof lies a layer of insulating seaweed. The hours pass in a dim and listless obscurity, until eight o'clock - or perhaps nine - when it has become cool enough outside to open up the windows. After dark, all the houses are empty, and from every garden comes the sound of quiet voices, relaxing into sociabilty.       

Perhaps at midnight you carry your mattress on to the lawn, where a mass of pinky-white oleander flowers, sweeping to the ground beside you, reflect such brilliance from the moon that you must needs turn the other way...Sand and grit are everywhere, and flies of course, and no water for the garden. And all the talk is of the bushfires to the north.

When the change comes, which may be in five days, or in fifteen, the wind swings around quite suddenly, and a great freshness blows up from the sea. Doors bang and the trees bend the other way and the temperature may drop 20 ° in half an hour. Everyone collapses.

Stella Bowen, in the opening chapter of Drawn from Life.

Today's heatwave, with its bushfire-scented winds swooping through doors and windows flung open when they should have been closed early on, brought to mind this (edited) passage from Bowen's carefully crafted autobiography, read during another heatwave at the end of last year. As we sat on the verandah, worried by a severe lack of rain, drained by days of incessant heat, these words soothed, for, though written as remembrance for her 1890's Adelaide childhood, there is an odd sort of comfort in knowing they too had searing, drying summers way back then. Drought is no new condition in this country. All managed without airconditioning (as, very un-21st century, do we) and dressed in corsets and neck-high layers of fabric, no doubt. Thankfully, 110 years later, women can dress in diaphanous, loose linen. 

Heat, and particularly bushfire season heat, can make for stunning sunsets. Incredible sunrises. Still, Autumn, you cannot arrive fast enough for this little black duck. We've not yet resorted to carting water in, though our neighbours have.

 

an instinctive, insistent pull

For some time now I’ve wanted to veer away from writing, in this space, always about food. In part it's because I now make a small, happy living from cooking, something that when the blog began 7 years ago seemed impossible, but I'm also beginning to feel an instinctive and yes, insistent pull to shift this creative focus a little, to lose some weight both physically and mentally, to calm the parts of my mind that automatically, creatively, think Food.  

Before I allowed the internet to seep in and destroy my attention span, two distinct and delicious plans were top of mind: a small print run of a book (lots of photos, luscious paper, some quiet, poetic thoughts on food) and a photographic show. And yet, each year I've let other needs wriggle their way in, pushing those good, good plans back another week, another month, another year. 

On Monday, during meditation, Eileen asked us to think about what we want - really, really want - way down inside. She has asked us to ask this of ourselves before in the quietness, and I often find a muddied sort of answer comes to the surface, but this week? Ka-pow. There it was in bright, glittering colours before my closed eyelids, the two things I've been actively avoiding. A wee bit spooky - although in an exceedingly good way. It was always there, that Knowing, but I'd accidentally knocked the volume button. Sheesh.   

Volume back up now, thank goodness. If it doesn't work out, does it matter? Surely not, for the pleasure and learning are in the doing, not the dreaming. 

We're off on a holiday to far off places over the next few weeks, and it's my sincere intention to make all of this make sense while away. Thanks, guys, for reading. Seven years next month! Thanks a bunch. What a gift you've all turned out to be. x

 

 

 

hot days

Just perfect for sunflowers and corn, standing tall, next to one another on these hot days. 

SUPER-excited about the corn as well you might imagine, but it's the sunflowers that have stolen the show.   

Just look at that lazy snoozer, in between the rows. Jo called her a (scruffy) child of the corn. Should be ready for the pot or grill this long, hot weekend.  

(the corn, not the dog)

back

Back, in a sense, although not quite back in another (the sense in which one can string together coherent thoughts in an easy fashion, obviously). Yesterday morning was a balmy 12 degrees when the dog and I woke, so we broke our break, and headed back to the city for a few days. Who wants to build a fire in (almost) mid-January? Not me, least not on my lonesome. I may be good at being alone - I excel at it in fact - but sometimes it's nice to have company other than the scruffy canine kind.  

Actually, the impending summer cold (hail is battering the windows as I type - oh, the irony) made me chicken out. That and the need to get this year well and truly underway. I'm ready to be back.

Almost.

We've eaten very, very well, I must say, though it's been not our usual style, but the moment everyone was gone both Peter and I fell upon simple, vegan fare. Brown rice, as I've noted before, fixes everything. Tofu, grated carrot, thin half-moons moons of biodynamically grown cucumber on the side. All of that feels somehow right after a period of indulgence, and I love that returning-to-normal feeling. I'm sure my younger self would have mocked such thinking, but man, I am SO looking forward to routine.   

Happy 2012, all. Let's raise a glass of sparkling water to getting back to it.    

zucchini fritters

Margaret's bountiful vegetable harvests, still lifes of suggestively-sized zucchini and huge, red-skinned potatoes, were carefully arranged on her gleaming kitchen sink at each inspection. They spoke of generosity and simplicity. None of the vegetables Margaret chose to grow were exotic, but what she did grow was wonderful. The promise of a 'large vegetable garden, big enough to supply a family of four' pretty much sold me on what was a far smaller block than we'd daydreamed of, but it was established and well-tended, things that, in the end, mattered more.

By the end of September we were technically settled. The wettest winter/spring for a good 20 years meant that the only gardening we could really attend to was the weeds - oy, the weeds - which, quite often, were waist-high. We worked diligently, got the right equipment, and rested our weary limbs whenever we could, flopped on the couch at the ridiculously early hour of 6pm watching Gardening Australia and Annabel Langbein's Free-Range Cook.

We finally got on top of things on Christmas Eve.

Then the rains came.

And they kept coming.

It's been The Summer That Wasn't.

Likewise, my summer vegetable patch wasn't, even though I corralled the wayward seed packets into some sort of order and thought, a lot, about what we should have been planting. Instead, we were kept inside, building fires to warm ourselves, or running out in gumboots to save the studio and garage from flooding. 

And so, I've been watching the bounty of other gardeners efforts as they unfold this season with a keen, dreamy eye. Last week, a familiar, rambling plant was stretching itself brazenly across one of the compost heaps.  I actually did a little dance right there, in front of the dog, for never have I been happier to see zucchini.  

At the market last week, we talked zucchini fritters, and my friend reminded me of the Annabel Langbein ones I drooled about on one of those flopped-on-the-couch Saturday nights. They were excellent late last year - we made them often - and they were excellent again this weekend. The quantity of grated zucchini below is large for good reason; the zucchini melds with the batter, lightens the whole. Rather than eating a few vegetables suspended in a lot of batter, you get the sense of eating a lot of vegetable in a little batter, and that, as you've probably worked out by now, makes me a happy girl. And just in case you're thinking, hmm, corn stirred through this batter might be good, stop yourself right now. The kernels sink to the bottom and are far too chewy here - even if your corn is as beautiful as Mariana's.

Annabel Langbein's fritter batter

This batter is beautifully light because of the soda water,  but it's also forgiving. Having only one egg, I chucked in a couple of tablespoons of buttermilk last night and by god, it worked. They were even lighter. On the telly, Langbein said the key to their success was squeezing as much liquid as possible from a large mound of grated zucchini. Squeeze with all your might. Make a face if need be; you want to get it really quite dry. Feeds 4 with other salads and such. 

1 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder (make yer own)

1/2 - 1 tsp of salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup cold soda water (open a fresh bottle if you can)

Sift the dry ingredients into a roomy bowl. Whisk the eggs and soda water together, then pour into the dry ingredients and mix well. 

To make zucchini fritters:

Grate 4 medium zucchinis into the centre of a clean, dry teatowel. Roll tightly and squeeze as much liquid as you can from them over the sink. Don't wuss out - really go for it. Mix into the above batter, adding lots of chopped mint and half a block or so of roughly crumbled feta. 

Fry in a generous slick of peanut/rice bran oil in a hot pan, adjusting the heat as required. Flip when golden, cook the other side and drain on paper towels (or, better still, brown paper bags). Good with lemon and sour cream or plain yoghurt.  

Other possibilities:

A.O.F.'s carrot fritters.

Cauliflower, mustard seeds and some well-chopped sundried toms in winter would be great.

Grated pumpkin when the zucchinis run out...you get the picture. Play.

Rose salt, rose sugar

Two ideas today, both of which, happily, make use of the millions of roses we've inherited.

For both, the roses you choose must be unsprayed. Cannot stress this enough, people. Tempting though it is to give another life to the petals from the bunch your beloved came home with last Friday, they have, unfortunately, been mercilessly poisoned along the way. They aren't right here anyway. Can't remember the last time a bought rose actually smelled like a rose. Fragrance is all important. Instead, you'll have to grow your own (roses are fairly drought-tolerant, and one or two won't ask for much of your attention) OR you'll have to befriend a paranoid-about-poisons gardener. Like me.

Rose salt

Though inordinately proud that for once I have a finished picture of a recipe to share, I'm not convinced that this salt is as good as Silvena Rowe's beautiful Purple Citrus & Sweet Perfume suggests. Good with fish, she says, but I wouldn't go out of my way to make it again. The fragrance improves after a week; prior to that, it has a grassy, earthy smell, one not entirely unpleasant, but not exactly inspiring either. Still blogworthy for its edible use of roses.

Gently pull the petals from 1 large, unsprayed red rose. Wash and dry the petals with care. Using fingers, rub the petals with 2 tblsp of sea salt crystals, keeping things a little chunky. Store in a lidded jar and allow a few days for the flavours to get to know one another. Keeps for at least a couple of weeks at (cool-ish) room temperature.

Best added to dishes at the table.

Rose sugar

This, on the other hand, is every bit as magic as the words rose and sugar suggest. Frances Bissell's The Scented Kitchen is surprisingly handy to own given that I've carnations, lavender, violets and roses ahoy. Her flower sugars are treated as a basic throughout the book, and there's something lovely about having a jar of this around.

A two stage process. Drying, which takes a couple of days, then whizzing in a food processor with sugar. A warm, pottering-about sort of weekend task. 

Gently pull the petals from at least 6 fragrant, unsprayed roses, red or deep pink for preference. Wash them very carefully, give them the gentlest of shakes, then spread in a single layer on a clean, dry tea towel. Leave - undisturbed - until completely dry. They will dry more quickly when hit with a little morning or afternoon sun, but not all day.

Next day (or two), pack them into a measuring cup. Take note of the volume, then measure out 2-3 times as much caster sugar as there were petals. Whiz in a food processor until the petals are, mostly, obliterated. Poured into a clean, dry jar, the rose sugar should keep indefinitely.

Tomato salad

I finished Oscar and Lucinda propped up in bed on Sunday, one eye keeping tabs on the local gang of cockatoos, wheeling and screaming around the orchard, through a narrow opening in the curtains. At the precise moment that two of them chose to swoop low past the windows - a blur of white against the towering gums out front - Peter Carey’s Mr Jeffris, deep in the bush, murderous and angry, ‘took a pot-shot, but with no real intention of killing – just a shot which threw the white cockatoos into the air like screeching feathers from a burst pillow’.

I cannot offer a better, nor more hilariously apt description.

A couple of hours later Poppy and I watched them bursting from the pears and apples as we shooed them away, she barking, I waving arms wildly and laughing myself silly. Unlike the polite parrot couples, quietly eating their singular, ripe(ish) pieces of fruit, the cockatoos arrive en masse, willfully destroying fruit both ripe and unripe indiscriminately, yelling at the top of their lungs the entire time.

Summer, at last, arrived this weekend. There have been a few vague attempts at hot - and a lot of flooding rain - but mostly, it's been a fairly cool, and mild, and, yes, sane summer. But today? Today is an old-fashioned scorcher, dry and windy and h-o-t out, the kind of weather I dread. Had been hoping we might miss out...no such luck. 

Hot weather means cool food. You need good tomatoes for this salad. The ones I was gifted the first time I made it had been homegrown by an eighty-year-old Italian man, so I don’t need to tell you that they were bloody good. It comes from Casa Moro (swoon) by Sam & Sam Clark, and is simple, sharp and sweet, with all the right sort of textures going on. Bread is essential. You know, for moppage. Perfect heatwave eating.

Tomato, walnut and pomegranate molasses salad

Chop tomatoes - juicy ones with loads of flavour – into chunks. Toss them in a large bowl with a palmful, more depending on how many tomatoes you had to chop, of roughly broken walnut halves. Make a dressing using a crushed clove of garlic, a ¼ tsp of ground cinnamon, 2 tblsp of pomegranate molasses (this is what makes the whole sing so beautifully), 1 tblsp of hot water and 4 tblsp of olive oil. Season, whisk, taste and season again if required. Drizzle generously over the tomatoes; toss over and over, adding some finely chopped parsley or coriander just before serving. 

Blueberries

Thus far, it's been a summer of discovery.

A mammoth session of whipper-snippering in late spring revealed, among other things, two straggly little bushes, planted deliberately, I was sure, side by side. To fertilise one another. As you do. Both looked promising, and I had a hunch about what they were, but, like much of the garden, they'd been let slide.

By mid-January, I'm slipping out each morning, boots on to wade through the flood-drenched bog they live in, enamelled white dish in hand, and picking blueberries for our breakfast. Thrilled.

Agrodolce

Sunday. A hot afternoon to wade home through, too hot, surely, for this stage of December. Grab the bag (second off the carousel), heft it through the gathering crowd, ring Peter - we're still a little way off - and decide, instead, to take a taxi. Windows wound right down, air rushed into the back seat as we hurtled along the freeway, smacking against my forehead, blowing away the dull ache that had persisted all morning. Home. Ring the bell, a leaping terrier to placate - hi baby, did you miss me? - a kiss, then into the shower. Later, fireworks filled our ears and the sky, Chanukah celebrations in the park. We stood on our porch, watching with that giddy, giggly awe cracker night induced when I was small.

Felt good to be home.

Christmas is hot, hot, hot on our heels, something one cannot, however hard one tries, escape. Searching the aisles of a West Gosford supermarket for bottles of ginger beer, a non-alcoholic drink for my heavily-pregnant sister-in-law, a woman in black was screeching at her son, "Put that f--ken full-sugar coke back on the f--ken shelf. Ya caarn't have it 'cos of them f--kers that come at Christmas."

Charming. I'll bet their place on the 25th is a riot.

In my own polite, middle class, university-educated way, there's something of that very spirit creeping into my world, some sort of humbug, more meh- than banshee-style bah- perhaps, but a humbug of some variety for certain, and I felt that woman's pain. In a small way I'm looking forward to cooking for just Peter and I this year. A Christmas break without travel for once may do us both good.

But what to cook?

This has been quite a year; revealing, sometimes distressing, encouraging, creative, all of which is good. The learning curve that is life is just that; a curve, replete with ups and downs, highs and lows, but somewhere during our moves my once inexhaustible interest in cooking was misplaced. In fact, it turns out that the damned thing has upped and left, and I've been bereft of it for a solid three months now. Thinking about putting up one of those Lost Dog - Reward posters you often see taped to telegraph poles, a fringe of scissored, tearable slips with my telephone number below an image of, I dunno, maybe some perky bulbs of fennel? A bowl or two of ripe tomatoes perhaps?

Or maybe some zucchini. I found this recipe in Maggie Beer's Harvest a few weekends ago. Maggie got it from Elizabeth David's Italian Food, using verjuice (constantly flogging that stuff, our Maggie) for David's mixture of wine vinegar and sugar. This is about as adventurous as my cooking's been of late, but please don't let that put you off. It's wonderful, wonderful, quite unexpectedly so. Besides, we all need as many simple zucchini recipes as possible given it's practically Christmas already.

Summer, here we come.  

Agrodolce zucchini

Slice 4 or 5 small, crisp zucchini into thick rounds. Pour olive oil, 2 tablespoons should do it, into a wide frying pan and tip in the zucchini. Shuffle them around so as they sit in one layer as comfortably as possible, cover the pan and cook on a medium heat, untouched, for 5 minutes. Lift the lid, grate in a little cinnamon and add some pepper. Salt if you like, but try it without first and see. Dissolve 1 tablespoon of sugar with 3 tablespoons of cider vinegar in a small dish, up the heat beneath the pan and pour in the sweetened vinegar. Simmer - fast - until the sauce is syrupy, and serve at once.

I stirred through some torn basil leaves and roughly chopped green olives, but go nuts. Add anything or nothing. Seriously good.    

Fennel

While espousing the benefits of a calorie-restricted diet, his wife by his side - the smiling, quiet sort of wife who, one suspects, doesn't often get a word in edgewise - my heart sank.

Occasionally, I turn the television on during the day. Just a few minutes, here or there, to break the silence of my working hours. Rarely satisfying, but a habit nonetheless, and one I'm not particularly proud of. The gentleman was sixty, but looked a young, impressive forty - egads! - as he preached, via video link, to Oprah's audience.

"It's science!", he exclaimed, "I eat 1900 calories a day. I have so much energy!"

Nothing makes my heart sink faster than the Scientific Eater. It's not that I don't think my own eating could improve, nor that I don't want boundless energy, youthful arteries or skin that glows from within. But for me, food is beyond mere fuel; my relationship with it imbued with other layers, other meanings.To limit it to mathematics is a depressing thought indeed. 

More importantly, and I know this is hard for some people to admit, I like food. I like the way it looks, the way it tastes, the way it feels. I like the reaction home-cooked food evokes. The way it looks matters more to me than ever before. These fennel bulbs, when I spied them at the market, made my heart sing. 

Is there a correct way to eat? Is there a correct way to photograph? My approach to photography is unscientific, too, stemming, no doubt, from an Art rather than a Science background. I like low lighting and the sometimes unpredictable nuances of film. There are trials, certainly errors, but all of it's instinctive, much like my (mostly) healthy eating. I like it that way.

I was recently invited to speak about photography at the inagural Australian Food Blogger's Conference, but timing has conspired, and I won't be able to attend. So I wondered if you'd like me to speak about it here, among these pages; to share some of what I've learned?

Some housekeeping if I may, while I have your attention:

Kathryn and I will only be offering the double Spring/Summer edition of An Honest Kitchen until the end of February. We've also set up a flickr group, where you can share your AHK photos and see what we're both up to as we work toward the upcoming Autumn edition. We'd love to see you there.

You'll also find Kathryn's emminently sensible nutrition advice on Two Fit Chicks, a podcast (ooo, how tech-savvy is that?!) she did with the hilarious Shauna and Carla a few weeks ago.