Bread the Third

The overly-talented Neil Williamson has been trying his hand at making bread. Without the aid of a break maker. Proper mixing and kneading with his hands, the mere thought of which makes my knuckles and wrists wail. He was kind enough to allow us to act as guinea pigs for his third attempt. I admit, when I took possession of the foil-wrapped bread it was the perfect size, shape and heft, my first instinct was to drop kick it. Some bread is just right for a good punt, you know? Anyway, I didn't do that. It smelt glorious, as only freshly baked bread can. We decided to get some proper butter for the eating, and some brie, and some good soup. Barely waited to get in the door before rending its attire asunder.

Look at this bread! Look at it!

Fluffy and soft and moist and oooooh smells soooooo goooooooood-

Yeah, to be honest? It didn't last long enough for soup. Props to Neil. If you're giving consideration upon who to include in your party of survivors when the world ends, Neil's post-apocalyptic survival skills in baking are not to be overlooked. All you'll need to do is domesticate some wild yeast and you will be set for baked goods for the duration of your horrible ghastly gruelling survival period, however long that will be.

Last Meal: spag bog of CHAMPIONS

Priorities; Mundane, and Eroded

I saw Karen Healey doing it, and it made me hungry. For the hell of it, I decided to copy her, and photograph my dinners in the last week. There was the vague hope there that it might prompt me to cook.

At the time, I said it would probably amount to five photographs of peanut butter toast.

Gosh but I do have high expectations of myself.

Monday



A promising start! There was actually tomato in the fridge, and so I treated myself to toasted cheese and tomato, with oregano, basil, salt and pepper. Sounds awesome? Is awesome.

Except I wasn't in the mood to wait for the grill to melt the cheese, so I put it in the microwave.

Which melted the cheese alright.

And made the tomatoes somewhat nuclear.

The whole roof of my mouth was burned and is, a week later, still rotting.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a day in which every step I took resulted in the discovery of quicksand, or fire ants, or broken glass, or horseshit.

Tuesday I went home and ate vodka for dinner.



Except while my head was certainly in the mood for vodka, my body wasn't. I poured that glass, looked at it, and then walked away.

Wednesday

Wednesday is not an individual, and since Wednesday saw Tuesday being needlessly callous to me, Wednesday followed suit.

I went home knowing that there was already a pre-poured glass of vodka sitting on the bench and my only goal for the rest of the day was to drink it.

Instead I made a cup of tea.



Thursday

Thursday night is for swing dancing. There was no dinner.

Friday

Friday I ate someone else's dinner. It was actually the only real meal I ate all week, and it was very delicious, and I completely failed to take a photo of it.

Saturday

The glass of vodka was still sitting on the bench come Saturday morning. Purely because it amused me, this failure to make it go away, and because continuing to document its existence seemed appropriate, I took another photo.



Then I looked at my To Do List. Every time I write a To Do List, "write" is at the bottom. After cleaning the toilet.

Every time I realise where I've put it in my priorities, I shake a little.

On Saturday I had vodka for breakfast.

what i mean when i say "i've had my insult for the night and i'm leaving."

I don't think I'm that easy to insult and/or offend, not on personal level. I could be wrong. I might just be fortunate in that the majority of people I interact with are not the sort of people who go around saying insulting and/or offensive things with a particularly personal bent. It is very easy to irritate me, frustrate and vex and annoy me, but offend?

I'm pretty sure I'm not often offended, because this weekend I found myself offended and it was a fairly novel experience.

So, for the record, when you say, "I hate you. I fucking hate you. Fuck you, and fuck your family. Yep. Fuck your whole family," you should know that you have completely and utterly failed at the friendly joking funny shittalk.

My initial reaction was to slap the person who said this. I managed to pull it back to being a playful slap. Just. I can't say I've ever really hit someone in my life, so I'm not entirely proud of this reaction, partly because such violence is petty and pointless, but mostly because I did in fact pull back and did not break his fucking nose.

This was followed by, "you're a bad person-" (which, admittedly, I get told a lot) "-you're evil. You're the root of all the evil and bad and wrong in the world. You're the cause of all genocide. All the genocide in the world is because of you." Which, after the "fuck your family," line, was icing on the cake.

This isn't the most offensive thing this person has said to me either.

Why's he still in my life?

I've finished my angry drunk fuming and had a good amount of hangover surly ranting. I'm spending no more time on the matter. It is noted here, for future reference.

And on the subject of shit-

Food that tastes better than it looks.



Looks like I dipped white bread in tar.
Tastes like mmmmmm, hot black sesame bao. Awesome stuff.

This Soylent Green looks suspiciously like a peanut butter sandwich.





Tastes like one too.

Food. Food. And, also? Food.

Flavour Enhancer 621

Since Mum's ordeal with bowel cancer, I've become understandably thingy about food. Not in any sort of rational or consistent fashion, I'll admit. I'll look at the ingredients list on a packet, and if there are too many numbers or items in there that I don't recognise, I'll put it back on the shelf. (Of course, if I have cravings or am simply not in the mood to fight with the grocery shopping, I'll just not look and willfully indulge in ignorance.)

My latest illogical decision was against MSG.

Now, I have no problem with MSG. No reaction to it at all. I was practically raised on the stuff, and if I stop eating it I'll probably go into some sort of withdrawal. This decision was not based on all the bad hype surrounding it, but rather, the fact that it is commonly listed in ingredients as 'Flavour Enhancer 621'. It's a number, so it has to go.

Unfortunately, once I decided on this, I discovered it's EVERYWHERE.

And by everywhere, I mean, everywhere. How am I going to live without noodles when all sauces and soup bases contain MSG? Augh?

I found some miso soup in the organic shop around the corner that is lacking, thankfully. It's going to be a slow hunt to find more alternate soup bases.

Stupid neurosis.



Butter

After a successful(ish) writing date yesterday, my fellow tortured artists and I tried out a new feeding hole. I'd noticed "WAFFLES!!!" in huge letters on a window in Melbourne Central earlier in the week. That jedi mind trick clearly works well.

Raganeau Crepes. I don't remember seeing any crepes on the menu, but there were certainly waffles. One of them was soaked in melted butter. Far too much melted butter. To the point where it floated, as butter does, and collected at the top of my skull and gave me a butter headache. A butter hangover, to be precise. I'm surprised it didn't ooze out my tear ducts.

It was a mistake, a glorious mistake. When enough time has passed and I've forgotten what a mistake it was, I'll go make that mistake again.



Communal

Dad decided he wanted to go out for dinner. Specifically, to a Japanese restaurant. I told Mum that was not an entirely wise idea. Dad is firmly grounded in the methods of communal Chinese eating: a variety of meat, vegie, soup and tofu dishes in the middle of the table, everyone getting what they want, when they want as the meal progresses. No serving spoons, just double-triple-quadruple dipped chopsticks (this is probably why my immune system is so ridiculously overpowered). And rice. Rice for everyone. Rice without saying. Rice is the foundation upon which all other food rests, it brings meaning to the meal, it doesn't even get mentioned in preparation because rice is rice is assumed is rice.

Japanese cooking can work like that, but generally doesn't. There's a different methodology to the preparation and presentation. While multiple dishes still feature, each person is generally granted their own portion. All meals are insular. There will be no fights for the last piece of chicken.

It doesn't matter how many times Dad encounters this, he is still surprised when the dishes don't come out prepared for sharing, and rice is not automatically served. He does not approve of this, not at all, and then confuses all the serving staff with his attempts to turn a Japanese meal into a Chinese meal featuring Japanese cooking.

In light of all the cultural hooha I've blogged about recently, I feel I should mention this. There are some cultural differences that are irreconcilable. Heh.

Presents!

SATAY. You see? Looks like vomit. And shit. Smells like fabulous, tastes like fucking fabulous ON A STICK. Dad, who was born in Malaysia and thus has a well-trained palate in this area, made a lot of grunting noises when eating, and ended up with the largest pile of sticks on his plate at the end, ergo, recipe is now tested and certified fabulous.


Mum made up skewers of apricots, prunes, and chicken liver wrapped in bacon, which I admit when she first mentioned, I was highly dubious of. But then we popped them on the barbie, and they smelt great, and then I ate one and it tasted even better. Seriously unexpectedly amazing, and did not look like vomit as I had nothing to do with the creation.

Dad also taught me a neat trick for reviving cucumber that's gone a little soft; soak it in a little vinegar for a while. Makes it crunchy again. 'cause you can't have satay without cucumber.

I took some pictures of the trifle, but the trifle was such a monster, such a behemoth, such a blasphemy against the order of the universe that even Lovecraft would pause and say, come on now, that's getting a bit silly, and the pictures didn't really do it justice and it's probably for the best that such an unholy creation remain unrecorded.

It looked like vomit AND snot AND blood clots. Tasted like miracle vunderbar! I won't use shop bought custard again though. It was too runny, and didn't set like a trifle is supposed to.


Poor Sam got a grass seed stuck in his paw a couple of days ago. Very minor, but it did require taking him to the vets and having them knock him out in order to remove it. IT IS ENORMOUS. The vet gave it to us, for some reason, it's sitting by the fruit bowl. We've taken to calling it the Demon Seed. Sam isn't allowed to lick his paw, hence the collar. We alternate between calling him Bucket, Satellite Dish and Space Dog. Well, I call him Space Dog. Mum doesn't like it, as it makes her think of Laika. He's not a victim of human science, however, he's a Space Dog like a cool frood, taking your messages from Mars, hullo, you've reached Planet Tessa, Canine Branch, How May I Help Ewe? SO CUTE.

As the subject line indicates, I have a present for you, should you wish to have one. Namely, recipe for Fabulous Satay, as given to Mum by one Audrey Wong more than twenty years ago. Thank you, Audrey, whoever and whereever you are!

Printed on type-writer, copied on thermal paper, and to continue the tradition, photographed and uploaded, for your nomming pleasure. Click for the larger picture.

Cheese. Pie.

Kirsten made me giggle, comparing this place to a candy shop, because of course I immediately thought of that godawful arrogant piece of shit song by that rap guy whose name I don't know, going on about candy shops and letting you lick the lollypop, which isn't even a metaphour. He's not even trying there. And seriously, it is not a privilege to give someone a head job.

Anyway, this isn't that sort of candy shop. You don't have to lick anything you don't want to.

Especially considering today's topic is worms. A new species discovered in the Caribbean, and here I'll quote Ugly Overload as I can't say it any better;

Nemerteans are primitive even for worms. They are hunters, and kill by shooting their proboscis into their prey like a stun gun. And, AND, they produce more slime than the infamous hagfish. Morgan has witnessed firsthand a nemertean worm being placed in a petrie dish, the worm then filling the dish with slime, and thereby sealing itself in. How's that for ugly?

I mean, you can lick that if you really want to...actually I wouldn't blame you if you're mistaken at first, because these worms are so pretty! They're bright little raver worms, high on snot.

I'm pretty sure I've exclamation pointed about sun fish before, so I'll just stick to sharing this photo;

Yeah. That sun fish fills a whole freaking carpark. It was hoisted into the Australian Museum through a window. Photo found here long with general info on the sun fish, and if you like dead squid dead whales dead fishy things, the flickr stream the photo came from is worth checking out too.

You could lick that, if you like, but there've been reports that sun fish float up on the surface so that seabirds can land on them and pick parasites off them. More than 40 species of parasites. I better stop reading up on them now, or I'll be regurgitating useless information all night. I love them, they're so bizarre and dumb and adorable. They eat jelly fish, you know, by sucking them in and spitting them out so they get all ripped and easy to swallow.

Speaking of eating, I attempted to eat a piece of cheese pie for dinner. The deli advertised it as home made, and it looked good. For future reference, don't eat cheese pie. You will not win.

Argh3ammustgotobedrightnow.

SexyBack

I've called time out on my errand/chore slaying to bring you an amusing food item found in the local supermarket.

It's a "piggy back" filled with lotus paste.


And it falls into an enormous uncanny valley. It isn't an impression of a pig, it's molded to look like a pig, a freaking dead pig laid out on the table and ready for roast, complete with buttocks. The eyes are closed because it's DEAD. It's laying down because it's DEAD. It's kinda creepy. I ate the face first.

There's nothing in the plastic base other than a couple of moisture-eating packets. It's peculiar and confronting and I'm not thinking it'll move from the shelves fast. Although you can't go wrong with lotus paste.

Hang on, the Year of the Pig was last year. How old is this thing?

Ninja Says

Food Of The Gods, When They Can’t Get Anything Better (Which Is Never, Because Really, You’re Not Much Of A God If You Can’t Get Betterer Food)

Buy the smallest brown onion you can find. No, smaller. There’ll be a smaller one in there somewhere.

Take it home and chop it finely. Finer. Lean away from the rising tear gas, whup, too late. Now you’re crying, and it’s too late to realise that maybe you shouldn’t have cut the onion first.

Throw half the onion out. I understand that onions must be included in some recipes for the sake of taste, but I’m not that keen on onion. Put the remaining onion in a big bowl. Cry some more.

Start chopping mushrooms. In my opinion, there’s no such thing as too much mushroom, but some other random heathen scumbags beg to differ. Chop as much as you like. I love peeling mushrooms, and the knife slides through them like nothing else, which is one of the reasons anything I cook with mushrooms has too much mushroom. Cover the onion with the mushroom. Maybe you’ll stop crying soon?

Chop some broccoli. This doesn’t add anything to the taste or texture, I’m just not comfortable cooking several meals worth of food that doesn’t contain some green. Don’t put the stems in, they never soften up. Just trim the bibbly bits. These will get everywhere, all over the bench and the floor. At least you’re not crying now.

Tear half a cooked chook to pieces. Little shreds. With your fingers. Knives are for pussies. Try not to eat too much of the chicken, as by this point you’ll realise that you’re fucking STARVING and you haven’t even turned the stove on yet.

Turn stove on. Drop oil in pan. Drop crushed garlic in pan. Drop risotto rice in pan. Some more. Is that enough? Can’t tell. Some more. Maybe? Dunno. Some more. Some more. Oh, that’ll do. Mix it around in the oil.

Add white wine. This is an exciting new step. While the recipe has always called for white wine, I’ve never been able to find those little satchets of wine for cooking before. I have no idea how much to put in. I put the lot in. This is a bad move. Don’t do this. There is such a thing as too much white wine. Put, I don’t know, less in. You cooking people know better than me.

Add chicken stock. Stir. Listen to stove make strange groaning sound. Stir. Make cup of tea. Stir. Nibble things. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Drink tea. Stir. Restart album. Stir. Drink tea. Stir. Add pepper. Nibble more things. Stir. And more stock. Stir. Stare at the wall. Stir. Remember to turn fan on. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Fiddle with heat. Stir. Scatch head. Stir. Nibble things. Stir. Drink remainder of tepid tea. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Stare at wall. Stir. Rinse mug. Stir. Boil kettle again. Stir. Make another cup of tea. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Get slightly impatient and dump chicken/broccoli/mushrooms/onion in pan. Stir enegetically. Add more stock. Stir. Change spoon arms. Stir. Go get chair and sit in front of stove. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Drink tea. Stir. Stare at wall. Stir. Compose longwinded posts in your head. Stir. Add more stock. Stir. Taste. Realise rice isn’t nearly cooked. Add all remaining stock. Stir. Turn heat up. Stir. Turn heat down. Stir. Add water. Stir. Quietly starve to death. Stir. Watch clock not go faster. Stir. Add water. Stir. Stir furiously. Stir anti-clockwise. Stir in swirly patterns. Stir in secret letters. Stir.

Go to toilet.

Add shaved parmesan. Stir. Add more. Stir. Add more. Stir. Add more, hell, when is it going to actually look like it’s made a difference? Add more. Stir. Taste. Can’t taste parmesan. Dump remainder of bag in pan. Stir. Taste. Still can’t taste parmesan. Stir. This batch tastes bland. Stir. Ponder why. Stir. Theorise that a cooked chook from the chook shop on the corner does not containing the delicious seasoning of a Safeway cooked chook, which is what is normally used. Stir. Decided this to be true. Stir. Vote to only use Safeway cooked chooks from here on. Stir. Ponder the obstacle of there being no Safeway nearby whatsoever. Stir. Realise two and a half hours have passed and you’re feeling faint from hunger.

At this point, you’ll have to decided for yourself when it’s done, according to how thick you like your risotto. Either way, if you like it thick or runny, by now it should look fucking disgusting. It should look like the bottom of an old garbage can. It should look like serious vomit. Your arm should hurt like a bitch. You arm should hurt so bad you can’t even lift a fork, you can’t even feed yourself and have no choice but to just not eat this disgusting looking meal you’ve just created. So you slap it in Tupperware containers where it looks even grosser, and walk away.



At about 10.39pm, you’ll remember that you haven’t actually put the containers in the freezer, and you’ll have to get out of your nice snugly warm bed and do so or who knows what it will look like in the morning.

This has been Cooking With Sir Tessa.

Suckers.

what in my mouth?

Today, I did not go to the zoo. I did not walk around the botanical gardens. I did not tag my archives. Actually, today was largely a string of failures to achieve, but nevertheless, was not wasted.

I had a food adventure, I had dragon fruit.



I've been eyeballing these at the supermarket for years. How could something that looked as freaky as that not be the best fruit devised by nature? Put off trying one for years because, well, just look at the damn thing. It IS freaky. Cthulhu's gonads, dragon fruit, ugly ball of scaly pink leather. How do you get into something like that? I know you could just cut it in half, but that doesn't seem...proper.

Thankful, the art of getting into a dragon fruit was revealed to me while watching game shows in Japan. Two men with a little cart and toy pony were walking in opposite directions around an island. Their goal appeared to be to gather food to feed themselves. They went to sugar mills, peanut farms, and spent many hours in the ocean with professional fishermen looking for shellfish and lobsters. One of them came across a man with an orchird full of all sorts of fruit, dragon fruit among them. From this, I learned that you peel the scales back, like a many-flippered banana.

Okay. GAME ON.

I should mention I have no idea how to tell if a dragon fruit is ripe. I just, you know, dove in. The skin is pretty thick and tough, and I had to use my fingernails to start the process. Just beneath the outer layer the skin is a violent shocking pink, and within it is...this....thing.



Which...is that a dragon EGG? Is that Cthulhu's actual TESTICLE? I don't know, but it weirded me out more than the skin did. It was full of little black seeds, like kiwi fruit, and they were looking at me, I swear. I was sitting there, looking at this testicleeggfruit that I was supposedly going to put in my mouth, and thinking of the egg sacks spiders make.

I put it in my mouth anyway.

And....

....

...drumroll...

...it tastes like nothing. It isn't sweet, sour, bitter, it isn't anything. It takes like a giant mouthful of wet, slick, BLAND.

???

Come on. Does nature know nothing about the power of packaging? What's the point of making a bright pink obnoxious flipper ball if it isn't going to taste like a cocktail party? Colour me disappointed. Cthulhu, your gonads are lame.

AHHHH, FRESH MEAT.

(Rickshaw Inn, Takayama)

You know how I said I wasn’t a red meat girl? That might change.

I decided to give the Hida beef another shot, this time at a place listed in both the LP and on the restaurant map the staff here gave me – Yamatakegyu. It wasn’t nearly as posh looking as the last place, and when I slunk up the stairs the owner pounced on me with a huge welcome. He claimed to speak no English, and hoisted up another customer of his to explain the way his restaurant worked. An open freezer was packed full of fresh steaks, from which I could choose my cut. From there, I could grab a plate and fill it with whatever and as many vegetables I desired, for a mere 420 yen. He’s a fibber, his English was quite good and he could have explained it all perfectly well. I went with the amount he recommended, grabbed some capiscum, something that is not quite an eggplant, and something that was entirely unidentifiable which looked like potato and certainly wasn’t.

Each table was set up with a charcoal grill in the centre. He brought out my plate of raw dead animal, and made sure I had not just one, but two different sauces, and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Off I went.

You know, I haven’t really eaten any red meat for over a month. And this freshly grilled steak with pepper and sauce was just…oooh my fucking god. That was so good. So unbelievably fucking good. And play food too! I messed around flicking meat and vegies all over the grill, so that each piece was exactly to my liking.

The owner had himself a great time. He brought out posters of the matsuri and the giant floats, telling I and the other foreigners all about the festival, the greatness of Hida beef, that Takayama was the centre of Japan. These people are proud of their town.

I don’t think my body was against a little hit of iron, either.

Unfortunately, I’ve developed a bad habit of eating dessert. Just as there’s no one to tell me red bean cakes aren’t an appropriate breakfast, there’s also no one to tell me to lay off dessert. I might as well get away with it while I can.

Ice cream at the ready, I settled in the Rickshaw’s lounge, and flipped through a National Geographic article on the depletion of the ocean’s fish stocks. Specific focus was given to the bluefin tuna, which is highly overfished and equally highly prized as sushi meat.

I must be more tired than I realise. Reading about the state of the ocean made my eyes hot.

By chance, I haven’t eaten much tuna the whole month I’ve been here. I’ve eaten plenty of seafood though, and do so back home too. I feel obligated to reduce the amount of fish and seafood in my diet, although I’m not that inclined to replace it with meat. Maybe I’ll live on tofu.

Procrastination time is at an end. I must shower, and then do that thing I don’t like doing: pack.

I DIED A GLORIOUS CULINARY DEATH

I'm posting out of order, but this is important.



They didn't have any fugu. Nor did they have an english menu, or those terribly useful plastic display models of their dishes, or photos I could point at. I figured, since I was prepared to pay for a fugu dinner (which is generally over $100), I might as well go ahead and have some fun, and asked them to choose my dinner for me.

I think this put the young waiter in a bit of a spin, but a grizzly old man came and sat next to me, and after we'd attacked the two-way dictionary I had, he badgered his chef-minions into line. Neither he or any of his staff spoke a single word of english, so once it was established that I wanted dinner, it was left at that.

First, I was served a small plate of sashimi, the freshest I've had yet. There was some surprisingly soft and succulent squid, and some unidentifiable fish to go with it. I was instructed to squeeze lime juice all over them, the Tokushima lime being something of a local delicacy, dip them in soy sauce, and pig in. Oh, lovely.

Then was brought another small plate of yakitori; a grilled chicken skewer, and a croquette of...something. I'm not sure what, but it had gristly bits in it. He decided I needed some green tea to go with this, and made a cup up for me.

I though that was about it, as sashimi and yakitori seemed to be the place's specialty, but no! Grizzly old man brought out another plate, this containing a whole fish, beautifully steamed and served with mushrooms, bamboo shoots and soy sauce. It wasn't a large fish, pretty much the perfect size for one person, and so very tender. I ripped that apart and picked the bones clean.

I figured that would be the end, and I was starting to feel full, but no! Again, another small plate was brought out, this with a portion of fried fish. The skin on this fish was crispy and fucking amazing. Grizzly old man squeezed lime all over it, and then drowned a pile of...something, in soy sauce, and directed me to eat it with the fish. Mouth so happy! I asked him what the 'something' was, and he said 'yama'. I only know 'yama' as mountain, but according to the dictionary, it is also grated and seasoned yam. He added 'daikon', and that I recognised. Chinese radish. I can't order dinner to save my life, but I know a radish when I hear it.

That had to be the end. Right? BUT NO! Grizzly old man brought out a last plate of freshly prepared sushi. Prawn, tuna, squid, and three other fish unknown to me. One of them was surprisingly sweet. I ate these slowly, as I was definitely feeling my capacity. I might look like a huge heffalump gaijin, but I don't have that much space in my tummy.

BUT NO! Grizzly old man brought out a bowl of miso soup, which had a piece of fried something that came from the sea in it. I was having great fun, I have to tell you that.

And that was most definitely the end of dinner. Yet when I stood up to pay, grizzly old man said "chotto matte", "just a moment", sat me down again, and brought out a glass of fruit, all done up to look every so pretty. I just started giggling.

Now if grizzly old man had been the one to say "I be your Japanese boyfriend, ne?", I'd have been all over that. That was fucking awesome, the best food I've had this whole trip, and terrific fun to boot. He gave me his business card, and if I've translated it right, the restaurant is Tokusan, just across the road from the Agnes Hotel, in Tokushima city, Shikoku.



I'm so doing that again.