Vintage Cookbooks

Win a 3-day pass to the ANZAAB Antiquarian Book Fair

2011-10-31T13:02:00.000+11:00

Vintage Cookbooks will have a display at the Australia and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers at the State Library of NSW in Sydney from 10th - 12th November. For the chance to win a free 3-day pass to the event, 'Like' us on Facebook via the link to the right of this page, send your details to barbara@vintagecookbooks.com.au and we'll put you in the draw.

Bouchon Lemon Tarts

2011-10-31T11:59:00.001+11:00

Back in 2008 during a trip to San Francisco to visit my son, I made a pilgrimage to Yountville in the Napa Valley. It was a pilgrimage because the small town (population 3000) is home to more than its fair share of world-class restaurants, specifically Thomas Keller world-class restaurants. Along with the renowned French Laundry (where I couldn't get a booking), there is also Bouchon bistro (where I had lunch that day)and Ad Hoc (which is on my must-do lists for the next trip). The culinary highlight for the day however was the (also Thomas Keller owned) Bouchon Bakery's Lemon Tart. Not your usual ho-hum bakery fare, this was a velvety classic sabayon with just the right balance of tart and sweet in an unusual pine-nut crust which added a nutty and ever-so slightly savoury note.

I've always been keen to recreate the tart at home and after finding the recipe on Epicurious (extracted from Keller's cookbook Bouchon) I had a crack at it today, and was particularly impressed ( if I say so myself) with the end result. While the pine-nut crust is expensive to make (I bought my pine nuts in bulk at Costco), the quantities given make a large batch which can be frozen. Processing 300 grams of pine-nuts was made much easier by the Kitchenaid food processor David gave me for my birthday (I dropped so many hints he would have had to have been completely dense not to have got the message!) Although the recipe says to press the pastry into the tin, I found that once chilled it was actually possible to roll between two sheets of baking paper and get a much thinner, crisper and neater result. The sabayon is amazing - quite a lengthy process if, as I did, you don't keep the water in the bottom of your double boiler at a good simmer - but really worth the time standing over the stove. It was light, smooth and almost mousse-like after it had cooled. Great for the lemon tart, but I can see all sorts of flavour variations in the future: lime, blood orange, lemongrass, Pedro Ximinez etc etc. It would also make a great dessert on its own if you can't be bothered with pastry, spoon into a martini glass and serve with a crisp savoiardi biscuit, biscotti, or tuille. Because I didn't have time to set the tarts aside for 1 hour, and also because I don't have a broiler/griller in the Aga, I sprinkled the top with sugar and caramelized it with my Aldi blow torch. Maybe not as neat and professional looking as the Bouchon version, but enough of a standout to add it to my regular repertoire.

A visitor from Canada

2011-10-14T11:20:00.000+11:00

Monday was a quiet day in the shop. Close to midday two women came in and I did my usual meet and greet when one said "I've come all the way from Winnipeg Canada to visit you". Turns out Zena was almost the first customer I had when I bought the business from Barbara Fisher back in June 2006. She had accumulated most of the volumes in the Time-Life Good Cook series and wanted to complete the collection with a couple of the hard-to-find ones. I was thrilled to get my first 'big' order from overseas. Zena was in Melbourne visiting friends who tracked down the shop and brought her up for a day trip to the Dandenongs. They had a lovely time browsing and then headed off for the Rhododendron Gardens. Now I can honestly say people come from all over the world to visit my shop!

Flourless Blood Orange & Pomegranate Cakes

2011-09-25T23:07:00.000+10:00

Sunday has always been baking day for me, and having the kids come over for afternoon tea today gave me just the excuse for a High Tea. Chocolate Whoopie Pies, chicken and salmon & cream cheese sandwiches, vegetable frittata, my never-fail scones & some mini Flourless Blood Orange & Pomegranate Cakes.
This was an adaptation of several recipes and was inspired by an episode of Masterchef UK.

Ingredients:

125 g ground almonds
60g semolina
225gms sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
Zest of 1 and juice of 2 large blood oranges
1 blood orange sliced thinly into rings
5 large eggs
200ml light olive oil
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon pomegranate molasses
1 pomegranate (optional)
Generous pinch saffron
100g clear honey.

Heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Oil the base of one 23cm ring tin or 8 mini bundt tins, or 12-hole muffin tin.

Prepare the syrup and candied orange slices by combining the juice of the 2 oranges with honey, 1 tsp pomegranate molasses and saffron in a small saucepan. When boiling, drop blood orange slices into the syrup, turn heat down and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Set aside while preparing the cake. (optional, add the seeds of one pomegranate to the syrup)

Put the ground almonds into a frying pan and toast over a medium heat, stirring frequently until evenly pale brown. Leave to cool, then mix with semolina, caster sugar and baking powder.

Combine the zest of one blood orange with the eggs, 1 tablespoon of pomegranate molasses and oil. Beat well and then fold into the dry ingredients. The mixture is very liquid. Pour into prepared tin(s) and bake for 35-40 mins ( 1 large tin); 15-20 mins (small tins) or until risen and golden to the touch. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes. Leaving the cake in the tin, prick all over with a skewer. Remove the orange slices from the syrup and pour the syrup over the warm cake while it is still warm.

When cool, turn the cake onto a serving plate, decorate with the candied orange slices and serve with creme Fraiche or plain Greek yoghurt. Can also be served warm.

Serendipitous Discoveries & History Geeks

2011-09-25T14:10:00.003+10:00

In my previous life as a historian my absolute favourite task was research. I loved nothing more than disappearing down the rabbit-holes of libraries or the internet to track down people or events, and these days I continue to get much satisfaction from researching recipes, books & their authors. I recently sold a 1937 set of menus from a guest-house in Marysville (sadly now lost like many others to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires) and in the process of creating a history of them for their buyer spent hours on Trove reading newspaper articles and advertisements and sourcing contemporary photos.

Research like this is always throwing up surprises and serendipitous discoveries worthy of a work of fiction. With the guest house it was the discovery that an earlier proprietress went missing while bushwalking (although some newspaper reports suggested at an 'unsettled mind') and her remains not retrieved until bushfires in 1932 uncovered them. Soon after her estate was settled, her sister, who had taken over the running of the guest house, also died from self-inflicted burns. For me the serendipity here is that it was this particular guest-house whose menus came into my hands, rather than another with a less 'colourful' past. It is, rather fancifully I know, as if this story was waiting for someone like me to unearth it.

Today I had another of those moments while cataloguing a collection of early twentieth century cookbooks I had bought. In the collection is a very early edition of Household Cookery issued by the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy and compiled by Dorothy Giles who was a well-known teacher of cookery in Melbourne. So early is this edition that it was hand-typed and bound with one section bound upside down. While paging through it I noted a typo - the recipe "To Prepare Cake Dripping" called for 8ozs cod fat (rather than cold fat). Finishing that task I moved on to the small mountain of ephemera that has been sitting waiting for cataloguing for months. Amongst them was a gorgeous 1930s booklet for Bakewell flour and dried goods. On page 2 my eye was caught by the wording of the first recipe "To Prepare Cake Dripping" and, you guessed it, one of the ingredients was "8ozs cod fat" . Further checking revealed that yes this recipe was word-for-word the same as that in Household Cookery. So now the question for me is whether this is an uncredited work by Miss Dorothy Giles, who also authored several other advertising booklets, or did the compiler simply nick the cake dripping recipe from Household Cookery? Mmmm the fact that this is so interesting makes me officially a history geek!

Anyone for tea?

2011-09-12T16:11:00.001+10:00

Yesterday I had a birthday treat from my eldest - a surprise High Tea (why do I always feel the need to capitalise that?) at "Where a Girl Goes" in Collingwood. My lovely spouse minded the shop for me, and while it was a dreadful rainy, grey day in the hills, down in East Melbourne where Hayley lives the sky was blue and the sun was warm. The crowds of Essendon and Carlton supporters streaming towards the MCG lent a festive air to the day, even if they deprived me of my usual parking spot.

"Where a Girl Goes" is also an outlet for Cristina Re stationery and true to its name is a real girly indulgent affair with French Provincial decor and everything served in delicate crockery. I had to laugh at the footy supporter who came in and asked if they did takeaway coffee, which they did, but when he left it was with a pink flowery take away cup and I'm sure he was thinking "Got to finish this coffee and dispose of the cup before my mates see me" (Although he was a Carlton supporter, so possibly a metrosexual completely comfortable with it!)

We had a wonderful couple of hours of chat with bottomless cups of tea and a tower of the requisite finger sandwiches and tiny cupcakes and macaron. There is such a revival of High Tea in Melbourne at the moment which brings together lots of recent trends - cupcakes, macaron, tea, anything vintage and retro. I think it's a lovely idea and a great way to spend an afternoon. There is just something 'civilised' about the format, that seems to encourage slowing down, taking some time and enjoying the company of friends. Doing it at home would be even better - it can be quite an expensive excursion. The advantage over a dinner party or lunch is that everything can be done ahead of time and the hostess can be free to enjoy the day. Coincidentally as I write this post I have a customer browsing the shelves who has started a business catering high teas in people's homes, which would be even better for the hostess!

When we stopped off in Singapore on our way back from Europe in April this year, we were treated to the ultimate in High Teas at that bastion of British colonialism, Raffles Hotel in the glorious setting of the Tiffin Room, with requisite palms and slowly revolving fans. A harpist played as white-coated waiters looked after our needs. The tower of sandwiches and cakes was only the beginning as Raffles also has a generous buffet of goodies including yum cha style dumplings and lots of fresh tropical fruit. A truly decadent experience, only improved by a Simgapore Sling!

Welcome to our new website

2011-09-06T17:44:00.001+10:00

Well after a rather more drawn-out process than I had anticipated, I'm happy to present Vintage Cookbooks new website. There is a limited range of stock available in the shop at the moment, this will increase in the next few weeks. As with any new technology, there will be some kinks to iron out and I'd love to hear your feedback on how the site looks and how it works for you. Thanks to Paul Gilliot from slick-sites.com and Trudy Simmons from Website Organiser for their work on the site so far.

My 15 minutes & What cookbooks are collectible?

2011-09-06T17:36:00.000+10:00

A couple of months ago I was contacted by a journalist from the Sydney Morning Herald to be interviewed for an article on collectible cookbooks. Over time the article became instead about cooking from old cookbooks, a subject on which I could also offer some views. It was published last Tuesday in the Sydney Morning Herald as part of History Week, which had the theme Eat History. (some great events on in NSW if you're up there BTW). I thought the topic of which cookbooks are collectible was actually worth writing about, so here are some of my recommendations:

Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management: First published in 1861, its author (or compiler, she cherry-picked the material for her tome from everywhere)Isabella Beeton died just four years later, but she remains an English icon, and her name is still attached to books on cookery today. Her books were available in Australia and later editions even contained sections on Australian Cookery. Nineteenth century editions(which gave readers hints on everything from cooking sole and setting a table to dealing with servants and the care of sick children) are now expensive and quite hard to come by, but early 20th century editions (particularly pre World War II) are still a nice addition to a cookbook collection and can be had for a couple of hundred dollars. They will only appreciate in value.

Elizabeth David. Although Elizabeth David’s books are still in print, the early hardcover editions of The Book of Mediterranean Food; Italian Food; French Country Cooking & French Provincial Cooking are always sought after and are priced anywhere from $50 to several thousand dollars depending on edition, condition etc.

Julia Child: The movie Julie and Julia has made any of the early editions of Mastering the Art of French Cooking much sought after (even the 1970s Penguin paperback editions). She wasn’t the household name in Australia as she was in America, so these weren’t a huge seller in Australia when first published, thus are not widely available here. Driven purely by the movie, first editions in America sell online for thousands, later hardcover editions for under $100. They have been reprinted since the movie – these are unlikely to ever fall in the collectable or valuable category.

Early Australian Cookery books: Anything from the nineteenth and very early twentieth century in good condition is going to be both collectable and valuable, with prices ranging from under $100 for early editions of community cookery books like the Presbyterian Cookery Book of Good and Tried Receipts or the Golden Wattle Cookery Book to several thousands for Edward Abbott’s English and Australian Cookery Book, For The Many As Well As For The “Upper Ten Thousand” This is accepted as the first Australian cookery book and I've written about it in another blog. An important work and extremely scarce. A couple of other early Australians are also worth keeping an eye out for, particularly in first edition: Mary Gilmore's The Worker's Cookbook; Miranda's Cookbook; Mrs Maclurcan's Cookery Book; The Kingswood Cookery Book; Margaret Pearson's Australian Cookery Recipes for the People; The Kookaburra Cookery Book

As far as more modern Australian cookbooks are concerned, Will Studd’s Chalk and Cheese and Banc both sell for around the $150 - $200 mark. Books like the first edition of Stephanie Alexander’s Cook’s Companion in good condition are now selling for more than their original list price and are worth hanging on to. Similarly Maggie Beer’s early cookbooks Maggie’s Farm and Maggie’s Orchard have become quite hard to find, making them quite collectible. First cookbooks by chefs and food writers who go on to become big names are always worth collecting – an example is the Marie Claire cookbooks which were edited by Donna Hay before she became ‘Donna Hay’. Probably less predictably, some of the most sought after cookbooks ( the main factor pushing up their collectability and value) are school Home Economics text books. In Victoria Cookery the Australian Way can push the $100 mark for the first edition in good condition. This is largely nostalgia-driven, people want the edition they had in school and seem prepared to pay it – copies on ebay can go for silly prices. The Queensland Home Economics text book Day to Day Cookery by IM Downes is another one which is sought after in its early editions.

That was the month that was!

2011-08-26T10:54:00.000+10:00

Well August is almost over, and I can only breath a sigh of relief. It's been a frantic month of activity: my Mum's 80th birthday saw two family celebrations (and of course lots of baking); I had two talks to local library groups and had the ongoing tedium of stocktaking, photographing and transferring book records to our upcoming new website. As my previous blog entry intimated, times are very tough in the bookselling business: bricks-and-mortar only businesses are finding it hard to compete with online behemoths so are going online themselves creating an even tighter market for booksellers like me who do both and are struggling to compete against those behemoths ourselves. Rather than wave the white flag I decided to fight fire with fire and boost our online presence with a new website which will also enable me to sell books direct, rather than (or as well as) through aggregators like Abe and Books and Collectibles. Like anything involving technology, the launch of the new site is taking longer than expected, but stay tuned!

The other long and involved chore this month has been the creation of a new catalogue, which I've been promising for months now. Until the new website goes live, there isn't going to be the usual link to the catalogue, so if you'd like to receive an electronic copy, please either email me or 'like' my Facebook page to be notified.

The trials of the modern bookseller

2011-07-29T14:09:00.002+10:00

While I have great sympathy for my colleagues selling new books who have to compete against the giants of Amazon and Book Depository with its 'free shipping' (which I am certain is factored into the book price), I have never really felt threatened by either. 99% of my stock is used/second-hand and often long out of print, areas in which Book Depository doesn't deal. As a secondhand book dealer, what has most impacted upon my trade, aside from the general economic malaise, is the high Aussie dollar plus the expensive shipping rates from Australia Post which have ensured that overseas orders, once a mainstay of the business, have all but dried up.

I have however been musing on the change in culture and expectations that mega-booksellers like BD and A may create in the book-buying public. This was brought home to me this morning when I received a complaint about a book which the customer said she had expected to be new (it was printed in 2004 so little chance of that I pointed out) that it was too expensive and she could buy it online cheaper (actually not so, its very hard to find), but what really irked me was the statement: "I am not happy at being charged $12 (actually it was $US12, so I received only $11.27) for a book to be sent within Australia when I can get it sent from overseas for free." Now as I explained to said unhappy customer, aside from the fact that this book is not available from any bookseller offering free postage, it was sent in an Australia Post satchel which costs me $11.15. That means that the double wrapping (in foam and brown paper at a cost of around 50c) and time to prepare the book, the invoice, pack the book and take it down to the PO was priced in this instance at 12c. I'll let you do the math shall I? In fact the cost for shipping should have been closer to $US 14, what with the recent Auspost rises and the sudden leap in the AUD , but if said unhappy customers balks at $US12 she's going to be ropable with $US14 isn't she?

This is the thing that most worries me about the current rise of bookbuying on the internet - that the fewer bricks-and-mortar bookshops there are to buy books from (even if they are a Borders), the more readers will be forced online to do business, and the more they will expect to be able to buy dirt cheap books and have them shipped free by all booksellers, not just the McBook Depository, and frankly there is noone in Australia who can compete. I know some booksellers are trying to offer free shipping, but having done the math, I'd have to raise the prices of my books to cover it - either that or close the shop and retreat back to online only selling!

Help my ice-cream won't thicken: Salted Butter Caramel Icecream

2011-07-28T16:00:00.000+10:00

Have I mentioned that I love making ice-cream? Ever since picking up an ice-cream maker for $8 at an op shop 2 years ago, I haven't needed much of an excuse to try out a new flavour. Pistachio Praline is a favorite, the tiramisu flavour I created is always a hit, and eggnog icecream goes beautifully with plum pudding at Christmas.

My latest flavour attempt is related to my other new favourite thing to make- caramel. I found a great sounding recipe for Salted Butter Caramel Icecream on guru David Liebovitz's delicious blog. I brought the sugar to a dark amber colour, then added a 1/2 tsp of Murray river salt, salted butter, cream and a cup of milk. 5 egg yolks were incorporated and the mix returned to the heat to thicken to a creamy, luscious brown custard. Adding the custard to a 2nd cup of milk, I popped it into the fridge overnight to chill and then churned it in my icecream maker until the custard thickens into...thickens into....thickens... into.... Wait, I've made icecream many times before, I don't tolerate failure, thicken damn you!

After an hour of churning my custard remained just that, a custard. Deciding I hadn't chilled the bowl enough, I took it over to daughter Hayley's flat where my icecream sandwiched between Dutch stroopwaffels was to be the dessert to a Mexican dinner (mmm pulled chicken on homemade tortillas). Their icecream churn bowl is left in the freezer in case they get the sudden urge to make icecream, so she'll churn it for me. An hour later I get an SMS - "Houston we have a problem...." The custard is still, stubbornly, custard. As a stop-gap measure we put the custard in the freezer and had a semi-frozen dessert - delicious flavours but not ice-cream.

Determined to try again I trolled the internet, checking out messageboards for "Help my icecream won't thicken" for a clue. Everything I read talked about whether the custard was left overnight ( it was) whether the bowl was completely frozen solid (ditto) whether the amount of custard was too much for the churn (no, exactly what was specified), whether the custard was thick enough (yes), only egg yolks used (yup), and found little to enlighten me. So I went back over the steps in my mind and suddenly it hit me: Low-fat milk! We always use low-fat milk and although I had added extra cream as I usually do to compensate, the milk I had accidentally bought was actually no-fat Physical. D'oh.

On Sunday night then I made a whole new batch of custard, using full-cream milk, following every step religiously, chilling both custard and bowl for 24 hours and then on Monday put it to the test. My custard began to do its thing, but at the end of the churning it was still softer than usual. A couple of hours in the freezer produced a lovely final product though:

Having revisited my high school physics I now suspect that the extra salt, while small, probably also had an effect on the final product.

David Leibovitz doesn't mention any problems with the salt and possibly it is the case that my small domestic icecream churn doesn;t have temperatures low enough to counteract what salt there is.

So now I have an excuse to make another batch, except this time without the salt.

Winter's bounty: the Queen Vic market isn't what it used to be.

2011-07-02T11:29:00.002+10:00

Mmmm I love the possibilities of planning a lunch in winter: Shall I make a Bouillabaisse-inspired fish pie? a rabbit and mushroom pie? An oxtail pie? Shall I serve it with smashed potatoes or a celeriac mash? What about dessert? A steaming crumble or something a bit more unusual?

At 6 this morning I headed in to the city to the Queen Victoria market in search of rabbit, good seafood, baby vegetables and the makings for a bastardised charcuterie/antipasto plate. The first two were easy - the meat and fish hall at the QV continues to field a host of top quality butchers and fishmongers with an almost overwhelming selection. I really have to know what I want before I get there otherwise one of two things happens: I buy more meat and fish than I need or I buy nothing at all because I can't make up my mind. I've written before about the stall with beautiful cuts of goat, and next time I go I am determined to buy me some 'variety meats' (as the Americans call offal). Two bunnies? Done. Some nice local prawns and scallops? Done. Baby vegetables? Not so much. I wandered the three aisles of fruit and veges and was struck by the blandness of the offerings. With few exceptions, the fruit and veg were mostly the varieties I could buy at Woolworths, just cheaper: the same apples, oranges, potatoes, beetroot, repeated - stall after stall after stall. The exceptions were a stall offering exotic mushrooms, and a couple of vendors selling things like raddichio, baby cauliflower etc. I was so uninspired. Where were the heirloom beetroot varieties I had heard were now in season? Why was everyone selling Queensland strawberries - big and tasteless? I know I'm showing my age, but I remember when the fruit and veg aisles of the QV outnumbered those selling Australian souvenirs and knock-off bags. When walking the produce aisle was an inspiration to cook. Now I suspect that many of the small growers, and those with more unusual offerings, are off at the inner city farmer's markets, which are on my to-do list. (My opinion on some of the local Farmer's Markets could fill a blog! Lots of jams and biscuits, but very little fresh produce)

Moping home with my small bag of goodies, I opened the shop and popped in to Fred's (the Kallista Biodynamic Market) and wouldn't you know it - right on my doorstep were tiny jewel-like brussel sprouts and baby fennel to make my Sunday lunch complete. Over at the Kallista market I picked up some of the freshest sourdough I've had in a while, dropped off my knives to be sharpened and enjoyed the gorgeous winter sunshine over a coffee and the paper. Now if I could just get someone to sell rabbit, goat and other (not really so) exotica nearby, I won't have to schlepp into the city whenever the urge to cook them arises!

Goodbye to Castelvecchio, we will be back.

2011-06-12T14:56:00.001+10:00

Well we've been back in Australia for 6 weeks now, and I am still suffering from the post-travel blues - reading about Italy and planning the next trip!! I discovered one unposted blog on my iphone from our last days -

We ended our incident-filled week with a visit to the Saturday morning market at Pescia, for once leaving not Mum and Dad, but instead a sick & traumatised Ryan to spend the day reading and recovering at the villa with Hayley. The market at Pescia is more of a flea market, where clusters of locals seemed to spend a lot more time catching up with local gossip than buying goods. A handful of food vans offered all sorts of delicatessen goods and thick, crema-filled canoli - in this incarnation more a cylindrical donut than a traditional pastry. We passed on the salty roast pork sandwiches and instead went with what has become our quick lunch-time staple: $2.50 panninis from a cafe, filled with mozarella, tomato and a bit of proscuitto for the non-veg's. We had good coffee on the edge of the square where the fruit and veg merchants had set up and then wound back to La Spinosa for some relaxing.

Our final night had been set aside for a farewell dinner (Hayley and Ryan are off to Genoa, Lake Como and then Venice, we are off to Venice). On Paul's recommendation we went to a Sorana restaurant call Da Sandrina. As usual the earliest table we could get was 7.30, and when we arrived the place was empty. Rather than offering a menu, the waitress came up and asked us in Italian what we wanted: "Allora - Antipasti, pasta, Secondi?" What a revelation, when it comes to food terms I can talk Italian " Non Secondi" I replied "Solo Antipasti e Pasta" She rattled off the names of the pasta, we made our random choices and she was off.

She came back with our antipasti: Huge plates carrying mountains of pickled onions, olives, pickles mushrooms arrived, with bruschetta topped with tomato for the veg's and chicken liver for the rest. There was also a large platter of salami, proscuitto and bresaola, and what we have come to expect but never quite gotten used to here: thick slices of bread made without salt. It has been notable throughout our Tuscan eating adventures - the food is often quite salty, but the bread is always unsalted, presumably as a foil to the salty food? The pasta was good but not as good as Montaione, and looking around the now full restaurant at what the other tables were having, I noted many of the same types of dishes we had at the agritourisma: the Sorana Beans, roasted chicken and goat, roasted potatoes etc. For someone new to Europe as I am, and coming from a country with very little notably regional cuisine (pie floaters aside!) this has been one of the - not surprises, because I knew to expect it - but one of the joys - eating food that emphasises what is seasonal and what is local. I am looking forward to lots of future trips - travelling Italy exploring the different regions by their cuisines!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Sestiere Castello,Venice,Italy

Photos from our dinner at Montaione

2011-05-05T15:52:00.000+10:00

I've finally got around to putting together some photos from our travels.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150170740201666.302774.190465726665

Eating until you can eat no more: Dinner at Montiaone.

2011-04-23T20:15:00.002+10:00

We had a very stressful end to our day in Florence, but were determined that, regardless of what happened with Hayley and Ryan’s hire car, we were going to make dinner at Montaoni Agritourisma. Agritourisma are essentially farm stays, where you can stay bed and breakfast and eat in a dining room usually part of the main house. The most appealing feature of this for us is that because they are on working farms, the food at these restaurants is almost exclusively produced on those farms. We arrived a little late, and found the surroundings a little disconcerting at first. There was only one other table of guests, who were locals doing some work at the farm and having their meals in the dining room. There was also a table set for an elderly man who came in soon after we arrived and sat watching a ‘Red Faces’ style variety show on the tv in the corner of the room, occasionally dropping off to sleep over his meal. Soon the food started to appear. First a plate of ribbon-thin slices of pancetta and salami; a big wedge of a firm goat’s cheese, mild but with the characteristic goat’s cheese tang to it; a bowl of giardineri and slices of a cottage loaf. The cheese was so fine and perfect we had to ask, in our limited Italian if it was made on the farm, and received a slightly offended “Yes, of course”. Next was a course for the meat-eaters (we had been told to expect lots of meat), a soft-consistency chicken liver pate on small pieces of toasted bread topped with a peppery olive oil. We were already beginning to get the idea that this would be a very large meal, and were trying to pace ourselves, but it was very difficult, everything was so delicious. There was also a carafe of a Sangiovese style wine which was kept topped up (I was driving so cannot report on its quality, but David tells me it was a very nice light red).

Our waiter appeared next with a large platter of pasta sheets tossed with a mushroom ragu. The smell of the sauce was fantastic – rich and earthy, and it tasted just as good. The sheets of pasta were silky and melt-in your-mouth. As we were dishing that up, out came two more platters: a ravioli with a spinach and ricotta filling topped with butter and sage leaves and another of meat-filled ravioli with a rich oily meat ragu. We were momentarily taken aback, so much food! The pasta was a revelation, so often we hear that there isn’t any point to making your own fresh pasta: it’s time consuming we are told and the dried product is equally good. But I’m here to tell you that after this dinner I am determined to master it – I know you can buy fresh pasta at some delis, but I have never tasted it as good as this.

So after the pasta we were feeling pretty full, we all knew we shouldn’t have kept eating it, but it was soo good – there was even a brief race for the last spinach tortellini (Hayley won). Our young waiter cleared our tables and returned with a dish we had been eagerly anticipating: Fagioli Sorana or Sorana Beans. These creamy white legumes are grown only in this particular valley in Italy, their flavour apparently attributed to the rich soil and something in the mountain spring water (San Pellegrino mineral water is bottled in the next valley over). Apparently they are so prized that they were used as a currency around here several hundred years ago. Today they are sought after by chefs and sell for around E25 a kilo, and here we were in a humble agritourismo sitting down to a huge plate of them. They were joined by a plate of thinly sliced, pink vitello, a platter of roasted goat and chicken and roasted potatoes. The beans lived up to their hype, the vitello was delicious and melt in the mouth, but I found the goat and chicken a little too dry for my taste.

But wait there’s more – just as us meat-eaters felt as if we were going to burst (and the vego’s ate their way through a plate of beans) came the piece-de-resistance – the chingale, wild boar braised with the most basic of seasonings for hours until it was falling apart. We had been promised it would be on the menu and it was, but I kind of wish it had come earlier. Of course we ate it all, but its strong smell, very gamey flavour and saltiness didn’t sit very well after the many courses which preceded it. It was almost a relief when our waiter placed a bowl of ricotta and a jug of honey on the table which signalled the meal was at its end. I hadn’t eaten ricotta except in this way before, and it is a very nice ending to the meal, except it wasn’t and the final hurrah was slices of fresh-out- of- the-oven ricotta cake dusted with icing sugar, a bottle of throat-grabbing grappa and one of a much smoother vincotta and the offer of coffee (which we very reluctantly refused).

The dinner at Montiaone was everything we had hoped to experience eating with the locals in Italy. As Ryan said after the pasta course, you wouldn’t get a better dish of pasta in any of Melbourne’s finest Italian restaurants, and it certainly was better than the average suburan Melbourne Italian eatery. And because everything we ate was produced locally it was probably one of the best souvenirs we’ll take away from Italy. The entire meal at Montaoine including all the alcohol was E22 per head – around $35 AUD – (of course we left more) and as we wound our way down the very steep windy road we all agreed that someone should tell them they really could charge tourists like us much more for such an experience.

A series of unfortunate events

2011-04-23T20:13:00.001+10:00

After several experiences of the difficulties of finding parking in the historical town centers we've been visiting (& the terrible narrow alleyways you have to negotiate to get to any), we made the decision to head into Florence by train from Pescia which brought us right into the centre of the city. With only 6 hours in the city, we had a carefully plotted itinerary: catch the big names of the Duomo and Ponte Vecchio as well as walking up to Pizziali Michelangelo, just outside the old walls of the city. We had been warned by Paul, the manager of La Spinosa, that Florence is always overrun with tourists (like us), and it certainly was. At times we felt like we should have had one if the flags that your guides use, just so we didn't lose track of each other in the throng. The Duomo was closed because of Easter preparations, but the cathedral was open and well worth the short line. It is such a huge space that despite the crowds it was still possible to appreciate it's beauty in relative peace. The Ponte Vecchio approach was madness, jostling crowds cheek by jowl, and then suddenly much quieter on the bridge because the intent of most tourists seemed to be to have a photo against the backdrop or on the two open spaces on the bridge. Next we headed up to the Piazzali Michelangelo for the most incredible view of the city, unfortunately one muddied a little by the smog. The next part of the itinerary after a quick lunch ( here as in Rome you can get a foccacia and drink for two people for €6) was shopping. Florence has some really classy shops and even their souvenir market stalls are often a cut above average- lots of leather, but also fine quality paper, artists selling their original work, balsamic, limoncello and more.

As I said a great day, which was unfortunately marred on the way home by a collision between two of Ryan's tires and the side of the narrow Pescia road while trying to avoid oncoming traffic. It has joined my scraping of one side of our hire car along a narrow Castelvecchio alleyway, the crisis with our Rome accommodation, my causing us to miss our plane from Melbourne and Mum's brief loss of her handbag in the London taxi when we arrived as a series of very unfortunate events which have sometimes threatened to derail our enjoyment of this trip. We're booked in for a very special dinner at the local agritourismo tonight, but I'm not sure we're going to make it!

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A week in Castelvecchio

2011-04-23T20:12:00.000+10:00

Castelvecchio: A week in rural Tuscany

It’s early on a Monday morning. I’m looking across a valley at the small village of Castelvecchio on the opposite hillside, about 500m as the crow flies. The sun has just cleared the Appenines foothills and is warming up the ten villages of the Deici Castelli. Dogs are setting each other off in the village, the chooks in the garden next door are complaining to be let out. There’s a big fat bumblebee buzzing around the rosemary bushes and the sound of the spring below the villa cascading down to join the creek in the valley. We arrived late yesterday afternoon passing through the town of Pescia on Palm Sunday afternoon to the sight of hunbdreds of town folk taking a Sunday stroll along the river, eating gelati, drinking espresso, pushing babies in strollers. The road winding up to La Spinosa was hair-raisingly narrow, the track to it passing literally between the district church and its belltower. We are looking forward to a great Tuscan week. Disappointingly there are few local markets to shop for food or tabbachi to give us the fix of espresso and cornetto we developed a taste for in Rome. However shopping at Essalunga in Pescia yesterday was tantalising: whole sides of pancetta, looking mouldy in their black spice rub; the bakery selling foccacia and pizza by the kilo. Buffalo mozzarella for less than $1 a ball. Last night I made a porcini risotto and a plate of antipasto, and we’re planning a final night meal in the Italian style, with 4 courses of local dishes. In between there are local restaurants to try (serving wild boar), and a farmhouse we can see at the top of the farthest hill which puts on traditional meals by request. We’re going to Florence for a day and touring the area around Castiglione where my father fought during WWII.

Today was a designated rest day, so everyone slept in. We took a stroll to Castelvecchio for the first time, discovering a small collection of stone houses, hanging cheek by jowl off the steep slopes of the foothills , joined by interconnecting cobblestone alleyways and narrow roadways. Services in these villages is rudimentary at best, but the bar in Castelvecchio serves dual purpose as a general store and tabacchi (phew). The post office is open once a week on a Wednesday, and just as we were wondering what locals did for staples like bread we came upon a small delivery van which would hurtle up to a house, the driver would leap out grab a loaf or several loaves of bread of various kinds out the back and put them in the plastic bag or basket hanging from the front door of a house. Jumping back into the van he would toot loudly and then scream off to the next. A bus does the circuit of the Deici Castelli twice a day and presumably locals who don’t drive can take this to the nearest town of Pescia.

We stopped at the bar for an espresso, an incredible view of some of the other villages from its terrace and then walked back to the house to hop in the car for the 38km round trip of the ten villages. We stopped in Pontito, which was creepily quiet and deserted, and made nervous jokes about the locals watching us from behind the shutters. Pontito is an immaculately maintained village, but we wondered whether its residents are part-time or work during the day in Pescia, or perhaps because it is early in the season those who move out of town for the winter have not yet returned. Later Paul the manager of La Spinosa explained that in many cases residents have moved into larger towns, and rather than sell the traditional family home they shut them up and return only occasionally. As he said this means that sadly many of these villages are ghost towns, a real pity because they are so beautiful and must have been very vital and busy places a few decades ago. We made another stop in Pescia for supplies for dinner at the Essalunga supermarket (more buffalo mozzarella, a kilo of mussels and passata for a pasta sauce) before returning for the ‘rest’ part of our designated rest day. Mum and Dad had stayed behind and spent a lovely day in the sun reading their books and playing cards. Ryan made dinner ( including an interesting version of panforte) and we spent the evening watching ‘Rebecca’. Boy it’s tiring being on holiday!

Day 3:

One of the main reasons for being in this beautiful area was to go back with my father to the area in which he was stationed as a young soldier with the 6th South African Armored Division. Today we headed off early to Prato, where we revisited the square Dad remembered being full of tanks when he was there, in the months after Italy had signed an armistice and the Allies were driving the Germans back out of Italy. Dad lost many of his fellow soldiers and the other destination for the day was the cemetery in Castigilione de Pepoli where 500 men (the majority of them South African) were buried. After a few false turns we were eventually guided to the site by a handyman at the local cemetery. It was heartening to see how well the cemetery was maintained, in a really beautiful spot overlooking the hills and valleys. A walk around looking for names Dad remembered was quite emotional – particularly seeing the youth of some of those who died. We had a sandwich lunch at a hotel overlooking a lake behind Castiglione. It was very quiet, although apparently can be very busy in summer, and very peaceful to sit there before tackling the long winding road home. The weather so far during our stay could not have been more perfect. Although La Spinosa’s manager Paul tells us it can snow at this time of the year, every day has been calm and clear. Temperatures hover around 21 with light breezes occasionally reminding us with their chill that it is still early spring.

Day 4: Another designated rest day, so today David, Hayley, Ryan and I headed off to Pistoia to check out the weekly market and buy food for a meal tonight. Pistoia is a beautiful town. Like many around here it has a very original historical centre, with lots of tiny cobblestoned alleyways leading off the main piazzas. The market is mostly a flea market style with lots of cheap clothing, leather and electronic goods. However at its heart is a small square of food shops in the centre of which produce growers sell fresh fruit and vegetables. We checked out the many butchers (including one dedicated entirely to horse-meat) and bought some Salsiccia. It’s quite hard to buy meat when the names and cuts are so unfamiliar, so sausages were a safe bet. We also bought some great asparagus, zucchini flowers, strawberries, fennel and peppers and some sardines for the veg/pescatarians. We noticed that all the produce was very seasonal, and found it almost impossible to buy potatoes because of course it’s the wrong season. After buying some pannini (2 Euros each) from a roadside stall we headed back for a restful afternoon and an evening cooking up a storm. Although there were grand plans of playing games, yet again most of us headed off to bed early. Tomorrow Florence.

Eating in Rome

2011-04-23T20:10:00.000+10:00

The food in Rome: Aside from the amazing back alleys and gorgeous buildings, the ancient monuments and myriad old churches, Rome has fulfilled every expectation I had of Italian food. Every morning (often after a breakfast of muesli) we could pop across the piazza to the Tabacchi, a hybrid milk bar, café and cigarette shop where you could throw back a double espresso and a croissant ( or cornetto) for the princely sum of €2.50. And what coffee. I have never tasted coffee so consistently good as I have in Italy. Forget anything we have in Melbourne, even Pellegrini’s doesn’t do a coffee as good. The double espresso is so rich, creamy and smooth I haven’t once needed to add sugar as I often do in Melbourne to counteract the bitterness often encountered. As we travelled through Italy, we would find equally good coffee no matter where we were. Even the Autogrill – the huge freeway rest stops which often cross over the top of the freeway to allow access from both sides-had a tabacchi inside which served great coffee for less than $2

Our apartment is a street away from the Campo di Fiore where a market is held every morning 6 days a week, and though probably expensive because of its central and tourist location, it was nonetheless a great source of vegies and dried goods. At the base of our apartment block was a trattoria ( we never learnt its name, only that it closed at 2.30 and re-opened at 6) where the owner would end every meal we had there with a complimentary something, be it grappa and biscotti after lunch one day or Colombo and coffee after dinner. And it wasn’t an expensive restaurant either. The priciest meal we had was €15 a head for an assortment of large pastas and the best veal saltimbocca I’ve ever had plus a selection of contorno and wine. I learnt a couple of things in Rome: A coffee and pastry served at the Tabbacchi for €2.50 would cost €6 if ordered sitting down. When buying bread by the kilo, olive bread can end up costing you €8 a loaf, so buy only as much as you need, like the locals do. Many shops, including butchers, grocers etc close at 1 – 1.30 and re-open at around 3. While in Rome you could probably find some supplies during this break, the further out into the country we got, the longer this break was (in Pescia shops close at 1 and re-open at 4) although large supermarkets are usually open the whole day.

Rome on our doorstep

2011-04-16T01:27:00.001+10:00

Ok expect some disjointed blogs. Internet access us to be grabbed when I can get it, at the moment in a Pescia street corner! No photos- will do that in an album soon.

Rome:

I had no expectations about Rome: no long-harboured desire to visit; only the lectures and readings from Medieval and Renaissance history as background; scenes from 1950s movies as visual cues. This has turned out to be a distinct advantage, resulting in a series of wonderful discoveries of a magical city, and few disappointments. The position of our apartment in the Campo Di Fiore district has allowed us to walk to every one of the major historical monuments, but also given us the opportunity to wander the myriad tiny back alleys paved in a mosaic of black cobblestones and discover a Rome fewer tourists probably see.

As I have said in other blogs about other cities I have visited, for me these are the best parts of a city. I have stood in the Sistine Chapel with the loud buzz of hundreds of tourists and been unmoved, but was brought to tears by the jewel-like interior of the tiny Santa Barbara de Libraire church discovered by chance up a side alley in the Campo de Fiori. It is flanked by a gelati shop and a restaurant and is barely 15 metres by 10 metres. It has a broken window pane in the front door and no acres of marble, but every surface is covered in beautiful murals and it offers a quiet place of contemplation, even for the non-religious like me.

Our three days in Rome have seen a series of similar discoveries-it is amazing to stand in the Coliseum and think about those who walked here 2000 years ago, but it is hard to get a sense of it if you are surrounded by 20000 tourists, including groups of chattering teenagers in their orange caps, or jammed up against in long queues (the queue to enter the Sistine Chapel was 500 metres). However walking back from a roam around the Trastevere district we happened upon a Roman theatre almost as ancient as the Coliseum, but with only a handful of visitors (unfortunately including a couple of 'ugly Americans' one of whom was overheard to say that she was taking photos of the interpretive signs to read later because she couldn't be bothered reading them now). The dig site was clothed in bright red poppies, with several resident cats, and invited you to take your time exploring.

Of course there are ways to beat the crowds: on our very first morning we rose very early and struck out for the Pantheon. Only locals were about, and by the time it officially opened at 8.30 there was a grand total of 5 people in the queue.

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Location:Lungotevere della Farnesina,Rome,Italy

We interrupt this holiday blog for a consumer alert.

2011-04-14T00:57:00.001+10:00

Picture the scene: after an early start, a Eurostar trip to Paris where we spent day riding the buses, we were at the Gare de Bercy waiting for the overnight trip to Rome when my mobile rings. "Ah Madame I am the agent from Rome Power to tell you that we have a problem with your booking for the apartment in Rome tomorrow. There has been a flood in the apartment and you cannot check in but not to worry, I have a solution for you. I have another beautiful apartment available...."

Now here's a little bit of background: we first booked our accommodation in Rome 3 months ago, knowing it was high season. Just after booking a nice apartment on the Campo Di Fiori with an agency, they emailed me to say sorry but your apartment is not available because we have problems with council permissions, however we have a nice apartment in the Vatican area available. Well we didn't want to be in that area as we decided that schlepping over to the main attractions every day would be a pain. So we said no and began looking for alternatives, except being high season, everything suitable was now booked. We were also frequently reading nightmare stories about people being bumped on arrival, of being told an apartment was no longer available but a nice one was in the Vatican area.

So when, 8 weeks ago Ryan found a nice apartment in the Campo di Fiori on Giverno Vecchio (called Gladiator)through Rome Power booking agency, we were relieved and excited when the booking was confirmed. However a month ago we saw the apartment was showing as vacant for the days we had booked.Concerned, Ryan rang the agency. " Don't worry Mr Guillot" he was told "your booking is here and everything is fine, I will get the agent to call you or email you the details." Ryan rang three more times and was told again the booking was fine.

Then when I got to London from Cornwall I rang the agency and was told they would organize a car to pick us up at the station in Rome and take us to the apartment. So you can imagine my reaction when I got the phone call in Paris. The apartment offered as a replacement was, of course, in St Peters area. It seems clear that the apartment was a 'bait' and that if it even exists, it was already booked. The thing about accommodation in Rome seems to be that everyone wants an apartment in the centre of the main sights, but there are a lot of rentals available in the vicinity of St Peter's to accommodate religious pilgrims. Despite our every effort, we still became victims of dubious business practices.

The upside of the story is that I was able to get a message to Hayley and Ryan who were joining us in Rome and they found us a last minute apartment right off the Campo di Fiore, an absolutely magnificent traditional courtyard style apartment in an 1828 building.

(that's our apartment with brown shutters on the corner of the third floor)

(Pasta dinner on night two):

The view from the apartment

The agent Peter from Rome from Home couldn't have been more helpful allowing us to leave our bags in the apartment early after our marathon journey and sleepless night.

So here we are in Rome,blown away by the beautiful streets and literally awe-some buildings and indulging in all sorts of local foods. Sometimes things happen for the best, but I wouldn't wish what happened to us on anyone, thus the consumer alert: be VERY careful who you deal with when booking an apartment in Rome. I can certainly recommend Rome from Home, but not Rome Power.
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Location:Via dei Banchi Vecchi,Rome,Italy

Finding real French food on a stopover

2011-04-13T23:53:00.001+10:00

We're all pretty exhausted after catching a 5.25am Eurostar from London. We got into Paris at 9 and after stowing our luggage in 2 left luggage lockers took a 4 hour hop-on hop-off tour of the city which was mostly hop-on except for a stop at Notre Dame for lunch at what appears to be a quintessential Paris Brasserie for a lunch of onion soup, croque Monsieurs and hot chocolate (it was freezing).

Paris is just as beautiful as I expected it to be, although much much busier than I had anticipated. The Eiffel Tower was an unexpected highlight. You think you know what to expect, but up close I was blown away by the intricacy and fragility of it, it really is stunning.

As we drove down the Quai des Gds Augustin we passed a series of small stalls selling books, it was all I could do to restrain myself from yelling " Stop the bus!!!" However given three of my Mrs Beeton's already have a bag of their own, it's no more books for me!

In Paris I particularly loved the brasserie and tabac we passed on nearly every corner, wicker chairs lining the pavement for the smokers and people- watchers. It was suddenly clear what so many restaurants and cafes are trying to emulate, but never will be able to because, well, it's Paris and they're not!

After the bus tour we took a taxi across town to the Gare de Bercy, the driver dodging scooters and Velopeds, the traffic absolutely chaotic, and settled in for a 3 hour wait for the train to Rome. Taking a stroll to pass the time, imagine our pleasure to discover a particularly French food truck parked outside: Mimi la Brioche sold a range of baked goods, mostly priced by the kg.

There were huge loaves of brioche (of course), madeleines, le pain epice, thick white slabs of nougat, chocolate coated waffle-like cookies and beautiful cannelles, crisp dark and waxy on the outside, soft and yellow on the inside.

We bought a whole lot of goodies for the trip and settled back down hoping that the huge group of excitable American teenagers wasn't going to be on our carriage.

Location:Gare du Bercy, Paris

If it's Sunday it must be Tintagel

2011-04-13T23:51:00.001+10:00

On Sunday morning I woke up with a start. Where was I, what time was it, what was I supposed to be doing? Lace curtains and green carpet in the bathroom, Axminster on the floor, apricot floral wallpaper- oh that's right the comfortable, but very 1980s B&B outside the quaint fishing village of Mevagissey. After our day trip to St Martin's, we went on a whistlestop tour of Cornwall.

We spent a lovely few hours at (quaint fishing village no.1) Mevagissey, where the streets are only barely wide enough for a car to drive down.

We visited the lovely cathedral town of Truro and discovered my grandfather's home was now an op shop.

We visited ( quaint fishing village no. 2) harbourside Padstow, known jokingly as Padstein because celebrity chef Rick Stein has 5 shops and restaurants in town.

We tried to visit (quaint fishing village no.3) Port Isaac which is the location for the Doc Martin tv series. Unfortunately being a Sunday there was not an accessible car park to be found, so this is the best I could do:

So instead we headed off to Tintagel (not a quaint fishing village this time) home to a castle ruin which legend has it was home to King Arthur. On the cliff overlooking it was another wonderful old pile - Camelot Castle built in 1899 in the baronial style. We had a tour through some of the rooms and David and I promised ourselves we'd come back one day and stay.

Along the way we've eaten in little English pubs, had 'cream teas' and the Cornish native Saffron Cake (recipe to come when I return to Melbourne) and my Dad decided to have a Cornish Pasty every lunch time. There certainly was no shortage of places to buy them.Every town had several purveyors, all proclaiming theirs the best. In Padstow there were three shops in a row:

There were sweet pasties and vegetarian pasties, curry pasties and delicate cocktail size ones. But Dad proclaimed the traditional handmade, plate-sized pasties from St Martin's the best he tried (although of course not as good as the pasties my Mum makes from a recipe passed down to her from her Mum):

In the middle of a circle of shortcrust pastry, leaving a generous edge, layer stewing steak (cubed small), diced potatoes and onions. Season each layer generously with sakt and pepper. Wet the edges of the pastry and bring to the middle. Pinch edges together. Put a small slash in the pastry either side of the crimp and brush with egg and milk. Bake in a hot oven for 20-30 minutes then lower to moderate/slow for another 10 minutes.

You can vary the ingredients by adding parsnip or swede.

We're not sure where Granny learnt to make pasties, possibly from my Cornish grandfather, but also possibly from her mother who was a pastry chef in Cape Town, and according to family legend baked the pastries for a banquet for the Duke of Windsor. (Now there's some family history to investigate!)

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Location:Alphington St,Exeter,United Kingdom

Mucking around on boats and meeting the ancestors (with Cornish Pasties thrown in)

2011-04-09T07:06:00.001+10:00

An early start this morning for our day of mucking around on boats and meeting the ancestors. The Scillonian III plies the route between Penzance and St Mary's twice every day at this time of year (3 times a day in summer). To call the boat utilitarian is generous, and probably a more modern craft would be quicker and smoother, but the Scillonian gave you a real sense of the isolation of this little circle of islands. The 2 1/2 hour trip sticks close to the coast until Land's End, providing spectacular views of hidden villages and grand houses (including John Le Carre's).

Arriving at St Mary's we were met by Paul's water taxi service for the 15 minute dash across the water to Higher Town Quay.

The islands are picture-postcard pretty. Beautiful white sandy beaches and rocky promontories edge a clear aqua sea. St Martin's is the third largest of the group of islands. 2 miles long with a single concrete road barely wide enough for a large car, we weren't sure what to expect in the way of services.

The last thing I expected to find here was a bakery in a restored barn up a picturesque lane which produced food I've come to expect from some of the more cosmopolitan destinations I've visited. There was an amazing range of breads, pastries, quiches and more, all made on site using ingredients sourced locally, including flour grown and milled in Devon. Vegetables and herbs are grown on the island, seaweed from the beaches is included in the sundried tomato and feta sourdough loaf.

The beef in our enormous pasties came from the nearby island of Tresco and the smoked salmon in David's quiche was locally caught by owner Toby and smoked on site. Toby is an Irishman who first came to St Martins on holiday in 1982 and returned to live 10 years later. He is self-taught and believes strongly in sustainable and local production. Despite some hardship, he really is living the dream!

We only had 3 hours on the island, enough time to visit the cemetery to look for Ellis graves, and chat to a lady at the post office who was born and raised on the island as were her mother and grandmother (I think we're probably vaguely related!)

The St Martin's Bakery runs week-long baking courses, and David and I are already thinking It might be a reason to return!

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Location:Gwavas Ln,Penzance,United Kingdom

Lunch in the temple: a mixed bag

2011-04-07T05:52:00.001+10:00

You know how you have one of those days where everything falls into place? Today was one of those. After weeks, nay months, of trying to work out a way to get my Mum and I to the tiny island of St Martins in the Scilly Isles where her ancestors are from, but which has very limited access, this morning a nice confluence of circumstances saw us booked on the ferry to St Marys where we will be met by a boatman who will taxi us to St Martins and back. We'll only have 3 hours there but we're very excited about seeing the village. Unfortunately Mum suffers very badly from seasickness, fortunately she loves Ginger, which is supposed to be the best natural cure. The housekeeping morning continued with our tickets on the Eurostar booked and also our car for the Cornwall trip.

Feeling chuffed, David and I headed off to Notting Hill for the second time to visit Books for Cooks. It was a gorgeous Spring day, heading for 24 degrees.

Books for Cooks is tiny and was crammed with people browsing the shelves and also having lunch in the very tiny test kitchen up the back of the shop where every day they create a lunch menu from books in stock. Today was a Middle Eastern lentil soup and lamb kofta with a nice red wine to accompany it and lovely cakes on display. We elected for the soup and wine (£12 for two) which was a lovely light lunch.

I was very excited at the prospect of visiting and eating at this iconic destination, but I must admit to being in two
minds about it. On the one hand the test kitchen and the workshops held upstairs are a model for how something like this should be run; on the other hand I could not help but feel that the books have become secondary. It is very hard to browse many shelves because the dining tables are crammed up against them and getting a book from the shelves requires reaching over someone's head as they eat. I also felt that there was an over-emphasis on 'popular' titles like the Australian Women's Weeklys which were everywhere, and less on the serious cooking and food titles. Of course they also have virtually no second hand or antiquarian stock which makes it if less interest to me. While there were some interesting titles I hadn't seen before, some shelves were noticably bare. So a not altogether satisfying visit to the temple of cookbook shops, although still quite interesting.

The other must-do visit of the day was to the Aga shop where I picked up a famous Aga toaster as well as a new cold plain shelf for the fraction of their cost in Melbourne. Now they have to compete for room in the luggage with 4 Mrs Beeton's!

Tonight we're packing for the drive to Cornwall and here is a better photo of some of my older treasures from Monday's shopping

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Location:London,United Kingdom

Charing Cross Road, Bloomsbury Rd & Cecil Court-trawling London's bookshops

2011-04-06T06:34:00.001+10:00

Well today was my idea of heaven. After a continental breakfast at our hotel ( a former Gentleman's Club, think Fawlty Towers with Eastern European staff. When I asked for teatowels for our kitchen I was told: "I don't think we have those") we parted ways with Mum and Dad who headed off to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We had carefully plotted our travels, but had a false start when we reached Books for Cooks to find it closed on a Monday.

The bonus was that as we took a wander up Portobello Road (with a stop along the way for cupcakes at Hummingbird Bakery)

we found an Oxfam Bookshop with a beautiful 1930s copy of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in a glass case. It wasn't cheap - but given one of my aims for this trip was to pick up a copy, I wasn't going to turn it down. By the end of the day I had 4!!

Next stop was the Bloomsbury bookshops, an eclectic mix of antiquarian booksellers like Jarndyce on Great Russell St where I picked up an 1891 "Manual of Domestic Economy; with Hints on Medicine and Surgery" ; and indepent publisher Souvenir Press for a couple of obscure titles on Arabian Cooking and herbal remedies. Nice finds but not yet the treasures I was hoping for.

We detoured to Covent Garden Market where we had been promised an antique market. There was lots of silverware and crockery, but no books or kitchenalia so we had lunch at the very tasteful chain Battersea Pie Shop.

David had a seafood pie with mashed potato and I had a pastie with mash and gravy. Gorgeous concept that I think would go well in Australia if someone had the presence of mind to copy it!

Now fortified against the cold wind and equipped with a copy of Book Lover's London purchased from Jarndyce, we headed for Cecil Court, a tiny back lane behind the theatres on Charing Cross Road jam-packed with specialist booksellers:

David Drummond sells only books and ephemera on theatre and magic and has some beautiful playbills and early programs in his tiny, crammed-full shop;

Marchpane with exquisite children's books, and I was awestruck by an entire bookshelf of Alice in Wonderland in every edition, language and format you could imagine.

Of interest in other Cecil Court traders were several Elizabeth David first editions and a first edition of the Savoy Cocktail Book which had pride of place in the window of an uncharacterictically sparse space with only a couple of hundred books and a focus on the exotic, trendy and risque.

Prices in Cecil Court were high (350 pounds for the Savoy), but it was lovely to browse.

Onwards we marched around the corner to the heart of what remains of the original Charing Cross bookshop district. Henry Prode's produced a circa 1890 Mrs Beeton's (that's 2) and Elizabeth David hardcovers.
There were many more beautiful antiquarian cookbooks and facsimiles of classics like the Williamsburg cookbook, but I had a couple more shops to visit.
One of these was Quinto's with a small but exciting shelf of cookbooks including 2 (count them two!) lovely Mrs Beeton's from the early 20th century (that's 4), Here I also found an Indian cookbook of the British Raj, and several books on domestic ecnonmy: 1892 Household Wrinkles by Mrs DeSallis and 1883 Cookery and Housekeeping by Mrs Henry Reeve Culinary Jottings.

We called it a day with approximately 20 kgs of books and negotiated 2 tube rides before stopping in at our 'local ' for a well-deserved pint.

Now I have what I came for!

Farmer's Markets, Pubs & Food Shops:

2011-04-04T12:05:00.001+10:00

After arriving late yesterday and settling in to our hotel in the Marylebone district of London, we started our first day bright and early, setting out for the Cramer St Farmer's Market behind the Marylebone High St. The Farmer's Market website said the market operated from 10-2, but we went down at 9 expecting to be able to buy goods early. Apparently not: some archaic by-law prohibits selling before 10am. So all we could do was drool over the two stalls selling gourmet ready-made meals like confit duck, Boeuf Bourgignon and beautiful sides; the fishmonger displaying huge scallops 6 for £5, turbot and skatewings; the pies cooked in enamelled pie tins etc etc. Nearby is also The Ginger Pig butcher, who offer butchering classes 6 nights a week and are booked out months in advance.

The Fromagerie next door not only had an enormous cheese room, but beautiful baked goods and heirloom veges.

We then took a long tube ride across town to Camden Markets, which turned out to be more of a flea market than I had expected. We shared fish & chips (no fried Mars Bar although they were on offer) before then discovering a large section of the market dedicated to widely diverse ethnic foods. The best discoveries of the day were two bookshops: Walden Books tucked away in a back street produced a couple of Ambrose Heath 1sts. We were directed to it by the owner of Black Gull, home to more recent stick where I was able to pick up some Heston, Jane Grigson and Lindsay Bareham's Big book of Tomatoes.
Tomorrow David and I have planned a major assault on the bookshops of Charing Cross Rd, Bloomsbury and a visit to Books for Cooks in Notting Hill.

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Location:London,United Kingdom

London Calling or - Eating my way through Europe

2011-03-31T15:12:00.001+11:00

I'm off tomorrow for a 4 week trip to the UK and Italy. The main purpose of the trip is to take my Mum to Cornwall where her ancestors originated. Specifically we're taking a boat trip to the Scilly Islands and hopefully the small island of St Martin's where the Ellis family has been living as far back as we've been able to trace. In Italy we're retracing the steps (or tracks) of my father's tank regiment in the Apennines. Along the way there's a week in London and a visit to Rome and Venice. This is my first trip to Europe and, as you would imagine, I'm most looking forward to discovering the food cultures and book shops of both countries. While I have some idea what to expect from the Italian leg, I have no idea what the food scene will be like in the UK-fish & chips & fried Mars Bars? I guess I'm about to find out. While this is not primarily a book-buying trip, what I am expecting to find in the UK is some excellent cookbooks, particularly antiquarian. I guess I'll find that out soon enough too!

The end of cookbooks or just one more excuse to buy an IPad?

2011-03-26T11:57:00.002+11:00

In an article entitled "Gadgets you should get rid of (or not)" in the NYTimes today, Sam Grobart gives a list of gadgets you should dispose of (desktop computers, point-and-shoot cameras, ipods among them) or hang on to (alarm clocks) and has this to say about books:

"BOOKS Keep them (with one exception). Yes, e-readers are amazing, and yes, they will probably become a more dominant reading platform over time, but consider this about a book: It has a terrific, high-resolution display. It is pretty durable; you could get it a little wet and all would not be lost. It has tremendous battery life. It is often inexpensive enough that, if you misplaced it, you would not be too upset. You can even borrow them free at sites called libraries." (So far so good, I thought, clever little para, must link to it on my facebook status. But then he goes on:)
"But there is one area where printed matter is going to give way to digital content: cookbooks. Martha Stewart Makes Cookies, a $5 (now $3.99) app for the iPad, is the wave of the future. Every recipe has a photo of the dish (something far too expensive for many printed cookbooks). Complicated procedures can be explained by an embedded video. When something needs to be timed, there’s a digital timer built right into the recipe. You can e-mail yourself the ingredients list to take to the grocery store. The app does what cookbooks cannot, providing a better version of everything that came before it. Now all Martha has to do is make a decorative splashguard for a tablet and you will be all set."

This of course is the biggest problem with the technology. As we all know from the cookbooks on our own shelves, a cookbook has to be on the bench, and even more so with these apps which have built-in timers and videos etc. A splashguard is also not going to protect the gadget from a major spillage which may wrinkle or even ruin a $40 cookbook, but will kill an $800 Ipad. Another problem with them is that for $3.99, this application provides 50 recipes for cookies, and by the time you've bought applications for all the things you might want to cook, you could end up spending significantly more than for a cookbook with hundreds of recipes. Of course there is also the fact that for every gorgeous app like this or Nigella Lawson's Quick Collection ($9.99 for 70 recipes) there will probably be as many dodgy collections you will never use. I have the epicurious app on my iphone which allows you to search the almost 30,000 recipes from food dite Epicurious.com. I find it incredibly useful if I'm out shopping and can't remember the ingredients for a particular recipe. It's also great if I'm at home and need a recipe for something unusual ( like Shrimp and Grits I made last week) and I don't want to have to go down to the shop to look one up. However while I am going to buy an Ipad, and will probably download lots of apps to do with food and cooking, and will use it in my kitchen, I am almost positive that it will never be able to replace a lot of my vintage favourites like Miss Drake. It certainly will not allow me to browse through a 19th century Mrs Beeton for inspiration for my 19th century dinner, and it won't look as good on my shelf!

Prawns in Aspic and Sardine Tablets? A Mrs Maclurcan dinner

2011-03-14T16:42:00.002+11:00

On Saturday I was fortunate enough to participate in an all day symposium entitled Food Traditions and Culinary Cultures as part of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. The day was organised by Jill Adams of the William Angliss Institute's Coffee Academy. There were two highlights for me: The first was visiting the William Angliss Research facility and the copy of the Edward Abbott cookbook I acquired for them last year. I felt like a proud parent.

The second highlight was the symposium dinner with a menu based on recipes from Mrs Maclurcan's Cookery Book, an Australian classic. The dinner was cooked by the institute's students and we were fortunate to have some excellent matching Tahbilk wines (Tahbilk - which used to be known as Chateau Tahbilk - is Victoria's oldest winery). As regular readers will know, I relish trying out recipes from old cookbooks. With some of the dishes we could predict what might appear on the plate in front of us, but others were a real mystery. As soon as I got home I looked up the recipes in the book to send to my fellow diners, and I've shared a couple below.

The meal started with a mystery: Australian Soup which had an orange hue but was not pumpkin and little transparent spheres at the bottom of the bowl. The recipe revealed the spheres were tapioca and the soup was very simply made by boiling tapioca in 'brown stock' and then adding the juice of tomatoes. The flavour of the end product would very much depend upon the quality of the stock, and I don't think you could get away with packet stock if you made it at home.

Second Course was Prawns in Aspic. I don't think there's going to be a revival of dishes in aspic anytime soon, going by this dish. It was certainly pretty to look at, but a little watery and insipid for modern palates I suspect by the response of our table. Which is not to critique the cooking of the dish which was beautifully executed, but instead the recipe they were working from.

Main Course was "Braized Beef with Pickled Walnuts, Celery Fritters & Baked Cucumber". The walnuts lent a nice piquancy to the richness of the beef, and the cucmbers (which I had never tried cooked) were suprisingly good. Celery fritters just tasted like celery deep-fried and brought to mind the deep-fried artichokes David and I had tried in Salinas in 2009 - a waste of a good fresh vegetable.

The next part of the menu was a puzzler. A dessert (Macaroon Cream, absolutely delicious. I've included a recipe below) was followed by the interestingly named Sardine Tablet which was itself followed by a 'pudding': a Coffee Jelly. Apparently this was a common custom of the time (late 1890s), but I'm fuzzy on the details.

The Sardine Tablet turned out to be a small pastry case with a filling of sardine which had been creamed together with hard-boiled egg yolks, capers and seasoning. Quite tasty but not a great follow-up to the Macaroon cream.

The final course of Coffee Jelly was a small palate cleanser and was followed by coffee and port.

It was a fun night and has inspired me to try a similar venture as a cooking class in the not-too-distant future.

Macaroon Cream

1 pint milk Jordan almonds

3 egg yolks 1 dozen macaroons (recipe follows)

1 oz. gelatine 1 glass sherry

Soak the gelatine in a little milk for half an hour. Add the grated rind of 1 lemon to the 1 pint milk, sweeten to taste; place it over the fire to heat but do not let it boil; beat up the yolks of the eggs and pour the milk through a strainer onto them;add the gelatine gradually while stirring, and cook slowly until the gelatine is dissolved, then pour it into a basin to cool. Dip a mould into cold water then ornament with the almonds (split). Pour a little of the custard in then put a layer of the macaroons soaked in sherry, another layer of custard and so on until the dish is filled. Put on ice to set; turn out carefully and serve.

Macaroons

(not to be confused with the oh-so-trendy macaron)

3/4 lb of sweet almonds (I would substitute almond meal)

1/2 lb sifted sugar

whites of 3 eggs

Beat the eggs to a stiff froth; add the suagr almonds and a little lemon juice. Place small pieces onto a baking tray and bake in a slow oven for 20 - 45 minutes (they need to be golden brown and the tops will crack)

I'm going to attempt these next baking day (http://www.vintagebaking.blogspot.com/)

Making Whoopie.....(Pies)

2011-03-06T13:46:00.001+11:00

I was fascinated while travelling in the US last month by the way that American chefs and entrepeneurs are constantly re-inventing 'old' or classic dishes and making them the latest trend. A few years ago it was cupcakes, more recently mac 'n' cheese,( there's a restaurant in New York called S'mac) donuts, pies etc.

This time I noticed Whoopie Pies everywhere. Originally of Pennsylvania Dutch origin (you can read a New York Times article about them here) I'd describe them as a cake/biscuit hybrid or maybe a teeny teeny layer cake. Two discs of (usually chocolate) cake sandwiched together with a fluffy frosting.

On my last trip to Sur le Table before leaving San Francisco I picked up a Whoopie Pie tin & this morning had a crack at making them. You don't have to have a special tin, you can also bake them on a baking tray, using an icecream scoop to get perfectly round, even cakes.I've cobbled together a recipe for them from the packagin on the pie tin and a book in my shop called Amish Country Cookbook.

First the cakes:

Cream together 120gms of softened butter and 1 cup firmly packed soft brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add 1 egg and 1tsp vanilla extract and beat until well-combined.

Sift together 2cups plain flour, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1tsp baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt. Add the dry ingredients alternately with 1 cup butter milk ( or milk soured with lemon juice) until just combined (As with all cakes it's important not to over beat).

Spoon 2 tablespoons of batter into each cavity spread batter to the edges. Bake for about 8 minutes.

When they're cool you sandwich them together with raspberry jam and 'Marshmallow Fluff' - not something you can buy on any Australian supermarket shelf ( or at USA Foods I discovered when I went down there to buy grits) . So I went online and found a recipe here for the calorific spread. You could instead use a traditional royal icing or buttercream icing.

Here's the result:

I love the way they look and as I saw on my trip, there are almost endless possible variations.

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A new blog

2011-02-20T12:49:00.001+11:00

Well I've finally got around to getting My new baking blog up and running. I've called it Sunday is Baking Day because in my house it's the only day when I have a free morning to bake. You can find it at http://www.vintagebaking.blogspot.com/.

The Front Porch- last day in San Francisco

2011-02-15T16:08:00.003+11:00

The last day or two of any holiday usually consist of a mad dash around shops and post offices, packing suitcases and trying to work out the most economical way to get kilos of books back to Australia. This trip was no exception but I also managed to squeeze in a wonderful day trip down to Monterey, to visit the antique shops in the lovely town.

Pacific Grove is home to Holmans, a former department store which is now and antique market. Mostly it is full of antiques which are not my style - roccoco furniture, lots of glass and stuffed animals. But there is also a lovely basement room full of kitchen antiques.

In 2008 I had spotted my first Hoosier cabinet in Holmans -Hoosiers are an early model of the efficiency kitchen, with lots of gadgets and storage for the modern (early 20th century) housewife.

I had sworn that if it was still there this time as it had been on my last 2 trips to Pacific Grove (when I photographed it above), I was going to find a way to ship it back regardless of the cost. Sadly (or perhaps not, it really was a hare-brained scheme) my hoosier cabinet had finally sold. There was though a gorgeous American solid fuel oven which would look amazing in my kitchen. Mmmmm now lets see....

I had a lovely browse through the Cannery Row Antique Mall, which last visit produced some fantastic kitchenalia and came through again this visit with a dozen original seed packets from the 1920s which I'm going to reproduce for my next line of greeting cards.

My visit was a flying one and by dark I was driving back into San Francisco. I parked the car at the hotel and jumped on to the 14L bus down Mission St to visit a restaurant on my list which specialises in Southern cooking. The bus ride was an interesting one. There was a real mix of ethnicities and demographics getting on and off during the 20 minutes trip. After I got off and started to walk to 29th St, I had a brief moment when I wondered if walking in this area at night was the best idea for a woman on her own. However as I have discovered over the last three weeks, 99% of people mind their own business and if you carry yourself confidently and look like you know where you're going, you're generally only accosted by panhandlers asking for change.

The Front Porch when I reached it was dark (almost too dark - no photos of the food I'm afraid) and cosy. The menu is Southern and the decor kind of hillbilly bar room. I imagine that it would be a popular hangout for the locals with a nice long bar and a good range of drinks, but tonight it was very quiet (it was early - only 6pm) with 2 other tables occupied. Behind the open servery opposite my table, I heard the kitchen staff discussing who'd be sent home if business didn't pick up. The servers were friendly and when I explained that I hadn't tried Southern food before, more than happy to explain what was what. I decided to have 2 starters: shrimp and grits & pork and beans. I really wanted to try collard greens, because it seems like such a quintessential Southern dish, and according to other reviews I had read, their fried chicken is legendary. But one does need to recognise one's limitations!

The grits came first and were unexpected - I had imagined a polenta like base, but got instead a flavourful, almost soupy dish, spicy and a little smoky with four large juicy prawns swimming below the surface and topped with (I think) a few chunks of bacon. I say I think because the darkness of the room came into play here: it is a bit of a truism to say we eat with our eyes, but I definitely felt I didn't get a true sense of the dish because I could barely see it. While it was a good exercise of my tastebuds and sense of smell, I would have much preferred to see the dish as well as taste it.
The pork and beans followed soon after I had started the shrimp and grits, but being served in a small cast iron pan stayed warm while I finished. This dish was less unexpected. A small square of pork belly, the flesh very tender, had a thick layer of fat and sat on top of a pile of aromatic slow-cooked white beans with the sweet and sour flavours of molasses, possibly malt vinegar,brown sugar and more. The beans were studded with small pearl onions (which of course I didn't realise until I bit into one). It was a very filling dish which I could not finish and made me wish I had opted for the collard greens as an accompaniment to the shrimp and grits. Serves were ( as they always are in the States) generous, but not ridiculously large. While the desserts menu looked lovely, it was not tempting after those two dishes.

After finishing my meal I stepped out into the balmy night and decided to walk off my meal, wandering a couple of miles down the bright and chaotic Mission Street. Through the windows of Mission Pie, which I had visited a week earlier, I saw a classical quartet accompanying customers' coffee and pie. A block further down Mr Pollo was closed and inside El Farolito a mariachi band was playing ( they have followed me everywhere!). Some of the enormous shops selling everything from luggage to t-shirts and tortilla presses (I picked one up as a gift) were shutting up and on one street corner a shirtless man was sitting in the gutter with his hands cuffed behind him, surrounded by police officers. I took my last bus ride to Powell St, hopped on my last cable car to take me up the hill, sat on my hotel balcony for the last time and thought of all the places I hadn't got around to visiting, mentally planning the next trip. Goodbye San Francisco, until next time.

Salsify!!!!

2011-02-07T17:27:00.000+11:00

So the last three days have been mammoth ones where I end up coming back to my hotel room and collapsing on the bed not willing or able to spend time gathering my thoughts in a cohesive enough manner to blog them. Regardless, here goes:
On Friday I made my way around and about the place on various forms of public transport just for the hell of it. As my nearest and dearest know I am not a fan of public conveyances - give me a car any day. But there is something to be said for catching a bus that meanders up and around the hills fo San Francsico, taking you past beautiful parks and vistas like the No 31 does. And sometimes I think a bus is going to take me to a place; like the L line to Balboa Park which turned out to be an ugly terminus not a park at all. The day I visited Omnivore, I also discovered the J line ( eventually, my public transport App, did not tell me that the J ran underground where I was supposed to catch it - bit hard to find the bus stop when it's underneath your feet) which skirts the edges of the Mission district before cruising through the picturesque Noe Walley.

On Friday I also made it to BiRite and was instantly enraptured - here in a tiny tiny space was the perfect wholefoods/organic/gourmet grocery store. I spent so long there, wandering the crammed aisles and taking photos, I think the staff thought I was some kind of spy. In the dairy cabinets I spotted:

That's right folks, it's RAW MILK! Not hiding under the guise of 'Beauty Milk' or exchanged after secret handshakes in the back room of a grocer, but in the dairy cabinet in a glass bottle with a label on it. And while the USA has its fair share of food scares (almost exclusively because of massive monoculture farming) as far as I have heard there hasn't been an issue with raw milk like this.
The fruit and vege section was small but the selection vast - I bought a tiny baby cos lettuce for the grand sum of 89c for dinner to accompany the broccoli rabe salad and achiote grilled chicken breast I bought from their deli.

Birite also has an icecreamery which is a block down from the grocery. Here they make small naturally flavoured batches of icecream like salted caramel and brown sugar with ginger, which I may or may not have sampled (after waiting in a queue with the cogniscenti).

So now I have one more reason to return to San Francisco, along with all the others like:

The Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market which was Saturday's destination. The other times I've been to this big daddy of Farmer's markets, it's been early Autumn, so it was interesting to see the produce on sale. There was still the salmon, oysters and organic meats, but this time the growers were offering lots of citrus and still some apples. Little tiny brussels sprouts and multi-coloured chats were a feature and then in one small stall I spotted:

Salsify! There was a huge pile of it, and as I headed over so too did a local chef who was beside himself- he said he'd never seen this at the Farmer's Market before. Well once he had finished picking up several kilos, there wasn't a lot left, but I snaffled one alien looking root. I've never cooked it before, so am looking forward to roasting it and serving it with some free range pork and another purchase of the day: home-pickled sauerkraut.

After dropping my purchases back at the hotel I headed back to Fort Mason. It was a gorgeous day, and in a city where most people live in apartments the park was packed and it was very hard to enjoy the day without being in danger of being hit in the head by a football, rolled over by a bike or accosted by a dog, so instead I took advantage of my lovely balcony with gorgeous views to finish the day with a Corona.

Early night for an early start to head over to the Alameda Antiques Faire (sic), which turned out to be a marathon exercise. I took three forms of public transport and a 2km walk to get to this massive fair which is set on the former naval base runways which are often featured in Mythbusters. There were literally hundreds of stalls, and I spent around 4 hours wandering up and down the aisles. I found some real treasures, got some inspiration for some new lines for the shop and made a few contacts with dealers who're prepared to ship to Australia, so an exhausting but profitable day. After another mammoth public transport trip back home I went to the movies, had dinner at a diner and am now planning my last three days in this fabulous city.

Adventures in the Mission

2011-02-05T17:26:00.001+11:00

I'm fairly sure it was intentional, but the soundtrack of the movie The Mission was playing as I queued up at Arizmendi Bakery this morning. Arizmendi is a good example of the ethical food movement in San Francisco, and was the first accidental discovery on my eating/book tour of the city's Mission district. The Mission is named for the Mission Dolores, San Francisco's oldest building, & perhaps most famous for its appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. It is predominantly Hispanic, but in recent years has begun to see an influx of uber-trendy boutiques, gift stores & ethical foodie destinations like Arizmendi. I was on a wander along Valencia St when the smell of roasted garlic assailed me. The next smell was coffee and that was the clincher. And surprise surprise it was REALLY good coffee. I was tempted by the smells from the pizza oven, but given my mission (ahem) was the food of Mexico I resisted and instead had a latte and a ginger shortbread biscuit. Arizmendi is a worker-owned cooperative bakery, along the lines of the Cheeseboard Bakery in Berkeley (and as I discovered later, was actually initiated by the Cheeseboard co-op in 2000).

My next destination was Mission Pie, not-for-profit whose cafe and bakery not only provide pies and baked goods produced from local sustainable sources, but also provide employment for local youth. Like Arizmendi, the focus at Mission Pie is as much about being good citizens as it is about producing good food, but the food there was good too. I bought a small pie for tonight's dinner (although given the eating schedule today, I think it might end up being tomorrow's dinner).

As I wandered the streets of the Mission, I was struck by the stark contrast between the busy, dirty and in many cases derelict main thoroughfare of Mission St itself and the surrounding streets which were quiet, clean and charming - it was like some variation of the Cone of Silence kept it contained. There was a whole block of Mission St which must have been the entertainment block with 4 former movie theatres now completely unused (except as a discount store in one case) They were very sad shadows of their former glorious selves.

I headed past a couple of Colombian and Ecuadorian restaurants, providing variety amongst all the Taquerias. One of them is Mr Pollo, which has had some really good reviews, and might be worth a visit another time. It's publicity is obviously working as there was a bit of a queue outside, mostly of trendy young things.

I kept coming across little treasures: a storefront for an importer of vanilla and saffron which directed me to the icecream store across the road where they sold the vanilla and saffron and used it in their icecream. The smell inside was amazing and they had window displays of mountains of vanilla beans.

There were some gorgeous gift shops, a herbalist, a shop called "Her Majesty's Secret beekeeper" dealing exclusively in honey and beeswax products, and I didn't even get to 18th street and BiRite Grocery and Icecreamery.

OK so now its lunch time- I had asked the lovely Samantha in Omnivore Books for a recommendation on where to eat good Mexican food. She suggested either El Farolito (which she said was a gringo take on the cuisine) or Papolote for genuine fare. I decided on authentic fare at Papolote and headed off to find it.

I walked straight past it the first time. Its a small hole in the wall with no name in the door. The food may not be gringo, but the place was full of them, probably because the previous night it had been on a tv show hosted by celebrity chef Bobby Flay. Seeing the burritos come out and that they were, like most burritos in the States, HUGE, I order instead the Chili Verde pork tacos and a watermelon aqua fresca. As is also the case with most taquerias, a bowl of corn chips is served while you wait - this time with Papolote's spicy house salsa. The filling is delicious, but I end up eating it with a fork because the tortillas fall apart when I try to pick them up.

I finished the day with some bookshops - the Mission is full of them. Mostly they stock indie, art and literature, so I wasn't really looking for cookbooks (but found some anyway!) This, I keep thinking, is why San Francisco is my kind of town. Not just great food, but conscious, ethical food (although there's lots of the other sort, I just don't eat there) not just bookshops, but a culture and an ethos that allows these bookshops to remain open, indeed thrive.

Golden diner, Cooking Class and a confession

2011-02-02T17:26:00.002+11:00

I started off the morning at one of my favourite places to have breakfast in San Francisco. The Golden Coffee looks sad and worn but the food is always really good.I spent a comfortable hour at the counter in the sun reading a paper and eating a freshly made avocado and Jack Cheese omelette with salsa, a fresh hash brown and coffee for the princely total of $7.75. Here's the confession - I enjoyed that meal many times more than last night's meal at Chez Panisse for 15 times that amount.

Part of this is the fact that despite my being on my way to 50, I didn't feel comfortable being at the restaurant. Oh I know that the travel and dining guides say take a book, but who reads a book at the table of a restaurant like Chez Panisse?

There is another aspect to this: without wanting to sound conceited, because that is not my intention, I know that on a good night and with the right quality ingredients, I could produce a similar meal. I am equally certain that I could not have produced an omelette and hash brown as good as the one I had this morning.

Today was also the day for my cooking class at Sur Le Table. It was a beginner's class,
but I wanted to see how someone else did it and perhaps get some ideas for the classes I'll be doing this year. It was a nice group of people, and for me it was interesting to spend time with a group of locals. In the three hour class we made a spaghetti with tomato sauve, a fennel and haricot verte salad, rice pilaf, mashed potatoes and a French omelette, which only proved to me my earlier sentiments about the omelette I had at the Golden - there is a real skill to doing one well.

I ended the day visiting, with great trepidation, a store called Cookin' in the suburb of Bernal heights. Cookin' specialises in vintage and antique kitchenware, including French kitchenware. My trepidation came from reading lots of reviews of the place which mentioned the very cranky owner. Well I met the cranky owner ( who all but accused me of stealing her mobile phone which she had misplaced while attedning to her cute dog just after I walked in) but also her lovely assistant. This place is an absolute treasure-chest ( but also Pandora's Box) crammed to the ceiling with piles of pots, pans, cutlery, baking pans, cookie cutters, signs anything you can think of related to cooking. Prices are pretty steep for most things, meaning that most of what I bought will be for display in the shop not for sale. She had a compete range of cannelle moulds in every size, the smallest of which (about a TBS quantity) were $17.95 each. An impressive collection of copper pots was tempting, but I had to rmind myself that I can't take anything too bulky back. I made a beeline for the back wall lined with cookbooks, stepping over a fallen sign on the way. I browsed for a few minuted before hearing the owner say to her assistant: "Cookbooks!" He bustled over to me and apologised that I couldn't enter that section because they were pricing new arrivals there, and the sign I had stepped over had been intended to stop customers entering. As I paid for my few purchases, I told him I was a cookbook seller here on a buying trip. "You should come back later in the week" I was told, and I'd be able to look through the cookbooks - but I should probably come on a day when he was working there and I wouldn't have to deal with Judith. Well I don't think I'll bother, despite the treasures within, I'm not sure I'm prepared to spoil my trip by dealing with an unpredictable and cranky proprietor.

Gourmandising: Omnivore & Chez Panisse

2011-02-02T16:59:00.002+11:00

Really I shouldn't be allowed out on my own. TWICE today I have got on public transport going in the complete opposite direction from where I should have been going. Neither occasion managed to put a dampener on what was a great foodie/book day.

On impulse early this morning I decided to see if I could get a booking for the Chez Panisse Monday night dinner. I was in luck for the early sitting of 5.45. This really meant I shouldn't spoil my appetite with any other restaurant visits, so instead I set out to visit for the first time Omnivore Books on Food in Noe Valley. On the way I popped in to Bay Books - the Friends of SF Library's book shop in the main library. Some nice books there, but with luggage weight limits in mind, I confined myself to a couple of paperbacks.

I also took the opportunity to visit San Francisco's spectacularly grand and OTT city hall. With acres of marble and a dome which wouldn't be out of place in a Florentine cathedral, it really is worth a visit.

So off then to the storybook-pretty neighbourhood of Noe Valley. Omnivore Books is somewhat appropriately located in a former butcher shop, with the original pulley system and red cedar-lined coolroom still intact. Shop manager Samantha was a charming host, who managed to share her love of food and cookbooks despite a bad case of laryngitis. Omnivore's offering is small but perfectly formed and selected. Its choice scattering of out-of-print and scarce books on a range of subjects reflect owner Celia's previous occupation as a rare book specialist with a local auction house. The shop has a great range of subjects and quite a good selection of Australian authors.

Celia has recently had the good fortune to become the cookbook expert for Williams-Sonoma, the kitchenware giant. Each month WS has an "Omnivore recommends..." section and it must be great for business. I had a very pleasant, and quite inspiring, hour in the store, and came up with a couple of ideas for my own business ( although I don't think I can persuade Housei or Minimax to have a Vintage Cookbooks recommends... selection).

After a quick stop at Mission Dolores Park for some amazing views of the city:

I headed back to my hotel to get my gladrags on. d lots of time to get across the bay to Berkeley because I got on a BART train going in the opposite direction. After getting off at the end of the line I finally caught the right train and arrived at Chez Panisse right on time. I had loved the more casual, a-la-carte upstairs cafe when I visited Jonathan at Berkeley in 2008, so was eager to try the famous set menu dinner in the more formal restaurant. It's a beautiful room, warm, woodlined and accented with arts and craft copper light fittings. The staff were lovely and my server suggested that I was on my own she would match half-glasses of wine with the three course meal. First course was two delicate whole Monterey Bay squid stuffed with a breadcrumb stuffing flavoured with currants and mint. Main course (sorry 'Entree') was grilled, locally grown pork served with a mash of butternut squash, chard and two delicate crispy onion rings. The dessert was not a great conclusion to the meal - the grapefruit sorbet with prosecco gelee was too bitter for my palate and I didn't feel it suited the preceding courses.

My conclusion? Probably because I was on my own, I think I preferred the experience of the upstairs cafe. The atmosphere in the restaurant was really geared towards couples and groups. There were lots of regulars in attendance who got lots of special attention, and honestly I was glad when the meal was over and I could leave. As I left I took a walk through the gorgeous open kitchen, where everyone was very welcoming despite working hard at prepping for the next sitting (including Alice Waters herself who was working at a table in the kitchen.) Perhaps that's the thing - I'm much more confortable behind the scenes where the food gets cooked!

As I walked back to the station I managed to find two bookshops and a couple more books to bring home.

Photos from New York

2011-01-31T15:44:00.012+11:00

Here is an album of Photos from New York. They're in a random order until I get better internet connection.

Last two days in New York

2011-01-31T07:02:00.001+11:00

In the interests of calling this trip to New York a business trip, I decided to make my way this morning to Kitchen Arts & Letters, apparently the pre-eminent cookbook store in New York (some say the US). I got there early so (also in the interests of research for ummm Cake Committee?) I stopped in at the Crumbs cupcake and bake shop for breakfast. Crumbs is one of a large chain, and despite its pretty fitout and displays of nice baked goods, the muffin I had tasted cake-y and mass-produced. It has been the thing I have noticed most about food in New York: It seems that as soon as anyone has a succesful individual food store/restaurant/bakery or sees the success of someone else's, the first impulse is to open a chain of them or start franchising the concept. In my (humble) opinion, the product suffers from having to be produced to a uniform standard. The best food I had in New York was the food I that had been produced individually - Katz's deli where the pastrami for your sandwich is cut from the hunk of pastrami to order by your server. Sometimes this means you end up with a hunk of gristle or fat (and I have been told the fat is the good part!) but for the most part the sandwich is the better for it. At Zabar's bakery, the danish looks a lot more rustic than at some of the chain bakeries, but it also looks a lot more appetising and like it has been made by a person and not a machine. I think that's why I so enjoyed Bonnie's food tour, all the shops we visited were stand alone, and the closest they came to mass production was that the Yonah Shimmel supplies its Knishes to some delis and bakeries. And the donuts from the Donut Factory are sold at a couple of other outlets. And what was also notable about the places we visited (and the ones I visited on snow day) was that the owner was usually in attendance and they were staffed by people who had a pride in their product and had often been working there for years (decades in many cases).
Anyway enough of my own personal soap box. The only thing I took out of the Crumbs experience was the 'colossal cupcakes' they sold. Boy what a great birthday cake they would make!

So by now Kitchen Arts and Letters had opened and I spent an enjoyable half hour checking out their selection of new books. They have a tiny section of out-of-print (2 shelves) but I did pick up a couple of Russian cookbooks and also some purchases for myself - a book called "Save the Deli" on (you guessed it) Jewish Delicatessens and another on the radio cooking shows of the early twentieth-century in America. K A & L had a very impressive collection of food history titles which is something I'd like to expand in the shop, and I think in some cases I'll have to resort to buying new to provide the variety. However I came away feeling that our own Books for Cooks in Melbourne does new cookbooks much better (Tim is twice as big for a start) and visiting the shop wasn't the friendly experience I had at Bonnie's and I hope people have when they come into my shop.

Back on the subway to ride down to Canal Street which is notorious for it's counterfeited handbags and jewellery. On the way my mariachi band reappeared! Well A mariachi band appeared. They looked like different guys this time and I suspect they're a little like the Chilean bands that seem to spring up at every outdoor market in Australia (another franchise perhaps?)

I spent all of ten minutes at Canal Street before decideing it wasn;t my scene and decided instead to walk over to the Brooklyn Bridge which was ( kind of ) nearby. The walk was cold and at times a little difficult to negotiate because of the piles of snow which had accumulated. It took aout an hour to walk from Canal Street and over the bridge, with a couple of stops to ooh and aah (internally - travelling on your own means that these kind of spots require some restraint to avoid people thinking you're a crazy!)

I got a little lost trying to find a pizzeria which had been recommended to me by a Brooklyn local in of all places a Madison Avenue watch shop. When I finally found Grimaldi's it was clear that it had become a spot in the tourist guides. There was a line of people waiting outside in the cold and checking out the prices ( and the fact that they don;t sell slices ?!?) I decided that it wasn't worth wait in cold wet boots (there seemd to be more of those corner puddles in Brooklyn than Manhattan).

So instead I caught a subway back to Astor Place and took a long snowy walk to Bonnie's stopping on the way for lunch at "Bruce's - Baker to the Stars" (don't ask me, that's what the place was called, with no evidence of any stars) where when you order even the smallest toasted sandwich they present you with a sample basket of their baked goods - which I got them to put in a doggy bag for Bonnie (and Abrahamn Lincoln).

Saturday 29th:

The most notable discovery of my last day in new York was that I have reached that certain age- this morning as I took a last look around New York, a young man on the subway got up and offered me his seat!! I tried to be gracious, but was mourning inside!!
I paid a flying visit to Ellis Island, passing by the Statue of Liberty on the way. One interesting thing of note on hte ferries out to the isalnds and back was that the maritime workers must be some kind of closed union shop - for the first time in New York, every accent I heard among the men working on them was a broad New York accent, of the kind you hear in the movies, and of the kind I had heard very little of in new York.

I also decided to visit the World Trade Centre museum, as it was very close to the ferry. I had made a decision early on that I wouldn;t go to Ground Zero, I feel too much like it would be an intrusion. I'm not sure I gained anything from the visit, it had me in tears, and I did feel as if I was intruding. I was also taken aback to see men on the street corners offering 'souvenirs' of September 11.

SO that was New York. I'm now back in my lovely (big) hotel room in San Francisco with a glorious view of the city and the bay (and it's own bathroom) and spending a rainy San Francisco day catching up on sleep, washing, business and blogging in that order. The flight back was a bit of a nightmare - who knew that a 4 1/2 hour flight one way could become a 6 1/2 hour on return? I've got a few things planned for San Francisco (well for me in San Francisco) mostly about book-buying but also a few food ventures down to the Mission district and also to see if there are any New York style delicatessens in the city.

Photos from snow day

2011-01-30T05:16:00.001+11:00

I've been having problems incorporating photos into my blog so here are some from Thursday

- Lox and cream cheese bagel at Barney Greengrass the Aturgeon King.

Zabar's:

Pickles at Zabar's

Meuviel Copper Pans (drool):

Little House on the Prairie icecream makers:

One of the bakeries:

Snail Shells - pretty!

Snow Day in New York, Zabars, Barney Greengrass and kitchens

2011-01-29T15:04:00.002+11:00

After yesterday's snow storm, New York woke up snowbound. Morning tv shows were telling me that New York has broken snow records this winter, and yesterday there was 15 inches. Plans to go bookbuying in New Jersey were abandoned and I instead stepped out to spend a day checking things off the list. It turned out to be a really great day. The city looked magical, particularly because it wasn't actively snowing and there seemed to be a holiday atmosphere in the air. Negotiating the street crossings became the most difficult part of negotiating the snow. On roads where the snow ploughs had been, they created huge drifts of snow on the side of the road which over the day melted leaving often huge puddles right at the corner. Sometimes the surface of the puddles would be covered in a layer of floating grit which makes it looks like a solid surface- and you get the idea, you step on it and end up with water above your ankles!!!

Snow ploughs at the corner of 5th Avenue.

My first stop for the day was the Met. It backs on to Central Park and because it had been declared a snow day, there were groups of excited kids (& adults) carrying every variety of toboggan and snowboards.

I was very tempted to skip the museum and just go straight to the park, but I had a plan for the day. I was glad I did go in as they have an impressive American history display of house interiors and furnishings from the pilgrims through to the early 20th century. It is housed behind the facade of an early 19th century home which was transferred to the museum.

There was also an incredible collection of suits of armour

After a visit to the gift shop I finally got to Central Park (passing a great little cupcakes food truck on the way)

Just behind the Met is a hill which was crowded with kids tobogganing and building snowmen. 2 kids had set up a stand selling hot chocolate - very enteprising!

I think Central Park has been my favourite part of New York. It is such a wonderful public space in the middle of this huge busy city. Today it was much busier than on my previous visit, but even more magical with all the snow:

More tobogganers:

I walked across the park and headed to another New York institution: Barney Greengrass- the self-proclaimed Sturgeon King. One room was like a more disorganised and cluttered version of yesterday's Russ and Daughters: all sorts of smoked and pickled goods, a selection if baked goods and a few tables set up in the middle of the room. The room next door is a small dining room with a menu mostly of sandwiches and tasting plates of the delicacies on offer next door. I ordered a Lox and cream cheese in an 'everything' bagel (all the toppings- poppy seeds sesame seeds, salt and some dried onion)My waiter suggested having it with tomato and onion which was inspired, adding some crunch and sharpness to the creamy, smoky filling. Once again at $12.95 plus a tip it wasn't cheap, and I discovered I could have ordered it next door for much less. You live and learn!

My next stop had been recommended by Simon- A customer in Bonnie's shop on Sunday night & boy what a great tip. Zabar's is two stores in one; on the ground floor is yet another deli along the usual lines except 5 times as big as any I've been to so far. In addition to the usual deli goods they have a large section of coffees, several bakeries, a huge cheese section, a takeaway shop and much more. Upstairs is a kitchen supplies department. As with the downstairs sections, they have everything you can imagine, but on a large scale. Not just one set of kitchen scales, but a whole aisle end of about 25 different models; more than 10 models of icecream makers, including three of the handcranked salt models you would see in an episode of Little House on the Prairie!

There were fish poachers, Mauviel copper pans in every size; Le Creuset in all the colours including tems I didn't even know existed like a mussel pot. I had a ball at Zabar's, but came away only with a small quiche for tonight's dinner and a can of a soda Bonnie introduced me too in Katz's yeterday - it's called Cel-Ray and you've guessed it, it tastes llike celery. It is possibly the most revolting drink I've ever had, but my son Jonathan is amused by unusual flavoured drinks so I thought he would get a kick out of it. (Act surprised Jono!)

I had one more stop after Zabar's - to MOMA to check out their exhibition of their kitchen-related objects in the collection. It was a small but perfectly-formed (or curated) exhibit. I was particularly interested in the working model of the Frankfurt Kitchen from the 1920s. I trudged back to the hotel from MOMA - quite a hike, through lots of crossings with impassable puddles, and got back with wet feet and a little of the charm of snow day having rubbed off. Tomorrow - who knows what I'll do!

Kasha Knish at Yonah Shimmel, and other food adventures in the Lower East Side

2011-01-28T13:33:00.003+11:00

Well I had been anticipating snow and today I got snow, inches and inches of it. In the morning as I had my breakfast I took a photo of a little red scooter that is always parked at the top of my street (I guess it's not really scooter weather!) This morning it was completely covered in snow.

This was the day for my food and bookshop tour of the East Village and Lower East Side with Bonnie and we soldiered on through it - wading through snow-covered sidewalks splashing through slushy puddles and walking head down as it snowed on us!

I met Bonnie at Strand Books (no new purchases from there) and we headed off to three local secondhand booksellers in the area. Bonnie was the perfect host and there was no elbowing for access to the cookbook shelves! I picked up a couple of excellent preserving books and some Eastern European cookbooks that are so hard to find in Australia. We also paid a visit to the Housing Works Bookshop. Housing Works provides housing for people with AIDS and they have a really great bookshop with good quality stock as well as a nice cafe up the back of the store. Books are reasonably priced and there were a couple of treasures for Bonnie and I. Bookbuying behind us, we headed off on the serious business of the day, a tour of some of Bonnie's favourite local specialty food shops, ending with a trip to Katz Delicatessen, recommended by just about every tour guide for a taste of an old fashioned New York deli.

First stop was at Yosha Shimmel for a Knish. Bonnie used to come here with her Dad when they came to New York from New Jersey. We were pacing ourselves and split a kasha knish which is made from buckwheat and eaten with lots of mustard. It was a first time for me, and my best description for it would be that it is dumpling-like, soft but dense and warming - perfect comfort food for a snow day. The shop is in original condition, complete with the dumb waiter that brings the many varieties of knishes up from the basement kitchen:

Next stop was just a few doors down at Russ and Daughters (although no daughters were in attendance yesterday) This 'awesome' delicatessen is an Aladdin's cave of smoked fish, caviars, cheese spreads of every sort, barrels of pickles, pickled fish etc.

After leaving this wonderland, we headed off on a tour of the neighbourhood, including a stretch which used to be populated by fabric and dress shops as well as lingerie shops where apparently (according to the local expert) the old Jewish proprietors can size you up for a new bra just by looking at you (with clothes on!).

We also passed through the edges of what used to be known as Little Italy, but which is slowly being encroached upon by Chinatown.

Other food stops along the way included the Donut Factory, where I sampled a creme brulee donut and picked up a Meyer Lemon donut for Bonnie's friend Chris who minded the store so we could play.(Unfortunately my Iphone managed to delete a lot of my photos from today. I've got others on my camera, but haven't been able to download them due to very slow wireless at the hotel)

A little bakery a few doors down supplied a bagel to go with my smoked sabel and cream cheese for the next morning's breakfast. We headed over to another bakery for more Jewish specialties including what Bonnie called a bell - a small cake with a spongebase, a ground poppyseed filling in a chocolate shell - it had an unusual, almost marzipan-like flavour. As we arrived at the shop school was letting out across the road, and behind us came mums with kids to buy after-school treats. Two old men were in serious conversation with the young Orthodox man behind the counter - it turned out he was showing one of them how to use a large-numbered mobile phone. As he turned to leave one of the old men said to Bonnie and I - "you see that man? He is a good man. Do you know why? Because he is my friend" It was very sweet, the closest an elderly Jewish man could come to saying "I love you man".

By now dusk was closing in and we headed over for a quick look around the Essex Market ( artisan cheese stands alongside a huge Hispanic grocery) before visiting Economy Candy - a huge shop with floor to ceiling shelves and bins of candies of every description- old-fashioned American favourites that are now apparently hard to come by, English specialties, a wall of jelly-bellies, I even found some lollies I remember from my childhood: Sen-Sen, Chiclets and chocolate cigarettes among them. The sweet smell of candy was everywhere and the shop was packed with people stocking up. Like most of the other stores, Mr Economy Candy was in attendance.

Our final stop, Katz's Delicatessen is a New York institution and Bonnie had saved it for last. As we walked in to the sawdust-covered room we were handed a number and made our way to the long counter stretching the length of the room. Behind each station a man would serve you and writte the total on the ticket which was presented to teh cashier as we left. Bonnie bought us a hot dog with sauerkraut to split while we checked out the other goodies. The pastrami man gave us samples of his wares as he prepared our enormous pastrami on rye sandwich (at $14.95 it was pricey, but tradition doesn;t come cheap!).

Loaded down with goodies, dead on our feet and very cold, we decided to catch a cab back to Bonnie's shop to relieve Chris and split our pastrami on rye, sample chocolate cigarettes and baked goods and (for me) buy some more cookbook treasures from Bonnie's shelves. Having decided that taxis are the way to go I caught one back to the hotel. Snow was falling quite heavily and the streets were becoming increasingly covered, making thecab slide a bit on the roads, so I was quite glad to get back to my small warm room.

18 miles of books (& almost as many of tunnels)

2011-01-26T16:27:00.001+11:00

This has been one of those days where, despite checking some of the things on that list, I don't feel like I achieved much. After a very ordinary breakfast at the chain health food restaurant Natureworks across from my hotel, I paid a visit to the famous Strand Books. Snow was falling and around every corner there seemed to be a bakery tempting me to abandon my journey (Why I thought scrambled eggs made only of egg whites would taste of anything I have no idea, but I feel I should get points for trying to eat healthy right?)

Strand Books bills itself as having 18 miles of books on it's four levels. I only made it to the 1/4 mile of cookbooks, and didn't go too mad, picking up a couple of copies of My Life in France by Julia Child which are on the wants list for customers, and a nice paperback on molecular gastronomy.

I had planned a trip to MOMA for their kitchen exhibition, but wouldn't you know it they're closed on a Tuesday. It's actually quite hard to be an early-rising tourist in New York. As I have discovered, most museums and shops don't open until 10.30/11. This turned out not to be a problem when I decided to go the American Natural History Museum, as I spent close to 30 mins on various subways to get there. The thing about New York ( well Manhattan more specifically) public transport is that there are lots of intersecting lines going across and up & down and sometimes to get to where you need to you have to catch, in my case today, three different trains. And swapping between the two is no easy matter, with tunnels leading you what feels like miles up stairs down ramps, around corners. It gets so that by the time you get out of there you barely know which way is up, let alone North South East or West- the absolute essentials if you want to get around!! Aaaanyway my convoluted subway journey eventually brought me back to Central Park, with a fresh dusting of snow:

The Museum was full of excited kids and after a cursory look around, I decided that I couldn't be bothered and got BACK on the subway to head over to Bryant Park and the New York Public Library.

The Bryant Park Iceskating rink is overlooked by a row of lovely early 20th century buildings:

The library is a real treat, very traditional, and even better, free wifi!

So a couple of things ticked off, it was off next to queue for half-price theatre tickets on Times Square. When you step away from the glitz and neon,on a few of the streets you can still get a feeling for what the district used to look like, with lots of theatres still maintaining their old facades:

I got what I came for: tickets to see La Cage aux Folles, and then headed to the Roxy Diner on Times Square for a late lunch. In the interests of research and trying local foods I ordered Matzo Ball Soup:

and a huge slice of New York Cheesecake ( Jonathan & Hayley's is better). The best thing about the soup was it was warm!

On the way back to the hotel (via Madison Ave for some shopping) I walked through the Diamond District. What a sight! Every shop in the street was jewellery related and in front of EVERY one was one or two guys shouting 'We buy gold and diamonds' or variations thereof. Ocasionally one would say as I walked past 'You buying today ma'am?' - I wish! They reminded me of nothing so much as the touts in Las Vegas who line the thoroughfares shoving handbills in your face for strippers and 'escorts'.

The best part of my day came at the end of it. Having freshened up, put my gladrags on & caught my first New York taxi, I headed back to Times Square, now all lit up as required:

The show was amazing- packed house in an intimate space with incredible performances by most of the cast. This is one of the things on my list I'll be checking off twice!

Off to the East Village for a tour of bookshops and food with Bonnie today- should be fun!

Grand Central, pastrami on rye & spectacular views

2011-01-25T13:48:00.005+11:00

First stop this morning was Grand Central Station for breakfast. What a stunning building it is. Completely dwarfed by surrounding skyscrapers, and apparently saved from the same fate by Jackie Onassis, you don't really realize until you enter the main hall how huge it is. The fascinating thing about the space though is how it absorbs sound and despite the high ceilings and marble cladding, it is quite a peaceful space, even at 9.30 on a weekday morning. The dining hall is a very democratic space with transients seeking shelter from the coldest morning of this winter, some snoozing in the comfortable armchairs, others rifling through the bins for recyclables and scraps. But there are also business men grabbing a coffee or, as at the table nextto mine, talking real estate and doing deals. And then of course there are the nosy tourists Luke me!! Last night at Bonnie's I bought a guide to NY markets and I wasted a subway travelling to Union Square where the best green market is except apparently not in the winter.

One of the highlights of the day came on the subway on the way up to Central Park. A Mariachi band jumped on at one stop, played a cheeky version of Guantanamera and jumped off at the next stop before I had time to pull out my wallet (& probably before they were thrown off!) Everyone in the crowded carriage studiously looked down, but it gave me the giggles!

Another highlight was Central Park. I entered at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onnasis Reservoir, which was stunning under its cover of snow and ice:

It was another of those spots I had read so much about, but which in 'person' exceeded all expectations. In the middle of this huuuge busy city there was only a handful of die-hard locals and determined tourists on the paths. It was quiet, white and peaceful. I walked down to the south-eastern corner, stopping to watch squirrels, a Mum taking her toddlers down a slope on a toboggan, a family building snowmen in the middle of a meadow,and ice-skaters on the pond and then bought a pretzel outside the gate opposite the Apple store & FAO Schwarz and started heading down towards Eisenberg's for lunch. (As an aside I have found the famed 'street food' of New York disappointing and pretty uninspiring. Perhaps I'm only seeing the 'touristy ones' and should get off the beaten track - or on Twitter - to find them).

After a stop at the Rockefeller Centre with its spectacular views and amazing concourses, I headed to Eisenberg's for lunch. This had been recommended by the New York Times food critic Sam Sifton as a spot for history buffs who wanted a taste of old-style New York diners. I sat down for the obligatory Pastrami on Rye and something called a chocolate egg cream which it turns out is not a milkshake but instead a combination of chocolate syrup, milk and soda water - not sure where the egg is.
I was amused to hear a local comment to the owner ( who I have discovered in this and other diners always stand at the door to meet and greet and seldom move from there) why it was busy. The answer 'that guy from the New York Times Sam something or other recommended it' My opinion of it? Meh. I think I could get better food elsewhere. The pastrami was a bit greasy and the rye bread was too skinny to hold it in. Pickles were good though. The sign outside the door said it all: 'Eisenberg's, you either get it or you don't'

Back on a subway after lunch to head back up to the Empire State Building observatory. The great thing about being in New York at this time is there have been no lines to get into any of the sights. The entry hall to the Empire State is huge and I can just imagine what the lines must be like to require that many acres of space and red velvet rope.
It was well worth the $30-odd to get this perspective on the city. As we got onto the lift for the 87 floor ride we were accompanied by the maroon liveried staff for a change of shift. These guys had balaclavas and gloves and scarves and some wise-ass guest said "where you headed? Alaska?" The guard's deadpan muffled response? "You'll get it" and boy did he get it, we all did. It was right before sunset and the wind chill factor must have made it several degrees below zero. I stayed up there until after the sun set and then went up to the 107th floor (enclosed) observatory for a final look around. Now I'm in the ever-present and reliable Starbucks warming up with a white chocolate macchiato and faster wireless than I have at the hotel. Tomorrow is apparently gong to be a wet one, so a day for the library, a couple of museums and another venture into Macy's. It's a tough job but someone's gotta do it.

Views from the Empire State

View from the Rockefeller

Lunch at Eisenberg's

Checking off the list

2011-01-25T01:29:00.002+11:00

It's not quite a bucket list, but after years of reading the New York Times and seeing the city itself in the popular culture I have been consuming most of my life, there were things I wanted to do and yesterday was a day of ticking off the list and also making new discoveries.First stop was breakfast at the diner around the corner from my hotel "Hotel 31" not a spectaularly good one, so it won't be my local wihle I'm here. I then walked across town -about 4kms - a meandering route with lots of snow and an icy wind. It continues to be very cold - I don't mind the cold and am well rugged up, but find it impossible to find a way to keep my face warm!! And its one of those things about being a stranger to this kind of weather - the sun is shining and I expected I'd get warmer as I walked, but instead I just got colder and colder, even in the sun! I saw the Empire State again, walked down Broadway (wow this is Broadway - it's a bit tatty down this end) My destination was the flea markets the Lonely Planet had recommended in Chelsea. I had planned a couple of hours there but was out in 10 minutes - must be too cold for lots of stall holders.
The Chelsea food markets were a different story, lots of 'artisanal' food shops in a gorgeous old re-purposed warehouse space.
There was even an Aussie pie stall call Tuck Shop, he wasn't open when I was there, but I can tell you that every Australian food cliche you've ever thought of was there. Lamingtons ($2) Pie Floaters, beef Pies, etc etc.
I had a warming latte and an

almond french toast (a little like Phillipa's Pain Perdu) and enjoyed window shopping the soup kitchen, seafood stores and more.
Following the interlude at the markets, I headed for the High Line, an abandoned elevated railway line which has been turned into a fantastic park and open space, with great views of the Hudson River and the old meatpacking district, which is a muddled combination of the original meat processing factories and alamai makers one one side and the upmarket brands like Stella McCartney and flash restaurants like Collichio and Sons. I think its a bit sad, but some people eould probably call it progress. There was also a cute littel ice-skating rink about the size of a loungeroom with little kids spinning around with flair.
I ticked off another item on the list - catching a subway- to get to the Staten Island Ferry ( another on the list) and took the one hour ferry to Staten Island and back for an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty. I braved the cold on the outside deck to take photos (will post later). Another long walk, this time from Union Square subway station back up to my hotel, via the popular Shake Shack in Madison Square Park for a piddly little hot dog eaten with an accompaniment of cheeky squirrels underneath the heaters.

The highlight of my first full day in New York was my visit to Bonnie Slotnick Coobooks. Bonnie has kindly been emailing me with advice about my visit and I stopped by to check out the shop (gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous) and ended up spending three hours there, with a couple of great customers and a tiny dog called Abraham Lincoln whom Bonnie is babysitting. Like most dogs, Abraham Lincoln took a dislike to me, growling anytime I came within a few feet of him. Anyway the shop is filled with treasures and Bonnie is a charming and very knowledgeable bookseller. I'm looking forward to a trip to New Jersey with her later this week to check out some bookshops, and she's promised me an eating tour of the East Village as well. I can't wait.

Today I'm off to Grand Central markets and the station itself to tick off another thing on the list. Also will heading up to Central Park and the Times Square area for a wander.. It is going to be the coldest day so far of winter, so it should be fun(!) I'm squeezing these things in now because forecasts are for sleet and snow for the three subsequent days, when I'll do all the indoor things on the list.

Of cold, iconic landmarks and old hotels

2011-01-23T14:57:00.001+11:00

Tonight I'm in New York and feeling my way around a new city very different from the familiar ( & warmer) San Francisco. First impressions were great- approaching JFK as the sun set and seeing that famous skyline in the distance,I couldn't help but feel a frisson of anticipation and excitement (I planned this leg mostly because my family said " You can't keep going back to America and not visit New York!) Two hours in a shuttle bus later, looking at traffic, piles of garbage and grimy banks of snow, I was less impressed. My hotel is an old-school shared bathroom building with food smells in the halls and a very old cage lift which trapped my finger as I struggled to keep it open to get my bags on board. But I've begun to warm up to the city ( figuratively at least): popping out to get a bottle of water from the corner store in the evening I looked up and saw, quite close by, the top of the Chrysler Building. I started to walk toward it and after a couple blocks, as I crossed a street, glanced to my left and saw rising up above the rows of 19th century townhouses the top of the Empire State Building. It brought a grin to my face- that's the Empire State Building!! The thing about seeing these two iconic buildings in real life was that as much as they are cliched landmarks, if you can strip away the tacky tourist shops and brand stores in your mind's eye, they are spectacularly beautiful deco buildings in their own right (and surrounded by smaller, unknown buildings of the same era which are just as impressive).
One problem with impromptu
night-time hikes though- a couple of hours later in my super-heated room, lmy legs and face are still icy to touch- must remember never to go out without my thermals and a hat and scarf!!

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Location:New York, New York

The Aussie invasion

2011-01-22T16:21:00.001+11:00

One big problem with the States at the moment: too many Aussies! Sitting down to lunch at The Cheesecake Factory on the top floor of Macy's (soup and salad hold the cheesecake for me)I could have been back in Melbourne, with the broad accents emanating from two tables. I heard them on the cable car that afternoon, in the lift this morning, and according to a lot of shop assistants we're buying up big all over town. Later in Walgreens looking for gloves, two blokes come towards me: "Nah mate- just buy a whole lotta t-shirts then ya got no washin'" & with the price of many things so much cheaper, and the AUD close to parity, it seems we're all doing that over here.

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Tacos are not crunchy!

2011-01-20T14:23:00.001+11:00

Yes I already knew this, but just for those who've only ever eaten a taco in Australia, this is a taco: a soft handmade corn tortilla with spicy flavoursome fillings, two in fact: a taco de carnitas (braised pork) and a taco de carne asada ( grilled beef) Washed down with a honeydew aqua fresca on the ferry terminal plaza. For your own taste try Mamasita in Collins St Melbourne- crazy busy, but just as good as these (although not $4 a serve, more like $14)

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Location:Mijita Cocina Mexicana Ferry Terminal San Francisco

Hopeless romantic

2011-01-20T07:37:00.001+11:00

A friend, who shall remain nameless, accused me of being a romantic because of my affection for San Francisco and my desire, during my regular visits, to live as a local. Well guilty as charged: because as I drive in from the ( clean efficient) SFO in a shuttle driven by a prosyletising Buddhist I DO feel a little like you do when you're on your way to meet someone special that you haven't seen for a long time. The sky is blue, the air crisp and while ( as with all homecomings) I had forgotten the seediness and shabbiness of parts of the city, I do feel at home. The plane flight over had nothing to commend it aside from my seat buddy, 84 year old Peg who travels to all sorts of out-of-the way and exotic places (this time NZ!) from her home 150 miles north of San Francisco. I have an invitation to 'drop in' if I'm up that way - and I think I'll take her up on it!

So off now to find a taqueria for lunch, and early to bed. Here's the view from my balcony:

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Location:San Francisco, CA

Back in the saddle again

2011-01-18T11:29:00.000+11:00

Well I'm off again - heading to the US for what I think the pollies call an 'education trip'. I'll be buying books of course, but also visiting several cookbooks shops in New York and California to see how they do business. I'm looking forward to catching up with Bonnie Slotnick in New York, whose Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks in Greenwich Village has something of a cult following. I'm also visiting the authoritative 'Kitchen Arts and Letters' and hope to drop in on Joanne Hendricks Cookbooks, also in Greenwich. In California there is the relatively new Omnivore Books in San Francisco, which has the enviable position of being associated with kitchen supply stores Sur le Table. As always I'll be blogging my travels, food adventures and discoveries here.

While I'm away the shop will be open Fridays and Saturdays from 11 -3, except for Friday January 21st, when it will be closed. My patient spouse David is also happy to open the shop by prior arrangement - weekends are best, but weekdays can also be organised. Give him a call on 0418 329 527 if you need a fix!

The Great Aus/NZ Pavlova Stoush - latest episode

2010-12-03T16:01:00.001+11:00

Well it's on again. This morning in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald hackles were raised on this side of the Tasman by the announcement that the Oxford English Dictionary has proclaimed the Pavlova a New Zealand invention (something the Kiwis have been claiming for decades while the Aussies make equally strident claims for it). Part of their logic for this was apparently the fact that " claimed the dessert was first recorded in New Zealand in 1927 in Davis Dainty Dishes, a publication of the Davis Gelatine Company."

As the SMH's go-to "leading expert on pavlova" (I wonder if that's what it says on her business cards) Dr Helen Leach correctly cautions, the pavlova in the Davis booklet is actually a jelly impostor. Here's a scan of the aforementioned Davis Dainty Dishes from 1927, and as you'll see, it was a publication which oiginated in Sydney but was also published in New Zealand and South Africa at the same time (meaning by the OED's standards South Africa could also claim the Pav). You'll also see that the Pavlova in the cookbook was not, as it is today a light as air meringue confection, but a layered jelly which vaguely resembles a tutu. I don't have an opinion either way about who can claim the Pavlova, but the OED will need to find something else to back up its claim aside from Davis Dainty Dishes (which by the way is a great source of recipes for gross things like Sheep Tongue Shapes:

That's not an old cookbook - THIS is an old cookbook

2010-09-19T14:24:00.002+10:00

I have had an exciting couple of months on the vintage cookbook scene, which accounts for my silence on the blog front. First I tracked down for a Melbourne institutional library the holy grail for Australian cookbook collectors -The English and Australian Cookery Book: Cookery for the many as well as the Upper Ten Thousand by an Australian Aristologist. published in London in 1864.( You can read about its author Edward Abbott, a Tasmanian politician, in Colin Bannerman's entry for the Australian Dictionary of Biography . Even better read Colin's excellent history of early Australian cookery books A Friend in the Kitchen). Essentially it is a must-have for serious collectors because it is widely accepted as the first Australian cookery book. It is as scarce as... well as scarce as the first Australian cookery book really! When Fedex finally delivered this treasure (at great expense!) from the US I opened up the enormous package to find a small and slightly unprepossessing book, with a couple of nice engravings (particularly the title page which you can see below) and an amusing text on the vagaries of cooking and eating in the colonies (apparently kangaroo makes a good substitute for venison). The library were very happy to have it, and I felt the satisfaction of having managed to find it for them.

However my next purchases brought home for me the relative youth of Australia's European settlement and culinary scene - I bought a library of books which included 5 English cookery books published 100-150 years before Edward Abbott's, in fact three were published before Edward Abbott was even born in 1805. When you handle these beautiful books (very carefully!) you can literally feel the print on the thick, textured pages. While Edward Abbott's book is amusing in it's tone, in the earliest of these cookbooks the language and cookery terms are almost foreign (and the f for s mesfes with your brain!) In the earliest - a 1705 edition of William Salmon's The Family Dictionary or Household Companion household advice is mixed in with recipes, so a lengthy recipe for Lumber Pye (Take grated bread, cloves and mace finely beaten, beef suet cut fmall into fquare pieces, the veal or capon minced fmall) is followed by a treatment for Lunacy (apparently a bit of Angelica, rhubarb and other herbs boiled in spring water and given hourly while the victim rests in bed with a warm candle does the trick) One day I might try the killer recipe for Gingerbread, but doubt I'll be Fricafing any Neats-feet anytime soon!

Here are some photos of the others and and links to their descriptions on my website. A real treasure-trove.

The Housekeeper's Instructor or Universal Family Cook
by William Henderson (1805)

The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy
by 'A Lady' (Hannah Glasse) 1763

The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary
by Mary Eaton (1822)

A few of our favourite cakes - the first Melbourne meeting of The Cake Committee

2010-09-13T13:10:00.001+10:00

After a baking marathon by all concerned, yesterday was a great success for the first meeting of The Cake Committee. We had more than 25 cakes, 50 guests (yes that is half a cake each!!) and raised $600 for the loca, CFA and Melbourne charity second bite. Here's some photos to whet your appetite for the next meeting - which will be early December. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=227490&id=127227392025

Trial Baking - The countdown to the 1st Cake Committee tea-party begins

2010-09-04T13:23:00.007+10:00

Some of my friends think I'm a tad compulsive, and when it comes to preparing food for a big event I am inclined to agree. Ever since I first decided to convene a Melbourne slice of the Cake Committee I have become a little obsessed with what I should bake and wanting to make sure it turns out as perfect as possible. I scour the old baking books on my shelves, check out baking blogs and websites and dream up variations on past efforts. Much to my personal trainer Loz's despair, this compulsion naturally involves a lot of trial baking (but not too much tasting Loz, I promise). Here's one result:

The Chocolate Lush Cake from an old advertising pamphlet for baking powder. Actually called a Chocolate Plush Cake, I've replaced it's stodgy icing with a whisky marscarpone cream and a whipped chocolate ganache icing. The topping is pecan praline. Hiding shamefaced in the second picture is a trial baking failure - espresso macarons - I always said I wouldn't try making them, and I did and never will again!

If you would like the recipe email me on barbara@vintagecookbooks.com.au If you want to try the finished product, come along to our first meeting on September 12th, 2.30 - 4.30 at the Kallista Mechanics Hall on Tom Roberts Rd, Kallista (Melways 75 K$).

Tearooms at Yarck - a trip worth taking

2010-09-03T21:47:00.002+10:00

Every time we head off to North Eastern Victoria or I drive to Canberra or Sydney we drive out the back of the Yarra Valley through Yea and onto the Maroondah Hwy, passing through a series of little towns before eventually joining the Hume: Molesworth, Merton, Bonnie Doon and a "blink and you'd miss it" hamlet called Yarck. For several years now I've been hearing all sorts of good things about the little Italian trattoria which took over the Tearooms at Yarck (and which is now called, appropriately "The Tearooms at Yarck"). As we would sail through in the early hours of the morning or return at dusk on a weekday, I would always promise myself - I must come back when it's open!!

Well last weekend David and I drove to Euroa to test-drive a 1978 Holden ute ( it's a long story and involves neither food nor cookbooks, so I won't bore you with it). As I was plotting out our route (I'm a little OCD that way) I saw Yarck on the map, and made a snap decision that we were finally going to take the opportunity to eat at "Tearooms at Yarck". I booked for 6pm for what I thought would be a quick meal on the way home, and we rolled out of there at 8.45, groaning but satisfied. The lovely waitress offered us the option of dining a la carte from the small (but perfectly formed) blackboard menu or choosing the chef's tasting menu of 4 courses. Well at $79 it seemed like a good option to sample the Tearoom's wares so we settled down with a nice glass of Italian sangiovese and the dishes started arriving.

First up was a delicate dish of the freshest kingfish, raw, thinly sliced and served with a light vinaigrette. Then a procession of small antipasto samplers: marinated fresh octopus, white bean salad, two gorgeous sardine fillets, beetroot salad and more. After a short wait a small bowl of hearty artichoke soup, smoky and perfectly seasoned and garnished with slivers of deep-fried artichoke leaves arrived, accompanied as the earlier courses had been by a plate of house-baked sourdough. A slightly longer wait later was rewarded with two plates of 4 plump pumpkin and goat's cheese ravioli.

So if you, like me are counting, that's four courses right? fish, antipasto, soup and tortellini. For a moment I felt cheated - they had goat and suckling pig on the menu and I gave them up for ravioli? But wait here comes the waitress with fresh knife and fork. OK lets just go with the flow, Goat you say? yes please. Slow-braised and tender, but I have to say not as tasty as the ragu I make regularly, a couple of gristly bits in theres and not served with any other accompaniment so I pinch some of the soft polenta from David's dish of two snapper fillets, quickly grilled and apparently delicious.

Right that's it then - I'm happy, it's 8pm and it's a 1 1/2 hour drive back home so we should be in bed before ten. But then the waitress comes by with spoons and forks and I say - "There's more?" and she says "Yes Dessert!" A plate of semifreddo arrives, which we have almost finished when the waitress places a share plate of three desserts on the table: a lemon meringue tart, flourless chocolate cake and a tiramisu. How can we resist. With each mouthful we both swear we can't eat any more, but somehow finish it off; the chocolate cake is the star of the show, the tiramisu not quite as good as mine (if I say so myself!).

We ordered coffees to go and dragged ourselves up to the counter to pay. As I signed, I said to the waitress: "I thought I heard you say the chef's tasting menu was 4 courses" "Oh it is" she says, "but there were somethings not available so we gave you a few extras" A few extras!

In conclusion a wonderful meal, a welcoming venue (if a little chilly the night we were there) and knowedgeable wait-staff. The open kitchen was a treat to watch in the lulls during our meal, which was, with a couple of exceptions, near-flawless. Although bookings are highly recommended the restaurant was not full the night we were there. The diners were a nice mix: a local family having pizza (which I want to try next time, having watched the Pizzaioli at work all night), a well-heeled spring-autumn couple clearly down from the snowfields or their nearby weekend retreat; a family celebrating some family occasion. For me the bonus of eating a great meal at a great restaurant was also the knowledge that as far as possible the Tearooms sources much of their produce locally (very locally, given some of it comes from the farm owned by chef/owner Pietro Porcu). And having now finally experienced a meal there, I wasn't surprised to see it get a second hat from the Good Food Guide. We'll be back-possibly next week when we drive to pick up that ute!!

The Cake Committee - a Melbourne slice

2010-08-14T10:59:00.001+10:00

About a month ago now an article in the New York Times Dining section caught my eye. It was about the first gathering of the New York chapter (or slice as they call them) of 'The Cake Committee'. As I read I had a bit of road to Damascus moment- people who love to bake get together regularly and bake up a storm for other people who pay money to come along and taste the wares and the money goes to charity. What an inspired idea for those of us who are 'feeders' and need a willing and hungry audience to test out their creations. I emailed Peter Ting who, with several others, started the first Cake Committee in London and he was happy for me to start a slice in Melbourne. The first meeting of the Cake Committee Melbourne slice will be on September 12th, if you want more details, become a fan of the Cake Committee on Facebook and you'll receive an invite. The proceeds of our first meeting will be going to local CFAs.

Food Biographies

2010-07-30T15:22:00.000+10:00

What a great idea - Jill Dupleix in this week's Epicure shared her 'food biography' - the top ten dishes from her past to her current obsessions, and suggested we all do it. Many of mine relate to my childhood in South Africa:

1.Gem Squash: A lovely hard shelled, round squash about the size of a tennis ball not widely available in Australia. My mum and gran would cut them in half, scoop out the seeds, boil them and serve them with lashings of butter in the hollow. Then we'd mash the contents up. Tastes a little like a spaghetti squash. I remember having them at lunch-time at my child-care centre served with savoury mince in the hollow. Yumm.

2. Dark Treacl-y gingerbread with white icing. I've written about this an earlier blog - food has such a capacity to revive memories.

3. Koeksisters: A South African dessert/pastry. Pastry strips are plaited, fried in oil and then boiled in a thick sugar syrup. Absolutely insanely bad for you, but out-of-this world good tasting.

4. Boerewors: A thick, coarse textured sausage heavily flavoured with allspice. It is the absolute South African standard at barbecues (braais) and can be bought from butchers in Australia, particularly a few South African specialists, although I was once told that food laws here make it difficult to get the right balance of meat and fat.

5. Biltong: Dried meat - another South African staple, essentially dried meat which is first marinated in vinegar, brown sugar and coriander (the spices vary). Doesn't sound like much, but the marinade and drying processes make this a far superior product (and I'd argue much tastier) than beef jerky.

6. My Mum's oxtail stew: My Mum is a great offal cook. Unfortunately I am not a great offal eater. When my brother is out here from South Africa, Mum makes a point of preparing offal for him and my sister - I am not invited!! The exception to my offal aversion is Mum's oxtail stew, simply prepared by flouring, frying and then a long simmer in tomatoes and onions.

7. Mum's Pickled Tongue: OK sorry there are two exceptions to my offal aversion - Mum makes the best pickled and pressed tongue, sliced thinly, in a sandwich with picallili. Heaven. I have never attempted to cook it and doubt that my vegetarian and semi-vegetarians would even allow it in the house. Perhaps I should campaign for an invite to the next offal dinner!

8. Goat Ragu: Skipping into the present, this is hands-down my favourite thing to cook in the past few years. The Aga makes doing slow braises such a snap. Served with polenta or good quality gnocchi.

9. Elizabeth David's Flourless Chocolate Cake: The best chocolate cake ever, rich and dense, this is a ecipe I will be making forever - it never goes out of fashion.

10. Twice-Cooked Pork Belly: I've avoided mentioning the MC word, but yes I was a big fan of Master Chef, and I have made quite a few recipes from the show. This is my new favourite, in which the pork belly is cooked in a complex master stock (which had me running around the outer suburbs trying to find things like'cooking caramel' and rice wine. Not so easy when the nearest Asian grocer is 20 kms away), deep fried and then served in a reduction of the stock to which heaps of brown sugar is added. The beauty of this recipe is I discovered it works equally well with tofu!! All you have to do is split the original recipe in two, and replace chicken stock with vegetable stock and thne follow the same process.

That's my food biography, I could have gone to 20 - to include all the things I love to bake. Try it yourself, it's a lot of fun.

Outrageous and Odd Cookbooks

2010-06-25T15:12:00.013+10:00

I've been inspired by an article in The Huffington Post online: '"The most WTF cookbooks of all time" to post a list of my own. Frankly I think some of theirs are a bit tame (Last Dinner on the Titanic for example, which I have in stock and is actually an interesting historical cookbook). So herewith my Top 10 Outrageous and Odd Cookbooks from the shelves of Vintage Cookbooks.

#10: Manifold Destiny, Chris Maynard & Bill Scheller,

Only last on the list because it's been noted and blogged in several places. Manifold Destiny does, as it promises, show you how to cook all manner of things on the engine of your car. Recipes include Scion S'mores, Thruway Thighs and Donner Pass Red Flannel Hash (and if you don;t know what happened at Donner pass, Google it) The authors thoughtfully provide a list of the best 'tuck' spots for various makes and models of cars:

#9: "Cooking for Texture" by Josephine Emlee, Faber & Faber, 1957. This ranks with "A Surprise in Every Dinner" as an unfortunately titled cookbook which really doesn't inspire one to buy or use it. Mrs Emlee's premise is that "a dish may well come with all our requirements in five or six respects and fail completely if its texture is wrong". What follows is actually quite a good book on the science of cooking and food, if you can get past the title.

#8: Cool Cooking: Recipes of your favorite rock stars, Scholastic, New York, 1972. Yes this book really is as lame as it's cover art and back cover blurb suggests: "When they get into the kitchen what do the rock stars make? The Jackson 5 - a real cool hot chili con carne; The Who - luscious burnt sugar pudding; George Harrison - Yummy Peanut Butter and Banaa sandwiches.

#7: Annie Ross says "Come on In!" and try her favourite recipes, Andre Deutsch, 1972. (clearly a good year for lame cookbooks). Annie Ross was a jazz singer, and I suspect from the photo on the front cover, that a lot of her favourite recipes would include a large dash of alcohol in some form.

#6: Zorba the Buddha Rajneesh Cookbook, published by Rajneesh NeoSannyas International Commune, 1984. Remember Ma Sheila, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the Orange People? The sect's restaurants were also called Zorba the Buddha, which was apparently inspired by the Bhagwan's inspired insight that the new man "will be Christ and Epicurus together".

#5: Cooking with Fat, Bantam Book, 1995. An over-the-top answer to "culinary correctness", with such delectable dishes as Beef Intestines stuffed with Schmaltz (which for the uninitiated is chicken fat); Neck Fat Soup; Uruguayan Frog Soup.

#4: The New Hot Dog Cookbook, Modern Promotions, New York, 1983. American cuisine has a very bad (and sometimes undeserved) reputation, and it is this kind of cookbook which perpetuates it. 250 'new and exciting' uses for the humble frankfurter - apparently a 'foolproof way to family mealtime magic'. Some examples:Hot Dog Loaf (versions 1 - 4); Hot Dog-ghetti Dinner; Peanut Rollups (white bread, peanut butter and 6 hot dogs, cut horizontally); Brussel SProuts and Hot Dogs. Thankfully no desserts.

#3: Passport to Survival by Esther Dickie, Bookcraft 1980. OK here is the book for you if you are preparing for global warming, nuclear obliteration or a zombie apocalypse. The four foods are wheat, salt, honey and powdered milk and I was actually surprised at what you can do with these ( plus water). Handy chapters on food preparation, health care and tips on finding water when there is a shortage should equip you for anything.

#2 Marijuana Cookbooks: Gourmet Cannabis Cookery: The High Art of Marijuana Cuisine, 1999; Brownie Mary's Marijuana Cookbook, 1996. I shelve these in the herbs section, which is luckily also next to the Wild Foods/Strange Foods section. Gourmet Cannabis Cookery includes growing tips and many recipes for meals and snacks with small amounts of 'herbal butter' as one of the ingredients. Brownie Mary's Cookbook is actually the story of Brownie Mary, the San Francisco grandmother arrested several times for selling pot, with a few recipes including ground leaf or powder.

#1: Unmentionable Cuisine, Calvin W. Schwabe, University of Virginia Press, 1979. This unassuming looking cover hides within it a treasure of recipes for anything unmentionable you can think of ( or mention!). Chapters on lamb, beef, pork etc are actually a wealth of offal recipes, with detailed information on preparing and cooking every bit of these animals. There are chapters on game, seafood and shellfish and then we come to "Insects and Land Invertebrates": recipes for Locust Soup, Fried Cactus Caterpillars, Bee Grubs in Coconut Cream and Red Ant Chutney await. And to increase the gross-out factor I'll leave you with the last chapter in this book: Milk, Eggs and Sperm (actually fish roe!).

The Mad Raven: Pizza as Plate

2010-06-25T15:07:00.005+10:00

Once night falls in the village, we are poorly served for places to eat good food. But last night that situation improved with the opening of The Mad Raven, a gourmet pizza restaurant in Kallista's main drag. The owner/cook Holger has been responsible for several very good and succesful eating houses in the Hills over the past 15 years, including Genie's Cafe and The Firebox, so the Raven's opening was much anticipated by local foodies. We had a booth booked for 8pm, and on a very cold and wet hills night the Raven was warm and welcoming. The decor is eclectic and eccentric, with two very comfortable booths each seating 4 and tables handcrafted from slabs of chestnut. There is also some seating outside on the enclosed verandah where the gas heater and roll down blinds were a necessity.

We ordered 3 pizzas to share: At $21.50 the Morroccan Prawn Chermoula is the most expensive item on the menu, but with plenty of beautifully plump and juicy fresh Australian prawns fried in a (very) spicy moroccan chermoula, it is still good value. The pizza bases were thin and had the right balance of crisp and chew factor. Really in many ways the base was just a vehicle for what would have been an equally good dish on a plate - a spicy prawn curry, topped with a lime wedge and coriander leaves. The second pizza was also a spicy one: The Hot Pesto ($16.50) although not as spicy as the prawn had sliced fresh chili for a warm kick on top of a pesto base, fresh buffalo mozarella, goats cheese and red onions. Finally the Pumpkin Perfection ($16.50) was a perfect modern pizza, sweet roasted pumpkin was given added complexity by the garlic, rosemary, pine nuts, mozarella and sheeps milk feta, also with a sprinkling of fresh coriander when it came out of the oven. Superb.

We're looking forward to trying the Raven's version of a ham and pineapple pizza - the Sweet Pork with fresh pineapple and pan fried bacon; the Lam Boreka, the Goa Chicken and David wants to try the Smoked Tofu parmiginana. All Holger's pizzas are handmade from scratch with the freshest ingredients, so allow yourself some time if you decide to eat in. There are a couple of entrees and a couple of desserts, but really the pizzas are the star of the show. If you're going, don't eat lunch!

The Mad Raven Pizza Deluxe is open Wed - Sat from 5.30 - late. They are BYO only ($3 drinkage) and cash only at the moment. They're at 78c Monbulk Rd, Kallista

Lemon Ricotta Cake and Cairo Dainties - old tech/new tech

2010-06-20T13:38:00.009+10:00

Cairo Dainties - the Aga has a tendency to brown biscuits much faser at the back and sometimes I forget to turn the tray around - as you can see

As I've blogged before, I tend to bake on a Sunday morning to fill up the biscuit tin for the week ahead. Since three of my children left home I have been doing it less often. This morning however I wanted to do something with the lump of ricotta left over from my first pasta-making foray last week. I remembered seeing a Ricotta Cake on my favourite tv show Top Chef a couple of seasons back so headed to the internet to track down a recipe. I have been using the Epicurious app on my iphone but they only had ricotta cheesecake recipes. Eventually I found a recipe on a great blog called Creative Loafing. It was a quick and easy recipe and when it went into the Aga I decided to make some biscuits by turning to the other end of the spectrum - my 80 year old copy of Miss Drake's Cookery Book. I've been cooking from it a lot lately: I've been invited to talk at several local libraries and like to bring along something baked from the old cookbooks. Miss Drake's has been a treasure trove of interesting recipes; of things we never bake any more (like "Bubble Bread" which it turns out is a Salada-like cracker ) and dishes which now go by different names: like Cairo Dainties, a lightly spiced biscuit which it turns out tastes like, and has the texture of, a Dutch Speculaas. So at one stage I had propped up on my bench, a 1927 cookbook and a 3rd generation Iphone showing a page from a blog, and it struck me that there will always be a place for both old and new tech - paticularly since a recipe on a page is so much easier to read than a little touch screen which ends up covered in slightly greasy fingerprints because I have to scroll up and down!!
Lemon Ricotta Cake - the black around the edge is the bottom of the springform pan (not the Aga's temperamentality!)

Cairo Dainties

Mushrooming at Moorooduc

2010-06-20T13:25:00.005+10:00

In line with our newly discovered zeal for foraging, Jonathan, David and I went on a mushrooming tour with Cameron Russell of Mushroom Tours at Moorooduc on the Mornington Peninsula last Sunday. Mushrooms are one of those things that you don't want to get wrong - an apple is an apple and chances are the worst thing that can happen if you eat one picked by the roadside is finding a worm. However pick the wrong mushroom and you could die A Slow and Painful Death. So to feed my passion for exotic fungi as well as for life, I decided we needed some expert guidance.

Meeting at 10am at the gorgeous Moorooduc Estate, after a brief chat from Cameron and a welcome coffee and homemade bikkie, about 40 of us headed off in a convoy ending up after 10 minutes down a dirt backroad (I could tell you where it was, but then I'd have to kill you - mushroomers are very protective of their patch!) Getting out of the car I looked around and thought Mushrooms, what mushrooms?" but as became clear as Cameron walked us down the roadside reserve, mushrooms are everywhere.

Shame of it is that most of them are poisonous, and Cameron's informative and knowledgable tour was really more about what not to eat than what you could eat. Having said that I am now fairly confident I could safely pick and eat a Saffron Milk Cap which grows under Radiata pines. I also discovered I have at least two customers who are keen mushroomers and the lovely Martine has offered to go mushrooming with me next year.

It was a bit late in the season so there weren't heaps of edibles around, but enough to show us what to look for. After a couple of hours wandering through the undergrowth, we headed back to Moorooduc Estate where our hosts plied us with mushroom soup and mushroom bruschetta fresh out of the amazing wood-burning oven which was getting ready to dispense pizzas to the wine-tasting crowds. I can recommend tkaing a tour with Cameron - they've finished for 2010 but will be on again in Autumn 2011

Book fairs & excursions

2010-05-14T12:27:00.004+10:00

Well the last few weeks have been frantic - a buying trip to Canberra, a selling trip to Clunes and I've also begun the process of reorganising (renovating is too strong a word and might scare my landlord!!) the shop to increase the amount of shelf-space. Followers of my blog may be aware that the shop was on the verge of closing because of the inaction of an uncooperative agent, however the intervention of the landlord (who saw an unexpected 'To Let' sign in the shop one day while driving past) has now ensured that the shop will be here for the foreseeable future. Even when I'm not carting my books to and from various fairs, they sometimes go on excursions without me!! Here are some photos from a recent lunch to launch Jindi Cheese's new range of artisan cheeses. Florist extrodinaire Melanie contacted me about renting some old cookbooks to decorate the tables and at the end of April 100 mainly cheese,wine and dairy books made their way with her to Jindi. Some older books are also about to make their appearance in the Katie Holmes movie "Don't be afraid of the Dark" which was filmed in Melbourne in late 2009. Two of the film's set dressers borrowed books for kitchen scenes and I can't wait to see the results! My books have also appeared on 'The Cook and the Chef' and other magazine articles. All very exciting and not the kind of thing I expected would be a part of this business when I bought it in 2006!!

Standing up for Vegos

2010-04-26T12:26:00.004+10:00

I am an avowed omnivore - love a good steak and wouldn't give up cooking and eating good things like goat and rabbit and duck and venison and kangaroo for anyone. However for the last 27 years I have been preparing two separate meals most nights of the week because I am married to a vego and my oldest daughter went over to the other side at age 15. I am known to mutter darkly about these arrangements, but in reality I think the whole family is a lot healthier because for my sanity we tend to all eat vegetarian at least two nights a week and do eat much less meat than the average Aussie family.

As a result of my long experience cooking for vegos I have little or no tolerance for restaurants which don't cater for them. There's nothing worse than going to a function where you've informed the venue that a vegetarian meal is required and having them essentially presented with the vegetables served up with the meat option. Of course the opposite can be true too - sometimes vegetarians end up with a better quality meal because it is prepared individually (and airline food is often better if you tell them you're a vego).

The other night we were catching up with friends (both of whom are vegetarian) and I booked a table at a new local restaurant about which I had heard really good things - small menu, nice atmosphere and apparently excellent food. We arrived and I checked out the small menu (around 7 mains in total) to find that the only choice for vegetarians was no choice at all, a mushroom pasta or a roast vegetable salad (this on a cold, wet hills night). The 3 vegos insisted that the pasta would be fine, but I just didn't think it was good enough and did something I've never done before - I politely told the waiter that we wouldn't be staying because there really wasn't enough choice for the vegetarians. We walked up the hill to Earthly Pleasures cafe where among their choices were a tasty roast vegetable and goat's cheese stack, vegetarian lasagne or a vegetable tagine. I enjoyed a beautiful wild Barramundi steak served with a reduction of the sweet sticky sauce in which it had been marinated. Earthly Pleasures is a great example of a restaurant playing to it's audience; the chef and owners are locals who have worked out their market - a slightly grungy, alternative, environmentally and socially conscious crowd who care about the provenance of their food (all produce and wine is organic). The old bluestone house (built by the Jorgensens) is very atmospheric, and is much more laid back than when it was home to the fine dining Jorgie's restaurant. There is enough choice in the menu to cater for different budgets, and importantly they also know that the hills are alive with vegetarians (and their meat-eating partners) who'll patronise the restaurant and tell their friends (and blog-readers).

Canberra's gourmet delights

2010-04-22T12:42:00.005+10:00

I know I know, one doesn't usually associate our national capital with a rich foodie culture. And over my several years of visiting there on book buying trips what has struck me most is the difficulty of finding something other than the generic, cookie-cutter Italian and Asian restaurants in the local shopping strips. However I have to say that I sell almost as many cookbooks online ( often really esoteric and specialist ones) to residents of the ACT as I do to NSW; and on my latest trip last weekend I also discovered the Farmer's Market out at EPIC - the Canberra showgrounds. There were lots of locals selling really excellent fresh produce, around 4 stalls selling organic locally-grown lamb and pork, several with beautiful baked goods, wine, honey you name it. David and I were on our way out of town for the drive back to Melbourne, so stocked up with muffins for breakfast and piroshki for lunch as well as beautiful new season apples and.... mushrooms.

I am a sucker for mushrooms of any sort but these weren't just any mushrooms - they were exotic varieties of a sort I hadn't seen since the Farmer's Market in San Francisco. They are sold by the man who grows them, in a disused railway tunnel in the NSW Southern Highlands, and were a delight to behold. We bought $20 worth of wood ear, enoki and king brown and that night sauteed them up in a stir-fry vaguely based upon the Monk's Dish - quickly fried with lots of garlic, sesame oil, oyster sauce and a touch of soy.

We followed that up with figs also bought from the market which I combined with frozen raspberries, drizzled with honey and topped with my standard "I don't feel like making pastry" crumble mix. After an 8 hour drive home witha boot full of books for the Clunes book fair (May 1st & 2nd) it was lovely comfort food.

A late Christmas present - Cooking class at Bella Vedere

2010-04-14T11:15:00.000+10:00

I have written elsewhere about my enthusiasm for Gary Cooper's gorgeous Yarra Valley wine country restaurant, Bella Vedere. When I discovered on my last visit that Gary runs cooking classes from the restaurant I demanded one as a combined Christmas gift from my family. They obliged and on Thursday I was able to de-stress from the previous two days baking and cake decorating efforts with a wonderful morning cooking and then eating the results.

It was a small hands-on class, in which rather than going step-by-step through basic recipes, we worked with Gary to prepare some dishes for lunch-time service. Bella has a purpose-built room on the first floor beautifully laid out with gas burners and sinks around the edge and two huge wooden tables in the middle for prep. We started with something I often have difficulty with - a tarte tatin, in this case a rhubarb version. Whenever I have attempted caramel in the past, the sugar always lumps or burns, and it was really instructive to watch as Gary heated up a large copper frying pan, covered the base with castor sugar and gently swirled the pan over the heat until it started to melt and then turned a beautiful golden and then going to brown. He then added a vanilla bean and two large bunches of rhubarb, which we had washed and chopped into lengths (without de-stringing, which apparently is what causes rhubarb to turn into pulp - who knew!?). This was topped with a sweetened croissant dough and taken downstairs to the bakehouse to cook.

The next dish was a Bella perennial favourite: locally-farmed rabbit braised with pancetta and cooked for around 45 minutes with apple cider, shallots, garlic, rosemary, seeded mustard and (lots) of cream.

We also prepared a free-form lasagne with a filling of smoked eel, mustard fruits and bechamel sauce, and I was gratified to see that even in a professional restaurant wonton wrappers are an acceptable substitute for fresh pasta.

The final dish prepared was ravioli stuffed with roasted pumpkin, feta and amaretti biscuits. While the pasta dough had been prepared beforehand, we rolled out the dough and made the tortellini, forcing me to finally face up to one of my cooking fears - the pasta machine. I was given one for a birthday present about 15 years ago and have always been too scared to use it - and for good reason I discovered today - it's not as easy as chefs make it look and people like me who are more than a little uncoordinated can have problems getting their heads around the process. After a few stuff-ups (patiently rectified by Gary) the tortellini was finally done. We then spent a pleasant half hour in the picturesque kitchen garden, created by a Kallisa local Jenny Hoogland, who also runs the kitchen garden at the local primary school. After a relaxed couple of hours wining and dining on the fruits of our labour, I meandered my way back to the hills, thinking once again how fortunate I am to live where I do.

A cupcake adventure

2010-04-09T11:20:00.010+10:00

My daughter Hayley has just been witness/bridesmaid at the wedding of a close friend. The wedding was very small (25 guests) and low-key and I offered to make a cake for the occasion. The bride settled on a cupcake cake with a small cutting cake, only slightly complicated by the fact that she is gluten-intolerant. Because I have no familiarity with gluten-free cooking, I decided not to risk adapting one of my recipes and instead resorted to a couple of good quality gluten-free cake mixes. I did a test run a couple of weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the end result. The chocolate mud cake in particular was excellent, dense and rich and still moist a week after the practice run (the mix contains 1/2 cup of olive oil which helps).

Immediately upon arriving back from our Easter break, Dee and I, with help from Pippa, got down to work. Dee has recently done a cupcake decorating short course so her help was indispensable, particularly given I have a familial hand tremor that makes piping anything a VERY shaky endeavour. We were all quite chuffed by the end result - the cutting cake was decorated to mirror the wedding invitations and looked very cute (if I say so myself). Most importantly the bride was thrilled.

Easter feasting - Pumpkin Tortellini

2010-04-09T11:19:00.004+10:00

I've just had a wonderful Easter break with the whole family in the beautiful and serene Bogong Village, half an hour from Mt. Beauty on the road to Falls Creek in the Victorian Alps. David and I used to have regular holidays there with the kids when they were little, so it was a little bit of nostalgia plus the desire to completely unwind that took us there again. The thing about a holiday at Bogong is that there are no shops in the village and the nearest ones are a 16km winding road down to Mt Beauty. This means that you literally have to take all the food you think you may need with you. Luckily the house we were in was very well-equipped with cooking gear, and while mostly meals were uncomplicated, I did decide to take advantage of time and our crop of butternuts at home to make pumpkin ravioli. I wasn't brave enough to attempt fresh pasta in a new kitchen, so instead we used wonton wrappers and stuffed them with roasted pumpkin and ricotta cheese mixture. With the help of Jonathan and Ryan they turned out very well. After a couple of minutes in boiling water I gave them a couple more minutes in a fryin pan in which I'd fried up fresh basil leaves in olive oil (I'd forgotten to take butter with me). Definitely something I'll try again, although it may not be the same without the entire family mucking in to help; now there is just the three of us at home, I do miss the communal nature of our cooking and meals.

Recipe for a perfect Sunday

2010-03-15T10:55:00.006+11:00

Take a perfect Melbourne autumn day, a table for 200 down one of it's lovely hidden laneways. Add excellent company, and an indulgent 8 course Vietnamese banquet, including the most tender and taste-laden twice-cooked pork belly. Marinate for 3 hours in sunshine and many glasses of Moscato. The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival provides many opportunities to indulge in such glorious days. If you're in Melbourne, take advantage of them, or if you're not, do what two bloggers from Sydney sitting next to me did, make a note in your calendar for next year and come down for a weekend. Once again I was let down by my camera, but here's a link to one of the Sydney bloggers account of the day's food with amazing photos. Apparently they were flown down to Melbourne by the Festival, and here I thought they had come of their own accord to check out our amazing festival.

Granny and Gingerbread, Saturday morning memories

2010-03-13T11:49:00.004+11:00

I'm often asked if I cook (umm I have a cookbook shop people, is that a clue?) and my response is I have been cooking since I was old enough to stand on a stool at the kitchen table. And as with many people, some of my fondest memories of childhood and family revolve around food - the smell of garlic that always accompanied my grandfather, the taste of eggplant my Granny cooked and pineapples growing in her Durban backyard, guinea fowl hanging in our dark pantry.

My earliest cooking memory is of an afternoon tea for my class one (prep) teacher, Mrs Mulcahy. My best friend Rose and I stood at the white melamine table in the kitchen of our fire station flat (there's a whole other non-food memory: the acrid smell of smoke on my father's uniforms) helping Mum bake. I can't remember what else we made, but I will always remember the rich dark and fragrant gingerbread with white icing. Possibly all I did was stir the mixture, but I always claim it as my first venture into baking. I called Mum this morning for the recipe, only to be told it had been lost years ago and she had replaced it with one very similar. So this Saturday afternoon I made it in honour of my beloved gran, my beloved mum, Rose and Mrs Mulcahy, wherever she may be. I also made it for my son Jonathan who is home for dinner tonight after walking from Melbourne to the Dandenongs (a distance of around 36 kms). I think he'll need the sustenance.

Dark Sticky Gingerbread

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup golden syrup
1 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice

Cream the butter and sugar. Add beaten egg and syrup. Add sifted dry ingredients. Add hot water. Beat until smooth. Bake in a 180 oven until cake begins to draw away from sides and top springs back to the touch. (Sorry since I startd using the Aga, timing in recipes means nothing to me - it's done when it's done.

Ice with a simple white glaze icing

Road Trip

2010-02-21T07:46:00.006+11:00

One of my most frequently asked questions (alongside "How do you make any money selling cookbooks?") is "Where do you source your books?". My answer is always vague (one has to preserve some trade secrets as well as some mystery) but includes -road trips. I love a good road trip, taking to the highways and byways and back roads and making serendipitous discoveries along the way: hospital op-shops in a small town, a previously undiscovered second-hand bookshop tucked away in a back street. I took February off and spent a couple of days driving around the goldfields region of Victoria: Bendigo, Castlemaine, Maryborough, Clunes, Ballarat, Maldon. Sorry I'm not giving away any trade secrets, but wanted to share a couple of the treasures I picked up in my travels. The Savoy Cocktail book is a facsimile, but a very faithful one, which retains the lovely art deco design of the 1930 original; there's also a first edition of Mary Burchett's Through my Kitchen Door which I wrote about in a previous blog; a scarce-as-hen's-teeth Cookery the Australian Way; several copies of the Esk Valley Cookery Book and other early Australian classics. These will all be in my next catalogue - due out just before the Clunes book fair on the first weekend in May.

I've just added to the front page of my blog as well as my website a list and links to some of the best food shops in Melbourne - not your trendy delis, but the authentic and often wholesale suppliers of good ingredients for a variety of cuisines. Please let me know what your favourites are and I'll add them to the list (and go and visit them myself).

The fruits of our foraging part two

2010-02-15T12:14:00.008+11:00

A month late here are a couple of pics of the end results of our foraging expedition. I have discovered that a good camera is a neccesity for a food blog, and mine died just after Christmas. I have only just retrieved the plum jelly and plum sauce photos from David's Blackberry. Recipes follow:

Plum Sauce

This recipe comes from a perennial favourite Australian Preserving with Fowler's Vacola. The resulting sauce is rich and mildly spicy. To use as a condiment the sauce should be left to mature for 3-6 months as it is quite vinegary. However it can be used straight away as a marinade and is fabulous on barbecued pork, chicken or tofu.

3kg plums;1kg granulated sugar (I use soft brown sugar for a more mellow result); 5 tsps salt; 2 litres brown vinegar; 3 tsps whole cloves; 3 teaspoons allspice berries; 2 tsps black peppercorns; 2 teaspoons ground ginger; 2 star anise.

Cut plums in half and remove pips (if this is too laborious leave pips in, they will float to the surface by the end of boiling). Combine plums, sugar, salt and vinegar in a large pan. Tie spices up in a cheesecloth square and add to the pan. Bring to the boil, uncovered, and cook gently, stirring occasionally until the mixture is thick, dark and rich. This can take as long as 2 1/2 hours according to the depth of the mixture in the pan. Strain the mix through a coarse sieve (make sure you press the mix through with a wooden spoon to get all the goodies and leave only skins and pips behind). Pour into hot, sterilised bottles or jars and cap immediately. You can further preserve these by simmering in a hot water bath (or Fowler's preserver) for 20-30 minutes, but I find that pouring hot sauce into hot jars and sealing immediately creates the vacuum neccesary for the sauce to properly preserved.

PLUM JELLY

When my children were little I used to make a little extra money selling jams and preserves at the Kallista Market. My recipe for jelly was fairly standard for any fruit (except quinces, a recipes for quince jelly is in this post)

Plums; water to cover(about 1.5 litres); 1/4 cup lemon juice; white sugar

Wash plums and cut in half. Place in preserving pan with water to cover. Bring to boil and simmer until plums are soft enough to break down with a wooden spoon. When cold, pour into a large square of cheesecloth in a colander which is resting in a large bowl. Tie ends together to make a bag, remove from colander and leave to drip overnight (I hang mine from the laundry sink tap with the bowl underneath, this prevents the splashes from making a complete mess of the kitchen). The next morning measure the liquid (do not squeeze the bag, this will result in a cloudy jelly), and for each cupful of liquid add a cupful of sugar. Return to clean saucepan with lemon juice. Bring to boil and boil rapidly until setting point is reached. Pour into hot, sterilised, dry jars. Seal immediately.

I heart Melbourne

2010-02-05T09:01:00.007+11:00

I have a love/hate relationship with my home town. I hate Melbourne's summer weather, I hate that it is so far away from San Francisco, I hate that it is a long way from my family and friends in South Africa. But if you're going to live in one city in Australia, I reckon Melbourne is it.

This week I've been doing an intensive industry overview for a writing and editing course I have started. So every day I've been catching the train into the city to the class room in Flinders Lane on the corner of Degraves St, at the heart of everything that I love about Melbourne. After a couple of stinking hot days, this morning as I came in on the train, the tops of the skyscrapers were lost in the mist and a gentle drizzle was falling (LOVE a cool change). A couple of baristas had set up in a hole-in-the-wall kiosk in the historic Campbell Arcade subway (LOVE Campbell Arcade, Melbourne's laneways and good coffee). As I walked the 100 metres to the CAE I passed two lots of buskers - including a couple of funky young things on uke and guitar, in obligatory Melbourne black and vintage fedoras (LOVE that there are pepole brave enough to do this and good enough to listen to).

Yesterday at lunch-time I happened upon a small restaurant tucked away on a mezzanine of the historic building which houses the City Library - concrete floors, basic furniture, a long bar and kitchen stools running beneath windows overlooking Flinders Lane. The restaurant is called Journal Canteen, but better known as Rosa's Kitchen and the owner/chef is Rosa Mitchell, whose cookbook My Cousin Rosa has been very well-reviewed (and was on sale at the front desk).The food was simple Sicilian. I had the small antipasto platter with some salami, lovely ricotta fritters, a small mound of bread salad brightened by the addition of fresh mint, and several other small samplings. An unexpectedly civilised lunch, with a nice glass of Sicilian wine and a bit of people-watching over the lane. (Really LOVE that Melbourne is the kind of place you can make such serendipitous food discoveries and a place where small restaurants like these can not only survive but thrive!)

Chook madness

2010-02-03T09:50:00.005+11:00

I wrote on New Year's Day about the arrival of the new members of our family - 4 beautiful point-of-lay Isa Brown chooks. When we planned for the chooks, it was all about sustainability, recycling scraps, producing eggs as well as compost for the garden. I am happy to report that all of these aims have been fulfilled - in fact on the egg side we have been receiving 4 eggs every day since their second week. We were keeping a record but gave up when we hit 90 eggs after the first month. And the eggs are superb - bright yellow yolks, firm whites that cling to the yolk (making the best poached eggs I've ever tasted, and the prettiest). We've been eating lots of frittatas and quiches.

What I hadn't counted on was the absolute pleasure our 4 ladies have given us (as well as not a few hassles). A friend has declared me chook-obsessed and she's right, I am quite infatuated. The girls (who, after some discussion, have been named after 4 of the Bennet sisters in Pride and Prejudice) are full of personality. They can spend all day with their fluffy feathery bums in the air under the magnolia tree, scratching for who knows what. When you call them they come running (in fact even if you just happen to walk past them foraging in the garden they come running) and it is the funniest thing you've ever seen. I want you to picture a corpulent elderly Victorian matron in petticoats, bustle and full skirts (and possibly a little red bonnet!). Now imagine that lady has to run for her life - she hoiks up her skirts and, holding them high off the ground, waddles at high speed towards you, her large frame rocking from side to side - that's what the girls look like as they charge over to us for scraps or just to say 'HI!'.

I will admit to not giving much thought to the free-range vs battery hen dilemma up until a year or so ago. But now I've seen how happy my girls are; spending each day roaming the undergrowth, scratching in the leaf litter, occasionally settling down for a nap in the shade, or finding a bare patch of dirt and giving themselves a dust bath, I could never go back to eating supermarket eggs (free-range or otherwise). Oh the girls certainly aren't cheap - food, housing, etc do mount up. And as I alluded to above, there have been a few hassles. Lydia (named for the flighty youngest Bennett of course) keeps escaping, despite our (reluctantly) clipping her wings. She is a fussy eater and then last week, after several days of laying eggs without shells, became egg-bound. Then on one of the first days they were free-ranging they all decided to visit the neighbours and then couldn't find their way back up the drive and Pippa spent a couple of HOURS retrieving them from the building site. But on the whole I can heartily recommend the exercise of backyard chook-keeping, the expense and occasional hassle are rewarded many times over in eggs and pure enjoyment!

Preserving the Fruits of our foraging

2010-01-23T12:09:00.007+11:00

I am a big fan of tv chef and food activist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. FW's food philosophies are close to my heart - eat locally, grow as much as you can for yourself, (including in his case raising and slaughtering animals for meat -I admire the philosophy, but don't really have the opportunity to put it into practice) and, importantly use the resources of nature to supplement your larder. Inspired by an episode of River Cottage in which he produced an entire meal from foraging, last March Jonathan and I drove around the countryside looking for 'wild food' and came home discouraged with a measly bag of rosehips for our troubles. So when I spotted several trees heavy with plums and apples on the way back from a visit to Sue and Peter Lendon of Yarragon Books last week, I rang Jon and arranged for another foraging trip. Turns out we had been out looking (particularly for apples for cider) too late last year and instead late January - February is the best season on the roadsides. This morning it was up at 5 for the one hour drive to Gippsland around the back roads near Warragul. The rules are simple - no trespassing (sorry Jonathan) and no trying anything we can't confidently identify (at first anyway!). First off were two varieties of small plums growing next to each other. As you can see, the fruit was weighing down the branches, and we literally only had to run our hands down the branch to get handfuls of sweet juicy, yellow-fleshed plums, around 9 kg worth from two trees, and it didn;t even look as if we'd been there!

We also spotted a wild red currant growing nearby among the blackberries - tasted ok, but we decided that it was too much effort for too small return. Queen Anne's Lace is flowering all over the countryside at the moment - it's a relative of the carrot and when you pull up a plant the root certainly smells carrot-y! It's a bit late in the season to use the roots - they need to be picked when young and tender, although Mrs Beeton's says that even then the wild form has an acrid, disagreeable taste. It's been known from ancient times as an aperient and abortifacient. Very pretty but not a harvest for today. Also just starting to colour were the berries of the Hawthorn tree - commonly used as a hedgerow plant along country roads. The berries are known as Haws, and , I am reliably informed by the interweb, can be used in jellies, jams and syrups ( although I note that all the recipes I have found so far have equal quantities of apples and sugar, so suspect that these preserves are Haw in name only).

Next the search was on for apples. Jonathan has made cider a couple of times, but wanted to try it with foraged apples (cheaper and more plentiful). We spotted plenty of trees that were about a fortnight off being ready (as well as a nectarine in the same state - damn!). Finally down a side road we stopped under an enormous tree laden with what looked like a variety of golden delicious apples ready for picking (as well as falling on the ground). Because the tree was so tall, and we hadn't thought to bring a rake or long secateurs, there was a bit of hilarious bashing of branches with sticks and trying to catch the falling fruit so it wouldn't get damaged on the road. The thing about apples (and any fruit) growing wild is they have probably grown from a randomly dropped apple or seed decades ago, and bear little resemblance to what we see in the shops. Cider is best made with different varieties, so after picking a couple of kilos from this tree we kept driving until we found a couple more - red apples which looked like Bramleys and red delicious, around 9kg in total.

So a very 'fruit'-ful day. Tonight we're going to be cooking up our bootie, and I'll blog the results. I soon stopped feeling self-conscious about our exploits, and got a small thrill every time we had a 'find' either for today or to make note of for future foraging expeditions - of which there will be many! I've made a booking for the three of us to do a mushrooming ramble, which will hopefully equip us with the knowledge not to poison ourselves this coming autumn!

Do I stay or do I go?

2010-01-06T10:55:00.003+11:00

Yesterday I opened the shop on a day off for a gentleman who rang before Christmas asking if I'd be open on January 5th. I do it regularly, no skin off my nose, and there's always work to be done while they browse. I was so glad I did because I met the loveliest couple who had a wonderful story to tell of how in 1959 while walking in Sherbrooke Forest and talking about marriage, they agreed to make a pilgrimage back to the forest on her 70th birthday on January 5th 2010. She loves cookbooks, so part of her birthday treat was to visit me! Then yesterday afternoon I picked up 20 litres of goats milk from a customer who knew I wanted to make real goats milk cheese. And the day before I dropped off some books to another customer who showed me around her lovely vegetable garden and gave me some excellent tips on looking after the chooks. It's these kinds of people and interactions that really make my business enjoyable- bookselling is not a hugely profitable enterprise so you do really need to love what you do! Which is why I am currently caught on the horns of a dilemma - for the past three months I have been in negotiation (if it can be called that) to renew my lease and I am just about over the whole exercise. In fact I have several times been at the point of throwing up my hands and saying enough - I'll just retreat back to internet and catalogue sales and close the shop. And then I think of how my customers enrich my life ( sadly only a few in the literal sense!!) and how much pleasure the shop brings to regulars and serendipitous drop-ins and I once again ponder - should I stay or should I go?

Fun with leftovers

2010-01-03T20:05:00.005+11:00

Christmas is behind us and like most of you, my fridge was stuffed with leftovers for a week or so. My Mum is very inventive with ham and purposely buys a bigger ham than she needs when it's her 'turn' for Christmas lunch so that she can make the family standard of ham and potato pie: Thinly slice a couple of potatoes (I add an onion), layer these with ham, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper and a sprinkling of plain flour. Pour over a cup of cream (Mum uses plain milk, but cream gives a richer sauce) dot with butter and bake in a moderate oven until the potatoes are tender.

My favourite leftover is Panettone. It's great as a festive french toast and also makes a couple of delicious desserts. Raspberry and Panettone bread pudding is dead simple. Cut a couple of thick slices of panettone, and cut out several rounds (one per serving) with a large scone cutter. Put each round into a greased ramekin (or as I do you can bake them in a muffin case in a Texas muffin pan). Beat together a cup of milk, 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract, 1 TBS of caster sugar, 2 eggs and a couple of good dollops of creme fraiche. Top each panettone round with fresh or frozen raspberries, sprinkle with brown sugar and then carefully pour the egg mix over, until the milk is just covering the top of the panettone. I bake these in a water bath in a moderate oven until they're puffed, golden brown and firm to touch. Serve with (preferably homemade) vanilla icecream.

The second panettone dessert was one I created tonight - an apple and blackberry panettone crumble. I stewed 5 sliced Granny Smith apples in a bare amount of water sweetened with a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup. When apples were just tender (I don't like them mushy) I drained them and combined them with 2 cups of frozen blackberries in a casserole dish (The blackberried were foraged from the horse paddocks across the road at the end of last summer - free food!). I topped the fruit with a topping of 2 cupfuls of crumbled panettone, combined with 3 TBS brown sugar, 1/2 cup flour and approx 200gms of melted butter. The mix should be crumbly but moist, don't be afraid to add extra butter if it looks too dry. Sprinkle the mix over the apples and blackberries and bake in a moderate oven until the top is golden brown. You don't need to add any extra water to the fruit as the blackberries will release lots of juice as they cook. I served this tonight with a maple and lime cream - My daughter Hayley has appointed herself official recipe tester and has pronounced this YUM

Welcome to 2010, the girls and their first gift

2010-01-01T17:22:00.006+11:00

We've been planning a chook shed for our kitchen garden for a long time - Jonathan and David finished the shed itself in early 2009, but something always delayed installing its residents. Well this morning ( New Year's Day) we brought home 4 Isa Browns from Abundant Layers in Emerald. We got our first egg around an hour later! Much excitement. The chooks have been introduced as much to recycle scraps as for their eggs, which will be a bonus. I'm told Isa's are very reliable layers. The first egg was tiny, but hopefully will increase in size as they mature. They're certainly lovely looking birds, scratch like demons and one is threatening to be an escape artist unless we clip her wings (hence the bird netting for the raspberries is draped all over the chook run.) They're being named after famous Misses and Mrs from the movies and books - so far we have Miss Daisy, Miss Haversham and Mrs Beeton. Happy New Year to everyone out there - hope 2010 brings you some great cookbooks, enjoyable cooking and excellent food

Christmas Pudding with eggnog icecream - the boys do dessert

2009-12-27T14:21:00.003+11:00

I was very proud of my son on Christmas Day. I am generally proud of him for all sorts of reasons: he is smart, funny, resourceful and fiercely independent. He recently started his first full-time job and fulfilled a long-held dream by moving into a small flat in inner Melbourne. Jonathan loves the lifestyle, being a 5 minute bike ride from work and able to walk into the city, go the markets and just wander around the old industrial areas taking photos. As I said in an earlier post, he has taken to cooking like a duck to water, and has been quite adventurous - no meat and three veg for him. As is his nature, when he decides to cook he takes a scientific approach (he's read Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking from cover to cover) following the recipe and preparing carefully for his dishes.

So when he told me three weeks ago that he thought he'd like to make the Christmas pudding for Christmas lunch, I knew he would take the same approach and was reasonably confident he could pull it off. We had a few brief discussions about methods and ingredients, but he did it all on his own. After much research, he found a recipe he liked on the internet and went on a big (and expensive) shopping trip to gather his ingredients. He set aside one of his days off and was up until 3 in the morning while it boiled the required 3 hours. Then he put it aside for three weeks. On Christmas day we lit it with brandy (briefly setting fire to our hands!) and served it with all the trimmings. I have an aversion to dried fruit, so don't normally eat Christmas pudding but had to sample it, and can happily report that it was a triumph, rich and fragrant, dense but moist. My mum told him it would make his great-grandmother proud - she was the pudding maker in the family. It certainly made me very proud - of a unique and gifted 22 year-old.

PS: Special mention here to my daughter's boyfriend Ryan who loves to cook and is an excellent baker. Ryan has a love-hate relationship with my Krups ice-cream maker. On the Wednesday before Christmas he spent many hours (and went through about 18 eggs!) perfecting the mix for an eggnog icecream which was the perfect accompaniment to Jonathan's Christmas pudding. As Ryan discovered, when making custard for icecream it is always really important to follow the recipe exactly and not overcook the custard! One false move and the icecream is a disaster - grainy and heavy. Here's the recipe:

Eggnog Icecream
(Serves 10)

2 cups thickened cream
2 cups milk
2 vanilla beans, split, seeds scraped
9 large egg yolks
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
¼ cup good quality whiskey (or rum)

Combine cream, milk, vanilla pod and seeds in a heavy-based saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat, then remove from heat, cover and set aside for 15 minutes.
In an electric mixer, beat egg yolks and caster sugar in a large bowl for 2-3 minutes or until mixture is thick and creamy. Gradually beat in the milk mixture. Return the custard to the same cleaned pan with the ground nutmeg. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for ten minutes or until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. It is very important not to allow the mixture to boil or it will curdle. Stir in the whiskey and strain through a fine sieve into a large bowl. Once the custard is cold process it according to the icecream maker’s instructions. Depending on the size of the ice cream maker, you may need to divide the custard into to two – mine only makes a litre at a time. Alternatively depending on how many people you have for lunch, you could divide the above recipe in half – if it’s only one of several accompaniments, you only need a spoonful .

The Aga steps up for Christmas

2009-12-21T15:04:00.006+11:00

The Aga has been working overtime this last couple of weeks, with various lunches and goodies to prepare, and for the most part it has been a very good Aga. However it did entail a major crisis and an intervention by Caroline who's been cooking on an Aga all her life. At one point on a Sunday morning, just before the book club girls and boy were due to arrive for our end of year lunch, as I was squatted down in front of the roasting oven, trying to cover the rapidly carbonising edges of a lemon tart with foil as it balanced precariously on the edge of the oven rack, its still liquid filling dripping over the edge and onto the hot base of the roasting oven, I thought " for &*%$'s sake, why couldn't I just be normal and have an ordinary oven, why do I always have to make life difficult for myself".

The lunch actually turned out very well, the second tart I baked was perfect, the Elizabeth David flourless chocolate cake well-received, the fresh bread duly admired. And it also turned out to be an epiphany of sorts: when I couldn't create an effective foil shield for the edge of my tart, I just covered the second one entirely with foil and lo and behold it worked perfectly - shielding the tart from the intense heat of the roasting oven and allowing it to cook slowly. When Caroline came to lunch she also took one look and feel of the Aga plates and said 'turn it down, it's running too hot - no wonder you've been burning things' . Well that was peculiarly liberating, I had been warned off playing with the controls and now felt free to adjust it.

So now I'm ready for the Christmas madness. And madness it is - here's a scan of page one of my 4 page Christmas menu, shopping list and timeline to prove it. I've never been big on Christmas, most of my family being in South Africa, but we nonetheless put on a relatively big and traditional-ish spread. As you can imagine it's my favourite part. This year I'm brining the turkey after reading so much about it on the NYTimes food pages at Thanksgiving. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Have a wonderful Christmas wherever you are,

Maira Kalman on eating less "fastly fastly"

2009-11-30T10:39:00.003+11:00

I love Maira Kalman's columns in the New York Times, and this past weekend she put together a lovely ode to conscious eating, and her visit to California for the Chez Panisse experience ( and mushroom picking with Michael Pollan!). Check out the picture towards the end when she has lunch at Alice Waters house. Alice cooks her an egg on a large metal spoon held over an open fire - which I had read about but now am determined to try. Some of the responses to Kalman's column I think are dead right in questioning the hypocrisy of being able to do what she did - fly across the country to lunch with some of the big names - while also bemoaning the fast food culture of America. Unfortunately the price of good local produce is still out of the reach of some, as is the ability to grow your own, particularly if you live in the high-rises and inner urban areas. To Kalman's credit she does ask the question "Do the wealthy have access to the really healthy food while the less affluent do not?" And the answer is "of course". Anyway, read and enjoy and think and pass it on.

A Woman's Place is in the Kitchen

2009-11-28T20:59:00.002+11:00

The title of today's blog may come as something of a surprise to those who know that in my former life pre-cookbook selling, I did my PhD in women's history. No I haven't had a complete turnaround, in fact what I wanted to celebrate today is a bit of girl power. I have just put together my latest catalogue , and it dawned on me (as I'm sure it has dawned on many others, I'm just a bit slow on the uptake) that while men may dominate the kitchens of the world's restaurants, many of the best food writers were/are women! As a sample from the catalogue: Elizabeth David; MFK Fisher; Jane Grigson; Claudia Roden; Anna Del Conte; Ada Boni and Madeleine Kamman write/wrote engagingly and knowledgably about regional cuisines, food history, the science of food, the rituals of food and more. Marcella Hazan; Alice Waters and Julia Child were trailblazers in many ways. In Australia we've got Stephanie Alexander's bible The Cook's Companion; Maggie Beer's scarce and collectable Maggie's Farm and Maggie's Orchard; Margaret Fulton remains as (if not more) popular today as when her first book came out in 1968. I was tempted to do a catalogue of only women writers, but then I would have had to leave out some male stars of the food writing world - Ambrose Heath; Waverley Root; Harold McGee among them.

So have a look at your own cookbook shelves and see if there is a similar pattern there. Why is it that men are so dominant in the kitchen professionally-speaking and yet it seems to be women who dominate food-writing. An interesting discussion to be had there.

By the way I have now set up a Facebook page for the business as well as a Twitter account which I intend using to publicise new acquisitions and specials in the shop. I know, I know this is the girl with an Aga in the kitchen and a phobia about Thermomixes, but hey it's the GFC, us small business owners need to use any tools we can to get ahead.

Sunday is baking day & recipe journals

2009-11-22T10:30:00.005+11:00

Having a retail shop sometimes cramps my cooking style, particularly being open on the weekends. Thank goodness then for Sundays when the shop opens at 12. I can cook breakfast for the members of the family who are around, prepare casseroles for during the week, bake some bread, and indulge my love of baking. This morning it's a perennial favourite: Cranberry, Oat and White Chocolate Cookies. This is a recipe that has been handed around among my group of friends and I've made it so often that in my recipe journal it is simply a list of ingredients: 1 1/4 cups rolled oats; 2 cups plain flour; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 cup dried cranberries; 1 cup white chocolate buds; 1 tsp bicarb soda; 225g butter and 1 egg. You mix all the dry ingredients together, add the melted (cooled) butter and egg, combine well, and drop teaspoons of the mix onto a baking tray. Bake at 180 and there you have it, chewy little mouthfuls, a little crisp on the outside with lots of textures and flavours within. You can vary the ingredients by subsituting other dried fruit for the cranberries and nuts for the white chocolate buds, but we keep coming back to this combination.

Which brings me to recipe journals - my son moved out of home 6 week ago and I am very proud of the way he has taken to cooking for himself, I gave him a couple of Women's Weekly cookbooks to start off with and he is having fun cooking all sorts of things. This weekend I have begun a recipe journal for him, writing in all my favourites and the basics I just have in my head. I've arranged it in the same order as mine but I'm leaving lots of blank pages in between for him to start adding his own favourites and cuttings.

I see every possible type of recipe journal in my business: Neatly typewritten books; bundles of cuttings from newspapers held together with elastic bands or string; cookbooks with every white space filled with hadnwritten recipes in tiny hand. In the shop I have a beautiful pair of journals dating from the late 19th century. They began life as a journal for a girl called Blanche Coombs in finishing school in Neuchatel in Switzerland, detailing her daily routine and contains some of her exercises, all in beautiful copperplate; in later life the books became a repository for her recipes, also in copperplate of a more mature hand. What is so interesting about these books, apart from the recipes, and what they reflect about eating habits and the availability of foood etc, is that in many ways they look like recipe journals written today - the recipes are favourites we can't do without, or ambitious projects we think we'd like to tackle the majority are for sweet dishes or baked goods and many of them have little notes about their origins: Blanch Coombs in the early 20th century attributes many recipes to 'Mama' , Cold Fig Pudding to Lady Bectine, Rhubarb and Tapioca Mould to the Daily Mail.

I started my recipe journal about 10 years ago after many years of trying all sorts of systems - card files, manila folders, you name it. Finally I bought a large lined hardcover notebook from a $2 shop and began sifting through the cuttings I had accumulated. I arranged it roughly as you would a traditional cookbook: Soups, starters, mains, desserts, baked goods, vegetarian dishes etc, leaving plenty of pages in each section for expansion. Today it is one of the first things I'd grab if we had to evacuate in a bushfire, as it contains many of the standards I make time and again, recipes given to me by friends and family or strangers: Dee's Brownies, Meg's Lemon Tart filling, Nana's Coconut Ice and Fudge recipes, and the recipe for a polenta slice they make at Kallista Deli, written on the back of a brown paper bag. Last night I created a tiramisu icecream based on Lorenza De Medici's Tiramisu recipe, and that has to go in before I forget it. (Now that's a whole topic for a blog!)

Climbed every mountain

2009-11-02T03:45:00.007+11:00

Well Mountains of Books is over for the year and a good time was had by (mostly) all. Sadly I have to report a very poor weekend for cookbooks, but there was a very good attendance thanks to some great publicity in The Age on the weekend, and most stallholders did well. My family did, as always, an amazing job of supporting me in my various hare-brained pursuits. Hayley and Pip personned the canteen on Saturday, Ryan on Sunday, Hayley sat in the shop for me on Sunday and David acted as general dogsbody. Ryan also acted as photographer ( in between directing traffic in the car park - yes it did get that busy) Even my dear friend Dee helped pack books on Thursday for the fair and then to pack (almost all of them) back into boxes again at the end. Here's a few photos:

Over 60 people came in as the doors opened. Attendance was pretty steady on both days .

My Pip, doing a good job of looking after my customers.

Sascha from Lost and Found

Meryll from Rainy Day

Mm-Hmm Yep, Yep, yeah right.... Willie from Kallista Books

And Linda, also from Kallista Books

Yes my stall did have some customers during the weekend, most of them regulars.

Paul Trahair's stall was well-attended for his 50% off - 'Moving to Geelong and need to cull ' sale.

Jill's children's books are always a huge drawcard.

My lovely Hayley, recently back from South America and already back into the swing of helping Mum out

Hayley and Pip - taking a break from touring primary schools to serve lemon slice, chocolate hedgehogs and muffins

. The delightful Pam Bakes. We all love what we do, but in the end it's all about the money!!

Mountains of Books - 31st October and 1st November 2009

2009-10-22T08:10:00.013+11:00

My blog title today could refer to my life in general - I am sitting at my home desk, madly cataloguing to get through the last 10 boxes of a mountain of books I bought from a deceased estate this time last year; I am surrounded in my back room at the shop by mountains of books waiting to be shelved, sorted or otherwise disposed of; but in actual fact it refers to the book fair I and several colleagues are preparing for next weekend (31st October and 1st November). The idea for Mountains of Books Used, Rare and Out-of-Print Book Fair came to Meryll Williams and I as we returned from a book fair a couple of years back. Meryll is the popular proprietor of Rainy Day Books in The Basin, a foothills town nearby, and has been something of a mentor in my bookselling career. We roped in Sandy from Wormhole Books, the dapper Paul Trahair from Sad Paradise Books and Willie Williams from Kallista Books -Willie is a landscape gardener with a weekends-only bookshop in the same village as my shop.

They're a lot of work, book fairs, and not always financially rewarding for booksellers. I've been to a couple where I barely made enough money to cover the cost of my stall, but persist because of my experience at the Clunes Booktown weekend, where I always do very well. Finding a venue can be difficult, but we've set up in a pretty, historic hall in a picnic ground setting on the fringes of Sherbrooke Forest (and conveniently across the road from my house :-). Finding a date can be tough too - for our first one in 2008 we settled on what's known as the Melbourne Cup weekend (because it falls the weekend before the world-famous horse race on the first Tuesday in November) because the local Horticultural Society used to have an annual flower show that weekend - except that year they changed the date of the annual flower show! Finding the right mix of booksellers can also be a task - and last year we got it almost right.

This year we have been joined on the organising committee by the charming and industrious couple Sascha and Jeremy from the internet-only bookseller Lost and Found. We've got some local authors appearing for book signing and selling: Hanifa Deen; Ilsa Evans; Corinne Fenton; Macarthur Job & Nick Anchen. and while we have slightly fewer booksellers, they've all got more space and therefore more beautiful books to sell. The beauty of this fair is that most of our sellers are internet only dealers, meaning that the fair gives the public a unique opportunity to browse through some of their stock. Most of the sellers will be refreshing their stock throughout the weekend, so it'll be worth coming up at any stage during the weekend. All the booksellers deal in very good quality books, no rubbish to be found here, and the price range should provide something for everyone, with books from $10 - $1000

Here's an idea of what our sellers are bringing to the fair. If you are coming up, have a look at the internet stock of all our dealers before you arrive. If there is something in particular you'd like to see, they'll be happy to bring it along for you to the fair - there is nothing quite like holding a book and seeing it 'in person'!

Rainy Day Books has a cross-section of quality fiction and non-fiction. Meryll is a regular on Radio 3AW's Nightlife program so naturally she'll have copies of "Bruce's Bits and Phil's Philosophies" . Other highlights are Ross Napier's The Castlereagh line series, International garden photographer of the year - Books 1 and 2; Australian dreaming - 40,000 years of Aboriginal history; Medal of honor - portraits of valor beyond the call of duty - complete with dvd as well as a good selection of discounted paperback biographies.

Jill Braithwaite (Bookworm Ink) is a specialist children's bookseller. I've never seen as many collectible Enid Blytons in one place as I did last year on Jill's stall. She'll have a selection of Biggles; Mary Grant Bruce; Milly-Molly-Mandy; Ethel Turner; Cherry Ames; Bobbsey Twins; Rupert Annuals; Elsie J Oxenham; Angela Brazil; Elinor Brent Dyer; LM Montgomery..... Jill's table is always a highlight at any book fair she attends - a real trip down memory lane for many people (including myself).Sad Paradise Books: Paul is a generalist, but has an excellent range of books by and about the beat generation poets. This year at the fair he's offering 50% off marked prices on a selected range of Australiana, fiction, transport, the arts, Asia Pacific. Check out his online stock at http://www.sadparadise.com/

Joan Rogers has recently left The Old Bakery Cottage Bookshop in Warrandyte and is now selling online as The Book Fossicker from her new home in Clunes. She'll be bringing mainly non-fiction to Ferny Creek, with art, gardening and other kinds of related books - some biographies and history, it should be an interesting mix.

The elegant Pam Bakes of Page Two always has a beautiful stall. This year she plans to bring an eclectic selection of stock with a leaning towards fashion, art and architecture, plus some lovely Folio Editions, including a large format of Milton’s Paradise Lost in the original slipcase, classics Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights with a pale green moiré silk binding, and a delightful copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Also in stock will be Caroline Rennolds Milbank's magnum opus Couture : the Great Fashion Designers, showcasing about 50 of the most famous including Worth, Lavin, Poiret, Fortuny, Chanel, Dior, St. Laurent and Balenciaga. For fashionistas who enjoyed the movie The September issue, Pam also has a pristine copy of the September 2007 issue of US Vogue (which was the subject of the film). Also in Pam's stock will be Willem de Kooning’s Vellums published for an exhibition held in New York in 2001. This is not readily available in Australia, but fans of the artist will be entranced by this beautiful copy. For lovers of Australian art there will be Judith Ryan’s studies of Ginger Riley and Kitty Kantilla, both published in conjunction with exhibitions at the NGV, plus Sandra McGrath’s seminal work on Brett Whiteley which, when published in 1979, was the first major work on this artist. Pam's website is http://www.pagetwo.com.au/ .

Lost and Found are general booksellers and will be bringing books on a bewildering array of subjects. As well as a range of current and vintage fiction, they will be covering all aspects of gardening, art, hand crafts, militaria, Australiana, gorgeous children's books and interesting local histories, especially of the Dandenongs. And then there is the exotica... so esoteric it doesn't fit readily into any classification! Before you come, please check out their 14,000 books online - you can browse them by subject catalogue. Sascha and Jeremy will be happy to bring anything you are interested in to Mountains of Books for personal pick-up. You'll need to let them know by midnight on Wednesday http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/StoreFrontDisplay?cid=144185

Kallista Books: Willie has an exciting range of ephemera on offer as well as his usual cross-section of gardening, hardware, non-fiction etc: Special mention must be made of his hardware & nursery catalogues from as early as 1880, and craft and gardening magazines.

And Vintage Cookbooks? Well the majority of my book fair stock will be books that haven't even hit the shelves in my shop yet: A good selection of Elizabeth Davids, including first editions of French Provincial Cooking and The Book of Mediterranean Food and English Bread and Yeast Cookery; a selection of Julia Child (what's left of it anyway) ; Charmaine Solomon; Marcella Hazan; Stephanie Alexander; Larousse Gastronomique. There'll also be lots of ephemera and early Australian cookbooks. As usual I'll also be bringing my complete stock of the more unusual cuisines: Scandinavian, Russian, Middle East, Eastern European; Phillipines; Indonesian etc etc etc.

It promises to be a great weekend for booklovers. Do come and introduce yourself to me and receive a 10% discount off Vintage Cookbooks stock. And remember any time is a good time to come - there'll be new stock going onto the tables throughout the weekend. The details are:

Saturday 31st October 10 - 5 & Sunday 1st November 10 - 4

Ferny Creek Recreation Reserve Hall, Hilton Rd, Ferny Creek, Victoria

Here's the Google Map

Julie and Julia: Warm, funny and delicious

2009-10-18T14:28:00.007+11:00

Well the movie is out now in Australia and I have seen it for a second time with my movie buddy Dee. Julie and Julia is a skilful weaving by director Nora Ephron of two stories: how Julia Child discovered French food (told in her memoir "My Life in France") and how a New York secretary called Julie Powell decided to cook her way through Child's famous Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year and write a daily blog about it (told in her subsequent book Julie and Julia). It was a very clever decision by Ephron to combine the two stories, as I can't imagine a film on Powell's exploits alone would have been sustainable for 90+ minutes. Yes so she decided to cook 524 dishes in 365 days, but there are only so many ways to capture this on film, and as it is only the interesting episodes from Powell's blog and subsequent book made it to the screen. I read through Powell's blog recently and can also say that she bears little resemblance to the sweet (if feisty) character portrayed by Amy Adams. Being an acolyte of Alice Waters and a bit of a locavore myself, I found her strident criticisms of both harder to take than the expletives with which her writing is peppered.

Far more interesting is the story of Julia Child's introduction to cooking, as well as her relationship with her husband Paul - they clearly adored each other. Julia Child came to both marriage and cooking late: She apparently didn't know how to cook until her thirties and married Child at 34. She threw herself into both with (an apparently characteristic) enthusiasm. Meryl Streep's portrayal of Child is delicious, and she dominates the movie: when it switched back to Powell's story I found myself impatiently waiting for it to return to Child.

The food in Julie and Julia is as authentically portrayed as you would expect from Ephron who is herself a bit of a foodie. There was a great article in the New York Times about the food styling in the movie, which Ephron insisted be real - no fake food for this movie.

I loved the movie and can see why its release in America took Mastering the Art to the top of the best-sellers list for the first time and also brought a flood of orders from there for the few copies I had in stock (it also made it a very hot item on Ebay.com - first editions continue to sell for hundreds of dollars at the time of writing). Streep/Child's enthusiasm for food and love of the process of cooking are palpable and makes you want to Master the Art yourself.

The response to the movie in Australia has not been as enthusiastic. When David and I saw it the first time in SF, there were about ten people in the matinee session, around 6 weeks after it had come out. When Dee and I went to see it on its opening day at our local cinema there were only about 6. Everyone who has seen it has loved it and I've had quite a few people (women mostly) come to the shop after seeing it wanting to buy a copy of the book. But I suspect that Child doesn't have the same iconic status in Australia as she does in USA. Her tv series was never shown here, and while Mastering the Art had sold over 800,000 copies prior to the movie's release, few of those copies made it to Australian shores, and it just wasn't the staple in Australian kitchen libraries as it was in American ones (it was after all specifically aimed at "servantless American cooks"). More's the pity, it is a great book, and one which provides accessible instruction for those of us who will never make it to a Cordon Bleu cooking school.

A paean to the city of books

2009-10-06T10:56:00.008+11:00

As you may already have worked out, I loooove books. Particularly second-hand books. I have always loved them. I love the way they smell (unless some fool has let them get mouldy); I love the way they feel, I love the way they look on the bookshelf. As a child I created a library in my room, painting a small white square on the spines of all my books with whiteout and writing their Dewey number on it (including I regret to report, on my complete collection of Famous Fives with dustjackets!). I was on close terms with my school and local librarians and had to be given an adult library card at around 12 because I had read my way through the children's section. My family shares my love. Our passage walls are lined with books, everyone has at least one bookshelf, books stand in stacks next to our beds waiting to be read. One of my proudest moments was when my daughter's Grade Two report stated that she had borrowed more books than any other pupil in the school. Almost nothing makes my heart race like the sight of a second hand book shop or a book fair.

I preface today's blog with this statement just so you will understand when I say two events of nearly equal importance have occurred in the last 2 weeks - my beloved oldest child Hayley arrived home from wandering through South America for 9 months, and .... I received a delivery of 5 boxes of books (and some kitchenalia) that I had posted to myself from San Francisco the day before we left. These 5 boxes - totalling approx 40kgs were in addition to the nearly 50kgs that came back in our luggage (thanks Qantas for your generous luggage allowance, it makes up for your stingy leg room, crap food and scarcity of toilets for economy class passengers since you created premium economy!)

For booklovers like me, San Francisco really is a paradise: I have mentioned the fantastic second-hand book shops of the city (and the Bay Area) in several posts. What I haven't mentioned due to the internet drought in the last week of our trip, was that it is also home to a range of fabulous book fairs and sales. (As an aside San Francisco is possibly the only place where those trying to raise some cash will spread their collection of books on the pavement to sell - not a lot of cookbooks, but great fiction and non-fiction to be bought for a buck. I guess they know there is a market for their wares) Across the year there are several significant book sales and antiquarian book fairs, and on my return visit to Books by the Bay , I noticed a flyer for the Annual Friends of the Library Book Sale- fortuitously being held on the last 4 days of our trip.

Now this is not just any book sale - it claims to be the biggest book fair in the USA , a claim I suspect is not mere hyperbole. The fair is held in the Fort Mason Arts precinct - a collection of former military warehouses. We lined up on Day 2 (Day 1 is for members of the friends group) with a small crowd, including a charming Irishman who after being retrenched from his job as a recruitment consultant 3 years ago now makes his living selling books on Amazon (and he lives in San Francisco. Kill me now!).

Like any well-organised book sale, this one had maps available to plot out your attack before you entered the warehouse, but unlike any book sale I've ever been to, also provided shopping trolleys for your loot. Everything was under $5, and there were two large tables (in a massive warehouse the size of an aircraft hangar) of cookbooks. And what cookbooks: all in great condition, and many things I don't see very often in Australia (some dross as well, but that's always the case). There were dozens of volumes from the Time-Life 'The Good Cook' series as well as 'Foods of the World', some Elizabeth David, more Marcella Hazan than I've seen anywhere ( including my shop) and even a few paperback copies of Julia Child's The French Chef to make up for my complete failure to find a single second-hand copy of MtAoFC on this trip.

I came out of there with a trolley full - whenever I tried to cull my dear husband would remind me that I wouldn't see most of this stuff at all in Australia, and it would go on the keep pile. The criteria was this: as much paperback as possible, but anything particularly scarce in hardback was ok, as well as books for which I had customer requests. Once all these books had been purchased I had to find the most economical way to get them back to Australia. Travelling California for three weeks had already resulted in one large box of books and a smaller box of kitchenalia in the back of the SUV and now we had added another couple. We bought a suitcase and 2 duffel bags to supplement our one case and bought yards of bubble wrap and packing tape. Luckily for me USPS has several great flat-rate International Priority Mail boxes available (Australia Post please take note) and I spent around $240 and an afternoon packing and repacking my precious cargo to find the most economical use of the boxes and suitcases. Luckily I pack books for a living, as when we picked up our suitcases at the luggage carousel in Sydney it was clear that one suitcase - a cute vintage brocade Samsonite - had been at the bottom of all the luggage; it was completely squashed flat and was literally the last case to come out! A couple of the USPS boxes too were a bit bumped and torn, but I am happy to report that the books, like my daughter, had survived their travels unscathed!!

I am already planning my return to coincide with this sale next year - and perhaps to take in the Golden Gate Park Book Fair at the end of October, and the Palo Alto Friends sale in early November or maybe a Friends monthly $1 book sale; if I go in February I could take in the 43rd Californian International Antiquarian Book Fair, or the San Francisco Antiquarian Book, Print & Paper Fair; stay until March and there is the Anarchist Book Fair...............

Home again, home again

2009-09-28T14:21:00.004+10:00

You know that sensation of dislocation you get when you are away from home and wake up in a strange bed in the middle of the night? For a few seconds your brain says: Where am I? What am I doing here? Well two days after returning from our trip I'm feeling a bit like that most of the time during waking hours!! My family now knows in advance that, while I love them and miss them when I am away, I am always in a bit of a funk when I get back.

Last time I blogged was after our excellent meal at the Yosemite Bug back on September 17th. As it happens, internet access was patchy at best for the next 9 days as we moved around California. Now I need to catch up, but rather than bore you with a blow-by-blow account of that time ( a bit like a very extended slide show) I thought I'd just share some general impressions ove the next few days. In summary: After Yosemite we headed off to Kings Canyon & Sequoia National Parks, which were unfortunately left in the shade by the spectacular sights of the previous week. We made a decision to cut our stay there short and instead worked our way back across the width of the state to spend 3 days in Pacific Grove, next door to Monterey and at the start of the famous Big Sur drive. Unfortunately the Sur was fogged in for all three days we were there, but we still had a fantastic time exploring the region in more detail than we had been able to on previous visits. We then headed down to Anaheim for a Yankees baseball game against the Anaheim Angels, which turned out to be suprisingly enjoyable. A marathon night drive up the centre of the state to San Francisco via Bakersfield gave us 3 lovely days in a beautiful Inn in the Hayes District of the city to end our trip.

General Impression Number One: I've never made it through Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, but it is definitely on my must-complete list after driving for hours and hours through the Californian countryside seeing literally hundreds of miles of monoculture. Hundreds of miles of Pistachio trees, growing only by dint of the huge open canals siphoning water from rivers to turn deserts into orchards. Ditto the hundreds of miles of citrus growing in sand that can only possibly support them by being constantly supplemented by artificial fertilisers. Agriculture is apparently still California's top export, and it just shouldn't be - these thousands of square miles of crops are all growing in a natural desert. Most are grown by large corporations, using cheap, migrant labour; we would pass huge fields where produce was being processed on the spot - with dozens of labourers following massive harvesters, cleaning and packing as they went. Most wore makeshift face masks of t-shirts or towels to protect themselves from the dust being whipped up as they worked. Most of these workers are illegals so have very few benefits or rights and are working for tiny wages. We would sometimes stop in relatively prosperous towns where there would be a collection of trailers or small units clustered on the outskirts where these workers would live - it reminded me sadly of the situation in South Africa where I grew up: 'townships' were established which would segregate workers from the 'locals' keeping them out of sight - but still handy to work on the farms and towns.

On the way back to San Francisco from Anaheim, driving along the 5, we were also confronted by the reason everyone should become vegetarian (David would have felt smug if he hadn't been so sickened). Vast feedlots covering many hectares jammed full of cattle - nothing but dirt and their own faeces below their feet, no plants, no trees, long troughs full of grain and water in front of them. The smell weas unbelievable and stayed with us for miles after we had passed.

Recent food posioning scares in California agriculture have suggested that there is a price to be paid for this massive over-farming, but the situation is unlikely to change as long as there is a market for the produce. I will personally never buy a Californian pistachio or citrus fruit again, I would find it hard to give up meat, but like so many others I think organic and grass-fed is probably the way to go.

One more thing that struck us as we drove through these mega-orchards- there was not a bird to be seen or heard anywhere.

September 17th - Back to the Bug

2009-09-20T14:53:00.005+10:00

This trip has reinforced two things for me: I don't do tents or communal living. After a major meltdown last night about the accommodation and crowds at Camp Curry Village in Yosemite Valley, (see the previous post)I skyped a hostel called the Yosemite Bug in the town of Midpine, about 25 miles from the valley. Luckily they had a vacancy in a private room with a private bath so I cancelled the second night at Curry ( at 2.45am in the morning, when I couldn't get to sleep because of the refrigeration unit in the dining hall's kitchen which went on all night).

Hayley and I discovered the Bug when we did our mother-daughter, post-VCE trip to America at the end of 2003. I booked sight unseen then because it was cheap and seemed rustic and it turned out to be an absolute gem. It still is a gem, although no longer as rustic as it was 6 years ago - the rooms have been renovated (in a kind of hippy bordello chic - not as bad as it sounds) and the lovely old lounge with its' squashy couches and mismatched chairs has been updated.
What definitely hasn't changed (and thank goodness) is the outstanding food offered by the hostel's dining room. Rumour had it when Hayley and I stayed that the guy in charge had learned to cook in prison. Frankly I don't know or care where he learned, I just know that the food coming out of the kitchen was then, and still is, some of the best and freshest I have tasted in the US. Certainly I know of no other similar accommodation which offers this standard of dining. The Bug's kitchens grow or source locally as much of their produce as possible. The menu is small, (around 6 mains and a couple of salads) and changes according to what's in season. Dishes are carefully prepared with a real delicacy of flavour and presentation which comes as a complete surprise the first time you eat here. Of course knowing about the food in advance, and having tolerated an over-priced pizza at the Curry Dining Hall, this meal was what we were anticipating along with the comfortable bed and private bath.
So after another day of hiking and taking in the jaw-dropping scenery of Glacier Point and Taft Point above the valley, we headed off gratefully to the Bug and dinner.
David had the catfish po-boy sandwich ($8.95) and I had the slow-roasted pork which was served with steamed fresh beans and boiled new potatoes as well as a fresh chunky apple-sauce. ($12.95)

Serving sizes are small by American standards, but just perfect by Australian ones. You bus your own tables and get your own knives and forks etc, but I'm still not sure how they can do the food they do for the price. Unsurprisingly, there were several locals eating here as well as picking up the food 'to go'. I rounded off the day with a visit to the spa (oh that's the other difference since Hayley and I first stayed here!) feeling much more human. If you're ever in the area, do visit the bug, even if just to eat in the dining room. (Oh and breakfasts are also very good).

The bug was booked up the for the weekend, so tomorrow we're doing a long drive down to Sequoia National Park and King's Canyon.

September 15th - 17th: Exploring Yosemite and environs

2009-09-20T11:26:00.006+10:00

Starting on Monday, our trip turned to some serious hiking and exporing the beautiful Yosemite National Park. Our tented cabins at Tuolumne Meadows Lodge were the perfect base for this. ( well perfect in location. Those who are dearest to me know I don't normally 'do' camping in any form, but accommodation options in the High Sierra area of Yosemite are limited). It turned out to be a beautiful spot though. The stars at night were amazing - so many it seemed as though every spare cm of space up there was crammed with them. We saw several satellites crossing the sky. Awesome.

Our first morning we tackled the spectacular Lembert Dome, literally across the road from the lodge. We climbed 800 feet in the 2 miles up to this amazing formation before scrambling up the granite rock face to the top. The previous evening we had seen hikers making their way across the dome, and I wasn't sure was up to it but here is the photo to prove otherwise ( I don't normally do photos either, but was so proud of myself, I made an exception). We had set off very early so were on our own up there, blown away by the views from the Dome across to the John Muir wilderness and miles and miles of peaks and forests.

Lembert Dome from the start of the hike

And at the top an hour later.

We took a burger lunch to the shores of the magnificent Tenaya Lake , and had another of those moments in this trip when the location even seemed to make the food taste better.

The afternoon was a 4 mile round trip to May Lake, also a very steep climb on a very warm afternoon (the weather has been absolutely flawless). There are several camps in the High Sierra which are established as a base for walk-in hikers. They use packhorses to transport in supplies to the camps which are a good day's walk apart. May Lake camp has an idyllic setting around the shores of this small lake, with tented cabins scattered throughout the lodge-pole pines. After the very hot climb up, it was fabulous to spend some time just sitting with my feet in the icy water, in complete silence of the lake. Magical.

Day 3 in the High Sierra, David had the chance to do some serious hiking without me, doing a 7 hour round trip to Glenaulin, another of the High Sierra camps. I made my way back down to Lee Vining to fill the car with petrol, do some laundry and catch up on internet after two days without. I also took the opportunity to just drive and found myself on the June Lake loop, a fishing, boating and (in winter) serious wintersports playground. One of the lakes on the drive, Silver Lake looked like it had stepped out of a picture postcard, and because David had the camera, that's what I had to satisfy myself with to remind me of this serendipitous discovery. Have a look at this pic from tripadvisor http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/2b/f7/4a/silver-lake-jpg.jpg and you'll see what I mean.

After picking David up from his marathon walk, we made our way straight down the Tioga Pass Road to the Yosemite Valley for our next two days exploring the Park. Arriving at Camp Curry , which was established not long after the park was, I discovered there could be something worse than the very rustic tented cabins of Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, the tented cabins at Curry. While slightly more modern, our tent was tiny and one of around 700 such tent cabins squashed together in the precinct. The Camp was full, so there were people everywhere, cars everywhere, RVs everywhere, kids everywhere. I apologise if the comparison is spurious, but the image that kept coming to mind was that of a refugee camp.We had gone from the serenity of the High Sierras to my idea of hell in the Valley. The only high spot in a very miserable evening was while we sat eating tiny $8 pizzas, a family of racoons made their way out from their home under the dining hall and started sniffing around under the tables for scraps.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse (the internet was down in the camp as well!), when we turned in for the evening, we discovered that because our tent was positioned out the back of the dining hall we were to be inflicted with the sound of its refrigeration units all night. A very bad end to day 3.

September 14th:Secret marines business

2009-09-18T10:19:00.007+10:00

Gunn House Hotel Motel in downtown Sonora

We woke this morning to the sound of rain, very unusual. As we travelled out of Sonora towards the eponymous Pass, the fog was thick and low, not very promising for viewing the scenery we had expected. Fortunately it began to lift the higher we got and by 8000ft we had a lovely day, blue skies with a little bit of light cloud cover. The drive was spectacular, the road a little scary at times as it hugged the curves, occasionally disappearing from sight without warning. A steeeep climb brought us to the pass at 9600ft, and promptly took a 25% downward swoop – as it happens going down can be even scarier than going up!!

An abandoned ski lodge on the Sonora pass Rd

A couple of surprising sights along the way included this abandoned ski lodge. However the most amazing sight of the day came as we dipped down towards Hwy 395. We passed a small sign saying: “Careful. Marines training in this area”. Well, we thought we might see a couple of guys in fatigues and buzz cuts running next to the road, but no. As we rounded a bend we could see a huge complex of buildings – mmm – I didn't know there was a town on this road! Next as we cam down into a valley the road suddenly went from bumpy and patched to a smooth, newly laid ribbon of bitumen. Around yet another bend we drove past an enormous parking lot of camouflaged Hummvees and trucks, loooots of young men in camouflage and buzzcuts and a sign warning “Careful low-flying helicopters may cause flying debris”. As it happened we had stumbled upon the US Marines Mountain Training Centre – very new and I suspect training marines for the tough mountainous conditions of Afghanistan. I hope you'll understand why I didn't take any photos, and I suspect if you tried to find it on Google Maps streetview, it might be blurred out.

Anyway, after that little bit of excitement the next was our planned sidetrip to the historic Ghost Town of Bodie. I had read about it many times, and knew that it had been the location for many spaghetti Westerns, and the main reason we had come over the Sonora Pass to take the back way to Yosemite was for this. It was well worth the time and miles – lots of people around, but an amazingly maintained historical site. The NPS likes to say that it is in a state of 'arrested decay', that is, they do the bare minimumto ensure the buildings survive, but this is no Sovereign Hill.

The ghost town of Bodie

We followed a back road ( the advantage of hiring an SUV) along the shores of Mono Lake, an awesome sight with it's enormous salt pillars, although its beauty is tempered by the fact that the lake is dying because of its feeder rivers being sucked dry by the water needs of Los Angeles.
Another spectacular drive up the Tioga Pass Rd (again to 9000+ feet) brought us to our destination for the next two nights – the rustic (I do not use the word lightly) Tuolumne Meadows Lodge in the High Sierra region of Yosemite National Park. Accommodation is in 'tented cabins' – essentially canvas tents with concrete floors. No electricity, a solid fuel heater and candles the only luxuries. Really dodgy showers and toilets had me swearing I wouldn't shower for the next 2 days, but the setting was spectacular – next to the Tuolumne River, with huge peaks towering sround us. After a reconaissance drive and walk along the meadows itself, we had a Corona by the river as the sun set over the peaks. Beautiful.

OK and the food stories of the day? Nothing much of significance: A typical American hotel breakast which was more like an afternoon tea, saved by freshly made waffles. Lunch was in the quaint highway town of Lee Vining at the local Frostie Diner - we stopped there because the local cops were having lunch - always a good sign. A bowl of Chilli for me and fish and chips for David suspiciously long way from the sea! The next few days we had decided to self-cater (although with no cooking facilities that wa going to mean a lot of sandwiches). The Yosemite concessioners have a monopoly on all food and accommadation in the park, meaning everything is over-priced and sometimes of dubious quality. $18 for a chicken caesar salad at the lodge dining room was enough to drive us to the 'grill' at the general store with hamburgers which were out about 2 minutes after ordering - never a good sign!

Frostie drive-in in Lee Vining

September 13th: Beautiful breakfast and gorgeous gold towns

2009-09-14T12:11:00.006+10:00

Tonight we are in Sonora, an old gold-mining town from the 1849 gold rush era. Even better we are staying in the Gunn House Motor Hotel, built in 1850 and a hotel ever since. We started off this morning with a fantastic breakfast at the Wine Way Inn (http://www.winewayinn.com/ ) Our host Nick had prepared home-made granola served with luscious ripe strawberries, apricots and pineapples, then there were home made bakd beans with poached eggs and pork and pineapple sausage and finaly fresh home-made cherry and chocolate chip muffins. Nick is an expatriate Brit and we had a discussion about the peculiarities of the American way of eating breakfast. The tendency, rather than going back several times to at a breakfast like this in courses (granola and fruit, hot dishes, muffins and then maybe some more fruit) , is instead to pile a bit of everything on one plate. Sure enough after this conversation, a lovely American couple came in, went to the buffet and returned with Some granola, fruit, baked beans, eggs and sausage on a plate as well as a muffin. Perhaps my American readers can explain the custom to me?

Anyway breakfast was really special as you can see in the pics above (I'm sorry they're so large, I'm travelling with my son's ee book computer and have no idea how to compress pictures using his software! which also xplains the typos), It certainly set us up for our 3 hour drive across california slowly climbing as we approached the Sierra ranges. We arrived in Sonora, and as promised by myfriend dee, this little town is gorgous, with a main street retaining all it's original buildings, maany now containing antique shops!! We also made an accidntal discovery of the nearby Columbi historical State Prk, which is an original mining town in (mostly ) original state and with its buildings set up as they were originally used. We then drove on to Angel's Camp, yet another beautifully maintained gold rush town, with some 1930s deco buildings which replaced originals which burnt down. A lovely day all round, and now we are sitting on the verandah of the hotel as the sun sets, sipping a corona and contemplating our trip over the Sonora Pass tomorrow to the 'ghost town' of Bodie and hopefully some hot springs.

September 12th: Leaving SF - off to Napa

2009-09-13T10:39:00.003+10:00

tamales at the Farmer's Market

The Wine Way Inn - our accommodation in the Napa

This morning we started out early so that we could visit the Farmer's Market. There were thunderstorms and rain overnight, clearly an unusual event as everyone kept remarking on it. After the disappointment of Thursday morning's market, it was gear to be able to show David what a real one was like. We bought beautiful heirloom tomatoes, strawberries, natural set yoghurt in gorgeous pottery containers, fresh basil, and genuine mexican tamales, wrapped in cornhusks, to be heated up for dinner tonight. Yumm - with all our stores ready, we then headed off for a great day's meander thrugh the Napa Valley. A couple of wine-tastings, a visit to Bouchon Bakery for beautiful baquettes and their sublime lemon tart, as well as some 'yard sales', provided a great day. Tonight we are ensconced in a Victorian Arts and Craft Inn in Calistoga at the head of the valley. This little town was quite a revelation. Having encountered some sterile 'wine tourim' on the way up, Calistoga still very much has the feel of a wild west town in a way (well one with spas and inns.). Being a source of mineral springs and mud baths means it has it's fair share of day spas, but there are still a lot of the original buildings and small town feel to it. We're looking forward to a promised 5 course breakfast cooked by the owners Jll and Nck who have written a cookbook on Wine Country breakfasts. Nick has just returned from a couple days mushrooming near Yosemite and showed me some of his haul. As I write I'm sitting in the wood panelled lounge and dining area with the smell of mushrooms in the dehydrator permeating the house - scrumptious - hopefully there will be some for breakfast tomorrow!!

September 11th: Muir Woods and Berkeley

2009-09-13T10:15:00.004+10:00

Our last day in SF we hired our car for the next fortnight's travel and took the opportunity to revisit Green Apple bookstore to pick up my puchases from an earlier visit. We also made 0ut way out to the Muir Woods, the famous redwood grove up the coast from SF. A beautiful experience, marred slightly by the presence of a table at the entrance of 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Apparently in the US there is some requirment to provide a 'first amendment" area where people can exercise their constitutional right to free speech. I have no objction to the principle, but in this case the 'in your face' aggression of these guys,particularly on the anniversary itself, was a bit much.

That was the lowlight of the day - the highlight was a tossup. The deer eating the greenery by the side of the path in Muir Woods, oblivious to the tourists, was one. Our return visit to Cheeseboard Pizza was another - no Chez Panisse I'm afaid, just a shared half-pizza of bell peppers, feta cheese and olive tapenade, accopanied by some fine live music. As well as great food, Berkeley is home to some great bookshops and I again bought too many books, still haven't worked out how I'm getting them back!