Cookbooks & memories: Bushfires 2009

The tragic events of the last few days in Victoria have reminded me that what is precious and irreplaceable to the individual is always just that: individual.

Many of my customers come to me looking for cookbooks which have been lost in a variety of ways - through divorce, moving house, immigration, flood and sometimes fire. A lady rang me last year looking for the excellent "Allegro Al Dente" by Jill Dupleix and Terry Durack - one of the first 'food & music' compilations which came with a book of great Italian recipes and a cd of opera. It's not an expensive book - perhaps $10 in good condition - but she wanted a copy to give to a friend who had lost her house in a fire - this had been her friend's favourite cookbook and was one of the things whose loss she mourned along with her precious photos and jewellery. When I first opened my shopfront Willie, another local bookseller sent a lady down to me because she was looking for a cookbook called 'The Playboy Gourmet'. When I walked over to the shelf to get it she said 'Look at me I've got goosebumps - I thought I'd never find that book again'.

More than most books, cookbooks carry with them not just recipes, but memories: of the people you cooked for, where you were when you cooked, of the wonderful (and even not-so-wonderful) times when that food was a background to your life. When I open up my very battered copy of the Chef oven cookbook and the page falls open to a recipe for Anzacs I am taken back 18 years to when, as a young mum with 3 kids under 5 and not a lot of money, I would make big batches of Anzacs with the kids for afternoon teas and playlunches. When I found the book at the back of my bookcase recently and made another batch of those Anzacs my now 23 year-old daughter came into the kitchen, took a bite of one and exclaimed - "It tastes like my childhood". That book, more than any photo, brings back to life those times and that kitchen and my children when they were little and as such will never be thrown away.

Every day someone rings me or walks into my shop looking for those kind of memories, and they are not in the expensive Mrs Beeton's or the first edition Elizabeth David, but in the 'Cookery the Australian Way' they had at school; the Australian Meat Cook Book that was a staple in every Australian kitchen in the 1970s and 80s; the McAlpin advertising pamphlet from which their gran made 'the best scones ever'. No matter how humble the cookbook, when someone asks me to track it down, I do so with as much attention as I do an expensive first edition - because often what I'm helping them find is not 'just a cookbook' but the memories it holds inside it.

Summer in the kitchen garden: zucchini

I am not generally a summer person. Although I grew up in Africa, I wilt in the extreme heat that we experience in Melbourne in February. However summer produce is wonderful: I paticularly love all the berries and stone fruit. We live so close to berry farms and orchards that we can regularly indulge in feasts of strawberries, make fresh blueberry pancakes or rasberry coulis to serve with quality vanilla ice cream for a simple dessert.

The heat also means that after a slow start because of our unseasonally cold December, in the last few weeks the kitchen garden we started in September has really taken off. Corn is starting to form, tomatoes are everywhere and if you don't pick that perfect zucchini when you see it in the evening, it'll be the size of your arm the next morning. The garden is our attempt to produce as much of our own food as possible, to be as close to the source as we can. My visit to Chez Panisse and some of the farmers' markets in California only reinforced this idea - and we have all enjoyed salads eaten literally minutes after they were picked, with a variety of vinaigrettes (my favourite is made with lemon wine vinegar and Milawa's green peppercorn seeded mustard).


I have also had to find ways to use zucchini: we planted 2 in September and then made the mistake of planting another 3 in December - not only are the first two still producing several zucchini a week, they have now been joined by the other 3. SO I've stuffed big ones with couscous flavoured with sultanas, apricots, preserved lemon, cinnamon and cumin; grated medium ones and tossed them in olive oil with garlic, lemon and lots of black pepper; made zucchini muffins using a carrot cake recipe; roasted them to be used in salads. Here is the family's favourite recipe: a chocolate zucchini cake which is dark and really moist and is still that way a couple of days later.

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE RECIPE

250 g plain flour
400 g castor sugar
65 g cocoa powder
1 TBS bicarb soda
1/2 TBS baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4 eggs
350 ml vegetable oil
350 g grated zucchini
90 g chopped hazelnuts

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and flour a baking tin (I use a kugelhopf tin).
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, bicarb soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. In a separate bowl beat the eggs and oil, and add to dry ingredients. Fold in the nuts and zucchini until they are evenly distributed. Pour into the prepared pan.
Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing (although it is just as good without).

Only in Berkeley? - 18th & 19th November

18th November: Today was a day dedicated to shopping (which I have decided is relaxing in its own way). Back to a couple of bookshops to pick up books I had seen earlier, gifts etc.

I have to tell you about The Wok Shop on Grant St in Chinatown. In amongst the restaurants and myriad gift shops lining the streets, this tiny little place is absolutely jam-packed to the rafters not just with woks (although plenty of those) but cooking implements of every type: I cam here to pick up my microplane grater and also came away with a couple of timber moulds for making buddha cookies (I had never heard about them before, but couldn't resist them). The lovely lady owner of the shop also provided me with a recipe for the cookies and her card- a wooden spoon with the shop details on it - brilliant!

Wandering around town, preparations for the holiday season are well-advanced, with the famous Union Square christmas tree slowly taking shape. Out the front of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, their tree had just arrived and in these incredibly narrow and steep streets a crane was slowly lowering it into position:

19th November:

Today a last minute decision to rent a car a day earlier than planned meant I was able to whip over to Berkeley in the afternoon to see my boy one last time. He had told me about his favourite pizza place called the Cheese Board across the road from Chez Panisse. I have been reading Alice Waters biography while over here, in which the Cheese Board features, so I just had to visit. The back story is that the Cheese Board is a cooperative (only in Berkeley) established in 1967. Based upon the principles of a kibbutz, the business is owned by collective members who are all paid the same. Check out their story at http://http//cheeseboardcollective.coop/History/CheesePizzaHistory.html

Yes folks, everything in that cabinet is a cheese. They also sell their own bread. Below is the blackboard showing the varieties on sale - this is serious cheese heaven.

The Cheese Board Pizza Collective was started in 1990. The business model is simple - they serve only one flavour of pizza every day, slices are $2.50 each. They also have drinks and a salad available. Today's pizza was four cheese and three onions and can I say it's the best pizza I have ever tasted. The base was perfect: thin, crispy on the bottom chewy on the edge, and the topping of Four Cheeses (Mozzarella, Asiago, Gorgonzola & Parmesan Cheese), Three Onions (Yellow, Red and Green Onion), Garlic Olive Oil, Fresh Herbs was superb. I have bought the Cheese Board's book for myself, and will share the recipe for this pizza when I return.

The Thomas Keller franchise: Bouchon and the Napa Valley

Picked up a rental car this morning for my drive to the Napa Valley. First I dropped Jonathan off at his frat house ( still no tour, folks) and he brought out a box of goodies for me (mostly cookbooks he has accumulated for me and books he wants sent back to Australia). Using the trusty GPS I had no problems finding my way around. I stopped off in Napa and found some gorgeous cookie cutters in an Antique Market. The weather was beautiful and driving through the valley's vineyards reminds me a lot of the Yarra Valley - miles of vineyards and lovely buildings:

After a brief stop at the Napa Outlet Mall I made my way to Yountville, home of French Laundry, Bouchon and Bouchon Bakery, all part of the Thomas Keller franchise (with others in Las Vegas and New York). Yountville was probably a pretty, character-filled village once upon a time, but lots of new development and sterile refurbishments have made the main street resemble something between the town in The Truman Show and Stepford. There are some exceptions to this in the back streets:

French Laundry is another exception, the original building (once a laundry), has been sensitively renovated, and is unassumingly positioned a couple of blocks from the main part of town:

It is clear in this building, as well as Bouchon where I had lunch, that Keller puts an emormous amount of thought into the aesthetics of his restaurants, and the attention to detail is impressive. Against the autumn colours of the street trees, Bouchon looked very welcoming. People were enjoying the sun and a galss of wine at tables on the sidewalk, and in the courtyard attached to the Bouchon Bakery next door.

Inside the bistro is cool and classic - high pressed tin ceilings, wood and etched glass, the huge mirror behind a traditional bar on one side of the room bringing the outside light in. Tables are set very traditionally, linen covered with butcher's paper and set with heavy silverware. Lots of waiters buzzing around. I ordered a goats cheese salad (like the one I had at Chez Panisse this alos had a beautiful dressing - I have made a note to start epxerimenting with vinaigrettes, they add so much to a very fresh salad.)

This was followed by crispy pan-fried striped sea bass, served with green beans in a light tomato sauce. The bass was beautifully cooked - a thick fillet still a tiny bit pink on the inside, the skin perfectly crisped. The accompanying beans were not a great foil for the fish - over-salty and chewy. I really enjoyed the fish, but around me most people were tucking into what looked like fabulous steaks with pomme frites - and I am a sucker for a good steak.

This was followed by a sublime lemon tart: very tart (!) in a pine nut crust with a touch of meringue piped on top followed by a so-so latte (can't wait to have a good coffee at the Deli when I return)

I also had a glass of Gemella, a beautful wine from a very small local winemaker called Scholium Project - very unusual, clean, crisp and really suited to the bass. Final bill around $100 including tax and tip was the same as lunch for Jono and I at Chez Panisse. Of the two meals I think Chez Panisse was more my style, I felt much more 'at home' there, which is probably a result of the Chez Panisse ethos. I've been trying to find a way to justify a quick trip over to Berkeley for another visit before I leave, but don't think it's going to happen.

I'm leaving San Francisco on Thursday morning (Friday your time) for a trip down to LA to catch my plane on Saturday night. There's another couple of opportunities for some good food on the way down, but the next two days are going to be dedicated to shopping, so I might not get a chance to bog before I get down there.

"Most beautiful Bridge"

Well, we're both exhausted, but lived to tell the tale.Today, on a beautiful, cloudless, 80 degree day, Jonathan and I caught a Muni bus to the car park on the San Francisco side of the Golden Gate bridge and walked across it, down to the lovely village of Sausalito on the other side. A trip of approx 8 kms. It wasn't a strenuous walk, although very windy and we're both a bit sunburnt.

The bridge is one of my favourite things about San Francisco, and I hadn't noticed before a plaque on its first column which says that GG was awarded in 1937 "Most beautiful steel bridge' very fitting it is too. Because it was such a beautiful day, there was a lot of traffic across the bridge, under the bridge, even over the bridge:

On the other side of the bridge we took a detour to some old bunkers in the Fort Baker precinct:

We had one wrong turn when we thought that the Bay Trail was a walking track and headed down what turned out to be a barely formed path on a steep slope along the edge of the bay. Turns out the Bay Trail is a bike trail and is actually a paved road. Never mind, we avoided the Poison Oak which apparently is prevalent around here and created a new path up the slope back to the road.

We had a very late breakfast at the Lighthouse Cafe which is on the waterfront away from the porsche and mercedes drivers of the main part of Sausalito. As in most diners, the cooks were Hispanic, and produced a fabulous meal. I'm always amazed to watch diner cooks working their magic in a very confined space with a limited number of tools and pots. The key seems to be keeping everything very organised, and each cook working their own part of the kingdom. These guys work very hard for not a lot of pay, so if you're ever eating at the Lighthouse - tip well!

Friday and Saturday - Pacific Heights and the Castro

Hi all, it's Saturday night in San Francisco (Sunday afternoon in Aus) and Jonathan and I have spent a couple of days catching up with each other and also with a family friend who I last saw in 1978. On Friday night we had dinner with Harry, Sherry, Shanna & Kyle at Left Bank, one of a chain of French brasseries in the East Bay. Think intimate Parisian bistro magnified many times: white-tiled walls, lots of large French advertising posters, wood panelling and wrought iron seating 100+. The food was quite authentic and I chose Lentil de Puys from the current regional menu which focuses on Lyon. Friday was also a long hike for me through Pacific Heights - possibly the most expensive area in San Francisco. The only people you see on the streets of stunning multi multi million dollar homes are construction workers, gardeners and nannies. After yesterday another reminder of the disparities evident in the city.

Today, Saturday, Jonathan and I went down to the Ferry Terminal Farmers Market again so that Jon could take some good photos of the produce - look for some prints on the shop walls when I come back. Here is a sample:

After the farmers market we decided to take the F Train to the Castro district - best known as the gay centre of San Francisco. Our train stopped about 2kms early because today also happened to be a day of protest and action against the controversial passing of Proposition 8 in California - a ban on gay marriages which had recently been approved by the Constituional Court. We hopped off the train and walked the rest of the way, encountering lots of groups along the way. It's a very emotional and contentious issue around here still, and has put a dampener for a lot of people on the election of Barack Obama. Jon tried out his photojournalism skills and got in there with a couple of the marches:

This afternoon we headed to the movies to see the latest Bond movie, and thne took a couple of cable cars around town just for the hell of it. Pizza and now an early night (Jon has a roll-out bed in my room) becasue tomrrow we are going to walk across Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito - around 8km- and then catch a ferry back to San Francisco. On MOnday I'm off to the Napa Valley for lunch at Bouchon - still no movement on the French Laundry waitlist.

A dirty, poorly lit place for books

And I thought nobody cared - apparently the blog was set to accept comments only from registered users - a regular pain I know. I've now changed it so comment away. BR

Well I've finally made it to the bookshop in the Tenderloin (mentioned below) and have to say that it suits its environment. It advertises itself as 'A dirty, poorly lit place for books' however having been inside I would describe it more as 'A filthy disgrace'- the very bottom of the barrel in bookshops (worse than McLeods, Meryll). I was directed to a side aisle for the cookery section and had to step on and over boxes of magazines. Glancing down to make sure I didn't fall over, I realised these magazines were, shall we say, of the hardcore variety? The owner seems to provide a drop-in centre for the local down-and-outs and in a back aisle was a young man beavering away on a computer (probably trapped in there). Anyway I came out of there (perhaps appropriately) with a first edition of Alice's Restaurant Cookbook. No return visit planned.


On my way back to my hotel I came across a queue about 100 people long and followed it around the corner to the Williams-Sonoma store where they were waiting for a book-signing by Ina Garten who has a cable cooking show called Barefoot Contessa. I wasn't interested in the book-signing but thought I would share some photos of this amazing foodies heaven. I always schedule a visit here when I'm in the US. This place is top shelf and stocks everything you can imagine for cooks and a lot of things you can't. Most of it's food products are aimed at home cooks looking for short-cuts (viz Pumpkin Bread mix, pre-prepared mulled wine base all very expensive) but their cookware range is amazing - check out that range of Le Creuset.

I've also visited a few other cookware shops today to track down good prices on microplane graters. They retail at $22 - $35 in Australia, around $US12 - 20 here. Put in your orders before next Thursday!