Tuesday, December 9, 2008

from the edge of a cliff














This is written from the edge of a cliff face. A village clinging to the rocks willing them not to lose grip. Taormina is a most picturesque town in the North eastern corner of Sicily, just before the port of Messina that connects Sicily to the toe of the Italy’s boot.


Winter in these small seaside resort towns can be one of two things…hardy and empty streets where you can hear the coastal winter rain drops fall solidly, (like the Cinque Terre) or if you take yourself a little closer to the equator, it is still the pumping heart that beats softer and less desperately than summer. Taormina may just be unbearable in Summer, but we will leave that discovery for a definite return trip in the future, right now…its perfect.


























The view from our room stretches so far you can see the ocean curving around the globe.













When we awake in the morning, Mt. Etna’s snow covered folds catch the sun like a hologram. It sits strong against the blue backdrop.











Small breaths of smoke push into the sky from the villages stretched below along the coastline, but they can never quite reach us up here in our camere with its own private terrace.












The wonderfully charismatic elderly Italian woman, Elena has had this former family home since the late 60s, and pushes through her marginal English to make us feel like we were at our own Grandmothers. But she never makes us feel we are a pain, which we feel need to respect by getting home at a reasonable hour every night (but that is certainly not an expectation of hers).

Although its now raining out side, the fact that we can watch it dancing on our own terracotta terrace, and from such a grand height, makes it much more bearable than when it rained in Rome.

There, we pushed through one afternoon of sogginess to see the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and Piazza Navona, before eating in a great little pizzeria “Bafetto’s”. I spent the evening asking questions of the apprentice pizza makers (they were over 50, but Bafetto the old boy owner will only ever let them feel like apprentices, I am sure).
In the end they must have been a little enchanted with all my interest in the making of a mere pizza, and we had a photo together! Unfortunately I still think my unexpectedly good pizza from a very local neighbourhood area of Torino, when visiting with dad, was still better than this one, but we enjoyed the pizza and question time, nonetheless!
















I could write all day about the grandeur and scale of incredibleness of the Colosseum. I don’t think ‘incredibleness’ is a word, as the spell checker doesn’t recognize it, but the Colosseum is worthy of inventing words. No word in the English language can give you an understanding of seeing the beginnings of our civilization, you just have to see it for yourself.



















We LOVED Rome, but we are still not quite sure why…there is something so significant about the place that Paris never offered. A strength, or something. Indescribable.



Florence provided me with a beautiful pair of Italian leather boots at a jealousy provoking 50 euros! A bargain that sparked a scent trail for Anth to search for his own pair, which thankfully we found in Taormina yesterday. For anyone that knows Anth and his attention to perfection –it was a long and at times painful, quest of second-guessing and guilt over the prices.

Today I am feeling a little homesick. I feel over indulged in all the culture that has so richly painted a tapestry of where Australian culture originates. I feel over indulged in food, wine, and choice…and I even feel a little apprehensive, that being so close to the end…I don’t know…I just want to hug my mum at the airport again and give her back the hankie she gave me 15 months ago, covered in her tears and mine.

So far the 15 months of travel has posed more questions than it has answered, for both of us, I think. So it’s nice to know our learning in this life will continue even though it feels like a chapter is drawing it’s final pages for us.

I look forward to the next chapter, getting back on the bike, eating a steak from the Cascades, and in a more long term sense - watching how Australia comes to terms with its image problem. We have such a rich stock, centuries of culture from other cultures…we just have to work out how to harness and make it move in the right direction for our country – I think…what do you?

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

I know you like photos- so here are a few!


I think the Rotary spit roasts at the Bream Creek Show could learn a thing or two about a pig on a spit from this little Italian fella - big pig, small man! YUMMMMMY meat! Thanks piglet! you were really yummy!







A Bosnian cheese that is poured curds and whey - the whole lot, into a calf stomach and smoked...a few months later they cut it open and there you have it!









this is a 700kg cheese at the Slow Food Salone del Gusto!







Dad pretty proud of his spread, - or the scotch...I think its the scotch actually!











Had a great arvo with dad, we had no plans, and just roamed...amazing how many places that I had been wanting to visit that we just stumbled across without a map...naturally Pierre Herme was one of them - oh the macaroons are good...in my opinion, better than Laduree's (where I took Joey for her birthday)






Dad sucking in his guts in front of the Tour Eiffel!














Typical dinner chez moi!
My first ever attempt at Beef Bourgignon - oh come on - I had to try it if i live in Paris!

Mondays with Caroline

Oh how I love them!
She is the only reason I keep going in to the Bakery on my days off unpaid.
Today I made chicken burgers...they are DELICIOUS even if i do say so myself!...the trick was good chicken breast and lots of moisture. You can keep moisture in the burgers by putting some bread in the milk, that has been soaked in milk...good little trick!.
I fried off a bunch of finely chopped onions, leeks and garlic, seasoned and caramelised it just a little. Then mix this through with the minced chicken breasts, a bit of citrus peel, lots of coriander and parsley, cheddar cheese (not too much) a few chopped chillies, and the bread and yoghurt if you need the moisture. Mix it all together and cook a test patty and adjust the seasoning if necessary. We decided they needed a little more kick so we added some paprika and a few pasted up anchovies.
YUM!
Incidentally I got the most fantastic anchovies straight from Sicily, at the Terra Madre convention. I will have to give these little gems away when I leave, as i am sure I can't send them home opened, but I intend to find more in Sicily and post them home...they are to DIE for...even if you don't like anchovies, these ones are incredible...the saltiness and fishiness in perfect perfection!

So we made a rich tomato sauce to go with the burgers. (Give the burgers some colour in the pan but finish them off in the oven).
The sauce was again loads of onion cooked down, added garlic, and lots of tomatoes...but at this time of year in the northern hemisphere they aren't awesome and sweet like summer, so I needed to add some tomato paste and a can of tinned rich tomatoes for the flavour. I then popped in some red wine vinegar and sugar and salt and pepper, a few chillies chopped and some water. Then just let it reduce down for as long as possible, so that the water content reduces by about a 1/3.
Then at the end blend the sauce and add a bit of cream as it’s blending.

I can't wait for dinner tonight, a chicken burger with rich tomato sauce and fresh traditional baguette, from the best bakery in the 18th arrondissement!

So there you have it - the kick i get out of Monday's with Caroline. The chatting about the seasonings, the little discoveries - like I now know that vinegar in such as sauce like the above, won't curdle the cream!...each week is just something little, but special...and I love her for sharing her knowledge so patiently with me.

Caroline is opening her own restaurant in Normandy next year, so if you go to France, ask me for her details so I can send you in her direction!

Bon!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Slow Food and Terra Madre

From the 23rd to 26th October, I experienced one of the most moving events of my life, the Salone del Gusto - a celebration of Slow Food and the Terra Madre (Mother earth) organisation. http://www.terramadre.info/ and http://www.slowfood.com/

It was an event that will shape my future, and solidify the structure that I have chosen to experience this lifetime through!

It was a 5 day conference, of which Dad and I experienced 2 of the days. A meeting of people from across the earth, who ultimately, care about the earth and its food communities. They use that term, "food communities", because it is a term that goes a long way to describe not just the produce, but the culture, people, lives, and livelihoods that it takes to get that food to your table.

The Salone is a celebration of these food communities, and the chance for people within these communities to come together and share food, ideas, and make contacts in the same situation as them across the earth, regardless of their income levels.

I have come to realise that perhaps its mostly our generation Y, specifically individuals born from 1977 to 1995, that don't have a lot of idea of where our food comes from. I have read recently, that some kids (and i struggle to believe that it got this bad), think its disgusting that carrots could have dirt on them, apparently not knowing that carrots are a root vegetable grown in the earth.

How did we come to be so far detached from food and the seasonality of food, some us I am sure don't know that fish and meats, and even eggs have a season...

Am I right, that it is mostly our generation?

I know we are a small and not very random sample of the population (many would say we ARE random!!) AND I know that my dad doesn't know everything (he thinks he does) there was definitely one or two questions like this that I had, and he was the catalyst for the answers I found in our days together in Torino, Italy!

As we strolled around exhibition halls of food stalls from what felt like every community in the world, and I regarded the tradition of food and the average age of the stall holders, something I did realise is that there is going to be a huge sadness as libraries full of knowledge go to the grave untapped,over the next 40-50 years.

That sadness befell me between the stalls of spit roasted pig and cured pork products from Italy...Tears welled in both dad and my eyes when it dawned on me as a nearly 30 year old, if i don't start asking dad and mum, and the grandparents I have left, about their traditions in food, and some "how to" questions, then the buck stops with me.

If I don't learn how my family cooks a camping one pot roast, or how my dad would build a smokehouse or a wood fired oven, then my kids will never know either.

I know that of late it has become fashionable in Australia to be a sea-changer or a tree-changer, and I heartily welcome this decentralisation as a sign that the future might not be so grim. In fact without any facts and figures to support this blog entry, sometimes I can't tell if i am warped by how it is here in Europe.
One way or the other - you know...I will no longer take for granted the fresh catch of flathead from the dinghy out the front of mum's house now!

So as I watched the whole world of communities become one, under one roof in Torino, I started asking Dad questions...How do i make a woodfired pizza oven, how do I build a smokehouse, how do I make a hangi?
I now am the proud owner of the Martin method of building such things. I don't really care that it's maybe not the way dad's dad's dad would have done it, but I tell you, it's the closest I am ever gonna get, and that's really important for me to have it to pass on to my children!

It's at this point I could go on about native Australians and why we didn't take more time to learn from some people who already know Australia quite literally like the back of their hand, instead of annihilating their culture, but I will spare you...and let you use your imagination!

I will just say that I felt inspired and sad at the Salone.
Inspired by moments like this one.
I was sitting in what ended up being my favourite seminar of the weekend, "the importance of Bees". There we were all sitting with our headsets on. There is no amplification in the seminar spaces, as there are so many seminars within a small area. The moderator of the lecture, Francesco Panella from Italy was speaking Italian, and we listed in one of the 8 languages it was translated into. Francesco finished his speech and opened the floor up to the many apiarists and bee enthusiasts in the room. There were 10 people that put their hand up and spoke, each one of the from a different country, places such as Kenya, India, Mexico, Peru, Paris, the States, London, the list goes one...a really equal spread of 1st and 3rd world residents. But the moment that got me was this...when a man stood and spoke in Hindi, he explained his despair as he watched over the years the depletion of bees in his valley, and that impact the use of pesticides has had on the bee population. When he finished, he turned back to stand against the wall of the room, where a man from Afghanistan was standing too. He had been listening, as the Indian man's words were translated from Hindi to Italian to whichever of the 8 Slow Food languages the Afghani chose to understand. As the Indian man turned back, the Afghani man patted him knowingly on the shoulder, and looked at him with a shared sympathy for his situation. I was again moved to tears. How small the world really is. We share the same problems, and despair over the same environmental sadness's world over. And the plight of one little bee brought these men together.

And the thing that made me sad...that among all these traditionally dressed cultural contributors from countries all over the world, there was no traditionally dressed Australians sharing Australia.

Maybe the Salone in 2 years time will be different?

See you there!

kath x



Wednesday, October 15, 2008

My farewell gift

Finally the moment I had been waiting for at the bakery has come...and with all the responsibility, trust and belief in my abilities...I turned around and resigned!

The Bakery over the past few months has been everything I was hoping for and more. It is the culmination of those few first awkward months where I didn’t know much French and couldn’t find anything in the place or work out any of the systems…(I later came to the conclusion that there were none…that explained a lot!)

It has been 7 months now, and Anth is exhausted…but along with his ridiculously long weeks, and our “sneak the time in” breakfasts together, he too has had an experience he will never forget. He said to me at 2am, after arriving home from a 17 hour day at work “this is the biggest, most high-profile, most amazing project I have ever worked on., and it will be the last I do for someone else!”…I am so utterly proud of what he can achieve even when he is just here to support me!
Needless to say we are now looking forward to some travel (notice I don’t say Holiday!) throughout Europe to get a taster of the next possible adventure.

This time we have had OS has certainly confirmed to us that travel is a priority in our life, if not intrinsic to who we are. Our children will be bilingual for sure, as this is the only thing we have found to have held us both back.

I must admit though, Anthony understands a lot of French for someone who knows hello and how are you?, and I was quite impressed by my own efforts today buying a box to post mum’s birthday present home in – it is amazing how much you can understand and communicate, even when you can’t conjugate words to save yourself!

Today, at the bakery I despatched an order for around 100 people for Ralph Lauren, without the help of JC…yep that’s right I am the right hand woman of JC. Does that make me the right hand-once removed from God? Or Mary Magdalene?!!
(No Jesus-Christ doesn’t work with me, just Jean-Charles).
This might not sound overly impressive, but sending that order out the door – of Ralph Lauren no less, was a moment for me when I realised that all the career experience I have had in my life, can, and has tied itself into a perfect little bow in an area I am so passionate about.

I feel so lucky that I have come here with a dream of getting into the food industry, and not just done that, but I am walking out with a box of tangible passion and practical knowledge, even tied up with a bow!

So how did I get here? Well, firstly I stopped sitting in our lovely little window and staring at Paris…


and I threw myself into it!

I copped all the shit that the other wait staff gave me because I was “too enthusiastic!”…

And then I did a few things, namely…

“Mondays with Caroline”





Joined the American Library (that’s not me)


Registered for the Salone del Gusto, Slow Food & Terra Madre (a food Convention of sorts)…




Had a wonderful and enlightening chat with Rose



Got a day in the pastry kitchen



In subsequent blogs I am going to tell you a little more about each one of these things, but for now, I need only tell you that this melange of ideas, actions, talks and listens, has been the ingredients for what I now know will become a lifestyle, not just a passion or a fad…I really am looking forward to the rest of my life more than ever now, as I feel I have found my framework through which I can experience it.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

London, an eye opener!

I seem to always start these entries with “it’s been so long since I have updated this”! I feel like I have left you hanging, not sneaking you the naughty taste of the cookies, after you have spent all afternoon bathing in scent of their baking.

Well the truth is, I have been eating all the cookies without you!
No, really, I have!
Cookies in London, Iceland and Paris!

But now it’s time to share. Today it’s London!

So as you know, I went to London, to ease the pain of being apart from Anthony whilst he was in Nice working. In fact, this unexpected, “something to do” week, ended up being a very liberating and purposeful time spent browsing the offers of a city that is struggling with it’s food image.
I have noticed, since I last stepped foot in London (in ’99), that things have indeed improved significantly on the food front. Prior to going there this time, I had been spoon-fed a range of ideals, opinions and suggestions from all the English buddies I work alongside at the Bakery. They proudly suggested their favourite tea-totalling spots, and creative hangouts.

Religiously I missioned my way around them all. Ottolenghi, Hummingbird Bakery, Acorn House, Wholefood Supermarket, Flatwhite, Chegworth Valley Farm Shop, and there are still a few I will get to next visit.
It was true, some of them were amazing takes on how to present the sustainable living model of using organic produce, but on the whole I felt sad. I don’t know if what I expected was a little warped (maybe I am spoilt in Tasmania!).

In France, the idea of organic has never really taken off, and England (as compared with France) is leading the way in that battle for sure, so I was excited to re-immerse myself in easy access sustainable products.

But after a week there, with all these labels singing ‘organic, sustainable’, in chain whole food supermarkets, it made me reassess the whole idea of why I choose organic produce (besides the obvious health and environmental benefits).

Why? Why do I, and others, feel so compelled to jump on the organic bandwagon as it passes? Just like everything else, it is a fad, and it will pass.

On the contrary, I realize, that this is one fad that is necessary now, and has got a happy, healthy ending for everyone in the world, and the more that jump on board, the better we will all be.

But how did we get here…? How did food become a marketable fashion, and why doesn’t France (of all the fashionable countries in the world) feel obliged to make a big deal of it like everyone else is?

Well, if my feeling of London was anything to go by, I am happy France is exactly where it’s at regarding their attitude to food. The English food scene, to me, felt like I am sure it would in a number of other big westernized cities around the world. I felt a bit like I was pulling a big doona up over my body, keeping me safe and comfortable on top, whilst underneath, I was lying on a cardboard box on the street. Kind of a false sense of security, that allows complacency in the end.

This complacency is a supreme trust that the multinational companies (who are making a fortune from the latest fads) are telling us the truth about the food we are eating. It is this complacency that has led us to diabolical situation we are in with industrial agriculture, the exact reason we are all thinking we should now eat organically grown. My question for you is, can we afford to be complacent anymore? Wasn’t it only 36 years ago (not even a human life time) we were being told DDT (a crop pesticide that was linked with asthma, diabetes and various types of cancer) was safe?

Don’t get me wrong there are many people and companies out there, who really are trying to do the right thing, and the good ones are the ones that educate you at the same time.

In London I found a few amazing restaurants and cafes, highlighting seasonal, and not just organic, but local food too. One restaurant I found serves nothing that isn’t farmed within the limits of the M25, the large freeway that encircles the city.

In it’s entirety though, every high street looked the same, chain stores, fashion or food, lining both sides of the street. In some ways I had been craving this lick of home, where I could understand everything and it was familiar, but a recent bout of clarity made me question whether I am actually understanding everything afterall!

If organics and sustainable agriculture becomes a chain, a product that we can package and label and create something familiar from, no matter where in the world you find it, then we might just have missed the point!

This is where, upon my return to France, it all fell into perspective for me.

Call me slow, ignorant, or just not seeing the positives due to a bout of familiarity homesickness, but I really hadn’t seen it before.

Paris, and from my (to date) limited travel in France, really has something special in the way of culture, and understanding of food and what it represents.

I know, I can hear you say – “of course” that’s what it’s famous for. Well, yes, but when I got here, with all my grandiose dreams of Parisian life, and the food etc etc. It was indeed amazing, but not as amazing as I really believed it would be (they eat a lot of hot chips and steak here – hardly culinary brilliance!). But I had been over criticizing this place.

I think, for a while there, I was actually convinced that Paris (and that’s the only place in France I can talk about with conviction) wasn’t much more of a foodie location than say, Melbourne. I mean I know Australia is only the young cousin of Europe, but I thought we had done a pretty good job of catching up.
Now I have realized, and this is the revelation you’ve been waiting for, is that culture matters more in food than any of the labels we, in the western world, can stick on an over packaged item.

If you travel all over the world, and the organic produce (packaged or not) looks the same from one place to the next, you have to start to question why?
Culture isn’t that transportable actually. An engrained belief or learning is hard to teach without looking like your preaching (hence all the religious battles in the world). So even though Australia seems to have caught up, maybe we shouldn’t have been focusing on catching up, but just creating our own local food culture.

This is where my analogy of the comfy doona on the cardboard box comes in.

After all these years of food abuse in industrial agriculture, where we have been wringing the life out of something like corn, until it resembles nothing like a corn cob, we have made organics fashionable, and people are starting to support such produce.

As an aside, did you know that dextrose and high-fructose syrup– that random word you see on the ingredients list of all manner of processed foods – is actually some form of corn, which arguably acts as pure fat in your body upon consumption!

I am happy that we are all starting to get it, and support organics, because every time you choose that over processed piece of meat from the meat case, you are only confirming that the marketing department of the industrial agriculture company is doing a good job.

I have often wondered why they don’t put a picture on the label of the real cow that is in the plastic wrapper before you, instead of happy cow standing in the sun in the paddock? I guess the 3-foot of shit it’s standing in doesn’t look that appetizing when you are about to chow down on the steak. It goes to show though, they too aren’t proud of what their doing!

Why is it though, that the majority of us didn’t get it, until the marketing departments told us to. Of course there were the crusading few that started the demand, and the big, money making, enterprises saw that there was a buck in it, but why isn’t eating well something we want to do naturally, like the French?

The French have all manner of pastries and temptations that they could be wrapping their mouths around every lunchtime, but they don’t. Mega-mart type stores are a relatively new invention over here. I can also honestly say, that I could count on one hand the number of people I see drinking soft drinks as a beverage of choice, sparkling water is the go for most.

So if we continue this phase of labeling something sustainable, organic and that means healthy and good for the earth, without actually LEARNING the truth for ourselves, how are we ever going to break the cycle of just believing what we are told?

Choosing healthy options, and treating treats as just that, is a lesson that is engrained in you in France, according to Mirelle Guilliano, the author of “Why French Women Don’t Get Fat”. I work with a few women in their 50s and 60s, who are living proof of that school of thought. Their resistance to treats, although they are working in a bakery surrounded by buttery goodness, is remarkable and something I can say I am not gifted at. Yet I grew up with all the fresh produce one could want, in an environment conducive to exercise and healthy living, so how did I miss out on the sweets “shut-off valve”?

Well maybe it’s about hands-on learning? Being responsible for your food choices, knowing your farmer and where a carrot comes from, and that they shouldn’t all look the same!

Give a kid a choice in the battle for a healthy body, and, be honest, what would you have chosen as a kid – crudités of carrot with home-made hummus, or a Uncle Toby’s muesli bar?

Me, I would have gone for the muesli bar, because it’s muesli, healthy and sweeter than the carrot. Until I was old enough to find out for myself, I had no idea that these well-marketed bars of health, were in fact, full of sugar, and marginally better for you than a Tim Tam. I don’t even know if my mum knew, but that is fine, because the TV tells us they are good for us, and we believed them. It’s hard not to catch on to something being rammed down your throat at a precisely selected TV time slot or on a convenient banner space right outside school. That was how WE (as a general city dwelling population in Australia) learnt about food.

I can’t say unquestionably that city dwelling French children learn more about their food sources and consequently better habits, than Australian kids, but from what I have read of Guiliano, and from discussions with other not-fat French women, culture prevents them from listening too hard to the marketing campaigns!

The mega marts are creeping in, but oh so slowly. Their sugary promotions are tempting but the French are doing a fabulous job of resisting them. Yes there is McDonalds and Starbucks, but they aren’t EVERYWHERE you look. Even the billboard advertising in the metro system is mostly for art exhibitions and fashion, than emblazoned with Coca Cola and the like.

So, it’s great to go and buy some organic produce from your local whole foods store or organic market, but I urge you, to not just do it because you were told to in a marketing campaign. Take it on to learn about the people that got your food to your table. Question the storeowner as to why the organic meat is a little more expensive than the non-organic stuff. Why is better to try a different grain than the stock standard wheat for your cake or bread? Why buy local milk?

Don’t feel overwhelmed, just start to question a few of the marketing campaigns that made you choose that packet mix (full of dextrose!) and pre-packed meat with a faceless farmer. You might even start to enjoy the process of getting to know Farmer Joe! Let alone work out why your child has an attention and hyperactivity problem!

In the meantime, bon appétit!

Kath

The Borough Market outing and consequent feast!

 
 
 
 
we started at 9am, and it finished at 12am. A feast of fresh local produce, and a Croatian Brodet (fish stew) for the troops!
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The Buying of the Borough Market Feast

 
 
 
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The Cooking of the Borough Market Feast

 
 
 
 
The cooking
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Local spots from the gals at work

 
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Monmouth Coffee House

The Hummingbird Bakery - famous for its cupcakes

 
The Hummingbird Bakery
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Ottolenghi - Notting Hill

 

 

 

 

Ottolenghi, Notting Hill.
I particularly like how the barista can interact with the customers through his own little window and the customers are all dining as a family (doesn't suit everyone though!)
The display of food is something I really like, as it is creating visual interest through different levels, and colour.
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