Pablo Picasso once said, most wisely, ‘Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.’ On the other hand, Mark Twain reputedly said, ‘Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well.’
I suspect the latter has been my subconscious motto of the month. Given a computer glitch and more than a month of Christmas and New Year celebrations, I have just realized that we are at the tail end of January and it is over a month since I last wrote. So, I must apologize that it has taken me so long to gather my post-Christmas thoughts and wish you all a propitous and carefree new year. Hopefully, you have all had plenty on your own plates and have barely noticed my absence.
Like many of you, I have been entangled in wonderful gatherings of family and friends for several weeks over the Christmas season. After joyful but busy weeks preparing menus and cooking meals, stacking and unloading the dishwasher, setting tables and washing sheets, I am just emerging from that post Christmas malaise. The house is back in order, the ironing done, the fridge is empty of leftovers. Actually, it is empty of almost anything! So, reluctant to face another trip to the supermarket just yet, I recently explained to the One & Only, most gently and politely, that we were going out to dinner. After the gluttony of Christmas, I just wanted something simple. And comforting. With no washing up required.
One of our favourite local destinations is Marebello Pizza, and it has become a regular haunt. Originally housed in Normanville’s old Police Station, Marebello’s moved up to Yankalilla a while ago, and the owners have spent a lot of time, money and effort to create their new abode: a bright, family-oriented dining space, with a lovely courtyard garden out the back.
Apparently, there have had mixed reactions to the move. While the Carrickalinga crowd now consider it a bit of a schlep to go for pizza, Yankalilla residents are thrilled. And although I am sad we can no longer walk to dinner – and indulge in a bottle of wine with no car to drive home – the journey up South Road hardly requires a passport! Hey, I can even get home with a takeaway pizza long before it goes cold.
Each time I drop in, I swear I will try a new pizza, but from the time I discovered the Chilli Seafood Marinara, it has been a decided favourite. Anyone can have a favourite topping, and it is always going to be subjective – but there can be little argument that base is the most important part of a pizza. As the foundational undergarment, it provides the necessary structure and texture to best enhance the pizza’s flavours, and I think we all agree there must be an element of crunch. Woe betide the soggy pizza base that collapses under the weight of our favourite toppings!
Now, you will rarely find pizza in the index of a book on gastronomy. Serious foodies would never deign to cover such a mundane topic. Pizza is, after all, only a flat bread with topping, a simple snack that was being eaten, in its original and most simplistic iteration, with oil, herbs and cheese, by the plebeian people of Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The mediterranean equivalent of toasted cheese. Yet, it is still one of those nostalgic comfort foods we all enjoy from time to time, whether it is a classic Margharita, or a Meatlovers pizza, doused in every imaginable pork product.
Although ‘gourmet pizza’ might sound a little pretentious for this Italian comfort food, who among us has been able to resist some trendy topping (tandoori chicken or Greek lamb) that takes the proletarian pizza up a notch in the pecking order? I admit, my Chilli Seafood Marinara is unlikely to have been eaten in old Naples, but what do I care for authenticity when the flavour is fabulous?
So, how many of you have succumbed to building a pizza oven beside your barbecue for ‘make-your-own’ entertainment? We’re not there yet, but it is a recurrent dream…
Yet it is still the simplest of pizzas that I remember most fondly. During a summer spent interrailing around Europe many moons ago and living as cheaply as possible, I was thrilled to discover slabs of pizza in a tiny side street pizzeria in Florence; a thick crust knee-deep in mushrooms, for around 50c a slice. I ate at least one slice every day for a week, and the memory can still make my mouth water. And yet it didn’t even have the traditional thin, crunchy crust, but more of the panfried, crispy bread-and-oil type base.
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Another treat this summer has been ice cream. In a cone. As the algae bloom loses its punch and the Normanville jetty – damaged badly in winter storms – has been resurrected, I find myself drifting down to the beach on the hunt for sand, sea and… chocolate ice cream.
Now, I rarely eat ice cream, even more rarely in a cone, but on a flight back from London last year, I saw an ice cream stand at Dubai airport, and suddenly I craved a scoop. The chocolate flavour was intense and totally delicious. And it reminded me poignantly of a favourite ice cream from my youth: Golden North.
An iconic South Australian brand, Golden North was first created in a small, mid-north town about 2.5 hours north of Adelaide. Here the Bowker family had been providing milk for the local community for more than fifty years. Then, in 1923, they added ice to their cream and lo! a legend was born. Although the company has changed hands and recently moved south for easier access to its milk suppliers, Golden North is still a South Australian icon, and continues to win awards left, right and centre.
Today there are twenty-eight flavours to choose from, including iced coffee, rum and raisin and salted caramel. But that Classic chocolate ice cream is still a strong favourite for me. Although, if I was allowed to pick two, their honey ice-cream is also superb. Or maybe the hokey-pokey; that creamy vanilla ice cream mingled with crunchy chunks of golden honeycomb toffee… anyway, I’ll let you decide.
So there you have it. No gourmet dining, molecular gastronomy, frozen foams or sous vide, but locally made pizza in a good old-fashioned pizza oven and a legendary, home-grown ice cream in a waffle cone.
Not surprisingly, another favourite memory of ice cream comes from another youthful trip to Italy and the glory of those gelaterias filled with swirls and twirls of gelato in more colours and flavours than anyone could ever imagine. But that’s a story for another day.
Meanwhile, can I put it off until tomorrow, or do I need to whizz down to the Aqua Blue kiosk and splurge on a decadent, velvety, chocolate ice cream right now, in case the world comes to an unexpected end in the next twenty four hours…?