The merlion is a mythical creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. It became the logo for the Singapore tourism board in 1966. Singapore – Singapura means ‘lion city’ in Malay, hence the lion head. The fish body represents Singapore’s origin as a Javaense fishing village, Temasek.
Singapore is – as you doubtless know – a heavily populated island at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, about 85 miles north of the Equator. It consists of Singapore Island and about 60 small islets. Johor Strait divides the main island from the peninsular of Malaysia, but there is a bridge. Singapore is a city state and the largest port in Southeast Asia and one of the busiest in the world. It dominates the Strait of Malacca, which connects the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. Once a tiny fishing village, then a British colony, it is now an independent state and a member of the Commonwealth. It is also multicultural, with four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. As English is the common language, this makes it one of the easiest corners of Asia for the English-only speaking traveller. Add tidy, clean, efficient, friendly (mostly) and surprisingly green, and it compares with few other Asian cities I have visited.
Given its proximity to the equator, and the fact that it claims to rain somewhere on the island every day, it is hot and humid. Cloud cover does keep the temperature a tad lower, but as that generally sits at about 26 degrees centigrade, with 100% humidity, low becomes a relative term. However, the last weeks in South Australia have been unseasonably chilly, so I’m not complaining.
It is also one of the most expensive cities in the region. We are only passing through (a brief break on the long haul to London), so we are happy to live on fried rice, noodle soup and margaritas – the drink not the pizza – for a couple of days.
It’s been eight years since we last visited Singapore. Where has the time gone? Last time we flew in from Manila and stayed on the East Coast Road. This time we are a hop-skip-and-a-jump from Bugis MRT, on the doorstep of Kampong Glam.
Kampong Glam is a tiny neighbourhood of nineteenth century shop houses that has been a focal point for the Muslim community since the 1800s, when Sir Stamford Raffles allocated the area to the Malay, Arab and Bugis communities. It abuts a magnificent mosque, built in 1824 by the first sultan of Singapore Hussein Shah. Shops selling textiles and carpets abound, mixed up with bars and restaurants serving almost any cuisine you can imagine. And, instead of Melbourne’s ubiquitous and generally ugly graffiti, there is colourful street art on every available wall. Although still popular with the Muslim community, the area has evolved into a trendy haunt for travellers and art lovers.
‘Kampong’ means ‘compound’ in Malay. ‘Gelam’ is a long-leaved paperbark tree, once commonly found in the area and used for boat-making, medicine and even as a seasoning for food. Thanks, Google! We knew none of this when we booked the hotel, but we found ourselves wandering down Arab Street and Haji Lane in search of Chinese noodles, and ending up with Turkish dips and margaritas at Pashas. The following night it was Blue Jazz for more margaritas, satays and the most delicious, most enormous, and most exorbitant slab of pizza I have ever eaten. In the mornings, for breakfast, we found a lovely little café called ‘All Things Delicious’ where the staff were sweet, as were the cakes, and we could drink excellent coffee.
Friends who had also visited Singapore recently recommended a visit to The Gardens by the Bay, which cover over 100 hectares of reclaimed land along the waterfront. You can pay to visit the two conservatories – the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest – but there is no charge to wander at will around the grounds. In our dry desert state, the Bicentennial Conservatory at the Botanic Gardens first introduced me to the concept of humidity. I assumed that’s what a conservatory was for, but the Flower Dome in Singapore replicates our own cool, Mediterranean climate. And the Cloud Forest conservatory replicates tropical mountain regions.
Then there are the Super Trees. I was expecting Californian Redwoods or something similar. Instead, they are vertical gardens of metal, shaped like the trunk and canopy of trees. A walkway between two such ‘trees’ provides an aerial view of the park. Unfortunately, we only had an afternoon free, but it was enough time to circle round the park, admiring the lush, tropical flora and the interesting sculptures hidden among the foliage. We also found Satay by the Bay, an outdoor Hawkers corner with an array of Asian food for lunch. (Fried rice, but no margaritas.)
Singapore is a wonderfully clean and efficient city, easy to get around on foot or by rail. The shopping venues and restaurants are prolific, and strangely in this consumer Mecca, so are the churches. We popped into the oldest church in Singapore, the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, small, round and simple, Neoclassical and entirely cloaked in white, like a bride. By coincidence, a wedding had obviously taken place that morning, the bride and her family still milling about on the lawn. Just down the road is the Anglican Cathedral of St. Andrew’s, named in honour of the Scottish – presumably Presbyterian – community which donated generously to the building fund, and is full of plaques dedicated to colonial inhabitants of the past century.
A quick visit to the Art Gallery, for the world’s most expensive coffee, and our time was up. Thanks for having us, Singapore. It was lovely to catch up again…
*Photo of the Singa Lion by Joshua Ang on Unsplash – thank you! And with thanks to Google for the rest.
Driving through the Adelaide hills in autumn, the glorious deciduous trees are festooned in bronze, ruby and saffron leaves. We are weaving our way up the Fleurieu Peninsula to Stirling for a special birthday lunch at Patch Kitchen & Garden. As Murphy’s Law would have it, those with the furthest to come are the first to arrive, so we have a little time to ourselves to wander through the garden, glass in hand, exploring this new (to us) venue.
This beautiful old building – from the 1880s apparently – was once the local store and post office. Today it has been transformed into an elegant, airy restaurant with high ceilings, wooden floors and intriguing artwork. Belle tells me she has a penchant for Portabello market and loves collecting old posters there. A local painter provided a vast triptych – or is it four pieces? – of the Adelaide hills from Mount Lofty, looking back over Piccadilly Valley, that stretches across the far wall in the main dining room. The we wander out to the garden, where a large bricked patio offers a perfect venue for a summer evening.
Andy Davies and his wife Belle Kha might be relative newcomers to this lovely spot – they only set up camp here early last year – but they are very much at home in the Adelaide hills, and in the hospitality industry. And even I, with my habit of flitting in and out of Adelaide over the past three decades have visited at least one of their earlier ventures, at Press*. Andy and Belle have joined forces with old friends Peter Harvey and Mette Cordes-Harvey, who have international wine experience. Together the four friends aim to share their joy of food and wine with fellow gourmands in this glorious setting among the towering trees on Mount Barker Road, where they can source local produce from a plethora of producers.
The menu changes with the seasons, and the staff are equally adaptable for all dietary preferences. So, don’t go along expecting what I am about to describe, but I am sure whatever you are offered will be equally delicious.
Anyway, you might prefer brunch with bubbles in the bright, rustic dining room, or just fancy an alfresco coffee and cake in the courtyard. We are here for a long lunch in the private front room, complete with fireplace and a huge round table set for nine. And it’s late autumn so this degustation menu is designed to be warm and filling, and is also designed for sharing.
Plates of fresh sour dough bread arrived first, with the crunchiest crust ever, accompanied by salted butter and small dishes of pickled vegetables. Two different dips – a humus topped with chunks of baked eggplant like a deconstructed babaganoush, and a goat cheese dip with small roast tomatoes – were served with thin toast. At this point – as in ‘so early in proceedings’ – others were being sensible and pacing themselves. I was not. A pig in mud may not be a flattering metaphor, but I was as happy as one as I waded into that humus…
Then there was a perfectly grilled octopus from Port Lincoln, fresh pasta with blue crab from Western Australia, and a parmesan souffle topped with pork ragu. But not all at once, there was apparently no rush. They arrived one at a time, with plenty of room to digest and enjoy the moment.
Thick slices of roast duck were accompanied by a foie gras and mushroom pie that for me was the pièce de résistance...
Although our final savoury dish was a close second. A mouthwatering platter of beef, the edges crisped, the centre almost melting on the tongue. I tend to veer away from beef in restaurants. After all, it’s something we can easily cook at home… but not as well as this! It was, simply, stunning.
Then a trio of opulent desserts: a raspberry souffle; a Crème Brûlée and a third one which I think was a creamy pyramid in a sea of intense coffee sauce … oh! … and a novelty birthday cake for our birthday boy, that caused a lot of laughs.
In the face of so many succulent dishes, I did tease Andy about the whereabouts of the peas and carrots. And, to be honest, although every dish was fabulous, the overall effect was incredibly rich and could have done with a couple of interim plates of steamed vegetables to dilute it a little. But that is my only – and very minor – criticism. And did it stop me trying everything, or being a little more circumspect? It did not!
If I am blurry on the details, please forgive me and blame the excellent chardonnay, which promptly made me forget that I wasn’t going to drink much today. But if you want to know more, there are plenty of excellent and well-deserved reviews on-line … or just take the plunge and make a booking. You won’t regret it. The staff are just lovely, and we were made to feel like family. Belle seems to have all the time in the world for a chat and Andy came through later to savour our profusion of compliments. Our long lunch went on well in the afternoon, and the sun was setting as we headed home. A thoroughly satisfactory interlude in heaven.
Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, Roaming the countryside, a truant boy, Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, And every doubt long blown by time away. ~ Matthew Arnold, The Gypsy Scholar
We’ve snuck away for a week or two with Barney. The One & Only has a plan to close the loop of previous trips, and drive between Melbourne and Bega. Of course, that means a spur-of-the-moment visit to our good friends in Buninyong, a coffee with our older son in Collingwood, and a weekend with mates on the Mornington Peninsula. And thus, we come to Rosebud.
Rosebud. What a fabulous name for a town! Once a tiny settlement on the southern edge of Port Philip Bay, it was named after a ship, the Rosebud, which was wrecked on the beach, in the winter of 1855. The locals lived off the flotsam and jetsam for years! Now, it is a bustling suburb, awash with holiday makers, and this week the circus is in town, the red and white striped marquee squatting on the Rosebud Village Green, opposite the pub. Wandering down to the beach, we spot the Spirit of Tasmania heading back from Devonport, swinging east from Queenscliff and almost clipping the end of the jetty. In the distance, we can see the high rises of Melbourne poking up like asparagus spears on the horizon to the north. To the southwest, Barwon Heads guard the entrance into Port Philip Bay, and a stone’s throw up the coast, the ferry dashes back and forth from Mornington Peninsula to the Bellarine. Next time, we will come that way…
For years Rosebud grew infinitesimally, well off the beaten track, a long haul from Melbourne by horse and cart. When a pier was finally built in 1888, it was too short and shallow for the ferries to dock. A post office opened the following year, but the first pub wasn’t built until 1940. And for decades, it was the only pub in town.
Rosebud, unlike the rather snazzier suburb of Sorrento, is wonderfully low key, its back streets full of old-fashioned family beach shacks. The artist, Arthur Boyd, lived here with his grandfather in the 1930s and painted the jetty. Judith Durham of the Seekers apparently spent her childhood summers here. The town sits beneath the lower slopes of Arthur’s Seat, a prominent feature in the landscape of Port Philip Bay. From the summit, on a clear day, you can see the Melbourne city skyline, Mount Macedon behind, and the You Yangs to the west. A chair lift, the Arthur’s Seat Eagle, will carry you up and down the eastern slope of the hill.
After World War II, as more and more families were able to afford cars, travelling down the coast to camp on the foreshore at Rosebud in the summer holidays became an annual tradition for many Melbourne families. Today, the campsite stretches the length of the town, providing a green strip of trees, shrubs and grass between the main road and the beach, the influx of campers doubling the local population in the summer months.
And suddenly, after a slow start, the town took off. By the 1960s, Rosebud had a shopping centre and was enticing a growing number of ‘sea change’ retirees to move down here permanently. Today, it is one of the main towns on the peninsula. The long Rosebud pier was restored in 2015, and the area is popular for its variety of weekend markets.
On Saturday afternoon, we take a drive up to Sorrento to inspect its wonderful bookshop, Antipodes, which will support the second Sorrento Writers Festival later this month. Already, the books of writers who will be visiting are piled up at the front of the store and the program makes me wish I had time to come back for this budding event. Downstairs, at the back of the shop, a long staircase descends to a treasure trove of books for kids.
There is a café at the top of the high street where the world’s best vanilla slice is made; that classic Australian pastry of thick vanilla custard sandwiched between layers of filo pastry and dusted with icing sugar. Long a favourite with the One & Only, I was not much of a fan. Until I tried this one. Served up in huge trays, we buy four huge slabs to take home, and somehow resist dipping our fingers into the silky custard or leaving our prints in the icing sugar.
I also manage to find an outfit for an up-coming wedding. As shopping has never been a favourite occupation, I walk reluctantly into the first dress shop we pass – and walk out with an entire outfit, including shoes, only fifteen minutes later! Now that’s my kind of shopping.
With the car boot filled with books and pastries and new clothes, we take a short drive past Millionaire’s Walk to the end of the peninsula, and the Point Nepean National Park.
On this wild and windy stretch of land a Quarantine Station was established in 1852, to test migrants and, later, incoming stock, as overcrowding on immigrant ships often led to serious outbreaks of infectious diseases. Since then, this isolated community has fulfilled a number of different roles and a plethora of heritage-listed buildings remain, including five two storey hospital blocks and a communal bathing complex.
After Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth took control and more buildings were added, including a stately Administration Building. During the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1919, 12 wooden ‘Influenza huts’ were added to house an influx of patients. In World War II, the army moved in, and remained here until 1985. In the 1990s, it was converted into a refugee camp for Kosovars fleeing from the Bosnian War. And in 2009 the Quarantine Station became part of the Point Nepean National Park.
We wander through this fascinating town full of ghosts and dip our toes in the sea before heading home for tea – and vanilla slice!
Well-fed and well rested, it is time to move on, and as our friends head back to the city, we pack up the van and turn south again. We are aiming for Wilson’s Promontory, so it won’t be a long drive – and even then we only make it as far as Walkerville North. Here we find a campsite beside the sea, filled with more birds than campers on this drizzly autumn evening: pretty parrots dressed in moss green, others decked out in scarlet and blue. Apparently, there are also three resident wombats, but they keep a low profile while we are there. Two surfers take to the waves, as the sun sets. I am aghast to realize at low tide the next morning, that there is a broad reef of jagged rocks hiding below the surface.
In the morning, we turn east again, stopping for coffee at Fish Creek before traipsing down to Tidal River, the last point that cars can reach on Wilson’s Prom. From here, it’s a 20km walk to the end of the promontory and a lighthouse built in 1859. Or a two hour climb up to the top of Mount Oberon for views of Bass Strait and a plethora of offshore granite islands. Or a ten km walk via Squeaky Beach to Whisky Bay and back, along the cliffs. While we try to decide on a plan, we are tempted off the road by a sign indicating there is abundant wildlife to be seen in the scrub to our left. A scattering of kangaroos nibble at the grass near the car park but bound away as we wander towards them. Down a dirt track beneath scrubby trees, a large feathery mound suddenly grows a blue neck and head, as an emu pops its head up to watch us walk by. More kangaroos are sunbathing on the sward, and a brave, brown wallaby is waiting on the path to bid us a good afternoon before taking fright and leaping into the bush. A family of emus – could this be the one we met earlier? – accompanies us sedately back towards the car park. And we wave goodbye and head onwards.
Wilsons Promontory contains some 50,000 hectares of pristine coastal wilderness at the southernmost tip of Victoria, and Tidal River is the only caravan park here. Apart from some hiking trails and a few off-grid campsites, the rest of the Prom remains largely undisturbed. Granite islands are dotted along the west coast. We pass one that looks just like the sea turtle Crush from “Finding Nemo”.
Our next camp is tucked behind the sand dunes at Norman Beach, and there are still a surprising number of campers about. A posse of school kids arrive in buses, and there is the usual muddle of caravans and camper-trailers, tents and campervans scattered among the tea-trees and the she-oaks. As soon as we have unpacked the deck chairs and got the water boiling for tea, we are inundated with cheeky birds: crimson rosellas, magpies, wattle birds, a young kookaburra – all very used to visitors and quite happy to hop along the back of our chairs, swing from the awning or dip their beaks in the pasta sauce, without a please or thank you. Occasionally, a small wombat plods out of the scrub, seemingly oblivious of our presence.
We wander down to the river and follow it to the beach, where a huge amphibious boat is parked, another, far out on the bay, making its way back to shore. We stand and watch it whizz over the waves, pausing on the sandbank to lower its wheels and lumber the rest of the way through waist deep water. There are teenagers everywhere, clambering up the rocks, wading through the river, kicking balls on the beach, body surfing in the waves. A slice of heaven, simply teeming with adventures.
One enormous old wombat is hiding behind a bush as I clamber across the dunes after sunset and I’m not sure who gets a bigger fright. We both gallop down the dune in opposite directions. At dawn we are woken by a chorus of kookaburras, and the crimson rosellas are waiting to join us for breakfast. One determined wattle bird even sticks his beak in our yoghurt!
There is still so much to explore, but its time to go. We are aiming to be at Lakes Entrance this afternoon. So, we clear away our breakfast things and strike camp. And here I will leave you, for now…
An anniversary. An invitation for a secret rendezvous. A wine bar. A degustation menu of wondrous delight.
Hidden behind the petrol station on South Road is the old village of Aldinga. There you will find a bakery, a pub and an area known as the Temperance Precinct, because the beautiful stone building at its centre, built around 1868, was once Hart’s Temperance Hotel, the proverbial pub with no beer – or alcohol of any sort.
Temperance means moderation or restraint in the indulgence of the appetites or passions – which is ironic, as there was nothing about restraint or moderation in the memo. Ironic, too, the name of the wine bar in the Temperance Precinct: Fall from Grace.
Fall from Grace is the perfect place for all seasons and any events: cuddle up in the cosy front room with a fireplace for a quiet tete-a-tete, or gather in the sunlit garden for a birthday celebration or a wedding.
Apparently, Fall from Grace was buzzing over the long weekend. On Thursday, we had it all to ourselves. Owner and hostess, Margot Muir, gave us a warm welcome and settled us by the window with a glass of bubbles each. The One & Only chose the Loftia Vintage Brut from Kate Laurie at Deviation Road, in the Adelaide Hills. Mine was a gorgeous pink Tasmanian creation, fruity and smooth: NV Bellebonne BIS Rosé by Natalie Fryar. One glass was not enough! The Bellebonne website describes this elegant style thus:
“Made from 100% Tasmanian Pinot Noir, this is delicate pink with salmon blush and super fine bubbles. The aromas are a meld of strawberry, marzipan, Turkish delight and buttery pastry. While the flavours are subtle, there is a delicious roundness in the mouth set against a fine tannin finish with the barest touch of bitter orange pith.”
Margot Muir has worked in the wine business for years and knows her wines and her winemakers, and we had all the time in the world to talk wine with her. With shelves full of European wines, as well as many that have been locally sourced, Margot also offers an outlet for boutique wineries in the region that don’t have their own cellar door.
As there was plenty of time for a second glass before dinner, we decided to order a small cheese platter. Margot soon reappeared with two great cheeses of overly generous proportions: a taleggio-style Monte Rosso from Section 28 Artisan Cheeses in the Adelaide hills, and an Ash Grove Wine Glass Bay Vintage Cheddar from Tasmania. In addition, there was a dish of pickled grapes (Margot’s own) and another of olives.
Taleggio originally came from the Val Taleggio in northern Italy, hence its name. This semisoft cheese is washed in brine, which creates a thin rind around a silky-smooth centre. It also has a strong aroma that belies its mild, buttery, gently fruity flavour. I didn’t mean to eat it all, but it would have been rude not to. The vintage cheddar was equally moreish. Made like a traditional cheddar, this tasty vintage cheese is aged for up to 14 months.
Ashgrove’s began back in 1908 with a few sheep, and a herd of dairy cows. Brothers, Michael and John Bennett who were born and raised on the farm, produced their first vat of cheese in 1993 and have never looked back. Today they produce more than two dozen cheeses.
I could happily have mooched comfortably here all night, but eventually, it was time to peel ourselves away from this peaceful setting and wander down the hill for dinner at The Little Rickshaw.
Since we first moved to the Fleurieu four years ago, I have been hearing great reports about this small south-east Asian restaurant, but this is the first time we have managed to get a booking. It has been incredibly popular since it opened in 2019. Trip Advisor and Facebook both give it five stars, and I am happy to concur.
TLR can seat only forty diners, so it is well worth booking in advance if you want to get a table. This is not a spur-of-the-moment diner. Casual, rustic, delightful, it has been created from a bunch of sheds and outbuildings at the northern end of Aldinga. It is open for dinner on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, or you can settle in for a long lunch in the enclosed courtyard on a Sunday afternoon.
Gourmet magazine wrote that “the soul of The Little Rickshaw in Aldinga is Vietnamese, but the beautifully presented banquet menu roams more freely. Prepare to be surprised and delighted.”
We were.
In 2017, Mike and Trinh Richards opened The Little Rickshaw which apparently began its life as a café serving banh mì, but that has long since evolved into a classy restaurant, with very comfortable chairs and an eclectic collection of tables and Persian rugs. And the Chef’s menu is a fabulous exploration of Asian fusion cuisine. Thai and Vietnamese cuisines meet modern Australian in a plethora of dainty dishes that includes plenty of locally sourced seafood.
But first, a glass of Riverland Nero d’avola that rolled smoothly over the tongue and down the throat without a murmur. I wasn’t sure that such a fruity wine was the best choice to accompany a delicately flavoured SE Asian menu, but I have a weak spot for a good Nero d’avola. Originating in Sicily, this grape variety produces a deep red thick with strong black fruit flavours and a touch of spiciness, reminiscent of Shiraz, but smoother, and is perfectly suited to the dry, warm climate of the Riverland.
Our first three dishes were all seafood based: a scallop, the size of which I haven’t seen since we lived in Sydney; a creamy king salmon sashimi, and octopus. The seafood was fresh, the textures fantastic, but I was a bit disappointed that their delicate flavours were lost beneath some wonderful but overtly flavoured sauces. Cooked in wagyu fat and a kim chi reduction, the octopus tasted more like pork. And the creamy flavour of salmon sashimi was unfortunately overwhelmed by wasabi oil. Nonetheless, each dish was full of flavour and beautifully presented.
The next dish was based on a Chinese street food: a duck and water chestnut taro puff. The crispy, nest-like taro casing melted in the mouth to reveal the fabulous flavour of duck and the crunch of water chestnut. An instant success with us both, and a magical creation. Our host tried to describe how it was made – and sadly, the effort involved means I won’t be trying to reproduce it at home – but the lesson in how to spin taro into golden fairy floss was amazing.
An extra dish of deboned chicken wing stuffed with prawn and accompanied by a tamarind sauce was also a star turn. I adore tamarind sauce, and the blend of chicken and prawn was scrumptious.
Trying not to flag too soon, we asked our lovely waitress to slow down the delivery of subsequent dishes, so we could pace ourselves, and she very sweetly obliged us. Yes, it was entirely our own fault that we had pre-empted this banquet with far too much cheese, but nonetheless we wanted to enjoy every mouthful.
Pork and cabbage dumplings, which have long been favourites of the One & Only, were followed by a spicy fried rice that we both raved about. Then, providing the perfect balance, a cool green papaya and mint salad arrived to accompany a deliciously rich serve of slow braised beef ribs.
We had safely reached the end of the savoury dishes, although it must be admitted that a small portion of beef came home with us for lunch the next day.
The penultimate dish was a light palate cleanser of fresh fig and sorbet of extraordinary complexity: lychee, coconut, salted caramel and chilli. And the grand finale? A gorgeous Vietnamese Crème Caramel served on flakes of toasted coconut and peanut crumbs with an accompanying dollop of duck yolk ice cream. Why Vietnamese? we asked. It proved to be an indigenized version of the traditional French crème caramel, made with coconut milk in a land where dairy products are scarce. Still densely flavoured, and silky on the tongue, it was definitely lighter on the stomach than the cow’s milk variety. With a whisper of crunch from the coconut flakes, and the ice-cream to soften the sweetness, it was quite the most beautiful dessert I can ever remember eating.
An evening to savour for months to come, Aldinga Village did us proud for our anniversary celebrations. My only regret was simply that walking home was not an option…
Last weekend, we drove up the freeway to the Sticky Rice Cooking School on the Old Mount Barker Road.
The invitation suggested we “come journey around wonderful SE Asia. Full of vibrant, fresh, exciting flavours and dishes you will cook time and time again,” and we were more than willing to comply.
There was a wide range of menu options available: from Thai and Japanese to Morroccan and Mexican. I had ticked the box months before, choosing the menu I thought would strike a chord with the One & Only. This included Korean crab cakes, Thai ceviche, Crying Tiger char-grilled beef and Drunken Noodles. It promised to be a nostalgic evening among all those South East Asian aromas and flavours we had been missing since we left Bangkok all those years ago.
Warning: this menu is not for vegans or anyone allergic to seafood or nuts. Nor is it suitable for coeliacs.
We were advised to arrive fifteen minutes early for a 5:30pm start, and by the time the clock struck, we had donned our aprons and our name tags, and we were raring to go. Daniel had given us a warm welcome and a potted history of the school. We had admired the décor and chatted briefly with our fellow students. Then Daniel introduced our diminutive Japanese chef, Yukiko, who proved to have a quick wit and a direct approach to discipline. “You can call me Yuki for short – yookee, not yucky!” And we quickly got the message that she would not tolerate her students stepping out of line! She explained firmly that we would not be given the recipes until the end of the evening. Years of running a cooking school had proven time and again that students would not listen properly to instructions if they were reading from the recipes. She probably had a point.
Carefully, Chef Yuki scanned the room and divided us into groups. Only then were we allowed to accompany her to the kitchen and find our places. Once we had been neatly arranged around three large kitchen benches, Chef Yuki ran through the rules, advising us that the knives were exceptionally sharp, and fingers must go in the white bin provided for scraps! The good news was that we were not required to do any washing up, as she had a magic trolley (like the magic coffee table if you’ve seen the comedy skit), and all we had to do was load it up with dirty dishes and utensils and leave it for the washing up fairy. The bad news was that the magic trolley wasn’t for sale.
We then chose a team leader and name for our group – “The Cassava Crackers” – before Chef ran us through our cooking instructions. It all sounded a little daunting at first, but in fact, with six cooks per group, each chore was quickly designated and almost as quickly completed. Someone took charge of the mortar and pestle, someone else braved the lethally sharp knives and diced the onions, I peeled the pre- cooked potatoes for the crab cakes with a spoon – a new cooking tip which allows me to go home and throw out all my peelers. I suspect the potato in these crab cakes is a Jamie Oliver addition, as I have rarely seen potatoes used in SE Asia. Smashed spud certainly makes for a heavier patty, converting it from light snack to a filling meal.
At some point we also learned a new trick for preparing lemon grass – well, it was new to all of us – and a quick and easy method for making lemongrass oil. But you needn’t ask, I’m not sharing secrets. You will just have to do the class.
We took a break about 7:30 to taste our crab cakes and sip a glass of wine – “just one,” Chef Yuki told us firmly, as she would not tolerate giggling, chattering women when she was trying to teach. Firm, but fair. We came back to the kitchen with little left to do but plate up the main courses and cook the noodles.
The lime cured kingfish ceviche was served with lime and coconut dressing. The only tricky part was learning to wield those deadly knives in a minute, then attempt to carve the kingfish into professional slivers. My efforts were far from professional, but others did better.
The steak – here’s one we had prepared earlier – was sliced and served with a wrap-your-own platter of lettuce and cucumber, mint, basil and cassava crackers, and a drizzle of dazzling peanut and lime chilli dipping sauce. Then the broad rice noodles were tossed in a sizzling wok with chicken, vegetables, and kaffir lime. (Drunken Noodles, or Pad Kee Mao is spicy and savoury, unlike Pad Thai, which has a sweeter sauce made of tamarind and palm sugar. Yum!)
Daniel poured more local wine as we arranged our beautifully prepared platters on the tables in the dining room. Then we all sat down eagerly to enjoy a delectable banquet.
So why is it called Crying Tiger, you ask? Chef Yuki says it’s because the beef is supposed to be rare, so it should drip tears of blood when you carve it, but another story is that the fat weeps from the steak on the hot grill. And despite its name, Drunken Noodles does not contain alcohol of any kind, and each story I have heard regarding the origins of its name gets wilder and wilder. I think I’ll just make up my own!
For those keen cooks coming from further afield than the Adelaide Plains, who might like a longer break in the Adelaide Hills, Sticky Rice has villas available, inspired by Balinese, Japanese and Thai architecture. Three ladies from Sydney told us they were very comfortable indeed.
It was a fun-filled evening, and we made lots of new friends over the pots and pans, wine and noodles. In fact, we felt we had made a surprisingly successful team, considering none of us had met previously. I would go up to Sticky Rice again in a heartbeat, and maybe take on a Mexican menu next time? Or perhaps an afternoon of making dumplings? And the thought of staying in one of those beautiful villas is terribly tempting, too…
Last Friday night I lay at the feet of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, soaking in some truly beautiful and soothing music. Sanctuary Series 1, “Fragmentation” at Grainger Studio was an hour-long performance by the ASO. Neither perched high above the orchestra in the balcony at the Festival Theatre, or in the glorious Town Hall, at eye level with the feet of the violinists, we were invited to join the ASO in its rehearsal space on Hindley Street on a yoga mat. After some muted shuffling, as the audience settled onto seats at the back of the room or alternately on yoga mats in the middle of the floor, we were advised about the importance of silence at this event. There was to be no clapping between pieces, not even at the end. No loud noises from the audiences (snoring, perhaps?) and definitely no mobile phones. Fair enough, Standard procedure for any concert. But for me, the setting and the casual nature of the yoga mats was a first. It was as if the orchestra had moved into my living room.
So, I watched in eager anticipation as the orchestra crept quietly into their seats, followed by Conductor (and cellist) David Sharp. As the orchestra sat unmoving, Sharp stood in front of the podium, facing the orchestra. Not a word was spoken. The silent minutes ticked on. Eventually, the First Violin rose, and Sharp moved onto the podium. Again, total silence.
Then, suddenly, we were immersed in sound, as a dozen instruments tuned up. Then silence again. The lights dimmed. It felt as if everyone were holding their breath.
Now, before I go any further, I would like to warn you that I am not a musician, and nor will this be a sophisticated music review. I love listening to music, I love to sing. I played the recorder in Primary School. I played Classical Guitar in High School. Badly. I am less than an amateur. I sing by ear because I cannot read music fluently. Yet, despite my ignorance, Friday night’s performance was such a joyful experience, I needed to share it with you. And it has led me into a fascinating exploration of some musicians and composers of whom I had never heard.
Before the orchestra arrived, I had a s short conversation with the woman beside me. She was obviously an old hand to these alternative performances. Armed with rugs and cushions, she arranged herself comfortably on her blue mat. I found myself wondering if she had brought a picnic, too. And I must admit, by the end of the performance, I was envying her planning. Yet, even without cushions and rugs, the experience was fabulous. If any of my fellow listeners on their yoga mats fell asleep, at least no one snored. I was worried I might, but in fact I was so enveloped in the music and in the moment, I felt no inclination to doze off.
The orchestra was in good hands, as David Sharp, like my neighbour, had done this before. With a tiny flick of his fingers, the show began, with a lovely piece from Italian Composer Salvatore Sciarrino, called Languire a Palermo (2018). I floated off in a hammock of soft, soothing sound. Languishing is perhaps not the right descriptor though, as it was more somnolent than enervated. A post-prandial doze in a deck chair after a long summer lunch on a patio in Tuscany, springs to mind. At least until the double bass started gently rubbing the strings with his bow, like a cricket. Initially an interesting effect, it soon palled and became more reminiscent of that night-time mozzie buzzing round your ear. Sadly, for me, it then began to distract me from the rest of the orchestra. Nonetheless, it was a compelling and
Sciarrino, 76, is an autodidact from Palermo, Sicily, who now lives in Città di Castello, Umbria. His career has been long and varied. Since teaching himself music as a child, he has gone from composer to student to teacher to writer, to artistic director, and during that journey he has won many awards.
The second piece was Siegfried Idyll by Wagner, a piece he composed as a birthday gift for his second wife, Cosima, and presented to her on Christmas Day 1870. I uncovered this story with delight.
Cosima Liszt (yes, Franz’s daughter) was born on 24th December, but apparently she always celebrated on Christmas Day. And just to make it an even more memorable celebration that year, they had married in Lucerne the previous summer. Wagner had met Cosima as a teenager, but they didn’t fall in love till later, unfortunately when they were both married to other people. Nonetheless, they got together and produced three children. At the time it was a scandalous affair, but presumably their wedding in August 1870 gave it a seal of respectability. Although Wagner wrote Siegfried Idyll specifically for his new wife – using five woodwind, three brass instruments and a string quintet – he was later forced to sell the music to raise much-needed funds, first expanding it for 35 instruments, which is the piece we heard.
The third piece, The Persistence of Memory, came from our home-grown composer, Graeme Koehne, presumably based on Dali’s painting of the same name. Head of Composition at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, Koehne was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2014, “for distinguished service to the performing arts as a composer of chamber, concert and ballet music, and through substantial contributions as an educator and arts administrator.”
In 1931, Salvator Dali produced that strange and surreal painting, “The Persistence of Memory,” in which he explored the idea of time. According to critiques I have read on the painting, time is an illusion and has different meanings for different people. This painting reflects varying perspectives of time and memory, and speaks to the subconscious, to that ephemeral state between sleep and awake, as we drift off.
Koehne’s version, written in 2014, is an elegy for oboe and strings, and I presume Koehne has tried to mirror the themes of the painting in this short piece. Only ten minutes long, it was first performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and its Principal oboist and soloist David Nuttall. It was written in memory of Guy Henderson, who was principal oboe of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 1967-1998. Tonight, our soloist was Joshua Oates, who has been Principal Oboe of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra since 2020. Oates started out as an undergraduate at the Elder Conservatorium of Music Adelaide with Celia Craig, graduating with first class honours. He has worked with orchestras across Europe, won prizes and scholarships and is apparently an avid chamber musician. And this hauntingly beautiful piece was my favourite, soft as an evening breeze.
Gavin Bryars, born in 1943, is an English composer and double bass player. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, avant-garde, and experimental music. This slow and melancholy piece – The Porazzi Fragment – is based on an elegiac piano theme composed by Wagner more than a century earlier and completed less than a year before he died. Wagner’s wife Cosima noted that it represented his “last musical thoughts”. On his website, Bryers has this to say about it:
Commissioned by the Primavera Orchestra, and designed for the orchestra’s string formation (11 violins, 4 violas, 4 celli and 2 basses), this piece for strings alone originates in an enigmatic, and unpublished, 13 bar musical theme.
He also says that “the original Wagner music emerges eventually towards the end of the piece.”
And I realise in retrospect that there was a Mediterranean theme to this evening’s programme, as we travelled from Sicily to Spain and back to Sicily, with a strong Wagnerian influence woven through. Anyone for a glass of Tempranillo, or perhaps a Nero D’Avola? Just give me five minutes to get up from the floor…
“The sun is up, and the early morning swimmers are trudging up the beach, damp and dripping, to gather for coffee on the veranda at the Normanville Kiosk & Café. In dribs and drabs, the dawn patrol of dog walkers wander in. Later, as the sea begins to glitter in the morning sun, a stream of beach walkers from Carrickalinga arrive. By ten o’clock, the café is awash with swimmers, walkers, families, and exhausted puppies dozing under the tables.”
I wrote this introduction almost two years ago, in a piece about our beachside café/restaurant at Normanville. Today, the building is shiny and new, but little else has changed. The sun comes up over the hills and sets into the sea. Those early morning swimmers have not interrupted their daily routine. The dawn patrol of dog walkers still gathers at the kiosk – albeit in a new format to the one of two years ago. Beach patrols can be found on the sand every weekend and public holiday in the summer, between November 2023 and Easter Monday. On Saturday afternoon, the Nippers (aged 5 to 13) are still training to become fully fledged life savers And the new life saving club opened on December 22nd, 2023 and will be open from Wednesdays through Sundays. They do not take bookings, but already, the club is a popular spot for drop-ins looking for a drink or a simple meal.
Next door, Kenton Day has come down from the hilltop at Forktree Brewing to organize the restaurant Aqua Blue. Like its neighbour, the Surf Lifesaving Club, Aqua Blue has a broad balcony and a superb view over the beach and along the coastline. Kenton’s menu is more varied than the Burger- or fish-and-chips style next door, the prices are a little higher, and the atmosphere is a little calmer. Usually. There is also a great array of local Fleurieu Gin (FG), the cellar door and distillery located just up the road beyond Forktree Brewing. And I am on a mission to try them all this summer.
Ice cream, take-away snacks, even beer and wine are available at ground level, where no dress code prevents you from wandering up from the beach in bathers to grab a coffee or a bag of chips. Upstairs, the general tone of informality persists, but there is carpet on the floor and more comfortable seating.
Despite the glamour of the new building and the children’s playground at the other end of the carpark, this is still a bucket-and-spade beach for young families, in a sea of gentle surf where the littlies can learn to swim. Despite all the local concerns that this posh new construction would change the flavour of our traditional, down-to-earth demographic, it seems nothing much has changed – or not for the worse anyway. Maybe the council listened, and maybe it didn’t, but the rumours that the kiosk would move inaccessibly upstairs has not eventuated. The kiosk is open from dawn till dusk, and there is still plenty of seating around the lawn – albeit on a ridiculously windy corner this summer. And there is also a good sized lift to get upstairs.
We were fortunate enough to go to the soft opening for Aqua Blue a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to delays in completing the building, it was late in the day to be having a dress rehearsal, the beach already thick with Christmas holiday makers. But the staff did their utmost to make it happen, in the last moments before the official opening on December 23rd.
A soft opening is a chance to set up a practice run for the staff, to make sure everything is functioning properly, and to iron out any major kinks. It also gives the guests an opportunity to provide constructive criticism from their point of view, and to spread the word. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much room to manoeuvre. The soft opening came only 24 hours before the Grand Opening, which didn’t give Kenton and his staff much breathing space. Yet, despite a few minor glitches, and a foreshortened menu, they did well. And we, the guests, were all behind them, enthusiastically barracking for their success, and providing as much feedback as possible.
Last weekend, I went down again, with my parents and neighbours. A fortnight later, and things were already much improved and running more smoothly. The tables, initially too tightly packed for staff to navigate easily, have been spaced out a little, the staff look more secure in their new surroundings and the full menu was in evidence, expanded from the trial run of only four dishes. Whereas Forktree Brewing has an Asian flavour, at Aqua Blue, Kenton has leaned towards more Mediterranean inspired dishes, and plenty of seafood. The entrees include three tapas options and three pintxos – a new word to me, a Spanish one, meaning small snacks on a piece of bread, often held in place on by a toothpick. (Apparently, ‘pintxo’ – or ‘pincho’ – means “spike,” hence the toothpick.)
For their main course, Mum and Dad both ordered the slow-cooked Greek lamb, which they thought was terrific, while my neighbours shared a generous and varied seafood platter. I chose the Moroccan vegetarian tagine, which might have been lacking the traditional couscous, but was still very tasty, and proved to be a hearty and warming dish on a cooler-than-normal summer evening. As a finale, we all shared a couple of deliciously creamy panna cotta with a sprinkling of crunchy honeycomb. There are child friendly options at all three venues.
Glam Adelaide claims $7 million was spent on the rebuild of the Lifesaving Club. Was it worth it? The foreshore has certainly been upgraded in the past couple of years. And when those twiggy little trees start to fill out, they will provide some welcome shade to the expanse of concrete. In a town with only a small handful of restaurants and cafes, but a large population of summer visitors, it is good to have three new and tasty options in one lovely location on the seafront.
We have friends visiting from Spain, wonderful friends we met in Manila a dozen years ago or more. Friends with whom we have wined and dined at many beautiful restaurants that have featured in my blog over the years, usually at Fred’s suggestion, as he is the gourmand extraordinaire. At last, we have an opportunity to reciprocate.
Our choice? The Salopian Inn, a pretty, stone homestead among the vines in McLaren Vale. Built in 1851, its name comes from the county of Salop in England, now known as Shropshire, and its inhabitants.
I am not the first to write about this charming spot, and I certainly won’t be the last. In fact, I have mentioned it once before, many moons ago. Which is simply proof that its reputation as a McLaren Vale ‘institution’ and its ‘Jewel in the Crown’ has been brilliantly maintained. It has even been topped with a Chef’s Hat from the Good Food Guide. And deservedly so.
Faced with the menu, we quickly succumb to the idea that the Chef should decide for us, as there are far too many choices, far too much room for argument. So we opt for the Feed Me menu, which thanks to one of our renowned companions, is particually generous. Having made that decision, some of us head down to the wine cellar to select a bottle or two, while others kept their seats warm over a large G&T. The wild gin from KIS, on Kangaroo Island is my own local favourite, but if that is not your particular tipple, there are 199 others to choose from.
Chef and joint owner, Karena Armstong is keen on the Paddock to Plate philosophy, and her menu is crammed full of seasonal produce, much of it grown in the restaurant’s own kitchen garden. There is also a distinctly Asian flavour to the menu, perhaps influenced by her time at Kylie Kwong’s restaurant, Billy Kwong. She has also worked at Bondi’s gloriously situated Iceberg restaurant, and excels at adding her own twist to traditional recipes.
While we wait for the wine gatherers to return, our waiter turns up with plates of homemade sourdough bread fresh from the oven, with lashings of butter; a timely arrival that quenches the slight rumbling in my stomach. As the others reappear, armed with a bottle of red, two plates of Parmesan Gougères land on the centre of the table. Soft, cushiony pyramids that melt in the mouth, these savory choux pastry cheese puffs are usually made with Gruyere or Emmenthal, but the Parmesan gives a lovely, light, feathery touch.
The next two cabs off the rank are a toothsome and spicy beef tartare, and fresh anchovies on crispy fingers of gnocco fritto. A traditional snack from Emilio Romagna, gnocci fritti are usually crisp pillows of leavened, lard-enriched dough fried in even more lard, traditionally topped with mortadella or proscuitto. This variation, with fresh Olasagasti anchovies, produced on Spain’s Cantabrian coast, are light as a whisper and full of flavour.
Sashimi, as you probably know, is a Japanese delicacy of fresh raw fish (or meat) sliced into thin pieces and often eaten with soy sauce. The fish is caught with a handline, and as soon as it is landed, its brain is pierced with a sharp spike, and it is placed in slurried ice. This is known as the ikejime process, which will help to keep the fish fresh for about ten days. Hiramasa or Yellow Kingfish is renowned for its versatility and its quality. For sashimi, it is perfect. Smooth and creamy, this one is delicately smoky in flavour, perhaps due to the burnt citrus vinaigrette. Draped over pickled cucumber and peppers, I could nibble this all afternoon. And I must say, it goes rather well with my wild gin.
Chef Karina is famous for her dumplings, and it’s easy to see why when you bite into her Salopian Dumplings made from Spencer Gulf prawns with roasted chilli, cotriander and ginger dressing. We are given a bowl with two dumplings each, and I try to savour every morsel, although, like oysters, they slip down the throat far too quickly. Aphrodisiac? Undoubtedly!
The calamari salad is also quite divine. Think of the Thai dish larb gai (minced chicken salad) and this is larb with a marine twist, mixed with zucchini and lemon balm. Add in a crispy crunch from lightly fried rice, and you get a great Rice-Bubbles-style texture to the dish. In fact, I am reminded of the Philipino pinipigs we used to love in Manila. Pinipigs are made by pounding rice flat with a mortar and pestle, then toasting or baking the flattened grains until crisp. I’m guessing the Salopian’s crispy rice is created by a similar process.
Paroo Kangaroo is simply served on skewers, but it needs little else, for this ‘roo is as tasty as its reputation as the finest wild-game-kangaroo-meat suggests. Paroo Kangaroo originated on the Paroo Darling River, an area known for an abundance of native vegetation, and is now sourced from four regions: Far West New South Wales, the Warrego River in Queensland, and the Central West and Northern Pastoral regions of South Australia. These yummy skewers were followed by more roo: a serving of kangaroo tail, reminiscent of osso bucco, cooked in a sweetly spicy sauce. This dish may not have been to my taste – and I am not convinced that the effort required to eat the tiny morsel of meat is worth the mess I made – but my friends did not end up needing my help to empty the bowl…
Watermelon and mint sorbet is an effective palate cleanser, but this one is also very sweet, more sugar than flavour. As the Queen of Savoury, I let it pass after an initial lick, and move on to the delectable Coorong Wild Mullet, lightly grilled, and accompanied by lentils, roast carrots and almonds. Magic!
As the grand finale of the savoury courses, we are served a succulent Kangarilla T-bone as large as a dinosaur steak, served with charred onions and shoestring fries cooked to a crisp. I think we all struggled to find the room in our over-stretched stomachs by this point. Yet somehow we managed. However, we were happy to take a breather before dessert. In fact, I remember hearing several companionds deny the need for anything more. Yet again, temptation proved too strong, and the platters were licked clean. By us all.
Dessert was a fabulous platter of truly scrumptious, highly calorific offerings: a rich and creamy baked chocolate tart with rhubarb and strawberry sorbet; a Paris Brest filled with Hazelnut Mousse, and a Lemon Cheesecake Parfait. It all looked amazing, but needless to say, I’m afraid I tipped towards the cheese platter. Much to the amusement of our European guests, these were not local cheeses at all, but French ones: a gloriously creamy bleu d’auvergne, and an even creamier Brillat Savarin Triple Cream Brie. We assumed the third piece was also French – a generous slice of Comté, that semi-hard, nuttily sweet cheese made from unpasteurized cow’s milk, produced in the Jura Massif region of Eastern France. Yet, as I check the menu online, it might actually have been one of Kris Lloyd’s own versions of Comté, made in the Adelaide Hills from a slightly sharper goat’s milk. Whichever it was, it got the thumbs up from everyone at the table.
The Salopian Inn is comfortable, cosy and full of warm and helpful staff. It is the perfect spot for a special celebration, or simply for an afternoon of joyful self-indulgence. And, as promised, we did not leave hungry. Sadly, however, I was far too distracted by all this fine food to remember to take any photos. And, as I was driving, all three bottles of wine consumed at our table, passed me by. I am assured they were excellent.
The study of food has become a hot topic in the past 25 years or so. Most people think of food writing literally, and there have certainly been millions of words – and photographs – expended on restaurant reviews, cookbooks, diets and food-themed travel. The list of food writers goes on and on and on. Think Anthony Bourdain and AA Gill, Stephanie Alexander, or Michael Booth.
Food writing has also become a big deal in academia, with the study of national cultures and history through food, the philosophy of food and the art of eating, with the commentaries of Michael Pollen, Michael Symons, Barbara Santich and Marion Halligan.
Food has always had a role in literature, too, and it has been particularly prominent in women’s writing, as we write about our lives, both literally and figuratively. Even Virginia Woolf, who one might think of as more cerebral than sensual, writes in a Room of One’s Own, “One cannot think well, love well sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
So, let’s begin at the beginning with children’s literature.
When Norman Lindsay wrote The Magic Pudding in 1918, it was apparently in response to a comment from his friend and literary critic Bertram Stevens, who argued that children prefer to read about fairies rather than food. Lindsay disagreed, and so we have Bunyip Bluegum and his friends. Although, let’s face it, a cut-and-come-again pudding called Albert is pretty magical, too! Food, in children’s books like this one, was particularly potent during the 1930s and 40s, what with the Depression and war rationing.
Roald Dahl instantly recognized the appeal of food for children. Chocolate, in particular, has connotations of desire and greed, envy and lust, and a hundred other moral failings. In fact, Dahl’s characters in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory depict all the seven deadly sins, while illustrating the addictive quality of everyone’s favourite candy. Yet, by the end of the tale, its popularity remains intact, and the good boy is left holding not just the chocolate bar but the entire chocolate factory.
Dahl also loves to describe truly repulsive food, such as the ‘foulsome’ snozzcumber – all the Big Friendly Giant can find to eat in Giant Country. This ‘icky-poo vegetable’ has knobbles on the outside and large seeds on the inside and tastes like ‘frog skins and bad fish’ or ‘clockroaches and slimewranglers.’
JK Rowling taps into the love deprived ad hungry child in the Harry Potter series. Harry’s first experience of magical food on demand is described here, when Harry boards the train for Hogwarts, and buys a bit of everything from the ‘smiling, dimpled’ lady with the trolley, that contains everything from Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans, to Cauldron Cakes and Liquorice Wands.
In Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree there is again the potent combination of magic and food in the Land of Birthdays and the Land of Goodies at the top of the tree. Then there’s The Enchanted Castle, where E. Nesbit’s Sleeping Princess has a magic tray that turns bread and cheese into anything you would like.
Two of my childhood favourites – Little Women and Seven Little Australians – open with a chapter on the significance of food when you don’t have it. The March girls, after decrying the horror of Christmas without presents, then give their Christmas dinner away to a desperately poor family in the neighbourhood. While at Misrule, roast chicken in the formal dining room tempts the Woolcot children out of the nursery to beg for a share and incur the wrath of their father. And who could forget this passage from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, when the neglected orphan first arrives at Lowood?
The Rectory was a great, low ceilinged, gloomy room; on two long tables smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to may dismay, sent forth an odour far from inviting…[from] the tall girls of the first class rose the whispered words – ‘Disgusting! The porridge is burnt again!’
Generally, adult fictioncuts to the chase and skips the magic. Yet even here, the magic of food is used to create metaphors of love and lust, decadence, and poverty. Think of Joanne Harris in Chocolat:
There is a kind of alchemy in the transformation of base chocolate into this wise fool’s gold… the mingled scents of chocolate, vanilla, heated copper, and cinnamon are intoxicating, powerfully suggestive… the court of Montezuma… the Food of the Gods, bubbling and frothing in ceremonial goblets. The bitter elixir of life.
Then there is Laura Esquivel in Like Water for Chocolate:
Something strange had happened… it was as if a strange alchemical process had dissolved her entire being in the rose petal sauce, in the tender flesh of the quails, in the wine, in every one of the meals aromas. That was the way she entered Pedro’s body, hot, voluptuous, perfumed, totally sensuous.
It would appear even from the titles that chocolate is fantasy food for adults and children alike.
In the fiction of Katherine Mansfield, Jane Austen and Edith Wharton, dining rituals place their characters in a specific level of society. Edith Wharton, in The House of Mirth, describes the serving of afternoon tea that makes it quite clear Lily is a lady, not a farmer’s wife. In her journal, Katherine Mansfield writes of her studio lunch as she feeds her cat ‘a silver spoon of cream,’ while Jane Austen writes to her sister about the new cook, whose ‘good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.’ No one is going hungry here, but Pearl S. Buck draws a picture of the stark contrast between a Chinese market, where ‘there were such baskets of grain that a man might step into them and sink and smother and none know it who did not see it’ while starving families must beg for a bowl of ‘thin rice gruel.’ In A Christmas Carol, Dickens describes the unselfish and gracious delight of the Cratchit family at Mrs. Crachit’s meagre Christmas offering:
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.
Thus, women sit at the tea table – or the kitchen table – their offerings symbolizing the epicentre of family and the creation of culture. This is beautifully described by another Lily, the English writer and Italophile, Lily Prior. Set in Sicily, this passage from Prior’s novel La Cucina describes the life-affirming nature of the kitchen:
La cucina is the heart of the fattoria, and has formed the backdrop to the lives of our family, the Fiores, as far back as, and further than, anyone can remember. This kitchen has witnessed our joys, griefs, births, death, nuptials, and fornications for hundreds of years…
La cucina is the sense of its past, and every event in its history is recorded with an olfactory memorandum. Here vanilla, coffee, nutmeg, and confidences; There the milky-sweet smell of babies, old leather, sheep’s cheese, and violets. In the corner by the larder hangs the stale tobacco smell of old age and death, while the salty scent of lust and satiation clings to the air by the cellar steps along with the aroma of soap, garlic, beeswax, lavender, jealousy, and disappointment.
Food is also a system of communication – a way to describe far more than when and what we eat. As Marion Halligan says, ‘food is a language we all speak.’ And ‘the great occasions of our existence are often marked by meals…it is where the rea dramas of the human condition enact themselves.’
Food Memoir probably began with a shell-shaped French biscuit: the madeleine, and Proust’s self-conscious attempt to link taste and involuntary memory in À La Recherche du Temps Perdu, which was published in 1922. Others rapidly followed suite. American food journalist, MFK Fisher, blends culinary history and parable in The Gastronomical Me. Julia Child and Elizabeth David are both renowned for a plethora of cookbooks, and both also wrote food memoirs – Julia’s prosaic My Life in France and Elizabeth’s more lyrical I’ll be with you in the Squeezing of a Lemon. But my choicest example of food memoir comes from British Indian food writer and TV personality Madhur Jaffrey who, in a memory of growing up in India, describes her school lunches shared with friends of every faith and every region of India, so that lunchtime
…always filled us with a sense of adventure and discovery… [though] we never asked what we were eating. The food was far too good for that. I, a Delhi Hindu, tried to dazzle my friends with quail and partridge that my father shot regularly and that our cook prepared with onions, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, and yoghurt.
One of my favourite foodie memoirs has always been Elisabeth Luard’s tasty tale of adventurous anecdotes and family recipes:– Family Life: Birth, Death and the Whole Damn Thing. Disenchanted with life in London in the 60s, Luard leaves her peripatetic journalist husband and a tiny attic flat in Chelsea, throws her four small children in the back of a campervan and hits the open road for a primal life in a cork-oak forest in Andalucia. Here she learns to keep and kill a pig, and cook according to the seasons.
More recent writers have indulged in the romance of eating locally and seasonally, as before the invention of supermarkets. Barbara Kingsolver goes rustic for a year of eating home grown food in Animal Vegetable Mineral: A Year of Food Life. And Barbara Santich remembers her experiences in 1970s France in Wild Asparagus, Wild Strawberries, and avidly describes the joy of eating locally.
And finally, there is festival food, where I’m sure we can all think of a million literary references to the gluttonous joys, extravagances, and dissipation of the Christmas feast.
Yet as we all hit the shops with endless lists of rich Christmas recipes, it is Elizabeth David’s more constrained response to the overindulgences of the festive season that appealed to me.
If I had my way – and I shan’t – my Christmas Day eating and drinking would consist of an omelette and cold ham at a nice bottle of wine at lunch time, and a smoked salmon sandwich with a glass of champagne on a tray in bed in the evening. This lovely selfish anti-gorging, un-Christmas dream of hospitality, either given or taken, must be shared by thousands of women who know it’s all Lombard Street to a China orange that they’ll spend Christmas morning peeling, chopping, mixing, boiling, roasting, steaming. That they will eat and drink too much, that someone will say the Turkey isn’t quite as good as last year or discover that the rum for the pudding has been forgotten, that by the time lunch has been washed up and put away it’ll be tea-time, not to say drink or dinner time, and tomorrow is the weekend and it’s going to start all over again.
As we can see from this brief synopsis of food writing, food can have a million different connotations and create a wide assortment of memories: from literary symbolism to literal recipes; from philosophical questioning about why we eat, to the cultural reflections on how and what we eat; from pure sensual entertainment to serious, cerebral analysis.
Now it’s over to you, and what you would like to add to this luscious, lascivious world of food writers…
*Most of these quotes come from The Joy of Eating, edited by Jill Foulston. Marion Halligan’s comments were copied from her book Taste of Memory.Thanks to Google Images for the pictures.
I have flown to Indonesia for the Ubud Readers & Writers Festival 2023 (URWF), a fascinating four days of inspirational talks with a wealth of literary talent that is held in Bali every October. The programme introduces a plethora of writers from all over the globe: novelists and screenwriters; poets and biographers; academics and political commentators; journalists, and even a song writer. I made a last-minute decision to join the fun, and it has been one of the great decisions of my life.
As I suspected, it has got a lot busier in Bali since I last dropped in, almost ten years ago. The road to Ubud is bumper to bumper traffic, all the way. The taxi driver promises it will take an hour and a half to reach Ubud from the airport. It takes three. The views across rice paddies have been submerged under endless concrete boxes: shops, hotels, houses, more shops. The motorbikes have reached plague proportions.
Before I become too despondent, my thoughtful driver pulls into a restaurant so I can visit the WC and grab a bite to eat. And I suddenly realize that the rice paddies and lush green gardens have not disappeared altogether, they are just hiding behind the phalanx of buildings hemming both sides of the narrow road. So, I order a fresh coconut and Ikan Goreng. This is a nostalgic favourite from our years in Thailand many moons ago – a whole fish, marinated and deep fried, so you can literally pick the flesh from the bones, crispy on the outside, soft in the centre.
I relax into my armchair to enjoy a peaceful moment on the terrace, overlooking those elusive rice paddies, the palm trees heavily pregnant with coconuts. I have forgotten what real humidity feels like and am immensely grateful for the breeze that dries the perspiration on my skin and gently rattles the palm fronds. Nonetheless, I am delighted when we finally reach my hotel and I can plunge under a cold shower with a gasp, as my core temperature drops twenty degrees in five seconds.
At the top end of town is Taman Baca, with one barn-like bamboo hall and a large marquee – which has air conditioning, thank heavens! Next door, at Indus Restaurant, a large terrace overlooks the valley, and is packed with chairs where eager readers gather to meet their favourite authors. At any time between 9am and 6pm all three venues are packed, while local hotels and restaurants are hosting book launches, poetry readings, dinner and discussion, art and music events, and writing masterclasses. It is impossible to get to everything – too many run concurrently, so it becomes a toss-up – but I do my best.
The URWF is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Begun in the wake of the Bali bombings, it was conceived by Australian-born Janet DeNeefe, her Balinese husband Ketut Suardana, and their daughter Laksmi DeNeefe Suardana, to tempt visitors back to this popular holiday island. Twenty years on, it has proved a resounding success, and become a renowned event on the literary circuit. In 2020 and 2021, thanks to Covid, it became a ‘virtual’ event and went online, but it is now back in the real world with a vengeance. The theme this year is ‘Past, Present & Future.’ As the program says, the festival is showcasing established and emerging writers, artists and scholars ‘who will share their vision of history, current affairs and the future of our world.’
While there are all sorts of literary options, I am justifying my presence by sitting in on every session about biography, memoir and historical fiction – all relevant to my current research. Yet, between fabulous sessions with Australian historical novelists Anna Funder and Geraldine Brooks, Kurdish journalist and poet Behrouz Boochani, and Anglo-Nigerian fiction writer Bernadine Evaristo, there is still time to mingle with poets, journalists and short story writers. There are panels talking about climate change, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and political art. There are discussions on writing children’s books and crime fiction, trauma memoirs and historical fiction. We listen to talks with the women shaping Indonesian fiction and reflect on the two decades of the URWF. There were some terrific talkers, particularly when considering this is a demographic notorious for being introverted. And there were also some excellent moderators, such as Annabel Crabb, David Sly and Kirsti Melville.
Indisputably, there is a boatload of talent here, both established and emerging, but also a bright and enthusiastic array of spectators, from myriad countries, aged 8-80 years, and every colour of the gender rainbow. Ubud is buzzing. One evening, I attend a dinner on the far side of town. ‘River of Words’ is an eclectic gathering of poets, who weave magic with their words as we sip pomelo gin cocktails and nibble on a local version of skordalia spread thickly on chunks of lightly fried bread. Behrouz Boochani and the Palestinian poet Ghayath Almadhoun are joined by indigenous Australian Susie Anderson and a young Scot, Michael Pederson, with an awe-inspiring gift of the gab. We listen, entranced, and the tears flow at Almadhoun’s poem about his devastated homeland.
For four days and beyond, the flow of words and ideas is exhilarating and absorbing, intoxicating and habit-forming. My big tip is to book a flight and a ticket for 2024 as soon as possible. My smaller tip: book an hotel with a pool near the venue, so you can always pop out for a quick dip when the heat gets too oppressive. Now I’m off to cook up some Nasi Goreng and crank up the heating, and pretend I’m still in Ubud…
PS For any Redgum fans out there, I did ride on a motorbike, but didn’t crash, no Bali belly, no tropical rash, been there, done that, I’ve been to Bali too!
