A Treasure Trove of Dickens’ Women

Posted on 26 February 2012 by sheg4184

The Adelaide Festival Centre (a ‘mini-me Sydney Opera House) was completed in 1973, three months before the iconic Opera House opened in New South Wales. Lying on the banks of the River Torrens, the Festival Centre consists of three main venues: the Festival Theatre; the rechristened Dunstan Playhouse, and the Space, as well as an outdoor amphitheatre.

Back in the 1980s, the State Theatre Company offered special student passes to Playhouse productions. Throughout my university years, I immersed myself in Williamson and Lawler, Ibsen and Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett and Tennessee Williams, all for $5 a show. The best birthday present my parents ever gave me is to this day a year’s subscription to the State Theatre Company productions. Sadly, I am no longer allowed in for a mere $5, but when my trip to Adelaide coincided with Miriam Margolyes’ arrival, I wasn’t going to miss out, whatever the cost.

Margolyes is a surprise from start to finish. An English, Jewish, vertically challenged, and rather stout actress of seventy, she is tucked snugly behind a table signing copies of her book, a veritable Mrs. Tiggywinkle, with a voice like thunder.

‘Come and buy my book,’ she bellows, ‘only $20. And I’ll sign it!’

So I was hardly surprised to read this quote in an interview with Laura Barnett: ‘The worst thing would be if somebody said I was inaudible. Reach your audience’s ears – only then can you reach their hearts.’

And the pint-sized Ms. Margolyes reached both our ears and our hearts quite effortlessly.  For two hours, with enormous stage presence, she kept our bottoms glued to our seats and our eyes glued to her diminutive and decidedly cubic figure that so perfectly embodied Dickens’ many characters in this one woman show of impressive magnitude and skill.

Educated at Cambridge, where she read English Literature, Margolyes went on to research and write ‘Dickens’ Women’ for the 1969 Edinburgh Festival. Since then she has appeared in Black Adder with Rowan Atkinson, as Aunt Sponge in James & the Giant Peach, as Nursie in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, and as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter, to mention just a handful of her achievements. She performed Dickens’ Women to sell-out shows in Australia in 2007, and returns this year as part of a world tour to celebrate the bicentenary of Dickens’ birth.

And it is simply brilliant. Mixing performance, readings and informative chat, Margolyes brings to life the inimitable works of Charles Dickens, the women who influenced his life and his writing and, in particular, a wide range of his female characters.

I did wonder if I should have re-read a Dickens novel or two before I arrived at the Playhouse, but I needn’t have worried. Whether or not the audience was familiar with every character mattered not a jot. For those who were intimately acquainted, I am sure it was a wonderfully nostalgic journey through the best of Dickens’ women. For newcomers, Margolyes provides an inspiring and entertaining introduction that leaves you keen to dash off to the library for copies of everything.  Pottering about on a stage she shared with three chairs and a lectern, a grand piano and an unassuming pianist, she dipped out of one character and into another with barely a ripple.

The production begins with the portrayal of Mrs. Gamp from Martin Chuzzlewit, the character that first inspired Margolyes to consider a theatrical presentation of Dickens. Dickens describes Mrs. Gamp as a ‘fat, old woman… with very little neck’  an ‘unfortunate’ physical flaw Margolyes was aware she shared, but appreciated it might help her bring Mrs. Gamp to life on the stage.

From broad Cockney to upper crust Cambridge, she swept us along through the quirks of the English class system with her vivid portrayals of characters such as the ‘peony’ Flora Finching from Little Dorritt and the dwarf manicurist and hairdresser Miss Mowcher from David Copperfield, not to mention Mrs. Corney and Mr. Bumble from Oliver Twist, when she spent five minutes flirting with herself to the audience’s enormous delight.

In between these vivid portrayals of Dickens female characters, we are introduced to his less-than-pristine life behind the scenes: his cruelty to his wife of twenty one years, Catherine Dickens, his ‘pathological attachment’ to his sisters-in-law, and his wildly passionate love for a number of beautiful young women. In extraordinary juxtaposition to his narcissistic, bullying behaviour Dickens exhibits an empathy with the underbelly of humanity that is both astounding and unique.

Margoyles comments in her introduction that in this, his bicentenary year, ‘his writing, full of social observation and fierce criticism, remains as relevant as ever.’ Margolyes is keen to share her long-standing passion for this misogynistic but brilliant writer with her audience, which she does with immense care and understanding. And one cannot help feeling that she would have made a memorable Dickens woman herself.

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Diamond in the Rough

Posted on 23 February 2012 by sheg4184

It has become a tradition, whenever we are in Adelaide, to spend Tuesday mornings at the Central Market with my aunt, my cousin and her two small daughters. Together we wander through the alleys lined with greengrocers, gourmet cheeses and every ‘Fine Food’ imaginable, ending up at Lucia’s for a caffe latte and a babycino for the girls.

I rediscovered the market only a handful of years ago. My younger son and I had developed a passion for The Cook & The Chef, an ABC cooking show out of the Barossa Valley in South Australia, that featured the bizarre pairing of local celebrity cook and restaurateur Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant, a chef in black leather and chains from the UK, then working at the Hilton Hotel in Adelaide.

We were the archetypal armchair chefs, wallowing in the glory of observing someone else achieve miracles in the kitchen. Then, one day, Simon wandered out of the Hilton kitchens and into the Adelaide Central Market to search for cheese. Our son was instantly riveted.

‘Mum! Where’s that?” he asked in awed tones.

In fact, the market is only ten minutes from his grandparents’ house, but during all our visits to South Australia I had never thought to take him there. So the next time we popped in, we made a point of driving into the city to explore. Walking in from Gouger Street, Fergus was transfixed by the scents permeating the air: coffee, roasting nuts, freshly baked bread.

Since that day, a visit to the market has become a regular feature of trips home, following the now three year old Audrey whose hands are permanently raised for small snacks of fruit and cheese, a baby bird with beak wide open to be fed, as she has done every week since she travelled the aisles in a papoose.

The Adelaide Central Market has been around for generations. It evolved from a gathering of market gardeners who first meet to sell their produce at 3am on Saturday 23rd January 1869, at a spot between Gouger and Grote Street. Over five hundred people showed up that day and all stock had sold out by 6.00am. The rest is history.

Today there are more than eighty stalls selling multicultural cuisine and fresh produce five days a week, from Tuesday to Saturday, under the arched roof of this nineteenth century market building. We wander in leisurely fashion past colourful displays of fruit and vegetables, cakes and chocolates, nuts and dried fruit, coffee beans and cheeses. There are a number of fruits, once unknown in Adelaide, that I know from the tropics: dragon fruits, mangoes, pineapples lying beside the stone fruit of my childhood: apricots, peaches, nectarines and cherries.

Greek migrant Steve Zaharis opened a fruit and vegetable stall in the Central Market in 1977. Steve provides fresh produce which is not perfectly shaped and comes in odd sizes, or contains slight skin blemishes, but he sells it at bargain prices. The days of the dollar box may have passed on (a highlight in my husband’s student life) but there are always bargains to be found. And yes, for those of you familiar with 80s Australian comedian, Mark Mitchell,  there really is a Con’s Fruit & Veg!

Mushroom Man’s Mushroom Shop stocks locally grown mushrooms and exotic truffle oils and salts he makes himself from Tasmanian truffles. And there are several cheese stalls to choose from, including Smelly Cheese, boasting locally made cheeses such as a Limestone Coast cloth cheddar and an unusual chili pecorino, as well as French blues, Victorian bries and Tasmanian Tilsits.

Bakeries include Doyley’s Patisserie, Baker’s Tray and Dough, where we found a tasty selection of freshly baked sour dough breads flavoured with walnuts, Kalamata olives, fig and fennel, soy and linseed, or sunflower seed amongst the baguettes, french pastries, sweet and savoury muffins, tarts and friandes.

Butchers, such as Barossa Fine Foods and Feast @the Market sell all the usual non-vegetarian fare: steaks, lamb chops, kebabs and chicken breasts. Look out for the amazing wild game stall, Wild OZ, where we found the most delicious marinated kangaroo fillets lined up beside crocodile steaks, buffalo, venison, camel, goat and ostrich.

Charlesworth Nuts arrived in the Adelaide market in 1934 and is now a third generation family business. Customers are lured in – as we were – by the daily smell of roasting nuts, to try the “Best and Freshest Nuts, Dried Fruits and chocolates in Australia”.

For those with a sweet tooth, The Old Lolly Shop, originally Blackeby’s Sweets, has been based in the market since 1906, and they still manufacture many of their sweets at their Mile End factory. Hagues have a small shop at the Victoria Square end of the market, and a chocolate fountain resides at the western end.

Also at the west end of the market, a modern mall containing specialty shops full of trinkets and souvenirs and an Asian supermarket provides a segueway into Chinatown, with its ever-present archway.

Dodging shopping bags on wheels and prams, infants, the elderly, young parents and the middle aged, there is no fixed demographic at the Adelaide market. It is enjoyed by all and sundry. Stallholders are a really mixed bag too – but I am delighted to find the archetypal Italian grocer still loudly and enthusiastically spruiking his wares outside the Seven Brothers Green Grocers.

Maggie at Cocos passes small Audrey a bag of odd grapes and a piece of banana. One friendly stallholder offered us a selection of ready-made salads and antipasti, as we shared notes on variations of pepperonata. Another spent some time taking me through the various fresh cheeses and the differences between them. Haloumi, ricotta and feta: would I prefer Danish, Australian or Greek? Sheep, goat’s or cow’s milk? Of course I always come away with twice as many bags as I need and get teased by my parents for over-indulging.

The Adelaide Market is always a joyous experience. Bright, bustling and heavenly scented, it is a hive of activity. And for the true food enthusiast, a website provides information on butchery classes, cooking classes, foodie tours and music events. Go forth and savour.

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Adelaide’s Own Willy Wonka

Posted on 20 February 2012 by sheg4184

‘It is well-established that humans have an innate preference for sweetness and every culture has some sweet food source.” So says food historian Allison James. For many, that source of sweetness is confectionary or, more specifically, chocolate.

I don’t have a very sweet tooth, but I do love good quality truffles, so when I heard about Haigh’s factory tours, I was determined to squeeze in a visit. It was an hour well spent.

Haigh’s has been part of every Adelaide family’s chocolate experience for ninety seven years. Its history begins with Arthur Haigh, our own Willy Wonka, who set up his confectionery shop in 1915 on the corner of Rundle & King William Streets, the now iconic Beehive Corner. Handed down through four generations, Haigh’s is still firmly in the  family. Our tour guide Jo told us a lovely story about current Chairman John (grandson of Arthur) who joined the family business at nineteen and decided there was room for improvement. So he wrote to ten Swiss chocolatiers to ask if they would teach him their chocolate-making secrets. Obviously keeping their secrets as heavily guarded as Willy Wonka’s own, only three bothered to reply, and only one of those in the affirmative. So John travelled to Switzerland and spent a year with Lindts to learn the ropes, before coming home to apply what he had learnt at Haigh’s.

Today Haigh’s have expanded into six stores in Melbourne and one in Sydney and they export their famous chocolates all over Australia. When we first moved to Sydney, I was delighted to discover Haigh’s on the corner of the Strand Arcade on George Street, where it has a very similar ambience to the original Adelaide store. I would pop in for a quick truffle fix and inevitably leave with my arms (and mouth!) full.

Yesterday, feeling like Charlie Bucket heading off with wide eyes to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory, I arrived at the Haigh’s Visitors Centre on Greenhill Road, and found myself looking around for Veruca Salt and the Oompa-Loompas. Unable to spot them, I did however find a veritable treasure chest of chocolates.

The source of chocolate is a small, evergreen cacao tree (theobroma cacao) that hides shyly beneath the humid rainforest canopy of Central America.  The cacao bean is harvested from the yellow pods of this small evergreen. Today cacao trees are grown in many tropical countries: Haighs source their beans from Ecuador, Papua New Guinea and Ghana. Cocoa beans look like large coffee beans or almonds. The raw bean is incredibly bitter, until it has been roasted at a very high temperature. This not only subdues the bitterness, but brings out the flavour, changes the colour and removes any moisture. Then it is ready to be transformed into chocolate.

We followed the steps on large picture boards and then turned to see the process on the factory floor through large glass windows – they were taking no chances with any of us falling into the chocolate waterfall and being sucked up the tube like Augustus Gloop! The beans are winnowed and ground into ‘nibs’. The resulting cocoa liquor is blended into a paste with extra cocoa butter, vanilla and icing sugar. This is further refined into a powder, before more cocoa butter is added  and the paste is then agitated and aerated in the conching tank for up to 72 hours, until it acquires the perfect texture and taste.

Chocolate was originally a drink devised by the Aztecs, the name a corruption of chocolatl, which has Aztec roots. Apparently Montezuma’s court went through 2000 jars a day, mixing it with honey or purple flower petals, chili, cloves, vanilla, nuts or allspice. The cacao bean has even been used as currency. The Spanish conquistadors in Mexico developed this ancient process of making chocolate and added sugar and cinnamon to sweeten this bitter beverage.

In seventeen century Mexico, chocolate was made into a savoury sauce with chili, cinnamon and coriander to accompany turkey. It was exported to Europe as a beverage and was adapted into a solidified form by the Dutch in the nineteenth century.

Haigh’s has developed that solid chocolate into an art form. And the selection at High’s is nothing short of overwhelming. Every variety of chocolate coated nut, bars of apricot or cherry, marzipan or nougat, peppermint or ginger. In recent years a selection of Aussie flavours has been infused into the truffle bar: lemon myrtle creams, pepperberry ganache and mango fruit. I found chocolate aniseed rings for my mother-in-law who adores licorice, champagne truffles for my bubbly-loving sister-in-law and chocolate frogs for my sons, just because…

While wandering around the store, I noticed that Haigh’s is committed to supporting several environmental projects. Not only is packaging recyclable, factory processes aim to be environmentally friendly. Proceeds from the sale of Haigh’s large golden Murray cods are donated to Healthy Rivers Australia to support the survival of this rapidly declining native freshwater fish. Recently, Haigh’s also joined forces with the Adelaide Zoo, and the Giant Pandas breeding program is sponsored by the sale of chocolate pandas.

For Easter, Haigh’s have replaced the traditional chocolate bunny with the now popular chocolate bilby, in order to support this tiny native that has been hunted almost to extinction by introduced species such as foxes and cats, not to mention being ousted from its habitat by our unquenchable rabbit population.

And of course, the other native Australian, the original chocolate frog, has been found on the shelves at Haigh’s for generations, and now comes in three sizes and flavours: the original; the midi, and the 375g Super Frog in milk, dark or peppermint chocolate. Part proceeds of chocolate frog sales are donated to Amphibian Ark, an international campaign to protect our waterways and our frogs.

George Bernard Shaw once claimed smugly that ‘I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.” Lucky man! Few of us can be so circumspect about temptation, particularly when it comes to chocolate. At least at Haigh’s it is possible to assuage the guilt with the thought that one is helping the survival of several endangered native species.

So I didn’t win the golden ticket or inherit a chocolate factory, but I left with hands full of the new scrumdiddlyumptious lemon and lime white chocolate balls and a recipe for chocolate fondue. Here’s to chocolate!

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Eating with the Seasons at Restaurant 101

Posted on 10 February 2012 by sheg4184

Shrimp Bruschetta

Eating in our time has got complicated. So says food historian Michael Pollan. The latest food trend attempts to uncomplicate things by going back to basics: eat locally grown produce and eat with the seasons.

Restaurant 101 is backing this philosophy with its Market Menu. Available from Monday lunchtime to Saturday night, this new menu, with its focus on seasonal and local ingredients, changes every two weeks to keep up with market availability. The Market Menu is the baby of new Enderun chef Nicolas Cantrel. Chef Cantrel only arrived in Manila last August, but already he is making a great impression.

As the application restaurant of Enderun Colleges, Restaurant 101 is an elegant and attractive dining room. Compared with the noise pollution that overwhelms many modern restaurants these days, Restaurant 101 is a haven of peace. There is an innate hush that is soothing to the senses. The waiting staff are student trainees, who are being taught the excellent serving skills we have come to expect in five star international hotels. The culinary team is trained by the Alain Ducasse Formation, a training and consultancy service established in 1999 by renowned French chef Alain Ducasse that embodies his unique culinary methods. In 2007, ADF formed an academic partnership with Enderun Colleges in the Philippines called ADF+Enderun.

Chef Cantrel has spent many years working with Alain Ducasse in a number of his Michelin starred restaurants, including Aux Lyonnais in Paris, Le Louis XV in Monaco and Mix in New York.

Cantrel’s Market Menu is imbibed with the Ducasse philosophy and style, into which he injects his personal touch, combining classical French techniques with local flavor, by replacing many European products with those he can find in the Manila markets. He schedules visits to the Farmer’s Market in Quezon City and the Central Market in Pasig every two weeks, and thrives on experimenting with the new ingredients he discovers there. He also loves exploring the street food and says he much prefers the back street restaurants of Mandaluyong to hanging out in the trendier malls and restaurants of Makati.

Cantrel’s culinary education has been as eclectic as his culinary tastes. His initial inspiration to cook came from his grandmother, who owned a small café in Normandy. At fifteen, he began a four year apprenticeship. Later, on completing ten months compulsory military service, Cantrel joined the Ducasse team in Paris, and hasn’t looked back. Cooking for Ducasse restaurants in France and Monaco were followed by two years with Ducasse in New York, before he finally decided to expand his horizons. The next six years saw Cantrel working as Executive Chef for three renowned restaurants in New York: Bobo, Bagatelle and Beaumarchais. In January 2010 he was invited to become an Iron Chef America Challenger, and he won!

A year ago, while contemplating a move to Manila with his Filipina wife, Cantrel bumped into his old mentor Alain Ducasse. The result of that timely meeting was a job offer: teaching Culinary Arts at Enderun Colleges and creating the menus for Restaurant 101. He accepted with alacrity.

Cantrel seems very much in touch with the culinary preferences of his new home and is more than happy to adapt his dishes to suit the tastes of the individual diner. He says he likes to create menus with his local diners in mind.

“I always try to include at least one local dessert” he tells me.

Risotto Escargot

The Market Menu is excellent value. Two courses cost only P650, or P780 with a glass of wine. Three courses cost P860 (P990 with wine).  This week’s menu had a wintery theme that included such delights as shrimp bruschetta and risotto escargot entrees, and  for main course, grilled tuna with prosciutto and sweet peppers, or a pan-seared hanger steak, both cooked to your specifications. Desserts included a deconstructed apple pie that whispered of apple Danish and a creamy panacotta with fresh mango.

I can only suggest that you go with someone who is happy to share – you might just want to try everything!

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Delving into Manila’s Markets

Posted on 6 February 2012 by sheg4184

The first time I visited the Farmer’s Market in Cubao, Quezon City, I went too late in the morning and I thought I would keel over and die from heat exhaustion. Since then I have learned to drop in early – no later than 9am – and the experience has been far less ennervating.

The Farmers Market is located just off EDSA, on General Macarthur Avenue, and if the traffic is not too thick, you can do it from Makati in 20-30 minutes. The car park is cheap (30 pesos for 2 hours) and accessible from EDSA. Don’t forget your Esky, and crushed ice is available from vendors with huge ice chests behind the fish stalls. Shopping trolleys are free of charge, but they do require ID, and they can be collected and returned by the pedestrian crossing at the front entrance of the market, opposite the car park.

Practicalities sorted. Now let’s move on to the fun part. The Farmers Market is an enormous warehouse on two levels. The top level is choc-a-block with flowers, fruit and vegetables, while down below in the wet market there is a huge variety of freshly butchered meat and fish.

There is plenty of competition for your business, which keeps the prices down and means shopping here is definitely cheaper than Rustan’s or SM and the quality is so much better. Confronted with a myriad stalls, it is sometimes hard to know where to start, but prices are much the same wherever you go – at least until you develop a relationship with a favourite stallholder or suki. Choose any one you want and keep going back there. Eventually you will notice that prices drop for a regular customer.

I often experiment with various unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, and stallholders are usually happy to let you taste before you buy, which is great. Today I came home with an ampalaya,  or bitter gourd. It looks like a very wrinkly cucumber. The small version is more bitter, but peeled, sliced and salted, the larger one can work in salads much like a cucumber. I am testing it out tonight, so I will get back to you on how it tastes. We also found a crinkly pear-shaped vegetable known, amongst other things, as a chayote or choko. It originated in Mexico and is another type of gourd. I would guess it was introduced to the Philippines by the Spanish during the Galleon Trade in the eighteenth century. Apparently, it can be cooked al dente to retain a crispy texture, or eaten raw, marinated in lime juice and used in salsas or salad.

Local greens are, for me, still largely an unknown quantity, and, it would seem, many modern Filipinos are almost as ignorant as I am. At a recent Filipino food workshop I attended, quite a number of locals failed to recognize many weed-like samples of native greens. So I started asking at the market. “What is this? How is it used?” Inevitably they answered “in sinigang”!

According to renowned Filipina restaurateur and food writer Amy Besa ‘sourness is at the heart of sinigang’. It is a light broth soured with anything from tamarind or tomatoes to green mango or kalamansi, (a tiny but very juicy native lime, excellent with gin) and containing almost any seasonal vegetables, and any meat, except chicken.  With all sorts of variations across South East Asia, including Thai tom yum, it is more representative of Filipino taste than the overworked adobo. It is also easily adapted to all tastes, budgets, and seasonal availability.

Malunggay is a leafy local horseradish which makes a really healthy tea full of protein, iron and Vitamins A and C. It also encourages milk production for breast feeding mothers. A friend used malunggay to make made me a delicious pesto, with loads of garlic. You will find that garlic comes in cloves or ready peeled in plastic bags . Just be careful what you order.  I wrote ‘2 x garlic cloves’ on my shopping list, which our driver Gerry translated, in his infinite wisdom, as TWO KILOS! Anyone need garlic?! Also, Aussies take note: if you wanted minced beef, ask for it to be ground or it arrives cubed and may not be what you had in mind for that meatloaf or spaghetti bolognese!

I usually visit the wet market last. While Gerry goes off to collect ice for the Esky, I rummage amongst the dripping fish stalls, the aisles awash with bloody water and pieces of discarded fish (another good reason to come in early as this can become rather gruesome later in the day). If you are expecting the sterility of a Coles or Woolworths refrigerator section, forget it! This is real life. No cling film. No Styrofoam. Just tubs of gasping fish and twitching crabs to choose from. I usually ask to have the fish gutted and descaled, and they will even fillet it for you, but don’t be surprised if it is not very thoroughly done – Filipinos think you are quite mad throwing away some of the best parts of the fish, and will often leave you with heart and lungs still attached, in the fear that they have misunderstood you. But it is definitely fresh!

The meat section is also a  fascinating arena. After fish, the favoured meat in the Philippines is pork, of which every part is eaten bar the squeak.  In the wet markets, tongues and trotters, intestines and stomach lining, ears, snouts and sometimes whole faces hang beside more familiar, if rather fatty cuts of meat.  Spit-roasted suckling pig – lechon de leche – is the meat of choice for entertaining and celebrating, and is ideally cooked to the point where it can be cut with a saucer. Guests are offered the first bite, and it helps to know that etiquette requires you to pluck a piece of flesh from behind the ears or tail with your fingers before the animal is carved up for everyone else.

I took my thirteen year old son there earlier this year. He was a little thrown by this exposure to the reality of butchery, but I was very proud of him. While he was not so keen to think about eating the offal displayed at eye level, he was highly amused by the sight of the hogs rump and tail hanging from a hook like that slab of armadillo grooms cake in the 1989 film Steel Magnolias.

I was regularly taken aback by the lack of flies hovering around this freshly slaughtered, open-air display. Then one day I took a photograph and perceived thin blue bars across the camera screen – apparently some kind of ultraviolet light that keeps unwanted visitors at bay. I have examined the shed regularly since, but am yet to discover the source of this mysterious but effective magic trick!

Posted in Food & Wine, Local Culture, Philippines | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“The wonders of technology!”

Posted on 3 February 2012 by sheg4184

Once upon a time, when I first went overseas, I relied on snail mail to transport my weekly aerogrammes home to my parents. These inevitably crossed  over in the middle of the Indian Ocean with the most recent one from my mother to me, so that we never quite linked the conversation. I saved coins for weeks to make birthday calls home, that were swallowed up faster than you could say “Hip Hip Hooray”.

Eventually, email sped the process up a little, but it took a while for everyone to invest in a home computer and then how to discover their email addresses?

Today, my children are able to talk to their old friends in Australia, the UK and the Czech Republic on Skype on a daily basis. I have found friends on Facebook I have not seen in fifteen years, and assumed were lost to me forever. Now, our families in Australia may know faster than the average Filipino of bomb scares or typhoons in Manila. We have got so used to the immediacy of communication that I panic if the kids don’t respond to a text message in 30 seconds! And yet, twenty five years ago, I could disappear for weeks on a train through Europe, and my parents had to trust that I was safe.

Modern technology is utterly amazing, and something we are all inclined to take for granted. Today, I was able to watch my sixteen year old son play rugby  using a live online feed from his school in the Philippines while sitting with a caffe latte an outdoor coffee shop in South Australia! I told my friends about it on Facebook, had responses from all over the globe within the hour and texted the results to my mother.

Expat life can be having your children scattered around the world so that you often feel the need to be in several countries at once. As I write this in Adelaide, where I am helping our daughter move back into college, I am also watching our son in Manila play rugby with a team from Taiwan, sick that I cannot be there for both of them.

Yet, even as I wait for my daughter to get her eyes checked at OPSM in Rundle Mall, I am watching my son score a try from 5,600 km away, as the entire school lines up along every balcony railing, roaring and cheering in support of their school team, green and gold pom poms dancing in the stands – while texting Hannah to hurry back and bring me her headphones so I can hear the commentary properly. Go the Bearcats!

 

 

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New Kid on the Block

Posted on 1 February 2012 by sheg4184

There’s a new kid on the Manila wine scene. Meet Don Revy, ‘an international wine company that sources new world wines for emerging markets’. And what better place to make the introduction than at Cav Wine Shop & Café on Bonifacio High Street, Fort Bonifacio?

In late November, lucky ANZA members were invited to attend an informal wine tasting at Cav and to make the acquaintance of Don Revy Director, Rachel Norman-Mayers and thirteen of her best New Zealand wines. The price was inviting, the tickets were limited, and they sold out in days.

We were handed a beautifully designed information booklet and an order form as we entered the restaurant. The wines had been set up in order of styles at the far end of the room, complete with tasting notes to help guide us through the selection.

Don Revy claims to have sourced some of the best producers in the best wine growing regions across New Zealand and ‘promises to over deliver on quality and value’. The company is currently representing four New Zealand wineries: Jules Taylor Wines, Pebble Lane, Mills Reef and Chard Farm, all based in different New Zealand wine regions. So let’s don our winter woollies and head south to start the introductions.

Way down near the base of the South Island is Central Otago. Embraced by spectacular mountain ranges and awash with lakes and rivers, this remote area has only recently started to develop as a wine region, but is rapidly becoming known for its cool climate wines, namely Pinot Noir and Riesling. Here is where we meet Chard Farm, whose Rabbit Ranch produces a soft, low tannin Pinot Noir and a light, refreshing Pinot Gris – a mutant Pinot Noir grape no less! Both grape varieties thrive in this extreme climate where the long slow ripening period is ideal.

Marlborough, on the north-eastern tip of the south island, is the birthplace of the New Zealand wine industry. Marlborough has long been synonymous with excellent Sauvignon Blanc, where over 80% of this wine, now a national icon, is produced. This evening we not only got to taste this popular style, but we also tried some other interesting grape varieties that are being developed here. And here we discover Pebble Lane and Jules Taylor Wines.

Pebble Lane, a relative newcomer is what might be called a virtual winery. Pebble Lane was designed by marketing genius Rachel Norman-Mayers, who created it to fit a flavour profile that appeals to the consumer. Using the best grapes from various vineyard sites around New Zealand and contracting some of the industry’s best winemakers, she has conscientiously tasted a wide range of wines and wine  varieties in order to create a selection of well-priced, very drinkable wines. For all that it sounds a bit commercial, it works. I am not a keen Sauvignon Blanc drinker, and continue to stand by my long term love, Chardonnay, but I have to say, this one was most appealing, and devoted SB supporters sounded pleased. It was certainly, to my taste buds, better than their chardy – but then I am an Adelaide girl who likes her chardy with a bit more body.

Jules Taylor is considered one of the up and coming talents from the Southern hemisphere. A local Marlborough girl, Jules has also gained valuable experience from Cloudy Bay to Piedmont in Italy. She began her own brand ten years ago and has since acquired a clutch of awards. According to Don Revy,  Jules Taylor makes ‘high quality, handcrafted wines’ from ‘a selection of vineyards where the grape variety, soil and micro climate all work in harmony to produce the unique flavours she seeks.’ The four Jules Taylor Wines featured at Cav were an intense and citrusy Sauvignon Blanc, a fresh if somewhat bland Pinot Gris, a surprisingly sweet and fruity, European style Riesling and a 2010 Pinot Noir that could do with some short-term cellaring.

Last but definitely not least, we cross to the north island and travel up to Hawkes Bay on the east coast. Hawkes Bay is, loosely speaking, midway between Auckland and Wellington. One of the warmest, most fertile regions in New Zealand, this beautiful area has a dry and temperate climate perfect for viticulture. As a result, the region has spawned a clutch of award-winning boutique wineries. This includes our last new acquaintance, Mills Reef, a winery that loves its warm climate reds. So did I! Established in 1989 by the Preston family, Mills Reef Winery has developed, according to its website, into one of New Zealand’s premium labels with a particular reputation for outstanding Bordeaux varietal reds and Syrah.’

Certainly, for me, these reds were the pick of the bunch: the Merlot, from the renowned Gimblett Gravels, is fruity and vibrant, and apparently good for cellaring. The full-bodied Cabernet Merlot was an early front runner, but for my money, the star of the show was the Syrah, and provided a suitably rich, ballsy finish to a great night.

Visit the Don Revy website at www.donrevy.com

Stockists in Manila include:

Duty Free Philippines, Ninoy Aquino Avenue, Paranaque City, Philippines

The Cav Wine Bar & Restaurant, The Spa Building, Lot 5, Quadrant 8 City Centre, Fort Bonifacio Global City, Philippines

Rustans – Makati and Rockwell Power Plant Mall Stores – Manila, Philippines

* Images from Don Revy website.

 

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Living in a Bubble

Posted on 28 January 2012 by sheg4184

We were asked to write a piece for the ANZA News on where we lived in Manila and why. It was a good excuse to consider and re-assess…

When  we first flew into Manila, a realtor took us around Makati and the Fort. She showed us houses in gated communities, apartment blocks, condominiums. Several things made us head away from village life to our current apartment overlooking the Pasig River.

1. We wanted something we could readily lock up and walk away from when travelling.

2. We wanted easy access to a mall, particularly for me and our two teenage boys.

3. We wanted a pool and grounds that wouldn’t be our responsibility (see 1)

4. We wanted to be an easy distance from the boys’ school and my husband’s office.

The Rockwell Centre is an oasis in the desert of concrete that is Metro Manila; a retreat from the traffic and mayhem of downtown Makati; a garden of Eden separated only by a wall from the Sodom and Gomorrah that is Poblacion’s red light district. Rockwell is 15.5 hectares of land that used to be a thermal power plant owned by the Lopez family, owner of Meralco, the major electricity supplier in the Philippines, which is hardly surprising news when you see the volume of fairy lights at Christmas.

The part that still makes me smile is the private entrance at the bottom of the garden into the food court of Power Plant Mall. I will forever feel like Lucy going through the wardrobe into Narnia.

Our oasis has easy access to EDSA, the central artery of Metro Manila, as well as The Fort, Glorietta and Greenbelt (nearby shopping precincts). Rockwell is bordered by the gated community of Bel-Air to the south, the Pasig River to the north, and the working class suburbs of Guadalupe and Poblacion to east and west.

Our apartment is a spacious 4 bedroom, all with ensuites, and a maid’s room that is one of the best we saw anywhere – so good in fact that, for us, it doubles as a guest room and den for the boys, even if the ensuite is a little basic. (N.B. maids accommodation is standard in almost every house or apartment, however small, but most maids quarters resemble a tiny walk-in wardobe, and as Aussies unused to live-in help, we sometimes found such contrasts a little hard to swallow).  The kitchen isn’t huge, but its perfectly workable, although it is worth negotiating for quality white goods – may apartments make do with sub-standard stoves and refrigerators. There is plenty of wardrobe space, and the Master bedroom –  well, let’s just say I have lived in smaller houses!

Our private entrance to Power Plant Mall is absolutely brilliant for a quick dash to the supermarket for milk and chocolate or the hardware store for light bulbs; to the ATM machine when I run out of cash ; to Chillis when the boys are screaming for red meat and there’s none in the freezer, and to a selection of coffee shops and cheap eateries for meeting friends, ours and theirs, which is all too good to be true after years spent on the outer rim of suburbia where we needed a car to get to the corner shop. Feel the need for a Sunday night movie? There’s a cinema on the top floor, right next door to Manila’s best bookshop, Fully Booked. Want a moment of quiet reflection? There’s a chapel two doors down from Toys ‘r’ Us that bursts at the seams on Sunday mornings.

Joining the Rockwell Club is a drawn out process (a common denominator here) but it’s well worth the patience. Margaritas-by-the-pool was a lifestyle choice I had flaunted in front of my friends before I left Sydney, and one I wouldn’t mind indulging forever, although I have since discovered that the Mojitos are better if you don’t mind picking out the mint from between your teeth. Also, the gym is a godsend if I am not going to turn into a total blimp in the tropics. There is a good restaurant – although we’ve only been once – and Rocky’s café is not too bad if you avoid the fried food – unless you have a penchant for cheap past-its-used-by-date coconut oil, which I don’t. I am racking my brains for a negative twist – you can see I’m scraping the barrel!

Rizal Tower has the largest apartments but no balcony, and you pay in floor space if you choose Luna Gardens for a little fresh air, but the gardens are great for toddlers and small kids to ride bikes over your toes and throw balls at your head, and the ya-yas all congregate at twilight to give their charges a run around before bedtime. We have a car park or two, engineers on tap who do try to fix any problems, and friendly security guards who say hello every time I walk past, and can generally inform me where my teenagers are hanging out.

I do miss a barbecue on the patio, but only in the cooler months. And waiting for the lifts can be painful if you’re in a hurry, and it’s stopping at every other floor, and then you’ve forgotten your phone… but a front row pew for the fireworks over Rockwell at Christmas, New Year and whenever else the Filipinos feel like a firework extravaganza make up for minor irritations. Heaven help me if I ever complain. Hardship posting? Hardly! We are living in a bubble of luxury.

 

 

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Setting Standards at Enderun Colleges

Posted on 25 January 2012 by sheg4184

Restaurant 101 is the training restaurant for Enderun College’s food and beverage students. I have always been impressed with the meals served at 101, but this time I was more specifically interested in the food and beverage students who were being examined on their service skills.  Having trained at Regency Park College in South Australia, I am always interested in observing other food & beverage students, and seeing them develop. So I was delighted to be invited to be a guest participant during the Final Practical Exams for last semester’s batch.

I was asked to make up a table of four, so I gathered up three good friends, all with experience in the F&B industry.  We were briefed at the door as to what to expect and how to conduct ourselves. We were given an assessment sheet, and told we should try to order different dishes, presumably to give the students plenty of practice at taking orders.

For our contribution to the assessment, we would be served a 3-course meal, to include one soft drink and the after-dinner coffee or tea, which we were politely requested to order.

Restaurant 101 is elegantly attractive. Today it was brimming with guests, and yet still surprisingly peaceful.  There is a kind of innate hush that politely requests we don’t raise out voices. I always find this dining room a haven compared with the noise pollution that accompanies many modern restaurants these days. Certainly no expense appears to have been spared to provide a congenial, calm atmosphere.

We were welcomed nervously to our table by our young waitress, and settled ourselves down to observe how she got on. Apparently, the students had designed their own table settings,  so there as an interesting mixture of flower arrangements, and competition was rife.

Our server then presented the menus. These were unusually sparse in description or explanation, presumably to invite questions to our server and assess how well she knew the menu. Not very well, as it turned out, but her instructor was at hand to fill the gaps so we weren’t left completely in the dark. It was, as always, a simple lunch menu. As westerners used to larger helpings, especially the North Americans at the table, we were initially a little surprised at the small serves. However, we later admitted that the portion sizes were all we needed at lunch time. And none of us could fault the quality of our dishes – but then of course we had not been invited to assess the kitchen, who were all professionally trained.

We obediently made different choices from the menu, and my baked oysters were the best I have ever tasted. The oysters were a good size and texture and warmed nicely beneath a smooth, tangy béarnaise sauce that complemented them perfectly. Others enjoyed the quality of the salad, but thought it lacked the necessary spark to lift it from the ordinary.  Our waitress did a great job getting everything safely to the table – we had joked about large plastic coated aprons – and did not have the misfortune of a neighbouring performer who toppled a glass to the floor.

Simplicity was truly the focus for our main courses: a tasty piece of red snapper on rice; a bowl of tiny gnocchi with a light white sauce; a fish soup with muscles,  all  highly praised by the recipients. Meanwhile our waitress practiced pouring our wine: iced tea in a recycled wine bottle! I remember spending hours practicing with a waiter’s friend corkscrew to get the knack of pulling corks at the table. I am very envious of this generation blessed with screw top bottles.

Seamlessly the plates were cleared and the desserts selected. A tiramisu and a Filipino version of the same called rhum baba. We ordered both, very politely. The cream fetishists at the table (two of us) found the thick cream on top of our tiramisu positively orgasmic, but had to admit that the very thin layer of sponge beneath was disappointing. We could taste neither masala nor coffee, so that really, it was a yummy bowl of cream. Unfortunately the rhum baba was also rejected, and certainly looked heavy and uninspiring.

However, our waitress completed her performance neatly, right down to decrumbing the table with a linen napkin. I cheerfully added some cream from my dessert to my coffee, which improved it enormously. We then duly completed the questionnaire, paid our bill (with monopoly money) and left the table.

The questionnaire was interesting in that most of the questions were worded such that our answers were inevitably yes, and there was rarely room to comment further, except, strangely on the bread rolls, for which we were given about four lines. The emphasis seemed to be more on appearance than performance, and we were – again surprisingly – asked to comment on the food.

Nonetheless, our lunch was served efficiently, and the plastic aprons weren’t required after all. The students may still have a little way to go, but, watching their teacher progressing around the room, I am guessing she will find a way to bring them up to scratch. And I have to add that our waitress ticked several of our pre-discussed boxes: she did a great job of balancing instantly available with unobtrusive – always a delicate task when you are learning the job. And there were a couple of memorable little touches – like bringing over a small side table so our handbags weren’t tangled round our feet, and remembering to tell our vegetarian companion that the mushroom soup was cooked in a beef stock. Also, much to our approbation, she waited to clear our tables till we had all finished eating. Other little details she will pick up along the way. And she apologized very sweetly and sincerely for any errors before we left her to get over the shock of her examination.

It was heartening to see Enderun working so hard to raise the standards of service here in the Philippines. That warm, friendly Filipino smile is always welcome, but can’t always undo the damage of sloppy service. So keep up the good work Enderun.

Restaurant 101 at Enderun Colleges is open from Monday to Saturday; from 11:30am to 2pm for lunch, and from 6 to 10pm for dinner.

* Images from Enderun’s website:  http://www.enderuncolleges.com/

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Afternoon Tea with a Russian Flavour

Posted on 22 January 2012 by sheg4184

I must confess, I had never heard of the Russian Tea Room until last December. My initial plan was to organize afternoon tea at the Plaza, but unfortunately for us, Eloise, the Plaza’s most significant resident, had got in first and the Palm Room had long been fully booked for her private tea party.

My sister-in-law recommended The Russian Tea Room as a suitable alternative. With half a dozen girlfriends on stand-by, I took the plunge and booked the venue.

Tucked away between 6th and 7th Avenue, on West 57th Street, the RTR has an interesting history. Founded by former members of the Russian Imperial Ballet in 1927, it became a second home for Russian expatriates, the intellectual elite of New York and the entertainment industry. Over 85 years, the Russian Tea Room has maintained a modernist Russian style decor, and continues to host New York’s elite.

It has also featured in several movies such as Tootsie, When Harry Met Sally and Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Madonna worked here as a coat check chick before she threw the coats aside to bare all – well almost – in her music videos.

Today, the Russian Tea Room claims a reputation for continental fine dining, the finest selection of vodkas and an elegant high tea.

First, I have a bone to pick with this title. It is a bone I often chew on, but I was truly surprised to find the misnomer attached to such a reputedly high class establishment, and can’t resist commenting.

There are, according to food historian Colin Spencer, two types of tea: afternoon tea and high tea. Almost the only thing they have in common is the beverage: tea.

Historically, High Tea, for all the elegance of its name, is, not about delicate china and morsels of cake served on tiered plates. High Tea, an expression of British origin coined in the early nineteenth century, was, ironically, a far more substantial affair, eaten by the working classes at around 6 o’clock in the evening. It consisted of pies, stews, cold cuts, cakes and bread – a wholesome meal for the labourers and miners returning home from a hard day’s work.

Afternoon tea, on the other hand, was a dainty snack for the ladies, a light meal that filled a gap between midday luncheon and a late, eight o’clock dinner, originating in England in the late 18th century. Tea, then recently introduced to Europeans, was the drink of the wealthy. Highly taxed, tea was a luxury item, a sign of affluence and respectability, unaffordable to the lower classes. Traditionally, a cup of tea was accompanied by tiny sandwiches filled with cucumber, egg and cress or smoked salmon. Scones, served with jam and clotted cream, and tiny cakes and pastries provided a sweet alternative.

Yet I have recently read that since the 1950s, and in the RTR’s defence, the meaning has altered, particularly outside the UK, where High Tea was thought to have a more elegant and formal tone than afternoon tea. Subsequently, High Tea has become a popular form of afternoon entertainment in luxury hotels, often served with optional Champagne.

So enough of the history lecture, let’s move on to the tea. Five girlfriends, and two teenage daughters had landed in New York for Christmas. The boys had come along too, but they were elsewhere, playing basketball, watching basketball, drinking beer. It seemed only fair to have a bit of girl-time too.

The Russian Tea Room offers what I would deem an afternoon tea: morsels of cake and petites fours; snippets of sandwiches; a wide selection of teas, and an optional glass of bubbly, served between 2.30 and 4pm. Undeniably, the sandwiches are significantly superior to a Subway’s offering, if not as filling. Putting semantic snobbery aside, perhaps the term High Tea is more fitting after all, and bear in mind these are sandwich fillings:

 Curried chicken salad with raisins and pecans; shrimp salad with rémoulade (a spicy, tartar sauce-like mayonnaise); Smoked Scottish salmon with chive cream cheese and cucumber; artichokes with red pepper and a sun-dried tomato goat’s cheese; smoked ham and turkey with truffle; croque monsieur(a miniature toasted cheese sandwich); N.Y smoked sturgeon with dill and sour cream; Roquefort and pear with walnuts, and a soupçon of two American caviars on Blinis (a plateful would have been better, they were delicious!).

Sadly, the menu doesn’t list the sweet items individually, and by then a few Australian bubbles had passed my lips, so I have only vague recollections of some rather tasty truffles, some neat and tiny cupcakes or friands?… Amelia? Help?

 The list of available loose teas was positively daunting, for a single-minded drinker of English Breakfast tea. Ceylon,Darjeeling, Chamomile and Peppermint were familiar, but Formosa Oolong and Mint Verbena, not to mention Rooibos Chai (apparently a South African red bush with Indian spices) left me gasping. I am now quite inspired to become a tea connoisseur. And I loved the descriptions. Try and match them together with the tea: brisk; delicate sweet notes….

On a chilly winter’s afternoon, the plush red furnishings were just right, if a little overbearing for my taste. The service was very friendly and welcoming, although we were all a tad put out at being interrupted by our young Eastern European waitress asking us to sort out the bill mid-way through the tea so they could balance the till. Our sommelier, however, more than made up for this slight faux-pas. A lovely, enthusiastic New Yorker, she was delighted to find a table full of Aussies, as she had studied in Australia ten years earlier. And she had studied not only in Australia, but in my home town, Adelaide. Aaaaand… wait for it… she had studied for her Masters in Gastronomy, of which there is a mere handful of graduates world wide – and of which I am also one! The reunion was full of inappropriate shrieks of delight, distraction and discovery. (It also distracted me momentarily from the enormous service charges and taxes Americans like to add to any restaurant bill. Aussies Beware! And Be Prepared!).

Still, we got all we could have wanted in the way of a self-indulgent afternoon of lady-like chat, cake and champagne. There was a three-tiered cake plate. And the Russian flavour of the High Tea actually made an interesting change from the usual colonial English Afternoon Tea taste… although I did miss the clotted cream.

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