do you love me ’cause i can mash potato?

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So I spent all of last week extremely bedridden and in unreal amounts of pain while recovering from my wisdom teeth coming through with all the haste and frantic energy of a character entering the room from stage left in a farcical French play about a dinner party gone lightly awry. I’m a very like, impulsive type idiot and so it was almost equally as painful to have to go from living in the moment to living in the bed, and on top of that food bearing any kind of texture whatsoever was out of the question as I could hardly open my mouth and the slightest attempt at chewing caused dagger-stabs of pain right into the very core of my gums. My one solace was that the Tramadol I’d been prescribed, while it didn’t do much whatsoever for the pain, was an extremely good time.  

And so, that’s why I’m blogging about mashed potato. Not because I invented it, or think you don’t know how to make it, and not even because I’m labouring under some kind of delusion that my recipe below is particularly revolutionary in any way, but: it’s what I ate last week. My other options include “half a container of yoghurt, consumed tearfully” and “a bowl of strawberry jelly that had ‘serves four’ on the package”. 

I think I absorbed this method from Nigella Lawson, which makes sense since for most of the week all I could handle concentrating on was her old TV series on loop on youtube – the pop culture equivalent of mashed potato (and pop culture consumption is almost as important as food consumption to me.) It’s very simple – you just throw whole potatoes in a hot oven and bake them, then scoop out the fluffy interiors and fork through as much cream and butter as you wish. Like seriously, I’m not even giving you quantities in this recipe because only you know how much you both desire and can handle. I much prefer this method to boiling the potatoes on the stove top, as there’s no peeling or waiting for the water to boil or draining and also cooking the potatoes without moisture results in, I believe, a far superior mash. 

The only thing I really feel strongly about is that your mashed potato should have some freshly ground nutmeg on it – it gives such a warm, cosy note of spice in the same way cinnamon does on top of, say, porridge, just a tiny hint of subtle depth against the blanketing blandness of the potato. Also my specification for six potatoes is just a guess, really – if you use more potatoes or bigger ones you’ll get more mash, that’s about all there is to it.  

mashed potatoes

  • around six medium sized floury potatoes
  • cream
  • butter
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • nutmeg

Set your oven to 220C/450F, and scrub the potatoes if need be, but don’t peel them. Place them directly onto the rack in the oven – like, not on a baking tray or anything – and let them sit for around half an hour or until they’re extremely, 100% tender when you pierce them with a knife. 

Halve them lengthwise and scoop the soft flesh out into a bowl. Squash it all about with a fork, stirring in as much butter and cream as you like, but if you’re completely unsure start with a few tablespoons of the former and about 20g of the latter. Obviously I added more. If you heat it up it’ll be easier to add in and won’t lower the temperature of the potato. 

Sprinkle over plenty of salt, pepper, and a little freshly grated nutmeg. Dive in. 

Don’t throw out the be-scooped potato skins – if you sprinkle them with grated cheese and I don’t know, some smoked paprika or something and blast them under the grill till the cheese is bubbling you are in for a very good time. Unfortunately, as previously discussed, anything even remotely textural was off limits for me so I tearfully and apologetically hoofed them into the bin. 

The mashed potato itself though: good god. So soft. Eating it is like the feeling of lying on the carpet and being warmed by sun streaming through the window. Like turning off your alarm clock and being wrapped in a thick duvet. Like coming in from the cold and turning on a fan heater and just shutting your eyes and listening to the gentle humming noise it makes. Cream and butter are a simple conduit to happiness (presuming you like, enjoy the taste of them) and every last granule of potato seems to swell fatly with the richness of these ingredients. Salt and the aforementioned nutmeg stops everything from being too plain, and it’s all just very calming and delicious. I ate the whole bowl in bed and then fell asleep. 

Thanks to the magic of antibiotics and bedrest I eventually improved, which means I’ve been back at work this week and I could not be happier about it. My first shift back I honestly got the stupidest grin on my face while making my first cocktail of the night, and all that aside it’s a joy to just be around people again. The errant teeth are going to be pulled out on July 3 though, so we’re not entirely out of the woods yet. My teeth have been so extremely well behaved my whole entire life so I’ve never had any real dentist experiences before – and I apologised to my dentist for being such a cliche but – I’m super nervous about it. So, I’ll probably be revisiting this recipe again many times during that week. Till then, gonna eat so many crispy chewy foods while I can. It’s crunch time! 

title from: Liz Phair, Easy Target. It’s grumbly and whiny, like me! 

music lately: 

Lorde, Writer in the Dark. WHAT IS SHE PLAYING AT ??? How DARE (I’m obsessed with this album if you can’t tell.) 

Lash, Take Me Away. This song is from 2001 or something and it really feels like it production-wise, this band went absolutely nowhere but this is such a bop still, like, that chorus!! 

Polly Scattergood, Wanderlust. This song is so extremely everything I look for in pop music – fizzy and dreamy and a little melancholic. 

next time: something aggressively crunchy before settling back into post-operation pain-fuelled soft foods!!

yes in a dream all my teeth fell out

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I have this weird half-memory of a story on cassette tape that my teacher would sometimes play to the class when I was like, eight years old, about some kids who were cursed or something and they forgot how to sing Happy Birthday and when they tried to it came out as this disturbing, discordant mumble. (I tried googling the premise and can’t find anything about it but I swear I didn’t make this up.) Anyway, that’s kind of how I feel about blogging right now. I’ve apparently forgotten how. All I’ve been doing, and I mean all, is just working and sleeping and working and sleeping and obsessively binge-watching Frasier, and every time I’ve been like “right you idiot time to do some goddamn blogging, that thing that you love” I just sit there and stare at the screen and everything that comes out is all stilted and mumbly.  

AND THEN. On Monday night I hauled myself out of bed and forced myself to write, and managed about half of this very blog post, before a WISDOM TOOTH of all things decided to roundhouse kick its way through the left side of my mouth, causing indescribable pain (and like, my idea of fun is describing stuff) not to mention a deeply vanity-denting swelling of the left cheek and an enormous sense of helpless neediness. 

Seriously, I did not expect this at all. Firstly, my teeth are so well behaved, and secondly, wisdom teeth were supposed to be an issue like, a decade ago. All I can surmise is that my extreme young-at-heart nature also extends to being young-at-mouth, either way it’s monumentally inconvenient and painful and horrible. I ended up going to hospital at 4am on Tuesday night because I was deranged from the pain, followed by a dentist visit where the dentist was astounded at the speed with which my wisdom tooth barged in unannounced (and I was like “this is so Aries of me.) It’s very likely I’ll have to have the unwelcome guest to my mouth ripped out and I’m extremely nervous about it, but till then I’m hepped up on a grunty cocktail of antibiotics and Tramadol, and have been a charming mixture of intensely dozy and high as a kite all day. I decided that while I’m vaguely lucid I might as well try to finish this stupid blog post, since the stiltedness of my creativity has been a major cause of anxiety to me and if I can both distract my brain from the pain with writing and also tick something off my to-do list I might feel slightly better about how much time this vexatious tooth is wasting. 

So uh, last week I made this granola stuff, and it is really good and I’m going to attempt to talk about it here in the manner of, you know, a food blog. (Imagine several elaborate air quote gestures inserted at various points in that sentence.) 

By “granola” I really mean a collection of toasted grains and seeds and whatnot masquerading as breakfast cereal. It’s crunchy and nutty and puffy and really weirdly delicious and filling but also extremely light-textured, with not a single oat in sight: instead I round it out with toasted buckwheat which is super nutty and crunchy, and puffed amaranth, which is just devastatingly adorable – when you put the granules of it over a high heat it puffs up like the tiniest popcorn, like popcorn for bees, like, I don’t know why the sight of tiny miniature stuff doing its best makes me emotional, it’s not even the Tramadol that’s making me get worked up about this, but all we can do, collectively across humankind, is try to accept it. Maple syrup glues it together – an expensive ingredient, hence the “lux” of the granola’s name – and makes it pleasingly clumpy and sweet, and the almonds and sesame seeds give further nutty toasty flavour and crunch. Plus simply knowing about all the superfood-on-superfood action happening in the ingredients is extremely good for the soul, and presumably the bod also. 

Also please note that while the recipe looks complicated you’re honestly just toasting all the individual ingredients in a pan over a high heat, that’s like, it, I just for some reason cannot explain it in any kind of succinct manner. 

lux maple granola

a recipe by myself

  • one cup amaranth
  • one cup quinoa
  • one cup buckwheat
  • one cup sesame seeds
  • one cup almonds
  • four tablespoons maple syrup
  • pinch of sea salt

Get yourself a large, ideally nonstick frying pan, and a large bowl. Put the pan on a high heat, and then pour in a few tablespoons of the amaranth. After a few seconds it should start popping and puffing up. Keep it moving so it doesn’t burn, and don’t worry if all of it doesn’t puff up – as long as most of it does, you’re all good. Tip it into the bowl and carry on with the rest of the amaranth. Then, tip in some of the quinoa – some of the grains might pop a bit but your aim here is just to gently toast the grains. Once they’re sufficiently browned, tip them into the bowl with the amaranth and continue to toast the rest. Then, toast the buckwheat grains until they smell nutty and are lightly browned, followed by the sesame seeds – which should brown really quickly – and finally the almonds. Roughly chop up the toasted almonds before tipping them into the bowl as well. Finally, add the salt and pour in the maple syrup, give it a good stir and then transfer into an airtight jar or container.  

I ate it, as you can see from the pictures, layered up with really thick natural yoghurt and freeze-dried raspberry powder, which was a spectacularly good way to enjoy it. I’m just someone who happens to have a lot of freeze-dried powdered fruits around for some reason, but it would be also wonderful in a bowl drenched in your preferred kind of milk, or just served alongside a heaping spoonful of yoghurt with whatever fruit and accoutrements you fancy. You could also layer it up all cute like I did but use IRL fruit or something – jarred passionfruit syrup or tinned peaches would also be delightful here. You’ve got options, is what I’m saying. 

bed granola

bed granola

All I’ve done today, aside from thrashing about in pain and having extremely dribbly naps, is watch Nigella Lawson re-runs, possibly the most comforting TV I can imagine in these difficult-of-tooth times. At one point I literally dreamed that she put her cool hand on my hot forehead and it was honestly almost worth the entire ordeal just for that dream; but also watching her cooking reminds me that this is what I love to do and it’s something I can do and will do. I’m really hoping that once this useless fang heals up that I’ll be all It’s A Wonderful Life and be completely reinvigorated to write, like, vigorously, but even just feeling something other than nonstop pain would be a real kick right now. 

Anyway, I’m feeling the Tramadol pulling me downwards which means it’s time for me to snooze and dribble lavishly on my pillowcase again, but I’m glad I got this done and also I can’t wait for my stupid face to get better so that I can eat the rest of this delicious granola. Currently the simple act of chewing causes black-out levels of pain! Good times. 

title from: The Knife, Silent Shout. I love the hook in this song, it’s like the sensation of lemonade bubbles rising and falling in musical form. 

music lately:

Anthems for a Seventeen-Year Old Girl, Broken Social Scene. I CANNOT STOP LISTENING TO THIS SONG. The repetitiveness, especially about halfway through when it really kicks in, is so hypnotic and melancholy. I love it. 

Animal Nitrate, Suede. I really like this song. 

The Avalanche, Sufjan Stevens. This is the only song of this that I like and it’s not on Spotify and it’s ruining my life! I also have not listened to any other songs by him. 

next time: let us hope that I have my ability to write back and also my ability to have teeth in my mouth in a chill manner. 

bruises on the fruit, tender age in bloom

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It has taken me what feels like forever to get this blog post done and it’s not because I’ve been doing anything exciting by any means, I’ve just been busy with work and overtired and rinsing and repeating. That’s a lie, I’m not even rinsing. Just grubbily unproductive. But here I am and I’m determined to make this happen because, if nothing else, the recipe I’m talking about involves quince which is in season for about the same length of time as the brief nap I wish I was currently having.

So quinces, yeah, they look like large pears and smell like if an apple was presenting you with a bunch of flowers and blushing nervously. They’re impossible to eat raw and rock hard when you try to cut through them and take forever to cook but once they do, you get blessed with soft, melting texture with just a little of that autumnal fruit grittiness, and intense, perfumed sweetness of flavour.

I bought two, knowing full well I’d probably get too busy to do anything other than occasionally appreciatively sniffing them before ruefully throwing them in the bin once they’d deteriorated beyond the point where I could ignore it; however I surprised myself by actually doing something. And that thing was delicious. I grated the quince – not the easiest task, since they’re so concrete-like, but I managed – and cooked it in plenty of butter with sliced pears, and then just added water slowly, almost risotto like, until everything was cooked and soft. A tiny bit of sugar was all that was needed, no spices or anything – I mean, you absolutely could, I just wanted the fruit to be the undistracted star. If I was going to add something here I’d personally go for cardamom – a tiny bit lemony and gingery and less obvious than cinnamon, or indeed, actual ginger. The butter with the fruit is so lush, and flavour enough, making everything all rich and sweet and juicy and, well, buttery.

buttered quince and pears

a recipe by myself

  • one large quince
  • two pears
  • 40g butter
  • one tablespoon sugar
  • water

Peel the quince (just use a vege peeler) and carefully grate the flesh, till you’re left with just the solid core. This is a bit of an undertaking because quinces are, as I said, extremely tough. Throw the butter into a large frying pan and over a medium to high heat, melt it and tip in the quince. Finely slice the pears and add them to the pan too. Continue to stir until the pears have softened a bit.

Sprinkle over the sugar, add some more butter if you feel like it, turn the heat up on high and add 125ml/half a cup of water. Continue stirring regularly until the water has evaporated, and then continue in this fashion, adding water and stirring till it’s gone, until the quince has almost dissolved into a nubbly paste coating the pears and everything is very, very tender and golden.

I ate it with extremely thick natural yoghurt, the type you can basically stand a spoon up in, and a mixture of toasted almonds and pumpkin seeds, roughly chopped and mixed with coconut sugar and sea salt. The textures and temperatures and sweet-salty-buttery-fruity thing going on was sensational, but also extremely, calmingly simple. You can do what you like with this nubbly fruity mixture though – put it under crumble, stir it into whipped cream, fold it into a cake batter, eat it with ice cream, and I suspect it would also work with some kind of pork or alongside sharp goat’s cheese.

If you’re up to your neck in quinces right now I also suggest some other recipes that I’ve blogged about – like quince sorbet, quince brandy, quince glaze and quince loaf cake  (that last post I linked to is from early 2008 which was literally 84 years ago).

And that’s like, it, really. In fact as soon as I hit publish I’m scooting to work again. I will do my very, very best to get into some wacky anecdote-worthy scrapes and capers for you so that the next blog post has more filler material. Au revoir till next time.

title from: Nirvana’s aggressively bucolic song In Bloom.

music lately: 

Gideon, by My Morning Jacket. This song is from 2005 but sounds like it could’ve been written in like, 2015, it’s all soaring and dreamy and wonderful, but above all I’m thankful for this band because of the scene in Happy Endings where Alex is like “There’s my My Morning Jacket jacket!”

Santa Fe, by Beirut. God this song is uplifting from the second it kicks off, it’s just lovely and happy and simple and good.

next time: I made some extremely good polenta with olive oil and roast garlic, I’m also really, really wanting to do some kind of slow cooking with the weather being so freezing. I also promise anecdotes or something. 

look into my eyes and tell me girl you know you gotta watch your health

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It’s an analogy that’s brought up a lot, but one of the differences in the way that mental and physical health are treated is that like, if you have a broken leg it’s considered completely reasonable to be seen immediately and have it put in a cast and then get follow-up therapy to strengthen your stupid broken leg. Unlike mental health, which is like…imagine if you broke your leg and you were told you had to wait six weeks to see someone, and then when you saw them you really, really had to convince them that your leg was broken even though you’ve tried meditation, and then you’re told to wait another six weeks and at the end of that you’re finally given, with great reluctance, a plaster and some supermarket paracetamol.

This isn’t exactly relevant, I honestly just wanted to complain. But where I’m going with this is, I’m so used to focussing on the moving target that is my mental health that I’m always completely taken by surprise when I get, y’know, physically unwell in the traditional sense. To me, getting actually sick is kind of not an option, simply because I don’t have time for this and so I refuse to acknowledge it.

And yet, here I am, and this head-cold/flu-adjacent thing that is occupying my bod is refusing to acknowledge my refusal to acknowledge it, and as such, I’ve done the only thing anyone can do – google which foods are the most aggressively able to fight germs and then make a recipe out of as many of them as I can get hold of. Since cabbage came up extremely high on the list of “will make your nose bleed from vitamin overload” I decided to use it as the base of a slaw, adding watercress and fennel, a dressing made from ten cloves of garlic, and a scattering of raw turmeric and almonds.

So yeah, it’s good for you – you can wikipedia the individual ingredients if you want to know specifically how, for me it’s just enough to know that they’re doing something – but it also tastes completely fantastic. Cabbage and watercress are both super peppery and fennel has that aniseed heat, but there’s a ton of olive oil and salt to soften it all, plus the incredibly mellow dressing, made by simmering the garlic cloves till they’re softened, both physically and in terms of eye-watering burn. On top of that the almonds – and I use heaps of them – add a kind of contrasting creamy nuttiness, so it’s not all too astringent and cold and a chore to get through. Finally, raw turmeric has a kind of gingery carrot vibe flavourwise and adds pleasing bursts of chrysanthemum yellow against all the purple and green. And it’s SO good for you, guys.

Did it help? I mean honestly, I’ve never felt less healthy. But does correlation equal causation? Am I mad at this salad for not curing me and indeed, solving all the problems in my life? Can you be mad at a salad? Am I doing a terrible job of selling this recipe to you as something you might want to make? If nothing else it surely didn’t do me any harm and above all it tastes amazing so…that will have to do for now.

Feel free to mix and match ingredients depending on what you’re able to get hold of – you could add kale, or use white cabbage, have walnuts or hazelnuts instead of almonds, use rocket instead of cress, anything at all. But as it is in the recipe below, it’s pretty spectacular – so crunchy, oily, salty, garlicky, crisp, peppery, everything. Also – I feel like I say this a lot, but – the recipe looks really long but it’s truly super simple, I’m just super talky. You’re really just chopping up a bunch of stuff and putting it in a bowl.

healthy af slaw

a recipe by myself

  • half a purple cabbage
  • one fennel bulb
  • two handfuls of watercress
  • turmeric root, a couple of inches thereof
  • at least two handful of almonds
  • ten cloves of garlic, give or take
  • plenty of extra virgin olive oil
  • two teaspoons apple cider vinegar
  • a couple of drops of maple syrup or clear honey or golden syrup or honestly whatever
  • sea salt

Firstly, put the garlic cloves in a pan and just cover them with water. Bring to the boil and let them simmer away for about five minutes, during which time you can prepare the salad itself. 

Get an enormous serving bowl ready. Peel the thick outer leaves from the cabbage and slice the rest as finely as you can manage, transferring it all into the serving bowl once you’re done. Repeat with the fennel (slightly more difficult due to the unwieldy shape of the bulb.) Then, and this might sound stupid, but drizzle over some olive oil and scatter over some salt and use your hands to vigorously lift and scrunch the cabbage and fennel. This will mix it together but also kind of soften and relax the aggressively stiff purple and white shreds a little. Just do it. 

Roughly chop the almonds and throw them in, and then give the watercress a brief chop before adding them to the salad as well. Use a small sharp knife to slice off the outer peel of the turmeric root and very finely chop up the bright orange flesh underneath, scattering that over the vegetables.

Remove the garlic from the heat (if you haven’t already) and, if necessary, give the cloves a quick rinse under cold water so you don’t burn yourself on them. Remove the papery casing – they’ll be so soft that you just need to give them a squeeze and they should pop out – and either mash them with a fork, blitz them in a food processor, or pulverise them in a pestle and mortar (I chose the latter because my flatmate owns this amazing huge one that I’ve always wanted to use.) Add the cider vinegar, the maple syrup, a good pinch of sea salt, and like, heaps of olive oil, at least three tablespoons but honestly way more than that. Drizzle it over the salad and mix it all together and add more olive oil and salt if you think you need it, plus perhaps more chopped almonds – and then serve. 

It’s – she says, in a Justin Timberlake voice – gonna be May, and the rapid change of one month to another is as good a time as any to look at my life and where I’m at and generally take stock of things/panic wildly about the disproportionate size of the passage of time compared to the Stuff I Have Achieved. On January 1 of this year I published a thing about my struggle with the mental health system and the mental health of my own self. Since then things have zig-zagged wildly but most definitely on an upwards trajectory, and as such I’d like to draw your attention to this podcast I recorded with Ollie, this magical guy who, as well as being the doorman at work, also has his own podcast where he talks to people from all walks of life about, well, their walks of life. I feel like it’s a natural post-script to my original piece. I mean, so many things are still a monumental struggle and I congratulate myself for every day that I get through, but it’s kind of amazing looking at the difference between the me of that podcast and the me of the January 1 article.

Meanwhile, I’ve still got this damn head cold thing, but at least I know it’ll get some attention from the doctors if I tell them about it. And, I’m full of vitamins.

PS: If you’re feeling this slaw, you may well want to check out some other recipes I have along these lines, such as the Lee Brothers’ Cabbage and Lime Salad with Roasted Peanuts, my Silverbeet, Parsley and Horseradish Slaw, or my Aggressively Healthy Bowl with Matcha Mayonnaise (and there’s nothing stopping you making the mayonnaise to dress the slaw in this blog post, it would certainly fit the context.)

title from: Grimes’ amaaaaaaazing song Oblivion, which I will never ever get sick of.

music lately:

Harry Styles, Sign of the Times. NO BIGGIE I”M JUST SOBBING SO HARD I HAVE A BLOOD NOSE anyway I quite like this song is what I’m saying.

Chelsea Jade, Life of the Party. I love this gal and everything she does is gold.

next time: I bought some quinces! So I’m super keen to do something with them! 

rosemary, oh heaven restores you in light

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Making your own bread is undeniably impressive. Like, you’ve used your own hands (look at them! Those hands!) to coax life from raw ingredients, patiently letting it rise and fall and rise again to eventually become this foodstuff steeped in ancient tradition. And it’s delicious as hell.

Extremely deniable in terms of being impressive: the ageing process, which involves all the effort of an oiled billiard ball rolling down a highly polished diagonal slope. You can literally do it in your sleep. What I’m trying to say is, I had a moderately underwhelming birthday on Monday, mostly through my own complete lack of organisation (example: I could’ve taken myself out for a fancy brunch but instead I laid in bed watching Frasier) and now I’m like…wait! I’m not done with it being my birthday yet! I can do better! After about twelve minutes of soul-searching though I learned an important lesson from all this, and that is: hey! Paying me massive amounts of attention is not a finite resource and can, should in fact, be done on any day regardless of whether it’s my birthday or not. A comforting thought for all and something to keep at the forefront of all our minds! (It’s evidently on my mind.)

Back to bread though: it’s honestly not too taxing to make, if anything, it’s the length of time that’s the annoying thing rather than the frankly minimal effort of the kneading. So don’t be scared. This particular recipe occurred to me, like most of my ideas do, all at once and fully formed: I liked the idea of using maple syrup to lightly sweeten the dough and to echo the smokiness of it with also-smoky, fragrant rosemary. The maple syrup is actually extremely mellow, in case you’re concerned for the sweetness of the finished product – like, honestly, if you don’t actually have access to the real stuff then just use honey or golden syrup or even a few tablespoons of sugar. As long as there’s sweetness there – it balances the intensely savoury-yet-floral rosemary and hypes up the fruitiness of the olive oil. Salt is the all-important thing tying it together. Like, don’t skip out on anything here.

It’s best eaten the second it gets out of the oven – I just tore pieces off and dipped them in more olive oil mixed with the tiniest pinprick of maple syrup with more salt over the top. Salty, sweet, rich – it’s a heady and addictive combination (by which I mean, I ate 3/4 of this loaf thing in this one sitting.) You could just spread it with butter or drizzle over olive oil or dip it in, like, dips, or just eat it nakedly plain while it’s still soft and warm.

maple, rosemary, and olive oil turkish bread

a recipe by myself

  • three cups of high-grade/bread flour
  • one sachet of instant yeast
  • two generous tablespoons of real maple syrup
  • one teaspoon salt
  • just under 250ml/one cup of warm water
  • three tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling and eating
  • a couple of stems of fresh rosemary

Mix the flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Tip in the maple syrup, olive oil and water, and use a spoon to mix the lot together into a frankly unimpressive looking floury lump of dough. 

Begin kneading the dough – I usually just do this to the dough while it’s still inside the bowl, to save making a mess on the bench, but do what you like. I tend to just push the dough away from me with my palm, then fold it over back towards me and push it away again with either my palm or knuckles. Basically you want to give your dough extremely mixed messages with your hands. It should come together fairly quickly to form a smooth, but still floury ball of dough which should spring back immediately when you prod it with a finger. At this point, drizzle it with a little more olive oil and cover the bowl in clingfilm and leave it in a warmish place (or literally anywhere) for about thirty minutes to an hour to rise. I filled the sink with warm water and sat the bowl in it, but I don’t know that it necessarily had that much effect.

At this point, you’re so nearly done: squash down the hopefully now-puffy dough with your fist, and then put it on a baking tray (either lined with baking paper, or, if you don’t have any like me, scatter some flour across it first) and press it out with your hands into a rough oval shape. It should be fairly pliant and stretchy but if you feel it resisting, let it rest for ten minutes before giving it another nudge. Set your oven to 220 C/450 F, cover the dough with a teatowel and let it have one final rise for about 25 minutes. At this point, you want to drizzle over a little more olive oil, scatter it with some rosemary leaves, and then bake it for around 15 minutes – keep an eye on it at the 12 minute mark though, and depending on your oven and the curve of the earth and what not it could take up to 20 minutes.

Take it from the oven and you’re ready to go.   

There’s this scene in The Simpsons where Homer is trying to build his own barbeque and the instructional video ebulliently reassures Homer that it’s no harder than installing your own aviary or Olympic-sized swimming pool and I KNOW that’s the vibe that comes off when I’m all, “you can totally make your own bread at home!” But guess what. You can totally make your own bread at home. Just set aside an afternoon, be prepared to get covered in a light but persistent dusting of flour, and have some faith in yourself.

(Also, side note: a lot of really nice things did happen on my birthday, I’m just an existentially-challenged brat. And I do genuinely believe in not being restrained by a flimsy concept like the date of my own birth as far as garnering massive amounts of attention goes.)

If you’re on a roll with your breadmaking (ROLL! GET! IT!) then feel free to consider some of my other blog posts on this delicious subject, such as Italian Fougasse Bread; this recipe for Beetroot Bread (from back in 2009 so like, bear with me), or Aunt Daisy’s Condensed Milk Bread.

title from: Interpol’s song Evil from their album Antics. I got into this album in a huge way in 2005 to impress a random boy but happily, while I can’t even remember what the guy’s name is I still really love this album. 

music lately:

It’s a year since Beyonce blessed us with her thunderbolt of an album, Lemonade. The whole thing is incredible, but watch Sorry or Formation as an example of its brilliance.

Pink Floyd, Brain Damage/Eclipse. I was working on the night of my birthday (on purpose! My friends were all out of town, I might as well earn money) and I decided to play Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety just for kicks. The final tracks are so damn satisfying, that little upward emphasis on “all you create, and all you destroy” and the way the word “sun” in “everything under the sun is in tune” is sung so hard kinda makes my heart sing. It’s so dated that it’s timeless.

I’m neither here nor there on opera but Pavarotti’s fifteen year old niece, Sislena Capparros, singing Nessun Dorma, made me literally sob actual tears. The ending is so hardcore!

next time: I’m kind of sick at the moment in a sore throat way, so maybe something intensely medicinal. 

i got my eggs i got my pancakes too, i got my maple syrup, everything but you

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It’s been one heck of a time lately: there was a fire at the Burger King under my bar at 1am on a Friday night and we had to evacuate, the next day the bartender whom I saw more than anyone else in my life had their last shift at work, then I went up to Auckland to support them in a cocktail competition they were a finalist in before saying farewell for real when they moved to Melbourne, I then went home-home for the first time in forever, saw my parents, my nanna, my parents’ chickens and the less-disdainful of the two cats; flew home to Wellington in the middle of a cyclone on a flight so bumpy that they couldn’t serve us drinks; contracted a horrible cough, saw my brother who was down in Wellington from Auckland, fell down two flights of stairs on two separate days and made these halloumi pancakes. On top of that I’ve officially entered Existential Angst and Self-Evaluation mode as my birthday rapidly approaches. 

But back to these pancakes. A friend crashed at mine on Wednesday and when we woke up I was like, are you hungry? And they were like, nah. And I was like, me neither. But too bad, because I’ve had this really good idea and I’m going to make it for us. 

eggs milk and flour, pancake power

eggs milk and flour, pancake power

My idea went thusly: thick slices of golden fried halloumi, encased in pancakes as pillowy as the pillows you wrenched your head from to cook yourself breakfast. Fluffy, soft pancakes giving way to chewy, buttery cheese. Fried sage and walnuts on top, for contrasty crunch and because fried sage is just really, really good. 

My idea worked perfectly.  We were also, coincidentally, suddenly really hungry. 

I went for an American-style pancake, the sort that’s squat and thick rather than delicate and crepe-like, and adapted a fairly standard Nigella recipe for the batter. It’s honestly really easy, for all that X stuffed with Y implies massive fiddly-ness. My only advice is don’t be lazy and try to put four pancakes into the pan at once because they’ll all squish together and look horrible (in the spirit of egalitarianism, my friend and I got one decent pancake and one extremely ugly pancake each) but once you’ve scattered them with crumbling fried sage leaves and crunchy walnuts and the leftover browned butter it really won’t matter how it looks. 

halloumi pancakes with fried sage, butter, and walnuts

a recipe by myself

  • four thick slices of good halloumi
  • one and a half cups flour
  • two teaspoons baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • a teaspoon of sugar
  • two eggs
  • one cup buttermilk
  • 60g butter
  • a handful of fresh sage leaves
  • a handful of walnuts

Briskly mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs, and buttermilk together in a mixing bowl (a fork will do for this.) In a large nonstick pan, melt half the butter, tip it into the pancake batter, and stir it in. Set the batter aside. Place two of the slices of halloumi into the pan over a high heat, and fry for about ten seconds before scooping a half-cupful of batter over each slice so they are snugly covered. Continue to fry till bubbles appear on the surface of each pancake, then carefully flip them over and fry on the other side until you’re confident that they’re cooked through. Transfer to a serving plate and repeat with the remaining halloumi. 

Melt the remaining butter till browned and sizzling – the pan will be pretty hot by this point so it won’t take long – and drop the sage leaves in. Quickly remove them once they’re crisped and curled up at the edges, and scatter them over the pancakes. Tip the walnuts into the pan and give a quick stir to toast them briefly before removing the pan from the heat and scattering the walnuts (along with any remaining browned butter) over the pancakes. 

Halloumi on its own is obviously an unimpeachably perfect foodstuff, melting and yet solid, bulgingly salty and buttery, and needs little adulteration. But! If you happen to be feeling adulteratey, and indeed, have someone to impress (simply wanting to impress yourself is an extremely valid option here by the way) then these pancakes are both easy yet spectacular, which is one of my favourite combinations in a recipe. Another case of Well Done, Brain! on presenting me with an idea that actually works.

Speaking of me, as I said it’s my birthday coming up and I am like, flustered to say the least. Every year I get all like, what am I doing? What twenty things have I achieved since lunch? Who am I? Where do you come from, where do you go? Where do you come from, dated pop culture reference? Both my best friends are extremely out of town on the day and a google search for “what to do on your birthday alone” is all like, “take a trip! discover a museum!” which is like, all well and good if you don’t live in a tiny city and have 40 cents in your savings account. I am, however, working on some kind of scheme to make the day amazing and am also trying to be nice to myself about all the existentialism stuff, I mean: the world is awful, American politicians are out of control, the bees are dying, so just existing day to day is an excellent achievement. And if that sounded convincing, maybe I can believe it too. (On the other hand: oh god my birthday is coming and I’m the only person who ever had a birthday ever.) 

Anyway! If delicious pancakes are very your thing, you may also want to consider my blog post about Nigella’s American Breakfast Pancakes, or Johnnycakes (like cornbread in pancake form), or my recipe for Lemonade Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce. 

title from: tearjerker-era Jewel, You Were Meant For Me.

music lately: 

Rina Sawayama, Cyber Stockholm Syndrome. I got introduced to this song by the reliably reliable Martyn Pepperell and guys it’s amazing, like, euphoric. 

Jan Hellriegel, Pure Pleasure. This song still BANGS twenty-ish years later. 

next time: I plan on having a more mellow time of it. Also the weather is starting to get absolutely freezing so maybe something like…..broth-y? Slow-cooked? Vaguely warmed through?

workworkworkworkwork

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Generally my ideas come all at once, fully formed, or not at all. Like I’ll stare at my wardrobe for a literal forty minutes, paralysed with the inability to choose a simple garment to prevent my public nudity (admittedly, ritalin has helped alleviate these vibes) or I’ll wake up being like “I’m going to channel Victor Garber playing Jesus in the 1973 film adaptation of the musical Godspell and this is exactly how I’m going to do it!” I submitted a cocktail to Wellington on a Plate this year for work and I came up with it, concept, recipe, title and all, in precisely five seconds, but on the very last day that submissions were open. There’s other examples, just imagine I’ve given them to you (I’m very tired right now.) All of which leads us to this pomegranate cheesecake that I made on Tuesday night, simply because the words “pomegranate cheesecake” plus the entire recipe appeared in my head suddenly, and I was like…guess I better act upon this. Who am I to ignore the voice telling me to make a cheesecake that no one was asking for nor needing in their life? Who am I to not act upon every damn whim that occurs to me, no matter what it is? Who indeed?

Luckily the cheesecake was as delicious as my odd little brain promised.  

This is an extremely easy cheesecake to knock together, and in fact the only difficult part is sourcing the one key ingredient: not actual pomegranate, because I am a heathen who decided to forge ahead with this despite the fruit in question being wildly out of season, but instead: Monin Pomegranate Syrup. I’ll be honest with you, some of their fruit syrups are spectacular and some of them are…less so…but the pomegranate stuff is pretty magical: lip-smackingly, butt-smackingly sour, zestily sweet, and appealingly pink in colour. If you live in Wellington it’s easily available at Moore Wilson’s, otherwise I would try buying it online, or using something like Six Barrel Soda’s Cherry Pomegranate Soda syrup, or perhaps scout your local bars for who has it in stock and ask nicely if you can borrow a small quantity in a takeaway cup in return for a slice of cheesecake. Or you could change tack completely and look for a good-quality raspberry syrup, the kind which real fruit was harmed in the making of; you’ll still get that appealingly sour red fruit flavour. OR you could go archly artisinal and use pomegranate molasses while upping the sugar content: in fact I’m now extremely curious about this variation and want to try it.  

But back to the actual cheesecake that I actually made, actually. (Cheesecake…actually…is all around.) 

I went into work on Tuesday night to knuckle down and overhaul the till to add and remove and shuffle a zillion buttons to make it more useable (it’s one of those ancient systems that’s about on the level a Brick Game or even, for those of you in the audience from the previous generation, an Atari, but also like, it’s MY system that I know how to USE and if anyone changes it I’ll be mad because I can’t be BOTHERED learning new THINGS.) I also had an ulterior motive: I was going to make this cheesecake, and then feed the troops with it the following evening once it had chilled sufficiently overnight. Yes, it’s a refrigerated cheesecake, not a baked one, and I honestly kind of prefer them. I’m down if you are to engage in a lively debate about this. 

All of which means it’s fantastically easy to make. The filling itself is just cream cheese and whipped cream which somehow holds together and I do not question it, the lack of effort involved is enough for me. This concept is based on a Nigella Lawson recipe, so you know you can trust it. I made the base before starting on the till, refrigerated it while I got stuck in on said till, made the filling when I needed a break after realising I’d been programming everything completely wrong and was about to cry, and then put that in the refrigerator and ploughed ahead until some progress was actually made on the damn till. The next day, I came in and photographed the cheesecake, and then left it there to be consumed by whomsoever happened to be around and desiring surprise treats. 

So that’s how I got there, but what in the heck did it taste like? Absolutely amazing. I didn’t actually eat the finished product as a whole but I can tell you I ate an alarming amount of the biscuit base as I was pressing it into the cake tin, and also a near-on hilarious amount of the filling as I was making it, so I can confidently say, with my hand on my heart and one hand in my pocket and the other one flicking a peace sign, that it’s a really, really good cheesecake. The tartness of the cream cheese echoes the tartness of the pomegranate syrup but it’s in such a sherbety kind of way – not truly sour, just fizzy and fruity, softened by the billowing cream. The biscuit base tastes good because of course it does, it’s smashed up biscuits and lots of butter, I don’t have to explain that to you. The colour, a merest blush of rosy pink, is really pretty, and that is also important. 

While I’m being extremely heathenish and cavalier with regards to the seasonality of produce, I did buy a package of pomegranate seeds to put on top and they kind of tasted like nail polish remover but they looked so nice that my love of aesthetic won in the end. Besides, as I reasoned, you can always flick them off before you eat your slice of cheesecake. If this horrifies you too much or you just can’t access pre-packaged pomegranate seeds, simply drizzle the cheesecake with more syrup, or leave it as a plain expanse of pale, pale pink. 

pomegranate cheesecake

a recipe by myself

  • one packet of plain biscuits, the boring kind that are only useful for cheesecake bases
  • 100g butter
  • 250g cream cheese, full fat (I’m not trying to be cute, low-fat has a weird texture)
  • 300ml cream
  • half a cup of icing sugar (just spoon it in, don’t pack it down, you can always add more)
  • 60ml Monin pomegranate syrup
  • Pomegranate seeds to decorate (optional)

Get yourself a 20cm springform cake tin and line the base with a sheet of baking paper. Then, get those biscuits crushed. Either put them in a food processor and blitz them into dust, or put them in a plastic bag and bash them with something heavy (in my case, it was a muddler that I usually use for making, like, caipirinhas.)  Apply some heat to the butter till it’s anywhere from extremely soft to totally melted, it really doesn’t matter, and mix it into the biscuit crumbs. Tip all this into the cake tin and use the back of a spoon to press it fairly evenly across the base (I find if you run the spoon under water it helps the crumbs to not stick.) Pop this into the refrigerator while you get on with the filling, which is a matter of moments.

Make sure your cream cheese is at room temperature otherwise you’ll never get anywhere, in cheesecake or life. Mix it, the icing sugar, and the pomegranate syrup together briskly. Taste to see if it needs either more sugar or pomegranate. Then, whip the cream until it’s softly bulky but not like, super stiff, and fold it into the cream cheese. By the way, you can do this in a food processor or blender, mixing up the cream cheese first, removing it, and then blitzing the cream, but just be really careful to not overwhip the cream. Spatula all this on top of the biscuit base, smooth out the top, and refrigerate it for at least three hours, but ideally overnight.

When you’re ready to go, run a knife around the inside of the caketin and carefully unclip the springy bit to remove the sides. Transfer it to a cute serving plate, and either scatter with pomegranate seeds or drizzle over more syrup, but basically just do something aesthetic, okay?  

I came into work later the next night: the cheesecake was all but gone, a slender wedge remained. Obviously overtired largely-broke hospo people will eat a pile of dirt if someone implies that it’s free food (just me?) but I took that as a sign that yes, it was delicious, and yes, it was a good idea, even if I have no idea why it appeared or whether I truly needed to follow through on it. 

On the other hand, I am also considering making it a weekly thing now, so, thanks brain. That good idea was a good idea. 

title from: Barbados gave us rum and it gave us Rihanna, both of which are true blessings. Rihanna’s song Work is as glorious as she is. Please enjoy both versions of the video, don’t deprive yourself. 

music lately: 

Mint Chicks, Bad Buzz. This song is not on spotify and it hurts my feelings because I can’t put it on a work playlist till it is!! It’s so good!

Lorde, Liability. It’s so inconsiderate of her to release music in my lifetime when it affects my heart so much? But here she is anyway. Well Lorde, I don’t respect it, but damn it: I respect it. 

next time: The weather is getting colder rapidly so I’m keen to respond in a culinary way. Something slow-cooked and extremely comforting. Either that or I’ll wait until an idea hits my brain with a bang. 

i’m fond of twin peaks, afternoons, inexpensive wine…

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Okay, so I used to make ice cream ALL the time. In fact it was my default flavour vehicle, like, if I got the notion that X might taste good with Y, I’d put them in an ice cream together. These days, my bartendering self is far more likely to envisage how flavours would work in a cocktail, and my busy life of making cocktails (and, I concede, pestering other bartenders to make them for me) plus the fact that from October to January I was essentially going through a training montage except where I get more and more useless due to my mental health while Eye of the Tiger plays: it all adds up to not a lot of ice cream making from me. Which is a pity because damn it if ice cream isn’t one of my very favourite foods, not just to eat but to create recipes for.

“Mr Cooper, how do you take it?” “Black as midnight on a moonless night”

It was in a mood of buoyant, motivated optimism that I set out to make ice cream once more. The recipe in question was one I’d invented many years ago, back when I was writing a cookbook for Penguin (if you’re new here: I am a published cookbook author, yes) and felt like revisiting. The flavour is, specifically, coffee and cherry, but the name of it is Twin Peaks Ice Cream because I came up with it in tribute to the TV show. If you haven’t seen Twin Peaks, look it up on Wikipedia or I’ll accidentally spend seventeen paragraphs talking about it instead of ice cream, but its uneasy, dreamy weirdness was exceedingly and immediately compelling to me and I got into it in a big way. I still have a framed picture of central character Laura Palmer’s prom photo on my dressing table, just to keep me lightly spooked at all times. The flavours in question, however, reference the character Special Agent Dale Cooper’s unwavering dedication to coffee and his nakedly sincere admiration of the cherry pie he is served at the town’s diner.

Coffee and cherries might not immediately sound like they want to get into an ice cream together, but I confidently assert that they work beautifully. The coffee flavour comes by heating whole roasted coffee beans up in the cream before straining them out and turning it into a custard, and the cherries (Morello, from a jar) are added right at the end. The coffee’s bitterness is muffled by the blanketing effect of the cream, providing a rich backdrop for the tart sorbet-bursts of frozen Morello cherries, and the slight nuttiness of both – from the generally roasty flavour of the coffee and the marzipan territory that cherries naturally veer into – is extremely delightful in ya mouth. Not to mention pop culture references make everything more delicious, it’s just a fact.

“my log saw something that night”

If there is one soapbox I’m always at the ready to climb upon, it’s that you truly don’t need an ice cream machine to make ice cream. All I did was make this, bung it in a container, and put it in the freezer, and it was perfect. Like, that’s it. I used to think you had to stir the ice cream at intervals as it froze but these days I’m quite convinced that if you just freeze it and then eat it that’s all you need to do. Seriously. Anyway, now that I’m off my monumentally specific soapbox I will freely admit that this particular recipe does require some effort and confidence in your cooking skills. Making custard from scratch, with egg yolks, cream, and sugar, can be a little stressful simply because you’re trying to stir it over heat that’s high enough to slowly cook the eggs and thicken the mixture, but not so high that the egg can’t resist its natural urge to rapidly scramble. It is, however, a truly satisfying challenge and makes for a satiny, lush ice cream once frozen. If it’s all too much for you though I have a ton of ludicrously simple ice cream recipes for you and I’ll list some at the end of this post.

twin peaks ice cream

a recipe by myself

  • four egg yolks
  • 150g sugar
  • 600ml cream
  • a vague handful of coffee beans
  • a jar of pitted Morello cherries

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Depending on your yolks this might form a kind of disturbingly thick paste, this is nothing to be concerned about though – you just need them mixed together. Gently heat the 300ml of the cream with the coffee beans together in a large saucepan until the cream is juuust wobblingly about to start bubbling, then remove it from the heat. Either strain the beans out or scoop them out with a small sieve, whichever is less stressful (for me: the latter.)  Briskly whisk a half-cupful or so of the coffee-infused hot cream into the egg yolks and sugar – you want to do it fast so that the yolks don’t seize up and cook in the heat. Whisk in another half cupful, and then finally just tip the lot in and stir to combine.  

Now! Throw all of this back into the pan, and stir over a low heat till it thickens. It will already be fairly thick, because there’s not a lot of cream, but persevere patiently and continue to stir, ideally with a silicone spatula, until it thickens somewhat. This should take about five minutes. It won’t really look noticeably different to when it started but don’t you dare overheat it and let it curdle: this is the bit of custard-based ice cream that’s a bit terrifying, and I freely admit it. Generally you’re looking for something that’s got the vibe of a good quality thickshake, and remove it from the heat immediately as soon as you suspect it’s at this point.

Immediately spatula this custard into a bowl or container and refrigerate it till chilled. From here it’s all easy stuff: whisk the remaining cream until thickened but not whipped, fold it into the chilled custard, and then stir in as many drained morello cherries as you like until it feels like it’s suitably cherried. Like seriously, it’s up to you, it just depends on how many cherries you want in your damn ice cream.

Freeze it. Don’t even worry about stirring it, unless you suspect all the cherries have fallen to the bottom and you want to redistribute them a bit. Eat it when it’s frozen.  

“every day, once a day, give yourself a present”

I believe it is particularly delicious if you eat it while swaying around dreamily like Audrey Horne, but maybe that’s just me.

Unfortunately, the story does not end there with me simply making ice cream and then happily eating it. After photographing this small coffee cup full of ice cream that you see here (and, thank you to my brother and his partner for sending them to me for Christmas!) I ate it, returned the rest of the ice cream to the freezer and carried on with my day, merry with the knowledge that when I returned home there would be gloriously smooth, creamy, cherry-studded ice cream waiting for me. Alas, like Twin Peaks, there was a tragic twist: the freezer immediately decided to break down and stop doing the one thing it is tasked with doing in its simple life. The ice cream turned to room temperature soup and had to be unceremoniously discarded. Leaving me with only the memory of that one damn fine coffee cup of ice cream.

Anyway I got over it pretty quickly, with the rueful acceptance that comes from years and years of regularly accidentally ruining things, but like, what a bummer, huh. At least I got to eat a little of it: just enough to enthusiastically recommend you try making it too.

“Laura had a lot of secrets”

It was disheartening that after all that momentum the ice cream was lost, but I’m not going to let it get me down and will indeed be making more ice cream sooner rather than later. In fact the only thing really holding me back is the fact that the freezer still isn’t working. On Monday night I was fortunate enough to attend a Chartreuse/Fernet-Branca tasting and (having recovered, more or less) my brain has gone full circle to the point where I’m pondering a kind of riff on mint choc chip ice cream using Fernet as an ingredient. Watch this space. Speaking of fortunate I was also given a Fernet Coin by the brand’s representative, a rare and elusive trinket that bartenders really care about and which is met with resounding shrugs from everyone else, and now I feel deliciously legit.

Speaking of deliciously legit and apropos of nothing I’d just like to add that I went to the Pride event Out in the Park on Saturday and looking around seeing happy young teens with rainbows painted on their faces and really old women walking around holding hands and every kind of person inbetween made my heart expand to the point where I was just a human-shaped heart. Plus there were so many dogs: our most important allies.

Anyway if you aren’t entirely put off the idea of making ice cream by my tale of woe, some other ice cream recipes I’ve come up with which are wayyyy easier than this one to make include Gin and Tonic Ice Cream, White Chocolate and Burnt Butter Ice Cream, and, just in time for the season: Feijoa Ice Cream.

title from: Make Out Kids, by Motion City Soundtrack. Whiny and full of feelings, like me.

music lately:

I went to Pixies a couple of weeks ago and while they’re like, not the same line-up that they used to be, it was euphoric. With extreme predictability we collectively lost it when they played Where Is My Mind but for me an unhinged and shouty rendition of Debaser was the highlight. 

Althea and Donna, Uptown Top Ranking. There is NEVER a bad time for this song.

Also, Lana Del Rey released a new song called Love and so nothing else matters or exists.

next time: nothing that involves refrigeration, I guess.

fancy plans and pants to match: hanging ditch, part III

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Well hello there, and welcome to another instalment of Fancy Plans and Pants To Match, a regular-ish segment on this blog where I self-deprecatingly-ish acknowledge that sometimes I get to do cool stuff because I am that most deserving, worthy, and merit-filled type of person: a blogger. The title of this segment comes via a quote from this generally forgotten 90s sitcom that I adore called NewsRadio, you should definitely look it up if only to wrestle with the odd sensation of having a crush on a young, handsome, Joey Tribbiani-esque Joe Rogan, who starred in it. Oh, and you can read the Fancy Plans and Pants to Match archives here. 

So here’s the thing: In October of 2015, which was, appallingly, a year and a half ago, a charming bar called Hanging Ditch opened in the Hannah’s Laneway precinct. 

The pitch: Hanging Ditch makes lush as hell cocktails and are going through a bit of a menu update. Having been there for their previous menu update and being an extreme fan of drinking alcohol, writing, and enthusiastically supporting my friends, I returned on Tuesday to try some of their new drinks and then pass on my predictably delighted thoughts to you. 

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

What happened: Since I last wrote about this place they’ve expanded the team via the presence of immensely talented bartender Dave McAvoy (best qualities: 1, is extremely easy to roast, 2, puts up with being roasted with admirable Canadian affability) and there were some new contributions from him to try, as well as drinks from co-founder and general sparkling gem of a human Benji Irvine. Also I’d like to acknowledge that I was wrestling with the aperture on my camera the entire damn time I was sitting there drinking and as such some of these photos aren’t totally brilliant, but ignore that and just concentrate on my glowing praise instead. 

The drinks I tried included:

One Night In Bangkok (Beefeater gin, kaffir lime leaf syrup, muddled fresh ginger and Thai basil, lime, and a green chartreuse rinse). This starts off dazzlingly refreshing with the one-two punch of kaffir lime syrup and actual lime, before tickling the back of the throat with the warmth of the ginger and Thai basil. The chartreuse rinse is subtle and adds a little richness to an otherwise astringent mix. The power-of-a-thousand-limes limeness of the kaffir lime leaves used in the syrup is spectacular and if you’ve never sniffed one, do yourself a favour. This is one of Dave’s submissions to the World Class competition and guys, it’s a damn lovely drink. Also it reminds me of one of my favourite songs of all time, which adds an extra layer of deliciousness. 

One Night In Bangkok: makes a hard man humble

One Night In Bangkok: makes a hard man humble

The Preacher Man (Makers Mark Bourbon, Amaro Angostura, Fernet-Branca, cherry bitters, sugar, flamed cinnamon) Being a bartender it’s obligatory for my eyes to light up any time the words “Fernet-Branca” are uttered: it’s fiercely herbal, throat-scrapingly minty, eye-bleedingly intense and we love it. Here it’s used in an impressively understated way, adding the slightest shy nudge of Fernet-ness to this lush, layered, and punchy cocktail. I only tried Amaro Angostura recently and adore it – imagine Angostura Bitters but imminently drinkable (I’m not saying I haven’t done shots of Angostura Bitters, I’m just not sure how sustainable it is on several levels) and it works magic with the classic sweetness of the bourbon and the smokiness of the cinnamon. 

The Preacher Man: the only one who could ever reach me

The Preacher Man: the only one who could ever reach me

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Reposado Tequila, grapefruit shrub, Yellow Chartreuse, honey, lemon, orange bitters, shaken in a smoked shaker) This was spectacular, somehow zingy in a sour-candy type way but with backdrop of smoke softly overlapping with the inherent and beguiling smoky pepperiness of tequila. A shrub is a kind of fruity syrup preserved with vinegar and is also, I feel, a highly underrated way of adding flavour to a drink. Here the grapefruit’s bitterness and sourness – which is partly where I suspect that candy vibe comes from – is gently imparted to gorgeous effect. It took all my willpower, of which I repeatedly and demonstrably have precious little to begin with, to not slam it back in one mouthful. Bravo. 

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: welcome to the party

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: welcome to the party

The Best Bit: The whole bit. Extremely delicious cocktails made by aggressively competent bartenders, charming banter from at least one of them, and just generally getting to bask in their current creative endeavours. Oh wait, the BEST bit: Hanging Ditch has a newly installed FERNET AND COKE ON TAP! This is immensely exciting as well as a slightly hilarious novelty and a blessing to the hospitality community and if you don’t hear from me it’s because I’m lying on my back underneath said tap with my mouth open drinking their entire stock dry. 

On a Scale of 1 to Is This The Real Life, Is This Just Fantasy: As I say every time I do these write ups for Hanging Ditch they get a 1 out of 10 but only because it’s actually extremely accessible and anyone can just walk in and order a cocktail: this is a good thing. 

Would I Do It Again For Not-Free: Can, will, have, going to, you should too.

Earnest Thanks For Making Me Feel Fancy To: The goodest boys at Hanging Ditch, which can be found next to Goldings and opposite Shepherd in the Hannah’s Laneway precinct down Leed’s Street. They’re open daily from late afternoon until midnight and have a notably good hospo night on Mondays.  

Want me to come take better photos than this and write almost troublingly enthusiastic words about your event, new menu, whatever? Giz a yell at laura@hungryandfrozen.com 

when someone great is gone

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As February draws to a close, it means one thing and one thing only: we are smack bang in the middle of Pisces Season, people. What does this mean? It means every time I get super irrationally emotional over something, I’m all, “classic Pisces Season.” A leading characteristic of the Pisces star sign, you see, and if you haven’t worked this out already, is emotional-ness.

However, sometimes emotions are entirely reasonable, such as when someone who has become one of the most important people in your life over the past year leaves the country. What can you even do in these situations? Well, you try and spend as much time with them as possible, and on the Monday before they go, you wait until they’ve finished their shift at work and then make a midnight feast for the both of you while you watch Desperate Housewives.

It being Monday, or “Payday Eve”, and me being extremely me, once I’d purchased mushrooms and cream at the guest’s request I essentially tried to forage everything else from what was already in my pantry: some tomatoes leftover from a team barbecue that day which I’d nicked; some black garlic and walnut butter that my mum had sent me; some vaguely elderly beetroot that I’d forgotten I’d bought at the vege market the previous week; some vermouth and bourbon from my brief flirtation with trying to have a decent liquor cabinet; it goes on. 

Mushrooms fried with garlic and cream are hardly revolutionary, but these ones are incredibly delicious: the vermouth hisses and disappears in the heat – relatable – leaving only a lick of winey flavour, and the cream reduces down to the most magnificently savoury sludge. Not necessarily the most appealing words, but you should know that they were the star on Monday and I’ve made this three times since because I love it so much. 

mushrooms with black garlic, vermouth and cream

an extremely vague recipe, but I feel like you can handle it

  • a whole ton of those big flat brown mushrooms that cost slightly more than regular button mushrooms
  • olive oil
  • dry vermouth, such as Noilly Prat
  • a clove or two of black garlic, or regular is fine! 
  • cream
  • freshly grated parmesan, salt and pepper to taste

Brush any dirt off the mushrooms and slice them up. Heat a generous couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan and tip the mushrooms in.

Let them fry in the hot oil till they soften and darken and reduce down somewhat – till they’re fried, basically – then pour in some vermouth, a couple of tablespoons at the most. This will hit the pan in a whoosh of steam and smell incredible. Stir till it’s evaporated, and then either slice or squash the clove of garlic and add it to the pan, followed by the cream – as much as you want, really. Start with a few tablespoons and then just keep pouring till it feels right. Carry on stirring over a high heat till the cream has reduced down somewhat – you want this thick and saucy.

Remove from the heat, pile on some parmesan cheese if you wish, but you don’t have to, and transfer to a bowl. Eat the lot, no matter how much you’ve made. 

The beetroot and tomato dishes were highly opportunistic on-the-spot flights of fancy but they both worked out well so I thought I’d pass on some form of a recipe of them both here. Baking beetroot in cream – leftover from the mushrooms – gives the earthy bitterness of the vegetable a fantastic mellowness, and the walnut butter makes everything almost fudge-like in texture. If you don’t have walnut butter, you could use cashew or almond butter or indeed, just leave it out and you’ll still have a good time. 

The tomatoes got a dash of bourbon on them because it was still there beside the stove from when I made those shallots and radishes last week, but it turns out they go well with these guys too. I just happened to have coconut sugar and its smoky intensity went perfectly with the sweetness of the tomatoes and the bourbon. They were sticky and sweet and bursting with juice and just so good. And I can’t even tell you how amazing the syrupy roasting juices tasted once all the tomatoes had been prised out. 

roasted beetroot with cream and walnut butter

Set your oven to 180C/350F. Chop your beetroot – however many you have – into quarters or chunks or whatever, really, and pile them into an oven dish that will comfortably fit them. Pour over enough cream so they get their feet wet but aren’t entirely submerged, and spoon over some walnut butter. Mix it all together so some of the cream and walnut butter amalgamates, then bung it in the oven and let it cook until the beetroot is extremely tender. Top with parmesan if you like. 

bourbon and coconut sugar roasted tomatoes

Again, set your oven to 180C/350F. Slice a bunch of ripe tomatoes in half and lay them, cut side up. Sprinkle over a little coconut sugar – like just a pinch per tomato. Follow this with a good solid drizzle of olive oil and then drizzle with a little bourbon – it’s easier to pour it into a spoon and then shake this over the tomatoes than trying to pour directly from the bottle. Finally sprinkle over some salt and roast em till they’re, like, roasted. 

So like, because it was at midnight when I was taking these photos I completely concede that they are Not Great and indeed, it was my own vanity that caused me to take more photos once I’d made the mushrooms again in the daylight, just in case a casual reader of this blog saw my night time photos and threw their laptop out the window in horror. But it all tasted so, so good, and it was such a nice night, that honestly: I don’t care. 

Okay I guess I do care since I bookended this blog post with nice photos of the mushrooms but still: I don’t care! (I care so much.) 

On Thursday night I finished my shift at work and then proceeded to not get any sleep until at least 7am, because this particular person had to be at the airport at 4am. I may or may not have got emotionally drunk; I may or may not have cried AND fallen asleep at the airport; I may or may not have written an extremely overwrought letter to this person about what they mean to me and then left it in the car and then had to clamber into the boot through the backseat because I couldn’t work out how to open said boot. However I’ve also come to the conclusion that Melbourne isn’t soooo far away and I could possibly even visit if I ever get my act/and/or savings together. And as they sing in the musical Wicked – and I warn you, it’s about to get disgustingly maudlin for just one second here – because I knew you, I have been changed, for good. 

skal for faen 

skal for faen 

Due to some spectacularly terrible luck or carelessness, this is the third time I’ve written out the blog post after accidentally deleting it, twice. By this point it feels almost surreal, like I’m going round in circles, but I think right here is definitively the end of this blog post. And seriously, it’s been barely a week and I’ve made those mushrooms three more times. They’re good, people. 

title from: LCD Soundsystem, Someone Great. Okay I wasn’t QUITE done with the maudlin. 

music lately: 

I am on a sincere Pink Floyd god damn BUZZ right now and am revisiting Roger Waters’ live album In The Flesh a whole ton. Just try to not fall in love with the immensely sexy yet unsexily named Doyle Bramhall II when he sings the chorus to Comfortably Numb, suckers. 

I saw Trainspotting 2 the other day and it was exactly what I wanted it to be; it also coincided with me being extremely into a genre of music that I like to call “Let’s drink lager and headbutt Liam Gallagher”. To that end, the Prodigy’s remix of Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life is honestly really good. 

next time: I have not made ice cream in FOREVER, friends! And since it’s finally looking like summer in Wellington, it feels entirely appropriate. Watch this space.