misgabi

Lemon Myrtle is apparently a really large tree from which they harvest the leaves for the ground spice. I have never seen one but, when the landscaper comes next week I will be sure to ask!! A "flaming galah" apparently is a complete fool!! - never you squeat

Squeat: I use Lemon Myrtle in the powdered form. I sprinkle it on fish before I bake it. It has an intense lemon flavour and seems to add a bit of "oomph". We also use it if we have run out of lemon grass (or cannot get the fresh) and add it at the same time as other spices in curries etc. I would never try to expose you as an ignoramus. I can understand that we have different names for different things and by using what I am used to obviously some people will have no idea what I am talking about (at least I havn't called anyone a "flaming galah" yet) although we could go into "that's not a knife - that's a knife" a la crocodile dundee and have a whole other discussion about my Furi knives And how can anyone who can install a widget that converts time etc be an ignoramus. I have to pretty much guess what time it is for other posters and just assume everyone is asleep whilst I ramble quietly (and long windedly) to myself.

Squeat, I've never tries roasting them myself - might give it a go once the beet season comes in (are they a winter thing??) We see them in the shops occasionaly but they look like too much work - lazy lazy me Yes, I think your arugula is our rocket.

Yes, your american beets. However it seems most australians are too lazy to prepare them and we simply buy them by the can - sliced, whole baby beets, julliened, with garlic etc etc etc. They still stain your fingers though. For a proper australian hamburger you have to have a slice of beetroot on it (mainly so it can fall down and stain your white shirt Either McDonalds or Hungry Jacks actually sold an "outback" burger or something like that for a while that had the slice of beetroot on it!!

I lived there for 3 years (1989 - 1991). The food the locals ate was lots of rice, tinned "lamb flaps", veges, fish etc. We on the other hand, as expatriates ate pretty much as you would in Australia - except for the dairy being flown up from oz once a week, certain vegetables were nearly impossible to get (I paid $8 australian back then for a cauliflower once just because I hadn't had one for so long). We ate a huge amount of mud crabs, lobster tails, prawns (really huge ones called leader prawns that we would stuff with tiger prawns), tons of fish including sushi grade tuna. In fact we were spoilt. What I used to love was that PNG got a huge amount of food imported from USA and I got to eat things like Pringles years before they ever got to australia (still have not recovered from the Dr Pepper - that stuff is disgusting) Because we were with foreign affairs we got all duty free grog and cigarettes and did vast amounts of damage to our bodies. We were so well paid compared with the locals (for example my haus meri (cleaner) worked 5 days a week from 9 - 5 and got 20 kina [about$17 australian] for the WEEK I on the other hand with hardship pay etc got free acommodation, and nearly $1,000 a week. Because of all this money we ate out ALOT and spent our spare time scuba diving, horse riding/racing, flying around the country etc. I'm fairly sure they resented us. Jobs working for us, especially the single girls, were grimly fought over as we tended to give them all the spare food, extra cash, old clothes etc. PNG did have many drawbacks however, it was extremely dangerous we lived behind razor-wire in compounds with guards and had constant radio contact with the High Commission. I am going back in a few weeks to see how much it has changed, show my husband where I spent 3years of my life and catch up with friends before they leave. I will see what the food situation is like then. Ate my jam doughnut for afternoon tea and drank the diet coke. Wish it was time to go home

Shiewie: Wagga Wagga. It's always dissapointing when you find something from home you miss then discover it has been made in the country and was just wrong. I remember in Papua New Guinea the twisties were ALWAYS stale and tasted a bit strange but we missed them so much that we kept buying them. We even got the rep to bring us a box of Twisties made that day and the damn things were still stale twisties

Yes, lived there for 5 years. Yummm! I want a Tim Tam now. Tim Tams are the these most delicious chocolate coated chocolate wafers (and I normally don't like chocolate) ! where abouts in Australia were you? Got to love a Tim Tam - do you get them in KL?

Didn't even have a bet I usually do really well on the sweeps but only ever pick the winners the years I don't actually put a bet on!! Have just had Tempura Veges and a Sashimi slection for lunch from the newish japanese restaurant in town - it's only been here about 5 months and seems to be doing ok. Excellent sashimi - tuna, salmon, unidentified white fish and lots of pickled ginger yum. The tempura was good too - sweet potato, mushrooms, green beans, onion, capsicum and what seemed to be really thin strings of potato - I will ask them what it was next time I am there. Have also purchased a jam doughnut for afternoon tea - if I can fit it in. I also had a diet coke and have got one in the fridge for later.

Pan: yes beer is a very popular beverage here in Australia - I personally don't like it that much (except for in the middle of a summer afternoon in the beer garden of the pub with jazz playing in the background - happy to drink it then!! Don't even cook much with it - except in beer batter for fish! We do have alot of asian influences here - maybe its the heat in summer or something. Had a cup of tea and a tim tam at the hairdressers for morning tea. Will shortly be thinking about lunch.

The deck is not enclosed. It has a roof on it and then latticed railings to about hip height. The BBQ is in the far corner with the spa in the other. The ceiling fan is to move the air around in summer when it gets a bit warm here. Father's favourite is a dark sauce (a bit like HP sauce) very thick with an undertone of worstershire sauce. Berocca is very effective against hangovers. You drop a couple of the tablets in a large glass of water and they fizz berocca when the fizzing is over you drink and, hopefully, feel better.

They do have some redeeming qualities!! At least they supplied lots of excellent wine. This sort of thing happens quite often (not always at our house) and those in our group who do not cook will NEVER let us pay for a meal out to make up for all our hard work. Scotch fillet beef cuts is just a cut of beef. Can be cooked whole as a roast or cut into steaks. We buy them whole and just cut them up if we need to. cooking suggestion

Dinner went well. If not the most cohesive meal ever it all disappeared very quickly. We did BBQ the prawns, squeezing fresh limes over them. I made a dipping sauce of lime juice, fish sauce and chillies as well as good old "seafood cocktail" sauce (mayonnaise, tomato sauce & worstershire). We had scotch fillets in the fridge so they went on the barbie too. Made a huge salad of greens, tomato, red onion and red capsicum with a balsamic vinigarette. We steamed coliban potatoes cut into quarters and then deep fried those. Had fresh corn cobs in the fridge so wrapped them in foil with some butter and baked in the oven. The leftover lasagne from the other night was finished off as well as the garlic bread I had made last week and put in the freezer. I made a cheats tabhouli (sp?) using cous cous, red onion, tomatos, mint and lots of parsley with lemon juice. We had the ubiquitous beetroot (from a tin) and I threw together a couple of tins of 3 bean mix, added onion and "fathers favourite" dark sauce. Not content with eating me out of house an home they then demanded dessert!! I made the "sticky toffee pudding" out of Nigella's cookbook (the one where you put the boiling water on top just before it goes in the oven) but doubled the amount of dates. This was served with, of course, King Island double cream. We all drank far too much but had a very enjoyable evening - ending with me being thrown in the spa as a special thank you for doing the cooking It is now 7.30am on Wednesday morning and I am at work with a Berrocca fizzing away beside me - ahhh breakfast.

Wow, I have never seen Charmed (that's a movie, right?), but actually we are very blessed here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Right now we have beautiful persimmons, figs, pomegranates (I can't be bothered to look up the spelling for that right now...I am self-medicating myself through a fall cold with some old-fashioned scotch and insomnia), the last of the basil and tomatoes which we are frantically putting up for the winter... on and on. Even off season we can get imported produce from the southern part of the state. Squash and pumpkin of course are au courant, but like you said, we are spoilt here, too. Our farmer's market is the envy of the nation, the French Laundry is up the road, and Chez Panisse is just across the bay. That said, I am doubly envious of your deck and grill. I am but a poor city boy with only a humble balcony I use to grow kitchen herbs. We have had some unseasonably warm weather, with a recent very sharp change. Last week it was in the 90's fahrenheit and today I believe the high was around 55 (I would convert but see above about scotch and insomnia). So we are bracing for the rains. Anyway, please continue to report as you will be a boost to me through the gloomy season! Thanks altogether for the charming and informative blog! Cheers to you and your mates, Squeat PS I was going to ask a favor (or favour): would you mind including what day and time it is in your posts? It makes it quite convenient to not have to consult a chart for this, and I can't readily tell from the eGullet timestamps. (Now it is 1:14 am Tuesday morning, the 4th.) No big deal if you don't, but it makes it all the more interesting for one who has travelled some, but not much! My deck and grill are indeed the envy of all At the moment it is 8.27pm on tuesday 04 November 2003. I am being forced to cook for ten (10 people) even in my drunken state. I will report in the morning if I have been sucessful. Squeat - Charmed be a really tacky TV show!!! mmmmmmmmmmmm figs!! my favourite ever fruit. Grilled with KI roaring 40's mmmmmmmmm Tell us abut SF

Thanks Squeat And I thought everyone in the USA was looking forward to fall!! I believe we are spoilt here. We seem to get the best of everywhere plus our own fabulous food. I know I grumble about living in the country but we still have it fairly good. What is the variety like where you are? All I know of SF is that it is where Charmed is set - and am fairly sure that is nowhere true to life!!! People here have told me they have phoned my favourite restaurant and they are fine with us not turning up (apparently and huge number of walk in patrons on Melbourne Cup eve - if fact said we would be "doing them a favour as they might get new regulars instead of us old regulars") I think that I wouldn't mind cooking dinner but really, really want the dessert I was going to have of white chocolate spring rolls with rasberry dipping sauve (see squeak - even the restaurants have rasberries!!! ) Will let you know (but hubby is firing up the humungous 6 burner BBQ) - can you tell we BBQ alot!!!!!! We have just had the deck extended and the new BBQ put in. We are having a ceiling fan put in next week and the electrician is coming to put in lights. We love eating outside and, due to so many months being conducive to outside eating we make the most of it (shrimp or no shrimp!!)

Thanks Squeat! Have been forced to post by my soon to be dining companions who wanted to know what was going on. I have made (but not personally eaten) spinach and fetta triangles (in filo) and tiny, tiny samosas. Also, just for a change a huge cheese plate including my favourite King Island cheeses. Unfortunately for me they are now saying we should not go out for dinner but that I should cook something based only on what is in my panty and fridge/freezer) [should I tell them about the 3kg of tiger prawns in my second, very secret, fridge???? Will let you know the outcome!! PS: glad people are not bored!

Why do you assume that, Squeat? Well, mainly because I'm completely ignorant about Australian flora, I guess. However, I meant "I assume none [of the mentioned berries, because I think of them as European and/or North American] are native to Australia. Again, because of the complete ignorance. Sorry if I sounded condescending - put it down to the vast amount of alcohol I have consumed today (just suprised my spelling isn't worse ) Australian being so huge we have really varied weather. For example whist this week it has been 19 degrees (66.2F) here - remember this is spring. In Darwin over winter it does not drop much below 29 degrees (84.2F) so they can grow many things we, further down south, cannot. And of course we have "stolen" the best of produce around the world and claim it as our own

Misgabi, Thanks for a fascinating blog! I'm curious about the berries. I assume these are Australian-grown berries you're talking about? I also assume none are native to Australia? It's early spring there now, correct? Are the berries in season? By the way, I was taking the piss (if, again, my assumptions are correct -- this is not a common Americanism in the assumed sense) about the revolving restaurants. I'm pretty sure the one at the Hyatt here in San Francisco goes counterclockwise, but it's been a while. Thanks again for the blog and, er, go Melbourne!(?) Cheers, Squeat Edited: those g's look just like q's when they're underlined in the eGullet font! We have fresh berries in the shop at the moment (think they are grown in Queensland or Northern Territory). I purchased really good rasberries on the weekend. Whilst not native to Australia are really good!! I assume we have some sort of bush food equivalent of these berries but just cannot go past a plate of fresh berries (native or not) with King Island double cream . Anyway, things don't necessarily need to be native for us to eat them (otherwise I would be living on kangaroo, pepperberry, witchetty grubs (sp) [yes I have eaten then - taste like scrambled eggs in a really WRONG way or goanna). I am glad that here in Australian we seem to be able to get food from just about anywhere in the world. Yes, I think you get what taking the piss means!!! If the SF revolving restaurant goes counterclockwise and and the aussie one goes clockwise - does that prove the water down the plughole theory???

Thanks fifi - was just thinking I might be boring everyone - especially after shiewies exotic sounding blog. Native pepperberry is one of those "aussie bush herb/spice" we keep hearing so much about. Have included link: native pepperberry to a place called "Herbies Spices" where I buy alot of gorgeous things over the internet (as we don't get to sydney that often). He does amazing kits that I often send to friends overseas (for example: True Blue Aussie which has favourites like lemon myrtle and wattleseed. Everyone I have sent them to always asks for the same (or similar next time). Our aussie bush flavours seem to be more intense (such as the lemon myrtle which can replace lemon grass and make fabulous scones) and we have a few things in the pantry just because we like to buy new things and try them out. There is also this site paddymelon which gives some really good descriptions of different aussie bush foods that might interest some people. We don't use a huge amount at home but I tend to like ordering them if I go out. There used to be an excellent restaurant in Sydney that specialised in "bush tucker" and did things with paperbark and fish that should be outlawed (except that it was so good). I miss that restaurant Must go - people arriving soon. Hope some of this is of interest. Just trying to fly the flag for australian food even though I live in the middle of nowhere (as far as Sydney/Melbourne dwellers are concerned)

Had a seriously nice whole smoked trout at lunch - decided against the traditional chicken. It was served on salad greens, red onion and tomato with a creme fraiche dressing that had lots of dill in it. The trout was delicious, moist and flavoursome and a far better choice than chicken. Dessert was called "walk in the black forest" and consisted of berry ice cream (could taste rasberry, blackberry, strawberry and blueberry I think) really thick and creamy served with fresh berries (same as listed which may have made me think I was tasting them all!!) but to round out the presentation they had created "shards" of chocolate about 90cm high and 30cm in width which stuck out of the ice cream. The waitress needed both hands to deliver this dessert and the chocolate was greedily consumed by other people at our table (trust me far too much for one person). Just to pander to alacartes preconceived stereotypes of Australian eating habits you will be pleased to know my husband ate kangaroo sausages with native pepperberry. He said these were very moist and went really well with his garlic mash (I tasted that and fully believe that at least 45 cloves of garlic died to create this sensational side - it tasted almost whipped in consistency and soooooo creamy - something we intend to try to recreate at home. Am now seriously considering purchasing an icecream machine - and make treats of my own (but possibly without the foot and a half of chocolate shard). Drank a couple of glasses of champage but then switched to charddonay - anyone seeing a drinking trend here? Off now to get some nibbles ready for friends before we head out to dinner later.

Ok going to lunch now - will see how I fare posting-wise after that!! Wish my liver luck

What type of races are conducted at the Melbourne Cup? Horse racing. Melbourne cup is touted as "the race that stops a nation" and everyone slacks off for the afternoon. Melbourne actually has a public holiday on the first Tuesday each November for this race (everyone else just pretends they do) Melbourne Cup Here is the link for King Island that makes the fabulous cheeses etc that we seem to eat alot of. King Island

I like vegemite spread really, really thinly on super fresh white bread. I seem to go through stages of eating that for lunch for a whole week and then won't touch it for months. I used to eat vegemite sprinkled with sugar on toast for breakfast as a kid. (a bit like cinnamon toast only completely not!) I do however use vegemite in stews and meatier type soups - just a tablespoon added at the same stage as the stock going in seems to give it a bit extra. If you have pre-conceived stereotyped ideas of our eating habits here maybe I should throw a shrimp (prawn) on the barbie Or have a nice big kangaroo steak for dinner tonight.

Yes, "place of many crows"!! Made lasagne for dinner last night. Got some fresh lasagne sheets and layered them - goats cheese and mushrooms, pumpkin (I think the one the american's call butternut squash - we just call it butternut pumpkin) cooked and mashed with a thick layer of fresh ricotta on top. A layer of semi-dried tomatos with mozarella, then another layer of goats cheese and mushrooms. Top layer of pasta and then poured my tomato sauce (bottled last year) over the top. Parmesan on top of all that and baked until all golden and bubbly - yum Ate this with a "salad" - really just cos lettuce and truss tomato with a balsamic dressing. Was full after that so had no dessert. While I was making dinner I downed a couple of glasses of the local chardonnay and had some "Roaring 40's" blue cheese from King Island in Tasmania - delicious. It is Melbourne Cup here today so am off to a "chicken and champagne" lunch and to watch the local races. We then are going to dinner with friends - probably not a good plan after an afternoon of champagne hubby has taken the afternoon and evening off for all this frivolity. I am simply closing the office I had a slice of toast with marmalade for breakfast and a mug of earl grey tea - making it about the 3rd time this year I have actually eaten breakfast at home before leaving for work.

Told my husband I had been tagged for the foodblog and his response was "excellent - you will have to make an effort so they don't think you live off soup!" He is seriously excited about acutally having food in the fridge when he gets home from work in the middle of the night. I had an apple & custard muffin for afternoon tea that my secretary purchased when she took the mail to the post office - yum I will have to go to the shops on the way home and buy some food now so I don't disappoint this week. Tam : My husband mentioned that I could make lamingtons and he could eat them!!! I told him he should make them then I could eat them Needless to say neither of us will be making them!! I'm sure you are taking the piss but the one in Canberra goes clockwise!! And the food used to fairly ordinary - but they did do crepe suzettes and set fire to my sister once luckily her eyebrow grew back and they didn't charge for the meal!! Don't think we ever went back after that........

Had a late lunch of chicken, cream cheese and cranberry sauce on a white (vaguely italian type spongy) roll. Got the chicken from the charcoal chicken shop and the roll from the bakery (had the rest in the fridge at work) and made it myself. Also had a diet coke. Roll on the most boring foodblog ever