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rarerollingobject

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Everything posted by rarerollingobject

  1. Hmm, I like rolling balls of labneh yoghurt cheese in dried mint. I also crust lamb chops, or octopus chunks, in it before grilling quickly. I really like dousing fried eggs in olive oil, za'atar and dried mint and then muddling pita or Turkish bread into them. The particular woody, resiny mintyness I like in all these dishes wouldn't be the same with fresh.
  2. Aha! I had just stepped away from the computer, and thought "I wonder if Heidi meant Castle Cove?" and here we are. Will PM you about the bread. Thanks for your kind words, NC!
  3. That's in California, right? I'm in Sydney, Australia..it might be a long way to come for some bread.
  4. I look over my balcony railing, and directly into the artisanal sourdough bakery across the street. Sometimes I go out onto my balcony in the morning, flap my arms beseechingly at them to get their attention, and the guys there hold up their hands to gesture to me how many more minutes it's going to be till the bread comes out of the ovens, so I can time my descent for optimum freshness and warmth..
  5. Yep, just porridge cooked in chicken stock. What can I say, I like the extras. Anyway, I eat this breakfast about 3-4 times a week so I've got the prep down to 5 minutes, from start to finish. This morning, however, was a crusty roll filled with bacon, tomato and some HP sauce. With a strong ice coffee beforehand.
  6. I made this last night and then got a little distracted trying to track down friends in Japan, so it was rather mushier by the time I got around to it, but tasty nonetheless. Paella with caramelised fennel, capsicum, chilli and fennel sausages, broad beans and tomatoes.
  7. Potato pancakes look great! I love making sweet things in a savoury version, savoury is much more in my wheelhouse. To wit - oatmeal congee. I like rice congee but often don't have the time or the will to live required to make it in the morning so make a quick version of it with oatmeal. Here we have a specimen with (anticlockwise) green onions, leek flower sauce, crispy fried shallots, lao gan ma black bean chilli oil, a drizzle of Sichuan pepper oil, white pepper, a puddle of soy sauce, and a healthy teaspoonful of duck fat. Shortly before it all gets mashed into an unholy mess and dispatched to the next world!
  8. This is my solution too, but the tins run pretty expensive (I've seen them in Australia for AUD$75 for 6!!) so I came up with a cheap hack; ordered a case of 50 glass-topped bomboniere tins from a wedding supply store for something like $20 (like these), and some rare earth magnets from an electrical/hardware store. Didn't even require gluing the magnets onto the tins.
  9. The halibut looks so juicy and meaty, very appealing. I made a pretty basic meal, broccoli soup with feta and bacon garnish. And sourdough toast, topped with thin slices of lardo and then grilled till the lardo melted into porky goodness and little crispy nubbins.
  10. Fresh chevre, a head of garlic roasted till it's gooey and caramelised, and a crusty baguette. Schmear torn chunks bread with cheese, squeeze garlic cloves out on top, repeat. Heaven. Cold silken tofu dressed with a smear of wasabi or yuzu koshou and some soy sauce.
  11. Yes, but I'd leave him in a second for a man who makes his own yuzu curd! A nanosecond. This was actually yesterday's, a rather extravagant brunch for one. Pate de foie gras on toast, and a glass of Sauternes: A beautiful juicy blood plum:
  12. I've seen it for sale at Amato's here in Sydney, quite recently too. I'm sure it's gettable in Melbourne, maybe ask around some of the Italian specialty shops? Let me know if you don't have any luck and are really keen, I can ask around some of my more liquored-up friends down there.
  13. Thanks for your kind words. The rhubarb was pretty basic.. sliced it into short lengths, sprinkled with a little sugar, and baked for 20 minutes in a moderately hot oven. Then I reduced some Pimm's in a saute pan, stirred in the rhubarb, and adjusted the taste with a little sherry vinegar. And a lot of black pepper!
  14. The Last of Tokyo Gratuitous cat shots!! Alright, it's SORT of food related, but really just an excuse to post pics from our late night stop that night, a Tokyo cat cafe! My boyfriend is a chronic cat-adorer and starved of feline affection as we're not allowed one in our apartment building. So since he dutifully and uncomplainingly comes along on all my mad food-related adventures, I figured I'd make him VERY happy indeed and take him to a cat cafe, where similarly cat-starved Tokyoites pay $$ per hour to, er, be in the company of some very well pampered kitties. I was initially concerned it would be like a factory, but these are some seriously happy, healthy, relaxed cats with lots of space and stimulation, and there are lots of rules about what you can and can't do. You sanitise your hands, don special shoes, pay an enormous fee for 40 mins of time, and also buy little containers of shredded chicken breast. Predictably, until you crack these open, the cats are a little standoffish..one whiff of chicken and they swarm. In fact, with all the rules and divas and slight sense of being ripped off, it sorta felt like a strip club. (Not that I'd know. Ahem.) Anyway: That's enough of that. The next day, we took a stroll through Aoyama cemetery and out the other side to find the Pierre Herme boutique. A most delicious yuzu-chocolate confection: Something involving mango and white chocolate: That night, it was pouring and cold so we ducked into a small izakaya beneath Shinjuku station (I think it was called Shosuke). The layout was cool here, a wavy length of table running down one side of the restaurant, and two layers of booths down the other. Ate lots of things here, but the only standout was the hambaagaa, a patty of ground wagyu with a beautifully soft and gooey poached egg (almost sous videy) on top. To come: Kyoto.
  15. Tokyo and Shizuoka Two more of the innumerable pastries we (ok, I) ate. Pierre Herme beauties from Isetan, Shinjuku. The famous Ispahan: And an astoundingly lovely mille feuille: The next day we took a trip to the tea fields of Shizuoka to visit a friend of mine, a Japanese-Brazilian who can't speak any Japanese but is simultaneously learning and teaching English there (the mind boggles). This was the middle of Bumf*ck, Shizuoka (Australian technical term for a very rural locale indeed): But with a large Brazilian-Japanese (and Japanese-Brazilian!) population, there're quite a few Brazilian restaurants there, and we went to one for dinner for some pork and bean action: The next day, back in Shinjuku, I wanted to hunt down an upscale yakitori place I'd been recommended, called Keishoan. Nice atmosphere to the place: Sampler of gizzard, liver, quail egg and green onion: Tsukune set (chicken meatball) with various sauces: Really very good oyako donburi (chicken and egg on rice): For dinner, we went to Maguro Bito in Asakusa, one of my very favourite kaiten zushi places in Tokyo. These pictures aren't really very interesting, but I was in a sushi coma and could barely function. Incidentally, this was the only restaurant (ie non market) environment I saw in Japan serving whale meat.. I didn't try any. To be continued!
  16. percyn, the marbling on that beef is fantastic.. kayb, your gnocchi are very cute. I keep meaning to make a ricotta-only version, you've reminded me to get onto it! Dinner for a beautifully sunny day here in Sydney was grilled mackerel, with a rhubarb and Pimm's sauce I improvised. Side of only-just-sauteed zucchini with flaked almonds, lemon zest and black pepper. Along with a very restorative gin and tonic beforehand.
  17. Love the sound of this, going to try it immediately..thanks for the idea!
  18. Silo Bakery, in Kingston, is fantastic (and that's pretty good, coming from someone who sorta irrationally hates Canberra and everything associated with it! )
  19. Looking forward to this! Esp. the New Orleans cookery your cookbooks photo suggests is in the offing..not something we see a lot of around these parts.
  20. You have a very colorful and rich childhood and life. dcarch My father was a Reuters foreign correspondent for a long time, so we moved around a lot - food epiphanies by the plenty. Anyhow, I make up for it by being a very boring adult!
  21. rarerollingobject

    Pig head

    Have you seen this post? Whatever you end up doing, promise you'll take pics and report back!
  22. And one I don't remember discovering myself, but a lot of other people do: beetroot. When I was about 2, and my father stationed in Beijing, he co-hosted a diplomatic dinner of some sort, with many foreign heads of state. I somehow broke free of the nannies, got into the dining room, no doubt started chatting up some of the diners, one of whom fed me some of the beetroot from their dinner plate. Being a very ill-bred child, I then proceeded to go around the whole table, eating the beetroot off all the diners' plates to much uproarious laughter. My parents still have a framed black and white Reuters photo of me, aged 2, sitting on the New Zealand Prime Minister's lap, my face stained vermilion with beetroot juice and looking very pleased with myself. And I do still love beetroot!
  23. Love this, the quote and the kind of mindset it indicates. "What an interesting disgusting taste" pretty much sums up how I got to love all the so-called 'gross' food I love today: stinky blue cheese, bone marrow, natto, red fermented tofu, durian, anchovies, etc etc. The kind of things I remember chewing really ponderously as a kid, thinking "I don't like it, but I kinda like the way I don't like it..I think I'll have another one.." The first time I tried sea urchin, raw scallop and oysters were also pretty revelatory moments for me..that sweet rush of pure ozone-y, oceanic musk..mmm. Re the sea urchins, we were on holiday in Italy and I was about 9. The family we were staying with said we were having pasta for lunch and when it was put down in front of me, it was linguine with masses and masses of sea urchins, raw but slightly warmed, mixed through it. Maybe some parsley. I was dubious to say the least but gingerly tried a little, got that immediate rush of the ocean, and looooved it. Ate the rest in a hypnotic daze, all at sea, and wanted seconds straight after. Even my brother telling me later what part of the animal we'd actually been eating didn't faze me and I spent the rest of the trip bugging my parents for more sea urchin. And good French butter. I had no butter-based opinions until I tried some of the excellent French butters like Lescure, Isigny at about age 15.. that first time, I instantly understood why people CARED about good butter, how you could really taste the sweetness and freshness. I had to be stopped from cutting it in half-inch slices and eating it like cheese.
  24. I love your breakfasts, Blether. For me, it was seared duck livers, glazed in balsamic. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea (breakfast pun!) but I enjoyed it.
  25. Luke - it hasn't been rolled out to the Australian (google.com.au) domain yet. If you want to test it, you have to go to the US Google: http://www.google.com/ncr (direct link to override the local re-direction to .au) (You can also navigate there by going to google.com.au and clicking 'Go to Google.com' at screen bottom)
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