eG Foodblog: rarerollingobject (2011) - Mealtimes at the University of

[nikkib]

Complete sensory overload from teh pimientos to those amazing courgette flowers at teh amrket - the cheese (oooh the cheese!!!) and the butchers with a piped smell onto the street?!!!! ingenious!!! Like the smell of freshly baked bread in the kitchen of a house you are trying to sell when people come for a viewing is supposed to help it sell...(luckily for me im more in the market for a pie than a house - jeeez that could get expensive!!)and then the gelato - stop it, seriously, this is killing me... Food in the canteen at work today was so dire i have opted for a large espresso and a can of diet coke ;-( will smile sweetly at chef later and see if he will make me pan con tomate and let me have some more of the fresh anchoives he has been experimenting with (DAMN - now im back to craving the pimiemtos....)

[Kim Shook]

Oh, goodness - that butcher shop and the market are truly remarkable. RE: photos - I really don't get the problem. If anything, it provides some free advertising for the vendor. I don't bother asking anymore - I just hang my camera around my neck and unobtrusively snap away.

[percyn]

Now THAT is a butcher shop!

[eldereno]

All I can say is "WOW." Every week I want to go somewhere else to live, depending on where the blog is originating from!!!!

[SylviaLovegren]

Breakfast of champions, I say! And a lot less hard to explain than the other porridge dish I sometimes get a craving for..Filipino champorado, a sweet chocolate rice or oatmeal porridge garnished and eaten with salty dried fish..

OK, you lost me there. Chocolate and salty fish? No, a thousand times no.

I do like oatmeal with crumbled bacon, egg, butter and lotsa salt and pepper, though.

[Dejah]

RRO: First of all, that kaffir lime white pepper gelato would have been my first choice! Great combo. I wonder what it'd be like with fresh green peppercorns? I'm so addicted to those little balls of fire and flavour!

Then that paella - you followed the "philosophy" for great paella perfectly! Won't be doing much cooking the rest of the month as we'll be on our annual road trip in the USA, but I promised myself that I will be cooking from your blog come Sept! However, I will be substituting some ingredients as I am not privy to the wonderful shops and markets that are the envy of many here.

Blog on Girl!

[barolo]

Formaggi Ocello, photo policies aside, IS excellent - my favourite cheese is the testun barolo, a cow/ewe's milk mix matured in nebbiolo wine must..incredible. There's an eG member here called barolo, and every time I see his/her name online around the traps, I get a Pavlovian craving for cheese.

OK, that made me delurk. Great blog. I'm going to keep reading, so your cheese consumption may spike this week.

[weinoo]

Kate - can you give us an idea of what the price of the gelato is in the cups? In NYC, our favorite gelato has crept up to $4.25 for a small with 2 flavors, while at our favorite place in DC, a small with 2 flavors has pushed the envelope at $5.50!

The prices at the farmer's market you've photographed above look very similar to prices at the greenmarket here.

[rarerollingobject]

You manage to make me want gelato, despite having had -8 degrees the past 2 mornings....

Sonoma is so far the only place that makes bread like the ones we can get in San Francisco. I just wonder, how much do you pay for them there? I'm paying $7.50 - $8 a loaf here....

Around $7 I think..I dunno, I go to these farmers' markets with a fistful of cash, and a blur of a while later, I'm home..it's like the best kind of mugging!

[rarerollingobject]

Complete sensory overload from teh pimientos to those amazing courgette flowers at teh amrket - the cheese (oooh the cheese!!!) and the butchers with a piped smell onto the street?!!!! ingenious!!! Like the smell of freshly baked bread in the kitchen of a house you are trying to sell when people come for a viewing is supposed to help it sell...(luckily for me im more in the market for a pie than a house - jeeez that could get expensive!!)and then the gelato - stop it, seriously, this is killing me... Food in the canteen at work today was so dire i have opted for a large espresso and a can of diet coke ;-( will smile sweetly at chef later and see if he will make me pan con tomate and let me have some more of the fresh anchoives he has been experimenting with (DAMN - now im back to craving the pimiemtos....)

Heheh. Torture? Craving? Intense hunger? My work here is done.

[rarerollingobject]

Oh, goodness - that butcher shop and the market are truly remarkable. RE: photos - I really don't get the problem. If anything, it provides some free advertising for the vendor. I don't bother asking anymore - I just hang my camera around my neck and unobtrusively snap away.

I'm beginning to think I won't ask any more either..at least if you don't ask, you can't be told 'no'! That's me, innocence lost in a high-end cheese shop.

[rarerollingobject]

Now THAT is a butcher shop!

There was some SERIOUSLY marbled wagyu on the top shelf. Heart palpitations just looking at it. Me want.

[rarerollingobject]

All I can say is "WOW." Every week I want to go somewhere else to live, depending on where the blog is originating from!!!!

Like I said to johnnyd; I'll be waiting at the airport to meet you! You'll recognise me because I'll be holding two different things to eat, one in each hand, while looking desirously at whatever food the person next to me has.

[rarerollingobject]

Breakfast of champions, I say! And a lot less hard to explain than the other porridge dish I sometimes get a craving for..Filipino champorado, a sweet chocolate rice or oatmeal porridge garnished and eaten with salty dried fish..

OK, you lost me there. Chocolate and salty fish? No, a thousand times no.

I do like oatmeal with crumbled bacon, egg, butter and lotsa salt and pepper, though.

THAT sounds good. Would you add the egg raw or slide a fried one in, perhaps?

[rarerollingobject]

RRO: First of all, that kaffir lime white pepper gelato would have been my first choice! Great combo. I wonder what it'd be like with fresh green peppercorns? I'm so addicted to those little balls of fire and flavour!

Then that paella - you followed the "philosophy" for great paella perfectly! Won't be doing much cooking the rest of the month as we'll be on our annual road trip in the USA, but I promised myself that I will be cooking from your blog come Sept! However, I will be substituting some ingredients as I am not privy to the wonderful shops and markets that are the envy of many here.

Blog on Girl!

Green peppercorns sounds good! I often add pepper or chilli to a bowl of ice cream (or pink peppercorns onto my sweet ginger oatmeal last week). Can't wait to see what you make when you're back from your roadtrip!

[rarerollingobject]

Formaggi Ocello, photo policies aside, IS excellent - my favourite cheese is the testun barolo, a cow/ewe's milk mix matured in nebbiolo wine must..incredible. There's an eG member here called barolo, and every time I see his/her name online around the traps, I get a Pavlovian craving for cheese.

OK, that made me delurk. Great blog. I'm going to keep reading, so your cheese consumption may spike this week.

Ha, good stuff! Strangely, 'barolo' doesn't make me want wine as much it does cheese. Nice to finally make your acquaintance anyway, you psychological trigger, you.

[rarerollingobject]

Kate - can you give us an idea of what the price of the gelato is in the cups? In NYC, our favorite gelato has crept up to $4.25 for a small with 2 flavors, while at our favorite place in DC, a small with 2 flavors has pushed the envelope at $5.50!

The prices at the farmer's market you've photographed above look very similar to prices at the greenmarket here.

They have a strange pricing structure there..$3.90 for one scoop, $5.50 for two scoops or $12 for five scoops..either economics isn't their strong suit, or they're evil geniuses, can't tell.

As for the markets, prices there are about a third more expensive than my standard grocery store, and about half as expensive again as the Chinatown markets. Actually, some things are very cheap, some things exorbitant, but I don't mind really.

Overall, the prices are indeed about on par with what I saw in Union Square when I was last in NYC, in 2010. Of course, the Australian dollar being valued more than the USD these days exaggerates the difference somewhat, even pre debt ceiling debacle.

[rarerollingobject]

OK, I'm off like a prawn in the sun (another colourful Aussie expression for being about to go somewhere).

It might be my last blogging day, but there's alot going on - I have a Moroccan breakfast to get to, a spice shop to end all spice shops, a mad cap patisserie, and then home for some cooking. See you soon!

[rarerollingobject]

(I should clarify, lest everyone think I'm economically clueless myself, that we have a bit of a sweetheart deal worked out, where bella principessa dude will charge me the two scoop price for my two sequential single scoops!)

[annachan]

Now THAT is a butcher shop!

There was some SERIOUSLY marbled wagyu on the top shelf. Heart palpitations just looking at it. Me want.

I had my eyes on that, too! We almost got some really nicely marble wagyu at Costco (about 50 some dollars per kg) the other day....but didn't because of other high priced purchases....sigh....

[ChrisZ]

Right, ChrisZ - this is for you. Gelato Messina in Darlinghurst. A tiny shop, staffed with many strapping Italian boys (one of whom always calls me 'bella principessa' ), dishing out intense flavoured gelatos in mind-bending flavours (as well as the classics).

Thanks so much, this is brilliant! I've just come back from 3 weeks in Italy and I ate my own bodyweight in gelato, but these photos and flavours look better than anything I tried over there. Can't wait to get to Darlinghurst and sample them...

As someone reasonably new to Sydney your blog (and Nickrey's) has been invaluable in helping me appreciate the city's food. Much appreciated.

(and something I found interesting - there's a Harris Farm near us in a suburb strangely named "Dee Why", the meat section is inside one gigantic cold room and so they hand out freezer jackets to people as they enter...)

[rarerollingobject]

Right, ChrisZ - this is for you. Gelato Messina in Darlinghurst. A tiny shop, staffed with many strapping Italian boys (one of whom always calls me 'bella principessa' ), dishing out intense flavoured gelatos in mind-bending flavours (as well as the classics).

Thanks so much, this is brilliant! I've just come back from 3 weeks in Italy and I ate my own bodyweight in gelato, but these photos and flavours look better than anything I tried over there. Can't wait to get to Darlinghurst and sample them...

As someone reasonably new to Sydney your blog (and Nickrey's) has been invaluable in helping me appreciate the city's food. Much appreciated.

(and something I found interesting - there's a Harris Farm near us in a suburb strangely named "Dee Why", the meat section is inside one gigantic cold room and so they hand out freezer jackets to people as they enter...)

Ah, you'll love Messina. Follow them on Facebook for updates as to their latest crazy flavours; sometimes I see a post about something new and am up there within literally 10 minutes.

[rarerollingobject]

Before I post today's spoils, I thought I'd share with you some photos of my ceramics collection. I collect blue and white pottery, for a start..I use quite a lot of it for serving food, but other pieces not. The pieces I have are mostly from Japan, China or Vietnam but I'm not particularly precious about locale or vintage..one of these plates is from an American homewares chain I happened to pass by in San Francisco (the upside down plate on the very left with a big blue octopus on it!).

I have lots of pieces scattered throughout the house, but here are some main pieces:

A couple of these are particularly precious to me. This is my mother's Chinese government-issued yoghurt pot. Among the first Western expats to enter post-Mao Zedong Beijing in the late 70s (my brother, who's a US citizen, had a clearance letter signed by Henry Kissinger!), my parents no doubt had circumstances a lot more fortunate than many around them, but still had to line up every day for basic food rations at the state-run commissaries for the first few years. This pot, not very big at all, represented the daily yoghurt allowance for a family of 3.

And this 1920s ginger jar, which belonged to my grandmother. A woman ahead of her time in many ways, she loved Chinese art and culture and had quite a few Chinese antiques, though she'd never been to Asia - not till visiting us in Hong Kong in the early 80s after I was born. Anyway, I love this because it reminds me of her and how unconventional she was for her place and time:

This is a little bowl I came across in a Kyoto shop. I had gotten talking to the owner in my OK but patchy Japanese and after an hour or so of nattering away, I bought a few things and he insisted on giving me this pretty little bowl as a gift. It's cracked and dirty but I get the feeling it's quite old, or at least has had a lot of use in its lifetime:

Obviously, I don't use any of these three things for food, as they all have decades of dust and grime that no amount of cleaning can seem to get off. One day I'll look into getting them professionally cleaned perhaps.

Other things in the top photo; a Japanese platter from the early 1800s, china chopstick rests from the Tokyo Edo Museum, a plate with painted vegetables on it from a department store in Kyoto, and the big thing at the back right is a hibachi. Porcelain ones like this are actually not really used for cooking, but for heating. I have, however, filled it with coals, laid a mesh on top and used it for grilling, being a total heathen.

I also collect ceramics from a lovely Australian potter called Bison. Based in Canberra, they make beautifully smooth and tactile pieces that are always cool and comforting to touch, but best of all, can be microwaved, frozen, used in the oven and dishwashed. They makes lots and lots of colours, but I'm partial to the blues, particularly the duck egg blues.

Anyway, wanted to show a little bit of my non-food kitchen items.

Edited July 31, 2011 by rarerollingobject (log)

[heidih]

Oh my - caught me again on the pottery - especially the duck egg blue local ones. As an aside - one uses the term ginger jar for a shape here but does it have an actual ginger related use?

[barolo]

That's a very nice collection RRO.

I love blue and white pottery too. I keep promising myself I won't buy more pottery but I fall off the wagon fairly often!