Food-part one, a film by Jan Svankmajer

Real food by Real people

Light and shade

Cletus's awfully big Melbourne adventure

So after a huge Mothers day service, I quickly pack my bags, kiss the fam goodbye and race off to catch the last flight from Hobart, feeling not unlike the last evacuees from the fall of Saigon in ’75. In my case not fleeing the PAV but to escape this smothering culture of whining self-pity, which seems increasingly pervasive in this little community of hospitality people apparently unaccustomed to having their work critiqued.


So I landed in Melbs late and made my way to the part of the town where I am most at ease, the inner city north. Staying at my friend’s house was a wise choice as it offered a soothing balm to the mania of Melbourne, though not in the league of say, a Mexico City but a culture shock of sorts from the ten car main-drag of downtown Cygnet.

The next morn and immediately at ease having been offered a Ute to get around in I went around the corner to Pope Joan for a take-away coffee. Thus sufficiently caffeined, I slinked around my old ‘hood with the breezy nonchalance of someone with a fat wallet and three days of R and R ahead.

My journey around town took in the amazing amount of hospo-businesses that seemed to have flourished since my last visit like mushies after a good rain. It really was staggering as each precinct and lane in which I curiously ventured, unearthed more gems, large, small and in-between. Heading over to where my Dad lives I passed through Camberwell, which, for the briefest of moments, held in its paws, the mantle of foodie progressiveness in the form of re-developed Chocolate Box and unfortunately traded on this for the next 20 years. These days however inner-city edginess, more boat-shoe than Brothel-creeper mind you, has skulked into the municipality while it was having a Nanna nap. I caught up with Paul Mathis at Coffeehead and he gave me his overview of the Melbourne Food Scene (MFS) Mathis, arguably one of the more influential arbiters of the MFS was upbeat but I can only imagine the stresses involved operating multiple venues when I struggle with one.

Skulling another coffee I read an interesting text from a Hobart mate who alerted me to the follow-up Mercury story about the recent John Lethlean review of the Mill. This became a touchstone for the visit and popped-up in many subsequent conversations over the next few days. Turns out, a ‘Mainlander’ came over and slagged off one of our Tassie businesses, a business which incidentally was awarded ‘Best new restaurant’ in the recent THA awards. The fact that theses awards are self-nominated and said restaurant was the only one in the category was evidently lost on the zealots who had declared a Fatwa on Lethlean and were fizzing at the mouth with the injustice of it all.

That evening, like a moth, I made my way to the white hot light that is the Double Chin(Chin Chin, geddit?) where @thatjessho had just finished her shift and we went to Pei Modern to catch up then it was off to dinner with friends at home, chatting well into the early hours.

The next morning after school drop offs, it was off to Prahran. Greville St has always seemed like a ‘holding-pen’ of sorts to me, a place where people from Fitzroy or Collingwood can acclimatise before they head to St Kilda or Elwood.

Had a coffee and a pastry at St Edmunds just around the corner from Greville St which bore little resemblance the Greville St that I used to frequent in my winkle pickers and zoot suit. The one remaining motif of my youth, Greville St records was still there and even the posters in the window looked the same. Now I know Melbourne is one cool cucumber, wall to wall hipsters, fixies, and beards-and that’s just the girls but seriously, is it too much to get a ‘hello’ and a smile from staff?

Funnily enough whilst supping a latte my mate Carrie read the Epicure and noted the irony of the lead story, Chefs n tatts. ‘Didn’t you write something about this a while back on your blog?’ she enquired? Amazed that she read my blog I was about to say, when she said it for me’
‘It’s not right that they use copy from bloggers without any acknowledgement’ but cut herself short, laughing and jabbing a finger at the lead paragraph which had just made a liar of her’. What made the moment more piquant was the irony that although my original piece was taking-the-Mickey, I had subsequently joined the ‘Just-Inked’ club. Then I caught up with my friend @stickifingers whose council I’m always seeking in matters unravelling the dark arts of advertising, PR and spin. She never ceases to amaze me with her over-arching understanding of the bigger picture.

Later that night went to a Social Media Event (SME) at a restaurant with @Essjayeff, @tomatom. @tammois @stickifingers and things went up a gear considerably. It was great to catch up with people I clicked with at the Floggers fest. I was very appreciative of my invite so I don’t want to sound ungrateful but my gut was telling me that once the canapés and champers dried up, very few of the crowd here would return to spend their hard-earned. Whilst the canapés were very tasty, pretty and a la mode, they seemed at odds with the geography of the setting, the heart of the CBD and surely business lunch territory with business lunch tastes? Then again I could be talking out of my date as usual.

Then it was off to the hot new kid on the block, Casa Ciuccio. Incidentally it was reviewed in Epicure that day (which was to unconsciously influence yet another visit later that evening) We were joined by @thatjessho and settled into a manic night of laughs, food and merriment. Briefly caught up with @hilarymcnevin and noted that Simon Denton was also eating there. Down the back of Casa I checked out the ‘must-have’ cooking appliance du jour, the ‘Coal-Pit’. Think old-school Charcoal Chicken Bar (CCB) minus the chooks and the chicken salt.

Off to the revamped Builders Arms (another old haunt). The dining room, I'm told is yet to be officially opened, is a statement in white. Think Distressed French Provincial (DFP) with a hint of Cool Scandinavian Aesthetic (CSA) as I like to refer to it. The only thing that wobbled my ‘O Oh” antenna was naming the dining room after one of George Orwell’s most revered pieces, ‘Moon under water’, might court with unrequited expectations. Just saying…Oh and they have a Coal Pit as well. Hmm, maybe the world is ready for my Multi Spinning Yiros (MSY) idea after all?

Around the corner, at The Everleigh, I loved the Victorian Era Railway Carriage/Steam-punk fit out, with faux gas lamps, cosseting booths and moody dark panelling. This bar was also reviewed in the paper that day so we probably looked like sad-arsed, hard-core groupies, which we’re most definitely, err…not.
Cabbed it home and I sat outside in the back yard looking up at the stars, as the city around, quietened down like an over-tired toddler crying himself to sleep.

Next morn, dragged myself up and Public transported myself over to Ashburton and dragged Dad out to Chaddy under the ruse that we were going to see Prometheus. Nearly three hours of being aurally and visually assaulted by The Avengers, he couldn’t get the smile off his face. ‘That wasn’t bloody Prometheus’ he said, ‘but it was a good romp’.

Then back on Public transport across town in peak hour, this I don’t miss about Melbs. My flight arrived back home after nine but it took 20 mins in the queue to pay my parking ticket. So it was a drive home in Tony Delroy and Phillip Adams timeslots, in the deep darkness. I arrived home to a sleeping house with only Nelly coming out to see who it was that disturbed her sleep.

Is this art or is it being disrespectful?

I respect one’s right to express themselves however I am troubled by this. Call me old fashioned but it’s a bit like playing with your food before you eat it.

Unicorn meat-the facts

 

Ancient wall carvings prove that unicorn meat was revered and consumed by ancient cultures

There has been much-hand wringing of late on the ethics of eating meat and the push for consuming a sustainable diet. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon a new producer here in Tasmania who is producing the most unique protein for the table that I have ever heard of. Apparently though, it has been consumed for thousands of years.

The magical valley of Eeeryhthablayd

Unicorn. That’s right unicorn. Thought they were extinct didn’t you? Well here in this magical valley just minutes from Huon sur la Mar in Tasmania’s fertile south and tended by former Goldman Sachs chairman and now Grand Wizard of Eeeryhthablayd, Bertram St Hubbins is what I believe is the worlds’ first fully sustainable, organic unicorn farm and abattoir.

Bertram St Hubbins AKA The Wizard of Eeeryhthablayd and former Goldman Sachs chairman

‘The science and magic behind a diet rich in unicorn meat is one of the healthiest known to faeries, elves, dwarves and hobbits and now humans can benefit too’, said Wizard St Hubbins. ‘They are friendly, placid creatures, easy on the eye and mighty tasty when grilled over hot coals and served with Chimichanga sauce’.

the Wizards favourite sauce brand

this break-down of cuts shows the unicorns wide appeal

Wizard St Hubbins will do cut-ups and delivers straight to your door free of charge within the shire of Eeeryhthablayd.

two of the looming players to slug it out for unicorn share

‘Sadly, the big supermarkets have already been sniffing around. In fact some bloke who looked like that Curtis Stone rocked up last weekend wearing a hooded cape. He was accompanied by a hunched-over, whiskered old-hag who I recognized straight away as that Dawn French. I knew they were fakes as his short sword was made from balsa wood and witch’s never look that haggard, they really overdid her make-up"

 Ms French pleading with bemused customers that she' s"not just doing this for the loot, she loves unicorn meat"

Curtis pictured with his favourite ingredient-Moolah!

A group of dedicated unicorn eaters

Either way, it seems unicorn meat is finally available for humans seeking a little bit of guilt-free, meat consumption with a little bit of magic.

a platter of grilled unicorn at Dimitri's Middle-Earth Greek Taverna (there's one everywheree innit?)


The Elvis Tutorial

Start with a cooked and cooled biscuit base

Now make a pastry cream with chocolate and peanut butter

Fill case with the warm mixture and let cool and set

Now scatter some ripe banana slices on top

Cover with whipped un-sweetened cream

Now add the powdered bacon and macadamia praline

Finally waste some bacon and time by arranging the word Elvis on the bench

Serve and have Ambulence on speed dial



Woody Guthrie-The first coffee lovin' anti-Foodie?

an early picture of Woody working on his guitar slogans

This latte is your latte, This latte is my latte

From Cabramatta to the Flinders island;

From the old growth forest to the Sylvania Waters

This latte was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,

I saw above me that endless skyway:

I saw below me that golden valley:

This latte was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;

And all around me a voice was sounding:

This latte was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,

And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,

As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:

This latte was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said "No Soy Lattes."

But on the other side it didn't say nothing,

That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,

By the relief office I seen my people;

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking

Is this latte made for you or me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,

As I go walking that freedom highway;

Nobody living can ever make me turn back

This latte was made for you and me.

Woody "Three-Shots" Guthrie

Johnny Young in league with the Devil!

1971-When Johnny Young was pure of heart

2012-Behold! Greg Mills AKA Jack Vidgen! Devil Spawn of the Dark Lord himself-Johnny Young!

I'm not one for sensationalism as you would be well aware but I sense something sinister its at play. I stumbled upon an old photo of Greg Mills, a young member of Johnny Youngs Young Talent Team of 1971 and then noticed a peculiar similarity to teen heart-throb and X factor winner Jack Vidgen. Are they the same person? Has Johnny Young gone over to the darkside? You be the judge!

Chefs and tatts

After securing an apprenticeship at the nearbye roadhouse, Bazza got inked

Shellvene was always fond of protein


Old-skool kitchen tatts- here is The Sailor Jerry of the South (note misspelling of cake-this denotes kitchen-code for:' he cooks cakes')

Old-skool kitchen tatts- a brief flirtation with Herve This

Old-skool tatts-This clearly indicates a deep passion for crockery

Do lawyers get a Scales of justice? Do carpenters get a saw? Do Garbo’s get a couple of bins?
I don’t reckon they do. So what explains this obsession for chef to get multiple Tatts?
Sure, not all chefs get food related tattoos but a great many do. Peer into many open kitchens these days and you’d be excused into thinking having ink done was a pre-requisite for employment.
One cannot assume though that a food related tatt will reveal a clue to the occupation of its bearer. Case in point. A few weekends ago I met a bloke who had a large tatt of a Steer dissected into the recognizable cuts with neat little dotted lines delineating each portion. ‘You’re a Butcher!’ I said triumphantly. He tersely corrected me ‘Dude, I’m a chef!’ Oh.
What do these chef tatts say about their owners? Are they meant intimidate the diners and wait-staff as if to say: ‘Don’t even ask me for well-done cause I’m a Bas-ass’ Do they have meaning like Russian mafia tatts, you know like: ‘I’ve worked in a Ramsay kitchen’ or something? Perhaps they are mementos of achieving the next level of kitchen accomplishment like ‘I totally Rule Duchess Potatoes’. To me they are becoming as clichéd as the mid life crisis red sports car/trophy girlfriend/peddling the Port Phillip Bay hell-ride.
Anyways, always on the lookout for the authentic experience my search took me to a rural kitchen in deepest darkest Southern Tasmania where I encountered a dinosaur-chef who might just hold the key to the missing link of the origins of the kitchen tatt as we now know it.

This Gun for Hire

Here’s a scenario

A chef is hired by two business partners that operate a restaurant. In time the efforts of the chef raise the profile of the restaurant and it begins to attract FOH staff commensurate with the high level of food delivery and its reputation spreads. Further down the track, the restaurant becomes a profitable enterprise and also garners some critical praise in the process. Plans of expansion are laid on the table with a more casual version of the restaurant and the chef is made a minor partner.

Now this partnership can work several ways. One model is to give the chef in question a percentage of profit. Now the cynic in me has always been adverse to this suggestion because experience has taught me that restaurateurs who have transparency in their book keeping are about as common as getting a house made cake in a coffee-chain café-it very rarely happens. Another template is to offer the chef a share in the value of the business which is also problematic as opinions and expectations are frequently different between partners. It also opens the cans of worms as to the currency of the chef who might be of the opinion that their contribution is worth more to the business than is on offer. This is a common quandary for experienced kitchen practitioners.

This brings me to my scenario. Say this chef employed as previously stated but rationalizes that he/she has an expectation to earn more money for plying their trade. They are approached by or approach another business to consult for a fee with the proviso that they don’t intentionally replicate the menu design or food style that the original business is noted for.

Is this mercenary behaviour of the chef? Do the original owners have a right to feel aggrieved? Does the chef or the restaurant own the intellectual property? What’s a fair price for a person’s creativity?

Professional sports people regularly swap team allegiances and it’s usually because of money not loyalty and yet it passes often without judgement. An old boss of mine was fond of this particular analogy, “The Priests come and go but the Church will always be there”.

I’m not so sure that this is still appropriate I mean, look around, how many restaurant-institutions remain in the scheme of things? You could name a handful for sure; usually places where great efforts are made to ensure no-one knows the name of the chef lest it water-down the impact of the brand and its venerable lineage.

Maybe this ‘out-sourcing’ or ‘sub-contracting’ of ones skills is just a sign of the times?

Who is stealing the soap in Restaurant Loos?

The Federal minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson has announced plans for a sweeping taskforce to get to the bottom of the problem plaguing many of these so-called ‘hipster’ restaurants.
‘Who is stealing all those high–end toiletries that make the dunnies look so god dammed posh?’ ‘I mean, when people like Oprah come here, they expect to be pampered, and we’ll never be taken seriously as a cultural destination if we just have a bar of bloody Lux on the basin!’

His sentiments are born out in the latest trend to sweep hospitality venues across the nation.
Walk into any rest-rooms at a restaurant or café at the vanguard of design these days and you could be fooled into thinking you’ve stepped into Le Bouquetiere such are the lavish accoutrements de toilette on offer.

Creams, suds, elixirs, perfume, cologne, nail-care products, hair foams and scented Parisian linen are now de rigueur. Some establishments have taken it up to eleven by offering a full
body-spa, nail treatment and hair-styling right there in the lavatories!

Whilst this must be a boon for the patrons, it might be just too tempting for them as many of these toiletries are being stolen.

‘It’s gotten so bad now’ said a staff member from the new restaurant, 'G’day Modern' in Melbourne, ‘that they (the customers) just wait in the loos until we re-stock, then they’re gone!’

A spokesman for Aesopp concurred, ‘These restaurants want their clients to feel the touch of luxury so naturally they come to us, their punters steal our products and they get replaced-it’s a win-win for us’.

However another theory on the phenomenon is gaining traction.

Noted Hospitality Consultant, Tony 'El Dread' had this to say: ‘I reckon its struggling restaurateurs pinching the stuff and selling it on the black market to prop up their failing steakhouses/Mexican joints and Burger bars, oh and call me 1800-El-Dread’

Until then, we’ll await the findings of the Ministers report.

Clancy St Hubbins, of The Cygnet Herald and Farm Equipment Catalogue International,

Have you been to that new place and are you really ready?

A twitter conversation between Ed Charles, Stuart Knox and myself on twitter regarding 'what customers want' prompted my liitle paean.

Disclaimer: To my keenly frequent and anonymouse grammer/spelling/poetry/short-story critic, please be gentle-I'm only having fun.

When you leave your house for dinner
You’re seeking something unique
Things you could never cook at home
But not from Larousse Gastronomique

It must be somewhat modern
Pickled smudges & foraged flowers
Not some retro-throwback
Like a foodie-Austin Powers

So you venture far and venture near
To the hottest place for geezers
Apparently they serve food on bricks
And one eats the food with tweezers

You’ll need detective skills to find this place
and it’s just impossible to book
Where attitude can come in big dollops
Especially if you don’t fit the look

In the queue outside you rub shoulders
With people that share similar expectations
Like being treated as some sheep
With hunger-pain tribulations

You finally get a table
Time to relax and look at the carte
You scan up and down the page
Wild panic rising in your heart

This place has those chefs with tatts
Who toil and sweat and pose
Like those bad-boy wannabees
On the telly shows

The menu seems to be full of
Ingredients of which you cannot equate
Like bits of this and bits of that
And prices to make one faint

One such dish, minimalist at its core
And plain for all to see
a solitary onion and a pear
you’ll have to order three

The courses keep on coming
But no sign of a chicken breast
And some starch would be nice
So you smile and pray for the best

“What’s wrong?” the waiter asks
Seeing your half eaten foam-gellee
“It’s not you it’s me” you say
“My eyes were too big for my belly”

So you swig your drink and you pay your bill
And make your way toward the door
And the doorman gives you a look
That says: ‘You won’t be back for more’

His wise words, “Comfort food, that’s your thing,
There’s no shame in feeling this way,
Some people just don’t get what we do
Perhaps you will one day?”

You thought your boundaries needed pushing
But your senses found way too exciting
All the time you were aching for
Some chips and deep-fried whiting

Ok Ok, you’ve tried the hip new thing
But it’s clearly not for you
Better get back to your mums old house
For her famous Irish Stew.

In search of.....the handwritten family recipe book

One of the great marketing slights of hand of recent years has to be convincing all of us to re-buy our music catalogue from records and tapes, then Cd’s and now over to digital. I never amassed a stockpile of vinyl in my youth but I did manage to collect zillions of tapes, most of which are languishing in our shed exposed to the elements, nesting Starlings and our dogs’ inquisitive snuffling’s.
It’s been possible to convert ones entire cookbook library to digital for some time now. I’m still confused whether this means you have to purchase your entire collection over again or you simply download an app to do it at a price?
The benefits I’m told are that you can access a specific recipe instantly without the need to flick through pages and pages of books. Whilst this seems attractive, especially if you’re in a hurry, it marks a distinct fork in the road for me as a devoted lover of cookbooks. Whilst I freely admit that I do not peruse them as much as I should, I like the fact that they are there, on my shelves, just in case. When a moment of ignorance strikes, an unusual ingredient or technique rears its head or the need to simply cross reference a recipe, nothing in my opinion beats the weighty confidence that holding a cookbook can administer.
We are in the midst of a groundswell of seeking authenticity in our lives on many levels and food is one of them. Cookbooks as I have said before are a snapshot of the times and it’s my opinion that as we progress into the digital age we’ll start to discard those butter smudged and stained pages like we did so with many of our venerable buildings to embrace some questionable architecture to replace them in our cities, just because they were new. In other words we’ll regret doing so. I hope as an antithesis of this prediction that the hand-made and revered family recipe book will make a welcome return.
Committing pen to paper has definiteness about it. Yes you can use a rubber or liquid paper and write over but once it’s done, it’s done. Anything digital can be altered on a whim, polished, pruned and airbrushed. Somewhere in the technology, the snapshot has become fluid and I’m not so sure that altogether a good thing.

Sponge cake tutorial

pre-heat your oven to 170C

whisk ten egg whites to firm

add one cup of castor sugar and mix well
Add the yolks and continue to whisk

Grease and sugar your cake tin


add one and a half cups of self raising flour

and carefully 'fold' in

pour into cake tin

bake for thirty-five mins or until golden and cooked

cool cake, slice in half, spread jam, then whipped cream then berries. place top of cake on, dredge heavily with icing sugar and take place amongst Pantheon of Cakes.

Thankyou Genevieve for the recipe I'll forever use.

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!

Arrive in darkness
Turn the key and put the coffee machine on. Put the beans in the hopper and grind.
Listen to phone messages, check bookings book, read staff message/incident book.
Look at fridge temps. Turn kitchen lights on.
Check proving bread.
Turn on radio. Turn on oven.
Go outside and collect kindling. Light wood oven. Stoke wood oven.
Make muffins, doughnuts, pastries, scones.
Unlock storeroom, outside doors, fridge.
Put tea towels on to dry.
Exchange pig scraps bin.
Feed sourdough starter.
Set kitchen up. Sinks, bins, boards etc.
Check mise en place list.
Check whiteboard for ordering. Check cleanliness of loos.
Make first of many strong coffees for the day. Kitchen staffs begin to arrive.
Plan the day with kitchen staff and confirm specials and who’s doing what.
Go to office to check emails. Read numerous notes from my book keeper.
Glace at formidable payables list, stomach churns.
Check bank balances and EFTPOS transactions. Roll eyes skyward.
Adjust specials menu. Make phone calls to suppliers.
First front of house staff member arrives and I pounce.
Communicate specials, deliveries coming in and discuss shift hand-over issues or service difficulties.
Answer phone calls from the office.
Do a roster projection for the next five weeks taking into account numerous requests for particular days from staff.
Re-do rosters after I get some requests wrong and don’t take into account Public holidays.
Back to the kitchen to put the sourdough bread into the wood oven after dampening the flue.
Pick some tomatoes from our plants outside for the days’ specials.
Quickly knock up some bread dough for the hamburger buns that we have run out of.
I’m stressing that they won’t be made in time for lunch.
Breakfast orders start coming in and the kitchen tempo goes up.
Within minutes all of us are enrolled into breaky service as it is very busy all of a sudden.
We all take turns to run food from the kitchen as the next waiter is 15 mins late for their shift.
Pensive looks are exchanged.
Customers trickle in and two of the kitchen staff are now taking orders on the floor, the café is half full.
Finally, the waiter arrives, apologetic, caught behind a cattle truck.
We scramble back to the kitchen, service looming but we are yet to be fully prepped.
Quickly get the remainder of the cakes ready for the cake counter.
It’s only 10.30am and I’ve had six coffees.

New Food Fringe installation set to challenge Foodies

Incredible that The Fringe Food Festival TM has attracted the likes of much hyped but enigmatic character, Sebastian St Hubbins, to do a ‘Pop-up’ installation for two weeks only.
It’s obvious that this piece of performance art (coincidentally happening at the Adelaide Fringe festival) is homage to the works of St. Hubbins. Recently the German performance artists Gunthav und der Ripper 24 toured with a similarly themed show based around a Munich Hofbrauhaus. To say Hubbins work inspires other artists is to thoroughly understate his broad influence around the globe; he is after all credited with inventing the words ‘Pop-up’ which have been absorbed into the modern day lingua franca.
In his exclusive work, commissioned especially for the Festival and generously funded by noted art patron, mining magnate and living National Treasure, Clive Palmer, St Hubbins is set to electrify the art world with his take on a Melbourne phenomenon, the laneway restaurant and bar.
The premise of the performance is this: Can a restaurant that offers nothing at all, become very popular and make money?
The installation has been meticulously fitted out in consultation with six degrees, meme design and Chris Connell to replicate that edgy, urban feel. Staff have come from the Chadwick agency with a brief to fit the quirky look much associated with Melbourne bars and cafes. Perhaps most significantly, St Hubbins has eschewed the omnipresent touch of chef consultant to the stars, Mr Wilson in favour of little known chef, roof-top-gardener, lane-forager and drain-hunter, Tristan D’Arcy who aims to instil an authentic and up to the minute re-imagining of the foodie zeitgeist.
Hubbins promises there will be queues, there will be attitude and there will be no plates or glass-wear. Adding to the excitement, no bookings, unmovable single tables and hows this for a worlds first: A Non-menu and Non-beverage list!
Inspiring and brave stuff indeed but then again, what else to you expect from a visionary like St Hubbins?

Kitchen words-How George changed the game

I’m sure every family has a set of words that only they understand which leaves outsiders perplexed as to their meaning and origin. In my family for instance, Ch-kers, were matches, Boog-it was sugar and Butter-stumps were chubby fingers, the latter evolving into Chip-shovels as we got older.
Kitchens also have their own words or lingo that differs from environment to environment. I have carried this patois home and on occasion I will firmly say ‘Behind’ as I slalom my way through family members in the confines of our kitchen. I have been known to say it at the Bank, the market and at my children’s school, much to their embarrassment.
It reminds me how on particular word evolved years ago in a busy and cramped galley kitchen where eight chefs and three kitchen-hands toiled per shift, the air was regularly filled with shouts of ‘Behind You!’ as people jostled amongst hot pans, steam and fire. There was this great kitchen hand called George, a Chinese bloke with very little English who would imitate us in with a cheeky grin.
‘Be-Hine-Choo’ he would say weaving his way through the galley. Over time he shortened it to ‘Hine-Choo’ which we all adopted as the use of economical language in service is always preferred. I don’t quite know when it happened but it then morphed into ‘Hi-nch’. I knew it had been adopted by everyone when the boss popped into the kitchen and said ‘Hi-nch’ when he passed through the pot-wash, it was a proud moment for George and he relished it.
Curiously, when someone was in a rush or carrying something extremely hot and dangerous, the word was then shouted at the top of ones lungs as in: ‘Hi-nch! Hi-nch! Hi-nch! This thrice repeated call then became the cry of the kitchen, new staff learned to add to their tool-kit and I still use it to this day.
Post Scriptum. Sadly, a couple of years after I moved on, I learned of the death of George at the railway crossing in Bell St. Northcote on his way to work. His word though, lives on.
Hi-nch!

Art or Craft?

When appreciating art most people fall into two distinct categories, those that ‘get’ the abstract and those that ‘don’t’. The latter group tend toward realism and in my opinion in many cases this rounds the work down to technique over content. Whilst the ability can be breathtaking in its depictions and remarkable with its intricacies two of the most common phrases that the artist/craftsperson is likely to hear are: ‘That looks SO real’ or ‘That must have taken AGES to make?’ Both are meant to be complimentary.
Now if we look at the way cooking is presented in eateries outside of the home environment, could you apply the same litmus test?
I think you can.
‘The more someone knows about food the less they want it messed around with’, is an idiom that I’ve always remembered but I reckon it has even more significance in today’s world. It takes some understanding and interest in food to come to a point where one might appreciate the taste and texture of an heirloom carrot over one from a Monsanto catalogue.
Put those same baby carrots into a dish where they have the leading role and stand back and regard the audience as it divides like Mitosis does an amoeba.
‘Its just carrots, I could have done that’ or ‘$17 for a plate of carrots, what a rip-off!’
This is not the point. Of course you could do it and price is relative, the point is you didn’t do it because you aren’t thinking about the subject in the same way as the cook. So: Does this make that carrot dish any less worthy just because it has taken a familiar and commoditised item and interpreted it with a reverence that is unnoticed by many people? I don’t think so.
It just means that ‘you’ don’t value this interpretation. This would be all OK if it not for the routinely verbose methods of objection which ricochet like bullets around dining rooms, blogs and reviews-sites until they strike their target and become validated by being read or listened to.
Just because you don’t ‘get it’ does not make it wrong.

Menu of self awareness

Menu

Prix Fixe

To Begin and the Journey or the Journey and to Conclude-$ Half a lifetime
To Begin, the Journey and to Conclude-$ A lifetime

No split Bills

please allow decades for your choices


To Begin

Take time to be in the moment
Be grateful for friendship
See the good in actions and words
Appreciate people for who they are
Get to know yourself
Celebrate difference

The Journey

See things through
Listen to other opinions
Be patient
Accept change
See the funny side
Don’t take love for granted

To Conclude

Think of others
Make peace
Say ‘I love you’ more often
Take the time to understand
Let it go
Forgive yourself

Drink and make merry

Patterns made easy

Celebrated with ale, that age betwixt childhood and
adolescence,
The rotunda at night, stolen gulps, smokes and acquiescence.
All manner of triumphs enabled by septic adult sorts.
And ne’er a win, lose or draw without the pulling of corks.
The weekends come and the practise emerges
Of hastily downed fluids to prompt social urges.
Galvanised thru proficiency and earning a new mate
whose beery breathed counsel one can henceforth relate.
One's very own composition, an ensemble of bottlenecks to strum,
Now to celebrate with keys in the ignition and nursing the rum.

S.Cumper Feb 2012

My Empathy-Cred

We reclined, replete after a long leisurely lunch, children played outside and our teenagers hid inside and schemed. A introspective silence descended as we, comfortable enough in our friendship not to have a white noise of words buzz around meaninglessly. Each counting his or her blessings, surveying the bucolic scene outside and the tingled by the warm sea breeze lazily sweeping from the estuary the conversation turned to the injustices of the third world.
It always strikes me when, after a what is sometimes the briefest moment of pure enjoyment, where one feels really great to be alive, some of us have this guilt that creeps into the space where the pleasure sat barely long enough to leave a warm impression.
Its like this inability to embrace our fortunes without the caboose of anxiety and guilt following close behind. This mood loomed over our post lunch spread.
Around the table, a tale of injustice and hardship from the less fortunate peoples around the globe, each more severe than the last until we were all mired in a gloomy rut, the inevitable terminus on this straight conversational track.
Scratching the surface of the issue that we rely on impoverished and exploited people to keep us living the way we are accustomed to is a great way to paint yourself into a morally ambiguous corner.
The harsh fact is that dominant societies have always taken advantage of others less prosperous. Does this make it right? Of course not. Surely trying to buy ethically is a start? Yes it is.
However don't kid yourselves that by purchasing a goat for a village is going to insulate you from further notions of uncomfortableness when the overwhelming nature of this problem niggles at your conscience.
Its a particularly middle class malady, all this hand wringing between sips of Chardy in my opinion. Yes its an insidious and gargantuan problem but it deserves to be more front and centre not just a way to prove ones empathy-cred after a good feed at the tough.

Goodbye Tony Bilson, hello journeyman chef

I spied you observing from the pot-wash.
Your searching eyes dart from the sweeping gestures of the pasta maker
and the circulations of a hand stirring the Sugo to settle momentarily on a boiling pot of salted water.
‘Le system’ is already obvious to you, yet so hard to teach many.
An angry burn catches your attention on the hand sweeping excess flour from a bench and cause’s you to blink-away the imagined sting as the flour wafts down to settle like a grey shadow on the floor.
The broom in your hands stirs, you know what to do but you don’t wait for instruction.
This gesture sets you apart and makes me grin; I remember my younger self, similarly disposed.
Not yet ground down, jaundiced or fatigued.
Back when turning the page meant another exciting revelation, not the closure of another venerable institution or the melancholic lament of a jubilant time long since passed.
Perhaps one’s life does flash before our eyes when we face the finality of the future, our baton change heralding a time to let it all go, like a full-time match klaxon.
I read Tony Billson’s words yesterday and they have been knocking around in my head ever since.
‘I’m leaving restaurants behind’ he said conclusively. I only read the words but they detonated with a despondency that made me shiver.
A lifetime of cooking and of culture: all for what exactly?
To walk away from this intricate and delicate web which had linked so many people through the years and generations, through the shared experience of being nurtured at the table shook my foundations. Is it just vanity to suggest that a legacy of sorts remains, that one has added a shiny veneer to the fibres of our culture by dedicating ones career to restaurants?
All those ideas, meals, service, craft and time that had transpired are immeasurable really. All, except in this case, for an inevitable truth: it all ended up in the toilet, metaphorically and literally.
For such a swashbuckling voyage to end so forlornly, going out with a whimper as it were and leaving the question whether it was all worth while unanswered, compels me to consider the bright-eyed person in front of me, my hand trembling over the authority that will ensnare or liberate them, depending if history will be charitable or not.
Years from now, when I’ve become garden-mulch, will this person drag their gaze up from their bloated belly and aching limbs, calloused fingers and liver damage to declare: ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the stoves’.

Unsolicited email from a friend

Hello friend,
My name is Cecil St Hubbins. I am a 45 YO white male from a privileged background and I am seeking your donations and assistance to help me reach my goal.
When I reached my mid-forties, I felt that I’ve still got my joie de vivre and needed to find a way to demonstrate this, you know, to show that I have still my Mojo, however I don’t want to simply prove my physical prowess by doing a marathon, trek or a mountain climb. I will take the path less travelled and methodically work my way toward achieving my aspiration.
Initially, as a sort of training run, I intend to eat and drink in all the two to three hatted restaurants in Australia and stay in five-star accommodation along the way. I know it’s ambitious, a little bit whacky and has never been attempted before but I have got this urge to do something that really matters.
‘Cecil you are a NUT! And you are CRAZY to try this’ I hear you say and yes it’s been the story of my life, always challenging the status quo. Like when I was in Primary School, I lobbied our Council to sponsor my family and I on a fact-finding trip to Switzerland to study children’s playgrounds. Or the time in year ten when I received a grant to visit a string of top flight Tennis Acadamy's on America’s East Coast. These experiences forged a conviction in me, a principle that has burned intensely throughout my life and that belief was if I wanted something so badly, someone else would always have to pay for it.
So as you can imagine I’ll need lots of cash. These kinds of undertaking aren’t cheap and I know you have got to dig deep. I know you can do it though, I have faith so here’s some helpful ways to get you started to help you save for me:

Instead of getting those lamb chops for dinner try onions instead
Walk instead of buying petrol
Sell off useless old family jewellery
Take up sewing instead of purchasing new clothes
Cut down on unnecessary personal hygiene products
Trim the kids’ school lunches

You get the picture.
Look there’s no denying it’ll be tough but remember when you’re at a really low ebb, spare a thought for me, attempting my Herculean challenge and it’ll put everything you’ve sacrificed into perspective, You’ll be making one man very, very happy.
Thanks so much
Cecil
BSB 123-456
Acc No-789 456 123

An idle moment on Twitter

Mr Sta-Puft says: Nice list Steve

#foodhorrormovies Groat Busters
#foodhorrormovies The lair of the White Wormwood
#foodhorrormovies Vegeta, Mistress of the Dark
#foodhorrormovies Julia Childs-Play
#foodhorrormovies Jello Grave
#foodhorrormovies Salads Lot
#foodhorrormovies The Off Spring-Lamb
#foodhorrormovies Herbraiser
#foodhorrormovies or Invasion of the Bodum Snatchers?
#foodhorrormovies Whatever happened to Baby jam?
#foodhorrormovies the Floating-Island of Dr Moreau
#foodhorrormovies or Rosemarys babycorn?
#foodhorrormovies Fear no Edam
#foodhorrormovies Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hydrolized vegetable protein
#foodhorrormovies Resident Edam
#foodhorrormovies Dawn of the Dhaal
#foodhorrormovies Motel Gel
#foodhorrormovies Children of the Cornjack
#foodhorrormovies The Hills have Pink-Eyes
#foodhorrormovies Crepe Show
#foodhorrormovies Next of Kimchi
#foodhorrormovies Frittata the 13th
#foodhorrormovies The Edam Dead
#foodhorrormovies Dead and Burritoed
#foodhorrormovies Pomme Night
#foodhorrormovies Munster-House
#foodhorrormovies Nightmare on Elk meat
#foodhorrormovies The Ramen
#foodhorrormovies Little shop of Hors d' oeuvres
#foodhorrormovies The return of the Liverwurst Dead
#foodhorrormovies An American weisswurst in London
@Commonerfitzroy Poultry-geist

What IS authentic anyway?

Hey look, that Asian bloke CAN make pasta!

Hey do you ever peer into the kitchen or the dining room of an ethnic restaurant and wonder if the staff originate from the same country as the cuisine they serve? You often see the signs boasting ‘Authentic Thai’ or ‘Genuine Japanese’ but are likely to encounter some industrious people of Chinese or other Asian ethnicity predominating. I’ve heard first hand that many people are disparagingly dismissive of such eateries, deeming them not worthy because they do not apparently have the Bona fides to cook the food of their namesake cuisine because they are not from that country. Curiously, these same people usually won’t bat an eyelid though when they are not knee deep in Giuseppe’s or Pierres when they visit the posh new Italian or the hip French themed bistro and, but instead are served predominantly by Anglo’s. To me this is an ignorant view and inherently racist at its core.
You see there’s a kind of reverse cultural snobbism at play here. Take a white boy cooking sexy Thai or a Frenchman doing up to the minute Sth American and we all go, yea I geddit, ahead of the curve, they’ve funked it up, cherry picked the best bits and re-imagined the cuisine to make it more contemporary.
Conversely get some hard working Vietnamese people who decide to open a Tapas bar because it’s the food that they love and we collectively screw our faces up, thinking and in my opinion quite patronisingly, ‘What do they know about Tapas? And that they should ‘stick to what they know best’.
Equally how many ‘Modern Australian’ restaurants where black-Ninja clad Anglo chefs toss out Viet rice paper rolls that are as authentically Vietnamese as Wagyu beef is to a Subway roll.
I’ve written before about my theory on the diaspora of ethnic cuisines and their relationship with their adopted nation who were once their conquerors or colonists and the at times superior relationship we have over them. This often manifests in how little or how much we expect to pay for their food.
However this whole notion of Authenticity is really very problematic. Firstly, who or what determines the Real McCoy? Secondly there is no room for the notion that cuisines develop over time to embrace new foods and techniques. Thirdly and this might be the most contentious, is a cuisine stagnant or dead because it has not evolved? Look around the world to see how 1950’s Naples has influenced the notion of Italian eateries and then look how out of touch it is when compared to the modern Italian restaurants today. Of course there are some traditions that cling after all good dishes eventually come to their conclusion having been whittled over generations to arrive at their identifiable terminus.
Immigrants have always made use of what’s around them to try and replicate flavours from the old country and if this goes on long enough, eventually these modifications ‘become’ the cuisine. Just look at Malaysia as a perfect example where a style of cookery has embraced other influences and morphed into its own identity. So what would we consider the truly authentic tastes of say, Penang, Pre-Indian and pre Chinese? I’m not so sure.
Cuisine is always changing, like language and I think it’s becoming more difficult as the world shrinks to find anything really authentic, so anyone should be able to cook it.

Chefs working in the country

I love looking at chefs ads in the various papers. Between, them and sales reps, they’ve always been great source of information to the state of play within the hospitality industry.
It’s interesting to read the hooks used to try and lure people to that place of employ. ‘A surfers paradise’, ‘Sea-tree Change’ and ‘No weekends’ often cited as bait. It makes me giggle as elements of the job and its responsibilities are often way down on the list, it’s as if they’re targeting only the positives aspects of such a position and not examine what they’ll be expecting from the successful applicant. In fact many ads are actually repentant in their tone, making apologies for their trading hours, conditions of employment and location. I don’t understand this tact, I mean primarily the business want a worker not someone who expects to be enjoying life as a tourist in Club Med. There’s no denying the fact that it’s a challenge to lure people to a job but emphasising these facets only leads to both parties not being entirely clear as to what expectations each has of the other.
I read some of these ads and expect that between bouts of surfing, bushwalking, kayaking, diving, hobby farming, playing sport, following ones hobby and generally enjoying a carefree life, one is ‘fitting-in’ the demands of the kitchen and one employment obligations.
Anyone who knows kitchen, the kitchens that make most of their food that is, will attest that there’s very little time for other pursuits and days off are often spend recovering from long bouts of work. In fact, I don’t know of any kitchen staff working in busy environments who have time for that work-life balance that we hear so often recited.
The reality is that in rural locations, if you have a job in a restaurant or café it means that the place is one of the rare businesses that is busy. This remarkable in its own right, that a country business is defying national trends and managing to swim against the tide that many regional areas are suffering. The irony then is that you’ll be working very hard and often harder than your city cousins because the business cannot afford to hire as many staff. This then has a knock-on effect on your time off, meaning you’ll more than likely be doing extra shifts when it gets busier or if someone is sick or on holidays.
So, although working in the country definitely has its benefits (after all its what I have chosen to do so I’m speaking from experience here) it’s not all meandering down country lanes foraging for Death-Caps you know!

Profit-why is it a dirty word in Hospitality?

Interesting post from Rita today prompted me to bring up a matter that many restaurateurs and café owners consider to be a taboo issue, not so much for them but for some members of the general public. This topic is rarely ever acknowledged yet alone talked about and for many people the mere mention of it causes them great distaste and in some cases revulsion. Banished to the darkest corners, its revered and guiding flame reduced to a faint flicker of an ancient candle eternally at risk of being snuffed out by critical exhalations. Tis the Mercantile Love that dare not speak its name and thy name is ‘Profit’.
For reasons unclear to me, some people seem decidedly uncomfortable with hospitality businesses not only aiming to make a profit but also declaring it with verve and gusto. It just isn’t the done thing apparently, well at least for some in this country, perplexing really! It seems that to celebrate one’s raison d’etre is definitely on the nose. Does this have anything to do with the thought of others perhaps perceived to be doing better than ourselves? Is it too simple to suggest the Tall Poppy syndrome at play? Or do we project a false sort of altruism onto all hospitality businesses, deluding ourselves that they are doing it ‘For the Love’ and thus making excess money off us is somehow not in the spirit of generosity? Adding to this is a greater awareness these days of how much food costs so when we see something sold at a much higher price in a restaurant, a familiar item that we can purchase for the home, we rightly question its value but then I think we got a step further and we fall into the old ‘They’re making a killing’ kind of mentality. The next step down on this dreary ladder is the notion that ‘well if they’re busy then they must be only appealing to the masses’. This mind-set never fails to make me giggle. Firstly: if lots of people like something, it does not automatically mean that they are not providing something worthy or of note. Secondly: Isn’t it a moment to celebrate that a business is doing well rather than seeking a reason to fault it on shaky, less than egalitarian grounds?
Augmenting this attitude as we submit ourselves to a ‘service’ of sorts in an eatery or bar, it might be hard to shake off the reality that we are not in fact the Dukes and Duchesses, recipients of this attention but merely paying customers, forfeiting money in exchange to feel so for a moment. The cold reality is that someone is profiting from our inability to find peace, contentment or escape in its ingestible forms and this ruins the intoxicating charade.
Not wanting to end on a sour note nor make myself a large target for the suggestion that profit is all I’m interested in, which those who know me will attest is not my only passion I will just say that it should not be deemed a dirty word.

Vicki Pollard on the ethics of blogging

The straight-talking Vicky Pollard on: the ethics of blogging, crowd-turfing, cash-for-comment, positive restaurant reviewing and credibility. Just substitute the Barristers questions for your own, the answers will magically be the same.

A message from the Porch

To my beautiful kids,
My Mum enjoying a Champers in Heaven
My dear ol’ Da,
Pockets of family, dotted around the country
Old friends across the seas and across the road,
New friends, in-between friends and those malnourished by friendships lost
Those bereaved and burying and those expecting and delivering
Bertie and Nellie who have learned to begrudgingly accept one another.
The stoic bloke who slashes our paddocks
All the many people who have ever made me laugh out loud
Those inspiring makers, growers, farmers and real food people
Writers whom leave me bedazzled
The patient, the forgiving and the accepting
Even the grudge-holders
The people I’ve upset over the years: I’m sorry-I know I can be difficult
the haters, the judgementalists and the intolerant
Small-minded people, the people who are cruel to animals
the people who are just plain cruel.
To optimists, dreamers, schemers and rascals.
Of course to everyone else I've neglected to mention.

But most of all, to my beautiful, loyal and supportive wife, Cate

Happy New Year

Love Steve
x

A Christmas remembrance of times past

It was a London Christmas for me in 1987. I spied from the Hotels larder kitchen windows, piles of grey wet melting sludge on the footpath of Vine Street below, which you’ll know, is famous for its Police Station in Monopoly. It was a shocking realisation that snow does not always arrive and settle in fluffy white puffs like it did in all the movies and postcards I had seen as a kid. Prior to my trip abroad and imagining a bucolic England gripped by a good-natured frostiness, I’d naively pictured crisp white icing that coated everything and scores of ruddy faced, mitten clad and jolly people darting everywhere with large ribboned boxes destined for the tree. For someone who had never seen snow in real life, these melting grey stains accompanied by the grim faces of puffa-jacketed chavs darting through the bleak chill was a major letdown for me in my first Northern hemisphere winter. I felt very lonely and homesick for the warm glow of the Wilson’s Prom Summer I’d left behind.
As I had no family in which to enjoy Christmas and that I lived in a hostel which reeked so much of melancholy that even limiting my time there just to sleep was almost too much to bear I put my hand up to work at the Hotel. This meant the staff ‘with family’ could have Christmas off whilst us ‘orphans’ had to work. This didn’t bother me at all for the reasons I stated above however it did mean that I got New Years Eve and day off, which to a young unattached working tourist in a foreign land with a leave pass, was almost like winning the lottery.
On duty that night from the top down went like this: Senior deputy General manager, Assistant housekeeper, Front desk personnel(a few) Executive Sous chef, Assistant F & B manager, Deputy Floor manager, Chef de Rang(one step below Head waiter) Sous Chef pastry, Head kitchen Porter, Chef de Partie, 1st commis chef, 2nd commis chef(me) and two kitchen Porters.
In the bowels of the kitchen with just a few festive sounds from the street outside slipping in as the heavy back door opened and closed to exhale jubilant staff on their way to festivities, the above staff were invisible, except inevitably for the kitchen team whom unlike senior management, have nowhere to hide.
After a while the Exec sous chef disappeared, presumably to shag one of the Front desk girls in one of the numerous dark banqueting rooms. The Nigerian Head kitchen porter, Pastry Sous Chef and the Chef de Partie were in the wash-up area deep into a game of poker.
This left me and Snorky, the 1st commis chef, so named because of his likeness to the long nosed and floppy-eared character on the Banana Splits to our own devices whilst the two kitchen porters wafted around like spirits cleaning this and that, communicating in their mother tongue and occasionally shooting an envious glance over to our white uniformed and ethnically sanctioned idleness.
As the night progressed my colleague Snorky became increasingly drunk on the alcoholic flavourings nicked from the pastry chef’s cupboard and I marvelled at how quickly hazelnut, walnut and almond essence could get one inebriated.
Unluckily for me some hotel guests ordered food from the Room Service menu.
Snorky, quickly but unsteadily dispatched himself to the butchery to cut some Porterhouse for the steak sandwiches which had been requested. Gathering and combining all the other ingredients I waited for him to appear with the two portions of steak. As I turned the corner into the butchery to find out what the delay was, it became apparent that Snorky was otherwise engaged to a higher calling.
On the industrial sized wooden butchers block lay a beautifully trimmed whole aged sirloin. Along its length were vicious and random slash marks inflicted by a heavy but dull edged instrument and my eyes settled on the weapon in question, a huge cast iron cleaver buried in the crimson meat to the rivet on the handle.
Snorky however, was standing on the workbench forcing burger mince into the wire mesh grill of the speaker in the in house Tannoy communication system.
‘Oui Chef’ he kept saying sarcastically to the speaker all the while the mince muffled the incoming words and orders.
Sensing trouble I did my best to volley back all the incoming Room service orders on my own as Snorky did his best to decorate the Butchery walls with Poussin, Woodcock and Grouse.
As these things happen and right at the parabola of service the assistant F & B manager decide to make his rounds. I knew this by the flurry of activity over at the pot wash area around the corner as the impromptu card table was melded back into the conformity of the kitchen. I had to act quickly, if the manager was Snorky in this state, he’d be fired on the spot.
Somehow and in the nick of time I managed to convince Snorky that the main Banquet kitchen was in need of mince in the Tannoy system and he eagerly shuffled off, both hands cupping clods of red beef mince just as the Cuban heels of the manager clicked into the Larder kitchen. His wispy moustache and thin angular features unkindly reminded me of a rat peering through a toilet brush as his eyes darted around my work area, keen to settle on some perceived slovenliness. Finding none he minced off down the hall toward the service elevators and the main kitchen below.
Picking my moment, I jumped into the other lift, jabbed my finger on the button to the banquet kitchen and the old lift groaned into action after I slid the metal cage door shut with a clatter. It shuddered and moved upward past exposed and ancient pipes and conduits slick with years of grime captured by staccato shafts of flickering light.
Before I arrived at my intended floor I could hear the evidence growing louder of what I assumed to be Snorky’s snoring.
The gate crashed open to reveal him lying on his back, mouth opened in a trembling yawn, hands smeared with mince beef and the most unpleasant snore emitting from his gob.
Let’s just say it took an age to steal him down through the kitchens, past the sous chef and duty manager unhindered and into the awaiting clutches of the idling cab at the back door. The Pound notes pressed into the cabbies hands did nothing to soften the arched eyebrows which seemed to convey ‘I’ve seen it all before matey’
I finally relaxed and watched the red tail lights of the cab merge in the distance with all the other Christmas decorations along Vine St and took a swig of my bottle of Porter, ‘Merry Christmas Snorky’ I said to myself and went back inside.

A Christmas recipe-Turkey Pie

Still life with ingredients

List of ingredients AKA-why I'm not a signwriter


Le methode but minus the finished pie, sorry, the mix is still marinating!