Australian bush – ALMOST ITALIAN

In My Kitchen, October 2021

In hindsight, when it comes to kitchens and cooking, 2020 was the year of sourdough baking. It appears that 2021 is emerging as the year of the picnic. As we tentatively step out of lockdown, picnicking in the great outdoors has become an exciting option. The media, social or otherwise, has jumped on this bandwagon, with food sections dedicated to suitable recipes, and an article in the Guardian about famous picnic paintings. There will, no doubt, be a plethora of picnic cookbooks coming our way. A few packed sandwiches, some cheese, breadstick, purchased dips in plastic tubs and a thermos of tea, does not a picnic make, though it’s a speedy solution to lunch in the park on a road trip. A good picnic is a carefully orchestrated event, where the food excites the palate and the setting is well chosen to give pleasure per se, enticing one to loiter at the table, the fresh air enhancing the flavour of the food, or encouraging a postprandial nap on a rug under a shady tree or on comfy folding chairs. A tartan rug really does add that traditional picnic touch.

Sugarloaf dam, with some excellent walks and picnic tables

When thinking about the accoutrements for a picnic, I am reminded of a wonderful passage by Marlena de Blasi,

“always ready in the boot is a basket fitted with wine glasses, two of our most beautiful ones, plus two Bohemian cut-crystal glasses, napkins made from the unstained parts of a favourite table cloth, a box full of odd silver, a wine screw, a good bottle of red wine – always replaced immediately after consumption – a flask of grappa, a Spanish bone- handled folding knife, a pouch of sea salt, a small blue and white ceramic pepper grinder, plates of various sizes, a tiny plastic bottle of dishwashing liquid, two linen kitchen towels and paper towels”.₁

Now that is organised. I would add a blanket and two comfy chairs.

On our most recent picnic, the day was still and the sun shone gently. A day for hats and sunglasses, but not forcing us under cover. The event was organised by a friend to celebrate a significant birthday. The setting was perfect as only the Australian bush can be on a clement day: the stringybark gums sparkled in that grey green Australian way, like a Piers Bateman painting. The bench seats were draped in tartan rugs, the table covered with a linen cloth, linen napkins, beautiful mismatched champagne flutes, and retro brown stoneware. And there was Moët Chandon on arrival. A warm cheese and artichoke dish was served on sourdough: I had forgotten how good this classic dish is. It was followed by a zucchini tart, and an exciting composed salad. I made the birthday cake, a rather over the top concoction. As bench chairs are fine for eating but not so comfortable for loitering, we retired to our folding chairs for duration.

A picnic for the learned elders with tartan and Moet.

I plan to go on many a midweek picnic over the next few months while the weather is still mild. The maps are out, there are plenty of unexplored spots close to home- national parks, waterfalls, formal parks next to weirs, village parks with lush shade and tables. I’m thinking more about those classic picnic dishes, such as French onion and gruyere tarts and quiches. I was reminded about the tarts of Elizabeth David in the excellent recent article in The Saturday Paper by Annie Smithers of Du Fermier fame. And I also plan to improve my pastry making techniques thanks to the opening chapters of All Day Baking: Savoury, not Sweet, by Michael James, a book I acquired recently.

A long anticipated purchase, the pasta attachment for my KitchenAid mixer, finally arrived last week. The item took exactly 32 days to arrive. Following its journey on the Australian Post app, the parcel travelled from Sydney to a sorting centre in Western Australia then back to Melbourne, an unnecessary journey of around 8000 kms. I know things are slow at Australia Post at present but this one wins the prize. Despite this, I love this gadget and will be using it often.

Fresh Tagliatelle, butter, crispy sage leaves

Further cooking episodes in my kitchen included the weekly Indian night, in this case a Palak Paneer. The paneer came via the supermarket and is definitely not in the same street as the homemade version. One hack I have since discovered is to soak prepackaged paneer in hot water for twenty minutes before using it. It becomes softer and less rubbery. The home made lime pickle was opened for the occasion. It is the perfect accompaniment.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 20211002_192644.jpg — Indian night with palak paneer and lime pickle.

I was keen to make some spanakopita rolls which required some good firm ricotta. My son graciously found me a tub, which contained 1.5 kilos!! Once opened, ricotta has a very small cooking window before it goes off. Consequently we had ricotta in everything last week. The cake below included 400 g of ricotta, almond meal, lemons, and 6 eggs as well as sugar. Nice, but incredibly filling.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 20211001_105645.jpg

Another 450g of ricotta went into these lovely warm savoury ricotta patties. They were a success and the recipe will be handy over summer when staring down the basket of leftover ricotta. Served with leftover marinated peppers and capers.

Blistering a bunch of red peppers, peeling then marinating them in olive oil, garlic, pink salt and herbs is something I often do for handy lunches.

And now, getting back to picnics, you are invited to Manet’s picnic in the park, Dejeuner sur l’Herbe, painted in 1862-3, an intriguing painting. That nude woman is looking right at you, she’s caught your eye, she knows what you’re thinking which is just as well, because the two over dressed dandies look like they’ve drunk the contents of that bottle: one chap has rather glazed eyes while the other gesticulates madly- he’s probably a real bore. Maybe the oversized woman in the creek will leap out and splash them with a bit of luck. And as for that picnic food, not much effort went into it.

Monet's Dejeuner sur l'Herbe sparked uproar when it was shown at the Salon des Refuses in 1861

Happy picnicking dear reader.

Thanks Sherry, at Sherry’s pickings, for managing to host this group, despite not feeling well of late. Brava Sherry.

p 249. Tuscan Secrets, A bittersweet adventure. Marlena de Blasi, 2004
I provided a link to The Saturday Paper but understand that access is based on subscription. This, along with its daily Post, and the Monthly, is worth every cent. In these strange times, you are what you read.

Over the Hills and Far Away

Day 26. Living in the hills on the periphery of Melbourne, it’s always fairly quiet around here. We don’t have neighbours within hearing distance, and the road isn’t close by. There’s one small general store, a primary school, a rural supplies store, a pub, bakery and a pizza place. Most of these are now closed or open on a limited basis. Time has come to a standstill. The nearby flight path is silent, the early morning workers’ cars are few and far between. The kitchen clock tics more loudly, evoking memories of dark, claustrophobic antique shops crammed with heavy wooden furniture, tapestries, Victoriana and mantelpiece clocks. The wooden beams creak overhead, expanding and contracting with the day’s heat; an annoying fly hums about, landing on my arm as I write. This deathly quiet seems like I’ve stepped back in time to another place in another century. On days like this, the black dog hovers too close for comfort.

It’s almost four weeks of self-isolation now and I can count the days of escape on one hand. Simple pleasures- a walk around an oval, a short drive to a nearby township to pick up a special order, or to drop something off from a distance, a long awaited postal delivery- have become the highlights of my month.

One of those outings occurred on Day 10. We left home early as the morning fog still hovered above the creek valley below our place. The drive took us through the hills that form part of our district and followed the steep descent to the township of Yarra Glen, suspended below the road in a pool of blinding light. Travelling along the fertile plains of the Yarra Valley to Coldstream, we passed by vineyards and strawberry farms, fields of dark leafed cabbage and paddocks of sheep and cattle. Our mission was to collect a few day old chickens from a hatchery, a necessary and essential trip, officer, in order to provide future laying hens for my small self- sufficient farm. It is a familiar landscape: I’ve been travelling through these same hills for forty years. Yet on this occasion, the landscape seemed to sing with extraordinary beauty. I discovered new vistas, old railway bridges and distant mountain ranges that I had ignored all these years. Less traffic, the cold, clean air of the morning, the silver sun rising through the glinting frost in the valley, I felt a rare euphoria, a joy that emanated from being immersed in nature.

I made a resolution on Day 10, that when all this is over, I want to go on more picnics in the nearby hills and valleys. To be a part of this landscape while we still have it. To do what our ancestors did on their days off. And when I’m more confident about the state of the world, perhaps I’ll take a longer drive to other beautiful landscapes and bush within Victoria, to visit this land with new eyes.

Joy to the World? Christmas 2019

I remember the turning point vividly, that year when I decided that enough was enough, which in reality, was far too much. It was the beginning of my awakening about Christmas Day, an ongoing change of mindset, involving rewriting tradition and re-evaluating family, place and gifting.

It was my turn to host the Christmas family lunch in 2016, a rotating event shared by my three siblings. As my mother, the matriarch, was ( and is ) alive and well, an annual Christmas lunch was taken for granted, but it was a tradition that we all began to feel uneasy about as the logistics of hosting and catering for the day became a nightmare. At the age of 93 that year, and still living independently in her own home, it was a grand event involving her four children, their partners, her grandchildren and partners, and her great grandchildren, a cast of 32 people or more. Despite discussions about simplifying the day, it never happened. Along with cleaning, house sprucing, decorating and shopping, preparation involved finding 32 sets of plates, cutlery, and glasses suitable for water, wine and beer, 32 assorted chairs, six tables, and tablecloths to cover them, clearing a room large enough to hold the tables and guests comfortably, the assembling of serving platters, table napkins, and the emptying of fridges to store food on the day. Eskies full of ice were strategically placed around for drinks, extra bins ready for recycling. On that occasion, a pissoir for outside male use was erected so that at least some of the 30 plus people wouldn’t flush away our essential tank water supply. Long lists began in early December, the whole month dedicated to planning the lunch, with inside/outdoors options considered, subject to weather conditions.

On that Christmas day, like so many other years in Australia, the weather turned hot and windy, the north wind blowing at gale force through my property perched on a ridge in the country. The temperature was 39ºc, and along with strong wind gusts of over 50 kmph, an outside garden event was definitely out of the question. The day was declared a Total Fire Ban day, which meant no barbecuing could take place. The day was categorised as Severe under Victoria’s bushfire rating codification system, introduced after the Black Saturday bushfire of 2009. Part of the preparation for the day always involved this unnerving uncertainty about the weather- could we have a BBQ, maybe a picnic outside, what about a buffet on the veranda? None of these options were suitable for a blustery, terrifying total fire ban day.

On that day in question, three Christmases ago, I watched my mother sit quietly, sometimes with eyes closed, on a couch in the only air- conditioned room of our house, which wasn’t functioning very well given the constant door opening by excited children and desperate smokers. On phones and computers, others nervously watched the CFA ( Country Fire Authority) information site and weather reports: my brother received a barrage of anxious calls from his partner about her bushfire fears for her area. The happy young children opened an obscene number of gifts, someone forgot to bring their KK gift, a second- nephew didn’t know our names, younger generation partners said very little and you just knew they would rather be somewhere else, but that invisible hand of tradition forced them to attend. And I cooked, stood on my feet all day, ate very little, orchestrated and at times delegated, spoke to no one much, checked fire reports and found it hard to smile. I should have cancelled the day, my mother was struggling with the heat. One of the most unnerving aspects of the day was the fear of evacuating a large group of city dwellers who had no experience or theoretical knowledge of what to do if confronted with an imminent bushfire. The day did not make sense.

Pistachio amaretti. Much lighter than hot plum pudding. Rewriting tradition.

After the guests left, we sat among the mess and debris and breathed a sigh of relief. Slowly regarding the waste of leftover food and paper, discarded tissue hats and bits of plastic landfill from bonbons, dishes and cloths to be washed and furniture to be re-arranged, I realised that I felt deeply upset and exasperated. Never again. On that day, I made a firm resolution that our Christmas traditions needed to change.

Amaretti Siciliani di Agrigento. Perfumed with orange, spices of the Orient.

Since then, I’ve found some peace and no longer practice self flagellation about Christmas Day. As I was using my last piece of Christmas paper last week, one stashed from years before, I did so with real joy. The empty cardboard roll symbolised the end to another wasteful practice. I turned to my fabric stash and cut into a colourful Indian Sari to wrap a gift. I also discovered another stash of op-shop rolls of ribbons suitable for tying gifts. I assembled a small bag of assorted fabric oddments dedicated to this purpose, tucking it into the linen press. Like the Japanese gift wrapping, Furoshiki, I am pleased to send my fabrics and ribbons on their way- they’ll be reused, they’ll travel, they might even return. I’ve made a few batches of Amaretti biscuits, the spice reminiscent of a more ancient tradition of gifts, perfumed with the scent of orange. My adult children ask what food they should bring and I answer, whatever you like, something simple. Mr T now spends his pre-Chrismas days doing essential maintenance for our survival in the Australian bush, removing piles of fallen leaves and twigs from the front of our house, an ongoing task during bushfire season, a season that now stretches longer than in years gone by. Sadly, the season coincides with Christmas. We’re slowly getting our priorities right.

Baci di dama. Hazelnut and chocolate kisses.

The joy of red bottle brush ( Kings Park Calistemon) in flower at Christmas.

Local Joy, Local Madness

There’s nothing more local than a home garden. I often wander around with my camera, capturing seasonal change, growth and decay. The garden takes me away from my moods, my inner chatter, my inside world. In any season, il giardino is quiet and full of sensory pleasure.

Another ock for my buddha — Another rock for my old Buddha

This Buddha sits close to our house. It is the stone Buddha from our old garden, one of a handful of surviving objects from the Black Saturday Bushfires of 2009 which destroyed our home. When I find an interesting looking stone or rock, I add it to Buddha’s feet. Bushfire is a hot topic in the local area, with extremely divergent views on how to deal with the bush. One local plant, Burgan, is at the centre of this debate, a bush known by the CFA, a fire fighting association, as ‘petrol bush’. Due to its high flammability and tendency to spread like an invasive weed, most locals like to keep this pest under control on their bush blocks. Permit requirements to clear Burgan were dropped by our local shire council (Nillumbik) after the Black Saturday bushfires. Seven years after that fire, which razed a quarter of the shire, with 42 deaths within the council’s borders and hundreds of homes destroyed, the local council plans to reinstate permits to clear this bush on privately held land. Our local Council has become wedded to an extreme ideology which is at odds with reality. Local Madness.

View from my front door. A dam is a wonderful thing and was the first improvement we made on our land after arriving in our current home almost 7 years ago. It is our local water supply for the vegetable garden, a local water supply for the CFA fire brigade should they need it and is also a local watering hole for native animals and birds. Can you believe that our Local Council does not approve of dams on private property? New local planning laws have become fraught with red tape. A line has been drawn on a map which includes this wonderful dam. It is now part of a Core Habitat zone, which, in effect, prevents us from removing any local plants from its perimeter or fixing the walls should it spring a leak, without resorting to a lengthy and expensive local permit process. Local madness.

Planting in purple and blue attracts more bees to the garden. The local bees have been sleepy this season as the weather has been too cold and wet. Now that the sun is shining and the Echium are out, the bees are returning. This blue flower is often completely covered with bees.

Borage flowers can be used in salads, but more importantly, bees also love borage. Many of these flowering shrubs, because they are not native to the district, are viewed as weeds by some prominent local environmentalists. Without bees, our vegetable and fruit supplies would vanish very quickly. There are also many native Australian flowering bushes in the garden. Bees like diversity and so do I.

a xx — A purple native Grevillea plant and the winter flowering Hardenbergia violacea in our garden. More bee attractors.

Birdie Num Nums

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA I’m supposed to be packing for a short road trip, making some biscuits and treats for the journey and generally getting organised. But there are a few distracting characters at my back door and kitchen window dropping in for a chat. How did these Birdie Num Nums become my new best friends? They stand on the outside ledge of the kitchen window and watch me wash up, then follow me around the house. Mr T walks to the garden: they fly by his shoulder and sing good morning in his ear. They sit in the nearest Melia tree, like sparkling red and green Christmas baubles, singing or chatting to each other or to us. Sometimes they ask for a handout of sunflower seeds: mostly they are just looking, thankyou.

Fiinally the exercise bike gets a work out. — Finally the exercise bike gets a work out.

washing time

washing basket and num nums

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

King Parrot at my kitchen window.

Strictly speaking, the title of Num Nums is reserved for the visiting gregarious King Parrots. We have many other visitors to our veranda. The loud, raucous hoodlums of the bush, the Sulphur- Crested Cockatoos are welcome if they behave themselves. I noticed a couple of Cockies grooming each other the other day and as I got closer, I became convinced that one was applying special Cocky gel to the other one’s yellow crest.

This well-behaved lone Cocky, looking like some lovely white garden prop, was an early morning visitor.

Cockie garden decor — Cocky garden decor

There are other less frequent visitors: Crimson Rosellas, Corellas, Galahs, Kookaburras, wild Wood ducks, Wattle birds with their scratchy, ex- smokers chatter, the mysterious lone Sacred Heron ( always too shy for a photo) and the smaller hovering honey eating birds, the Eastern Spinebill and the New Holland Honey eater, always in a flutter.

Australian icon, thee Kookaburra — Australian icon, the Kookaburra

These characters come to remind me about the country life I love, as I toy with the idea of a move to the city. Thank you Birdie Num Nums and Friends.

I include the link below to a wonderful fragment of an old Peter Sellers film, The Party, which may help to explain the title of this post to those who haven’t had the joy of seeing this film before.

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