Soul searching

I think I’ve given myself cheesecake and chocolate poisoning.

Every Easter Sunday my mother’s extended family gathers for a shared lunch and, as always, I was on dessert duty. A few days beforehand I spotted some quinces in my local greengrocer's and decided to utilise them in my creation.

What I like about quinces is their secret surprise. For long, slow cooking turns their inedible, rock-hard, tannic white flesh into a red-pink delight. I created a cheesecake topped with chunks of roasted, spiced quince and a layer of jelly made by setting the quince juice.

To be on the safe side, I made two cheesecakes – one for Sunday’s lunch and a test one that my family ate the evening before. It was too rich for Rory, and he only managed half a piece. Don ate one piece and declared himself done. Kieran and I guzzled our slices and promptly dispatched the leftovers.

I still felt nauseous when I awoke yesterday morning.

Undeterred, I pigged out big time at the family lunch (the quince cheesecake was a hit) and went on to round off this morning’s wholegrain toast breakfast with a large milk chocolate Easter egg. I couldn’t quite manage the chocolate buttons in that sitting but their siren call becons…

Mustering some will power to offset the paucity of won’t power, I headed out in a futile attempt to walk off my excesses.

As I was jaunting along, thinking about what I’d write in this blog, I noticed a man up ahead kick at a little pile on the footpath. With a sinking heart, I approached to discover a starling that had been hit by a car. It was conscious but clearly mortally wounded, presenting me with a ghastly dilemma.

Should I walk on and leave it lying in the pouring rain – waiting who knows how long for nature to take its course? Or should I play God and put it out of its misery?

I stood there a while, hoping someone would come along and decide for me. But nobody did. The bird, twitching what little it could still move, looked up at me, fear and resignation in its eyes.

I knew what I had to do and told the bird I was sorry. Mustering the full force of the weekend’s cheesecake and Easter eggs behind me, I stomped on its head. It wouldn’t stop twitching. Even though I knew it must be dead, doubt remained over whether I’d made a clean kill. So I stomped again…and again. Still it twitched.

As I trudged home, weeping, I contemplated my deed’s brutal kindness.

It is difficult to reconcile my despair with the fact that I happily eat meat most days. In the end up I figured that there isn’t really an answer and that my response has been quintessentially human in nature: contradictory, compassionate, conscious, ego-centric.

I feel emotionally drained and writing this blog hasn’t been as cathartic as I‘d hoped. But life goes on and now it’s time to go and do some housework. Later I plan to curl up with the latest Cuisine Magazine. But I think I’ll give the chicken recipes a miss.

Nonya nirvana

After nearly seven weeks using a cramped makeshift kitchen in our laundry, we’ve started moving into our new kitchen. I’m now free to begin the process of unleashing nearly two months’ worth of pent up cooking desires.

Most of the weekend was spent wiping wood dust out of the new cupboards and unpacking countless boxes of stuff. To give you an idea of the task’s enormity, I discovered along the way that I have around 60 different herbs, spices and spice mixes.

I only found time to cook a roast lamb, crispy roast spuds, broccoli and (real) gravy, followed by mini chocolate puddings - the ultimate “I’ve got an oven again” celebration. (At the risk of showing off, I actually now have two ovens but one has yet to be connected.)

Kuih dadar

Not long before the kitchen renovation began I was doddling around the Internet and encountered references to a book called Nonya flavours: a complete guide to Penang Straits Chinese cuisine.

Nonya (Peranakan) cuisine is one of my favourites. Laksa, sambal patai, kuih dadar, kuih seri muka – I love Nonya food because it combines many flavours that I enjoy: coconut, palm sugar, chilli, garlic and belachan (shrimp paste).


Kuih seri muka


Apparently many Nonya recipes are in danger of being lost because they’ve never been extensively documented, so the State Chinese Association of Penang decided to compile a Penang (i.e. northern Malacca Straits) Nonya cookbook. To cut a long story short, Debbie Teoh (a Nonya chef, author and food consultant) was hired to help compile and test the recipes.

My Internet searches failed to reveal where I could buy the book. Fortunately, I found Debbie's email, made contact and was delighted to receive a prompt reply saying she’d be happy to send me one.

Just as my kitchen was being pulled apart I became the proud owner of an autographed copy of Nonya flavours. It’s packed full of interesting information about Nonya culture, recipes and – best of all – lots and lots of juicy colour photos. I’ve barely been able to contain myself.

This evening’s inaugural foray into Nonya nirvana involved cooking one of the cuisine’s better known dishes, Kari Kapitan – a chicken curry.

The dish requires making a spice paste with shallots, garlic, fresh ginger, galangal, fresh turmeric, candlenuts, lemongrass, chilllis (unfortunately omitted in deference to Don and the kids), and toasted shrimp paste.

Shrimp paste reeks so badly that it almost walks, so I keep the family safe by caging it in a sealed glass jar. It needs to be toasted over a hot flame for around five minutes before it is used, which magnifies the smell tenfold. The kids reeled out of the kitchen in disgust when I started toasting it, later informing me that they could smell it out on the street!

Despite the stench, the resulting dish was absolutely delicious.

My Kari Kapitan

Over dinner, Don and the boys discussed a range of automotive intricacies.

As they analysed how to avoid over-steering radio controlled model cars, sideways drifting, and The Stig’s identity, I quietly tuned out and daydreamed deliciously about my next foray into Nonya cuisine.

Camping in

Life has been chaotic lately. Really, really chaotic. The past few days have been even madder than usual - all in aid of creating a foodie’s fantasy.

Since late February we’ve been in the midst of a major renovation to our kitchen and dining room. For good measure we also got the house re-roofed. Living and working at home while all that is going on has little to recommend it. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any crazier, it did.

Our floors were varnished last week and we decided to live in during the process – something that has proven to be been one of life’s “never again” seriously unpleasant experiences.

Polyurethane is extremely strong and toxic and, if it wasn’t for my downstairs office – which is well away from the varnish action upstairs – then it would have been impossible to stay in the house and live to tell the tale.

Surviving has required our family of four and Phoebe the cat taking refuge in my office over the past five nights, bunking down on airbeds amongst the filing cabinets, desk and shredder.

The fumes were so bad the first three days that I brought the toaster into my office, and set up a temporary breakfast preparation area on a pile of building debris outside. This weird urban camping experience was made even more surreal by my early morning outdoors outfit - a fluffy blue dressing gown. Beeeautiful.

Who knows what the neighbours made of seeing my pyjama clad family spreading our toast on the back path? I guess there are far worse things we could have been doing.

The kids have found it a great adventure. Don and I remain unconvinced. The cat thinks we're simply bonkers.

Cheap thrills

I’ve developed an obsession.

The centre of my attention has a cheerful, pert and beguiling appearance that belies an incredibly firey personality. It’s a quality I find incredibly attractive - even irresistible.

My obsession causes me lots of pain, and provides even more pleasure.

Why is it that I just can’t get enough of chillis?

While many people run a mile at the mere hint of spicy food, I’m one of the world’s fortunates who gets a real buzz out of eating it.

Apparently chilli's active ingredient capsaicin triggers an endorphin release to counteract the burning pain, resulting in something akin to a runner’s high. I used to get a gym goer’s high in my younger, blobbier days. But now I’m older and fitter, I have to resort to more extreme, Scoville unit loaded measures in order to keep it legal.

Eating strongly spiced food always makes me feel incredibly happy and content, although that’s not always the case the next morning.

I’m naturally keen to try as many of the world’s spicy cuisines as I can lay my tongue on, and have eaten my way through all of the obvious suspects.

I had, however, never heard of the Hunan cuisine until I read Fuschia Dunlop’s brilliant, hilarious book “Shark’s fin and Sichuan pepper: a sweet and sour memoir of eating in China”. The Englishwoman lived in China for a decade, being the first Westener (and I think the first woman) to serve an apprenticeship at a Sichuanese cooking school.

She also wrote Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province, a book I've put to good use. Like Sichuan food, Hunan cuisine uses liberal amounts of chilli but in greater, less diluted quantities.

Even though I’d eaten Hunan food I’d cooked myself, I hadn’t found it in any Chinese restaurants. So it was with great excitement that I recently learned of a small place in Balmoral that has Hunan options on its menu.

My brother Brodie was keen to give it a go, so off we headed to Wu Han Restaurant one evening.

Nobody in the restaurant knew us, or even cared, giving us license to be as greedy as we pleased.  So we ordered four dishes and rice between the two of us. Here’s what we ate:

Sweet potato cakes – mild fritters made of diced, boiled kumera and batter. Even my kids would like these. We spiced things up by saucing them with one of the resident condiments.

“Greedy fish” – a whole deep fried snapper smothered in a mountain of chilli: preserved (red and green), fried whole dried ones, bits of chopped fresh ones. Yum, yum, YUM!  It was not nearly as hot as one would suppose but eating it still gave me a real buzz.

Beef soup – hot and tasty but extremely oily. Apparently Hunanese use a LOT of oil in their cooking; they should be the size of houses.

Hot, sour cabbage with, you guessed it, lots of dried chilli. Crisp, crunchy, hot, acetic, salty, tasty, utterly moreish.

It all tasted so good that we ate until we almost burst. All for $52 - $28 of which was for the snapper.

At the end of the meal I was so full I could hardly stand up. I suggested that Brodie carried me out to the car but, in true brotherly fashion, he declined.