Monday, May 26, 2008

Food and Other Pursuits; a revelation at Cafe China.

I love noodles. Slurping up a good noodle soup fragrant with chilli and coriander is, for me, the ultimate in comfort eating. At home I keep the pantry well-stocked with noodles, fish sauce and chilli in various forms and lovely fiery orange chilli oil, for those occasions where comfort is required (rather often in our house). My garden is dotted with chilli bushes too.

So, what to do when chilli has become forbidden (and therefore, by the way, taken on a more seductive and alluring charm).

I skipped into Cafe China the other day with an eating companion who, it must be said, has a charm not unlike the aforementioned chillis, that is seductive and alluring, though not, I believe, forbidden. But wait, I digress.

Being a woman of her word (yes, the change of diet), I ordered a chicken soup; noodles, chicken, vegetables and herbs in a clear soup and walked determinedly past the chilli. We sat in the front of the restaurant in order to watch the passing traffic but frankly my eyes didn't stray much beyond S__'s and even the soup didn't have much of a chance of competing, fragrant though it was, and not without it's attributes. You see, if I'd scattered the chilli generously, as I normally do, this soup would have been irrisistible, but as it was, my heart wasn't really in it. I had ordered a small bowl. Dear reader, I didn't finish it.

This is not wholly the fault of the soup. After all, not it's fault that I didn't dress it properly. There was a problem though. As per usual the stock was delightful, the vegetables fresh, and the noodles emminently slurpable but the chicken, bite after bite, was gristly and inedible. Cafe China has been a favourite comfort stop of mine for years, so this one problem will not deter me from their table but it was disappointing.

The other portion of fault is to be found within myself. As I gazed at S___ and disregarded the soup, I realised that, with the change of diet, has perhaps, come a change of focus. Are my attentions wandering from food to other pursuits?
Comme ci, comme ca. I'll go where the capricious wind blows.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Confessions

Confession No. 1: I have developed a condition (alright,alright - chronic reflux, happy now?) that requires a change of diet. Yes, I know there are pills for such things but I am the type to tackle things head-on and have decided on the most drastic (and rather tragic) course of action, which is of course a change of diet. Italics don't seem quite ominous enough here. How about A change of diet! or maybe A CHANGE OF DIET! No wait, let's just go the whole hog:

A CHANGE OF DIET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There, that's better.
This means no coffee, alcohol, fatty foods, spicy foods. All the good stuff, right?

*cries*

Confession No 2: As a result of confession no. 1, this restaurant review blog is no longer that which it was.

Once started though, I couldn't just abandon it, poor waif blog floating around in space waiting for a paragraph or two, a sentence, even a word from it's creator.

Hmmm.
Well, I shall start with the Health Food shops, and there's Japanese, right? Salads, though not Caesar, obviously, and um, you know, clear broths and the like. Brodo, consomme, lovely.
In place of wine there's, well there's water isn't there?

*sighs*

In the meantime, I'll rant and rave and ruminate. Can't leave the poor blog floating out there now, can I?

Saturday, May 17, 2008

To market, to market.

Saturday mornings, I do my fruit and veg shopping at Rusty's markets in Grafton Street. This morning, I woke with my head still full of the weeks work, then the delightful realisation washed over me that it was, in fact, Saturday morning and I was filled with a lovely yellowness. (A result of my synasthesia; Saturdays are always yellow. They just are.)
First up a freshly ground coffee at home while I indulge in the no-work-today feeling. I usually wander down to the corner to buy the Weekend Australian and, I have to admit it, dive straight for the Review and the latest books, books, books, while my daughter munches on her cereal and skips around in various stages of dress-up in preparation for her dance class.
When she's ready, and there's really no rush, we head out, she to her twirling and flourishing and me to mine. I take the longest time wandering the rows of fresh produce, discerning this week's best, and often stop for breakfast, in the form of a vegetable samosa from the Hare Krisna stall, or less often, sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf from one or other of the Asian stalls. I buy coffee beans first from Coffeeworks, the Cosmic blend is my current favourite, and usually linger a bit just, you know, smelling.
Then, onto the fruit and veg, fresh herbs, and finally flowers (heliconias, huge bunches of them). Thus loaded, it's back to the car and home with my plunder, the car fragrant, the day stretching ahead, what to do for dinner on my mind, and all at peace and as it should be.
I could almost compose a poem. In Praise of Saturdays.
Almost.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Better late than never at all.

I'm back. Changes are afoot. Winter is almost upon us and I, finally, am back at the blogface so to speak, so to write, so to ramble and rant and wistfully dream.
Today, a mess around with templates and fonts, tomorrow the world.
And not too soon, either.
Until tomorrow, then.