What a wonderful world

"Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end."

George Saunders

This is the quote Ben Shewry and his team from Attica chose for the site they have set up to publicise WAW.

WAW stands for what a wonderful world. And the WAW gathering and WAW talks which are planned for the start of October will be a celebration of this wonder.

Ben Shewry may well be in yet another season of reaping awards and being acknowledged for his culinary greatness, but this humble New Zealander is far from being an egocentric rockstar chef.

No stranger to challenge and hard times, in setting up WAW, Shewry was inspired by Copenhagen's René Redzepi, chef, co-owner of Noma, and founder of MAD, a not-for-profit organisation which seeks to build a community of cooks, purveyors and thinkers with an appetite for knowledge and a desire to improve the food industry.

To this end, Redzepi and now Shewry have invited chefs from around the world to participate in a series of conversations designed to inspire, energise and help people in the food community and beyond.

It is the hope of the passionate people behind WAW and MAD that by bringing people together to share and explore ideas, that we will be reminded that "kindness, love and integrity will always win the battle against negativity, and of what we can accomplish in this life when we work together to make it happen."

Yesterday was yet another golden day in the life of Jo Rittey and a day which reminded me what a wonderful world it is. I sat enthralled for an hour listening to one of the most acclaimed food critics of our time, Ruth Reichl, restaurant critic for the LA Times, the New York Times, last editor of Gourmet magazine and the author of several memoirs and books.

Ruth maintains that food could be a way of making sense of the world. She believes that our food choices are like our handwriting, they tell us a lot about who we are. In other words, it is a way of announcing who we are to the world. This could be through our menu choices, whether we are adventurous or careful or enlightened eaters. Or it could be about our ethical choices and the role which food plays within the greater scheme of things.

With these thoughts in my mind, I walked down to Joy FM and co-hosted the food show, Cravings, with Pete Dillon. I had the pleasure of chatting to Ben Shewry about the recent, Best Restaurant in Australia, in the Gourmet Traveler Awards and the aforementioned WAW gathering.

Once again I was struck by the passion and commitment to good food that the chefs I have been lucky enough to speak to reveal.

A couple of weeks ago when I talked to Annie Smithers out in Trentham, I was astounded that she would describe the incredible food she produces as 'just good food' and she laughed at my description of cooking as an art form, when to her, it is just a trade.

I drove out to Trentham today to take a photo of Annie for next month's Northsider Conversation with a Chef and she rolled her eyes when she told me she had been invited to tomorrow night's Age Good Food Awards. She almost sighed when she confessed that she was in the running for a hat for Du Fermier, her restaurant on High Street, Trentham. That wasn't the idea, she muttered.

If food is a way of making sense of the world, these thoughtful and talented chefs and writers are giving all of their energy to the cause.

And I feel lucky to be part of the world they are creating.

Annie with happy diners (Photo: Dani Loney)

http://thenorthsider.com.au/category/food-reviews/

 

Sometimes a flavour takes you by surprise

It might be because you have never encountered it before or perhaps it is made with familiar ingredients, but you hadn’t thought of putting them together in just that way.

Zucchini sauce for tacos. Who knew?

I’m picking maybe 119, 713, 203 Mexicans. Maybe not all of them.

I had tasted the aforementioned zucchini sauce over a year ago when I tagged along to a bbq made up of Mexican and Irish people. The crowd composition was intriguing for a start. I was one of two New Zealanders, there was an Australian, and then everyone else was either from Mexico or Ireland. I have thought a lot since then about what the attracting force might be between these two cultures. I still have not come up with an answer.

Anyway. The food was fantastic. Beautifully grilled meat, salads, tacos. But the star was the zucchini sauce. With the slight earthiness of the zucchini tempered by a little garlic and a little chilli. Smooth, a little spicy, good.

I tried to recreate it at home. It was a dismal failure. Perhaps one of my worst dismal failures. And then I forgot about it.

Until now. Now I have seen how it’s made. And I have had another attempt. I don’t quite have the deft confidence of my instructor or the seemingly innate knowledge of the amount of oil required, the exact size of stock cube to include and the extent to which the zucchini must be cooked; not too much, not too little, but just right. But I did it. And it’s good.

And I appreciate the discovery.

I laugh, I cry, I seldom understand things but it is more and more a sort of comfort

Perspective. It has a lot going for it.

How we see things, or more importantly, how we choose to see things can depend on a lot. I wonder, perhaps, if it's about training ourselves to look for the good and not be bowled over by the negative.

I like to think I am optimistic, a seeker of possibility, a practitioner of wonder and awe, but sometimes I have a habit of noticing and dwelling on the one dark cloud I see in an otherwise blue sky. Maybe it's when I am tired. Or already a little emotional for whatever reason. The scales tip in favour of the half empty glass.

Last night I went to the fifth Dinner Project. I have been to three of them. I have written about it here before. The Dinner Project is an Australian not-for-profit venture raising money for charities through dinners created by chefs who donate their time, energy and innovation for the greater good. Chef, Thi Li started the Project in Sydney, brought it to Melbourne and has been very ably assisted here by pastry chef, Kimberly Chin. 

Last night's dinner showcased chefs from Luxembourg, The European, RACV Club, Stokehouse and Cutler & Co and was held at B’Stilla in South Yarra. Four courses offering fish, meat, heirloom vegetables, a variety of textures, colours and flavours with beautiful beverages to match.  

All profits are going to SANE Australia.  Thi and Kim both feel that that people who work in the hospitality industry are often subject to high stress levels and antisocial working hours which can lead to mental health problems and they would like to support a group that is working to improve mental health.

The reason I mention The Dinner Project, apart from the obvious fact that Thi and Kim see life from a different perspective and seek to use their talent and experience to bring goodness to others, is that I ate a dish which blew me away. And this dish was the result of a mistake. 

Mark Glenn from The European roasted heirloom carrots over coffee beans to give them a woody, toasted flavour. He experimented with a blueberry sauce which didn't quite go the way he expected, but in fact turned out better than his original idea. His carrot, shitake, jerusalem artichoke, coffee and grain dish was the entrée. For me it was the stand-out dish of the night. And he was competing with a blue eye cod and prawn boudin, a bavette with charred radicchio and fennel and a rhubarb cake, ginger soil, ginger custard and creme fraîche sorbet.

Sometimes the wrong train takes you to the right destination and a step backwards, well that's the first step in a cha cha.

 

downsizing

I am currently downsizing my life.

This has caused concern amongst my friends. Is everything alright? Am I ok? What’s going on?

By downsizing, I mean that I am moving into a smaller, brand new and more reasonably priced apartment that I feel will suit the next chapter of my life. As a consequence, I am reducing the amount of things I own.

And I love it.

I have enjoyed all the items of furniture and clothes and shoes and other miscellaneous goods that have been part of my life for various lengths of time. They have provided the backdrop, setting, and costuming for some of my previous chapters.

And I am also enjoying not having as many things. It feels simpler. The people who have bought my various items or to whom they have been donated will also enjoy these pieces. It’s their turn now. I have had mine.

Perhaps spending ten days on an 11-metre sailboat has shown me how possible, and in fact, liberating it is to live in a smaller space without lots of furniture and things. It’s the people you get to spend time with in your space or in theirs and the ideas you think about and the possibilities you see and the lessons you learn. These are the things that matter. A big wooden workbench is lovely and looked good in my various homes, but we have had our time together.

Things are all well and good and I am not about to stop shaving my legs, throw away my deodorant and wave my arms around wildly trying to convince you to follow me in some sort of crusade against consumerism. (And I don’t mean anything against those who don’t shave their legs…)

Not at all. And that really isn’t the point.

Right now. For me, letting go of some things to embrace a new perspective and experience feels good. It feels a little as though I am clearing the way for something, allowing it to unfold. I am not quite sure what that something looks like, but I know that it will come. 

Sunshine

Today I went to Sunshine.

Having expressed a desire to know more about Vietnamese food and cooking, I was lucky enough to be invited to be part of a Vietnamese family's preparation for a birthday lunch.

Tom Yum soup paste made from scratch, barbecued seafood, sweet potato glass noodles, and a lot of leafy greens and chewy mushrooms.

The extended family stretches to at least 20 people and I was told that with that many people, there is always a birthday. This is a good thing. Having spent the morning watching and inhaling and tasting and chatting and learning, I had to leave before lunch was actually served. This lovely family, horrified that I would miss out, have invited me to go back in two weeks for another birthday lunch and this time, I must stay for the day.

love

I am thinking about love.

 

Why, you might ask? Well let me tell you.

I have just been reading the results of leading online wine retailer Vinomofo's inaugural Great Wine Census. Australian consumers’ purchasing, cellaring, drinking  and faking it habits, revealed.

Apparently what we all imagined to be true, is. Australia is, indeed, a nation of wine-lovers. 26% of the 6000 surveyed, cited it as one of their greatest obsessions.

But, and here's the bit that got me thinking...despite their love of wine, 64% of Australians feel intimidated by restaurant wine lists and 47% feel nervous making a choice in a wine store. That's a lot of anxiety. 31% confessed to having faked wine knowledge to impress someone and 6% refilled an expensive bottle of wine with a cheaper one. 

Just read the last part of that sentence again. I'll do it for you: 6% refilled an expensive bottle of wine with a cheaper one. That's 360 people passing off cheap wine as expensive. 

Wow.

But back to the love aspect. It made me sad to think that something that engenders love can also produce such anxiety and feelings of not being good enough. 

And yet this is so often the case. The things and people we aspire to, look up to, feel impressed by and love, can sometimes be the things which make us the most nervous. We want to be valued and loved and we feel afraid that we don't know the right way to make that happen and that simply being ourselves just might not be good enough. 

It should be ok to say that we don't know. To say what we like and don't like and to ask for some help.

And with the right person, or wine shop or sommelier, it is.

sweet as

Pierre Roelofs is a chef.

Originally from New Zealand, although his name and accent do not give that away, Pierre’s name has become synonymous with deconstructed dessert fantasies.

In a career which has seen him work through a three year apprenticeship in the Swiss Alps, work in Michelin starred restaurants in England and Spain and pretty much everything in between, it seems incongruous to find an international class chef producing sophisticated innovation in the humble context of a little 25 seater cafe off Fitzroy street every Thursday night.

Friendly and open, Pierre eschews the molecular gastronomy label, but having spent time at the Fat Duck in England with Heston Blumenthal, there’s more than a nod to some of the science-meets-magic flair that Blumenthal has become known for. 

But this is no circus. Elegant and ethereal are the words which come to mind as the dessert tube and then three ‘courses’ are presented to me.

I do not have a sweet tooth. I see the Life is short, just eat dessert t-shirts, I watch the American tv depression cure of huge tubs of ice cream, I read that Graham Kerr, whoever he is, said, “I prefer to regard a dessert as I would imagine the perfect woman: subtle, a little bittersweet, not blowsy and extrovert. Delicately made up, not highly rouged. Holding back, not exposing everything and, of course, with a flavour that lasts.” I get it. People love dessert.

I don’t.

So. A dessert dégustation. It felt as though I was entering a marathon. I really did have a feeling of dread at the sugary path that lay ahead of me. Clearly Pierre Roelof is a genius. Obviously what he does with sugar and various other specially chosen ingredients is high gastronomic art. But I knew it would be too much for me.

So. Last night I went to Cafe Rosamond at 191 Smith Street, but really on Charles Street, just off Smith Street. As I entered the small, woody restaurant, sugary, vanilla-scented warmth enveloped me. It was cosy, given the icy climes outside.

The wait staff were also warm. I felt welcomed and looked after.

First up, the signature dessert tube. This month the glass tube was filled with a deconstructed oreo cookie. The idea is that you loosen the tube in warm water for 3 seconds then suck. Suck until your mouth is filled with vanilla gel, chocolate cookie and chocolate mousse. Rich, chocolaty and also light. One inhalation and it’s gone.

 

Next, is a lemon gel, crème and crumble with carrot and coconut gel, carrot squares, roasted peanuts and peanut cake. Salty, sweet, tart and smooth. All at once. A tiny sculptured piece with dollops of gel and squares of substance.

The second course, or as Pierre calls it, the one in the middle, arrives. While the first course tends to be more adventurous with savoury and often vegetable components, the second is lighter and more refreshing and the third tends to be more traditional and comforting.

I am not sure this was the case last night. The second offering was substantial and contained a lot which I would have called traditional. Incredible flavours and textures, but there was a lot there. I enjoyed the contrast of the salty toasted oats against the vanilla foam and vanilla ice cream with marmalade jelly and spice orange and brown sugar crumble but it did overwhelm me.

To finish, a tiny architectural feat on a large white plate. Salted chocolate parfait, chocolate sponge crumbs, chocolate and ginger crème, ginger meringue, candied ginger, freeze dried raspberries and raspberry wafer. So much in such a small space. The raspberry wafer offered a flavour explosion of tart crispness, the ginger meringue melted immediately on the tongue. Velvety chocolate mousse was offset by spicy ginger pieces and the chocolate sponge earthed the whole dish. 

Having achieved a sugar coma, I floated back down Smith Street and somehow got home.

Pierre Roelof is a very clever chef. And I am still full of sugar.