birthday food

Having just moved my life into storage for the summer, birthdays were the last thing on my mind. The gent – henceforth to be called ‘The dreamcake’ – soothed me with words of encouragement and housed me for a homeless weekend. (By the foodie by, to say thank you for this I took us to a local Vietnamese place on Saturday evening, which I am still in two minds about. I really want to like it, but it is speedy and shonky rather than delectable.)

Then on Sunday I awoke to scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on muffins, with juice and tea. It was properly the best scrambled egg in the world: buttery and soft. Later I was royally treated to high tea at the palace of tea-time in Stokie: they bake the cakes on the premises and their sandwiches are really delicious. We discussed how to keep sandwiches fresh for picnics, whilst piling jam and cream onto scones, and the dreamcake took photos so we can forever remember the great china and the auspicious day.

We lazed in the park with the papers after this: he read out the restaurant review and I read out bits of an interview with Mr Vivienne Westwood.

A brief savoury interlude of pesto pasta revived us, and then the dreamcake again lived up to his name and revealed a hazelnut cake he had made himself! Imagine! Unable to find ground hazelnuts he had had to roast, skin and be-crumb the nuts himself – an absolute labour of love – with the inventive method of encasing the nuts in greaseproof and bashing with a rolling pin.
Reader, not only was the initial of my name outlined on top of the cake, but the whole thing tasted moist and divine. And with Valdo prosecco alongside, I was in heaven.

It will over-gild the lily to report this, but a birthday isn't a day for modesty, so I will go ahead: I was gifted a box set of original Elizabeth David paperbacks, and 'Venus in the Kitchen' by Pilaff Bey. They are in my new bedroom and I can’t wait to cook from them to test out the stove. And, perhaps, the dreamcake.

Last weekend in May

On the most glorious sunny Sunday, after the gent's patented perfect scrambed eggs - this time with smoked salmon, on English muffins - with Monmouth coffee and smoothie, I didn't think the day could get any better.

Really, that should be the review in itself. You should read that sentence and then imagine it lasting half an hour, and then you will nearly have lived it.

Anyway, there is more: we sprung out to the park like May lambs gambolling, lounged with the paper like lizards, made daisy chains like a gardening gaoler ... but it was all too much bliss really. We soon got hungry and went to 'The Dervish' for mezze and a beer. Favourite dishes were broad beans with yogurt, spicy minced lamb pieces (I still have the taste from 'Mangal 2' the week before), and a mellow aubergine dish. We filled our boots for just over a tenner each, the food arrived quickly and tasted of holidays and garlic: in short, it's on the 'love list'.


In other news, I have been reading about the designer 'Alabama Chanin' on Burda Style and found it a brief oasis for my eyes. Although I have to confess that anything that uses the word 'lifestyle' usually makes me roll said eyes. I have an old white dress and had been thinking of stitching over it in white to make it more interesting, and am encouraged to see the same idea looking so beautiful, here:
http://www.alabamachanin.com/content/bridal-page-2

Burda interview with Ms Chanin:
http://www.burdastyle.com/blog/show/952

There is no website for the Dervish, so you'll just have to use your imagination as to the 'lifestyle' it evokes...

bills #3

having visited bill grainger's restaurants in darlinghurst and surrey hills, i was delighted - nay, ecstatic - to discover there is a third version in woollahra, paddington. to re-cap my earlier experiences, i adored the darlinghurst place but was less in love with the surrey hills version, so my expectations were tamed a little.

bills woollahra is a beautiful spot, a cool, shaded courtyard away from the heat of the day already brewing at 8 or 9 am. to give you an idea of the area, this is a snippet of overheard conversation between two aus-sloaney women with yappy dogs 'you have to take him to board there - they hand-feed him poached chicken'.

however pampered the dogs, the people are every bit as lucky. i started with a flat white coffee, then submerged myself in corn fritters with bacon and tomato, and a side of avocado chunkily chopped up with spring onions. bert and the murph shared the same, plus a bowl of seasonal fruit. hg had creamy curds of scrambled egg on sourdough toast. i tasted the eggs and speculated out loud how they were made. 'his book uses cream in them' bert said, then added 'if you really want to know why don't you just ask him?' and nodded to the table behind me, where bill grainger himself sat.

bill! in all of his white teeth, man-tan, white-t-shirted glory! the man who put the inverted commas around 'lifestyle' in australia! look at his picturesque kitchen... and family... and wife! actually, melly bo is convinced it's a charade and he protests too much; that he's as gay as he is camp. i digress: how rude of me to gossip. the breakfast was delicious, the star-spotting wasted on someone as shy as me who would never disturb a breakfasting celeb, and the whole morning immortalised.

it didn't escape my attention that bill is doing a book signing in ten days...


links:

bills
http://www.bills.com.au/

another blogger has written about bills, darlinghurst here. i am fascinated by the whole blog and it's rating system.... and also the list of other breakfast blogs:
http://thebreakfastblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/bills-darlinghurst.html