Cooking for the Mothers' Day Cake Stall

                                           

Another half written post, finally finished off and put on the blog!

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I now have a child in kindergarten. One would think this means more time for me to do the things I need to do (work, clean, cook...and I don't know, scratch myself!).  Instead, I find myself on the seemlingly endless trek back and forth from kinder, the three hours sessions feel far too short, and it always seems that I have just got the baby off to sleep when I have to go and pick up the four year old, or drop her off.  Then there is the after kinder play in the park.  All the cool kids do it.  And all the cool mums go along.  There are also special events (like Mothers' day), pizza night, the fete, etc.  Kinder seems to be taking over my life.  And not in a good way.

Having said that, my four year old LOVES it.  She has made a million new friends in her group of about 21 kids.  15 of the kids are boys, and I think this is great.  They seem to just 'get on' and do stuff, rather than wishy-washing around.  The five other girls tend to be rather 'princessy' only children.  Not really our cup of tea.

Organic fermented cocoa beans from Tanzania

Dark roasted Blavatsky coffee beans.

Anyway, the most recent Kinder Event that required me to participate was Mothers' Day.  We had to attend a morning tea at the kinder, with scones baked by the group.  Our daughter was very excited to have us visit.  It was nice to see her having such a great time, although, an hour did seems a bit long!  This was followed up by the Mothers' Day cake stall.  We had to bake something, wrap it artily and deliver it to kinder for their stall just before Mothers' Day.  I am not the best cake maker (this in my partner's fortay), but I can do a mean biscuit!  A friend had recently posted some pics of her 'Coffee Snaps' on Facebook, along with the recipe, and I thought I'd give them a bash.  I decided to make double the quanitity and make half coffee and half chocolate.  They were both delicious...although the chocolate ones are all finished, and we are still getting through the coffee ones.  Read into that what you will!

So, how do you make a coffee/cocoa snap?  Read on!

 Coffee/Cocoa Snaps Ah La Anna (Makes 70)

125g butter, softened
1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
3 teaspoons ground espresso coffee (I use 6)  or if making cocoa version 6 teaspoons good quality cocoa
3 teaspoons vanilla extract (I use homemade stuff given to me by a friend.  It is an organic vanilla pod which has been infusing into vodka...delish!)
1 egg
3/4 cup plain flour
3/4 cup self-raising flour
70 coffee beans or cocoa nibs

Preheat oven to 160C (fan-forced oven) - grease oven trays

Beat sugar, butter, coffee or cocoa & extract in small bowl with electric mixer until pale and fluffy (it isn't pale if you are making the cocoa version). Add egg; beat until just combined. Stir in sifted flours.

Roll rounded teaspoons of the mixture into balls. Place 3cm apart on trays. Top each with a coffee bean or cocoa nibs (my daughter has also made a  batch with M&Ms on tops). Bake, uncovered, about 10 mins or until browned. Stand 5 mins; transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Eat until you start to shake!

 

                                             

Laneways

 

I live right on a laneway.  Two in fact.  One runs along the side of our house, and all of our windows open onto it.  The other runs behind my house and provides access to garages and backyards along our street.  Because my street is a short, one-way affair there is frequent traffic in our lane as people seek a cut through between the often congested roads that surround us.  I do like that lane ways are used spaces…although I do wish that people would drive slowly down them and would really prefer them not to clip the side of our studio and garage with their cars.

Laneways are getting a pretty good wrap at the moment and all manner of things are happening in them, both in an arty sense and in a food gathering sense.  Heaps of the best restaurants and cafes are almost impossible to find tucked down some graffiti covered laneway in the heart of the city, or even in the inner suburbs.  There are also numerous festivals and music events happening down deep dark lanes across Melbourne.  In our lane in recent years I can recall a music video being shot at the back of our shed (it was a shocking song and we had to listen over and over again), a short film being shot in our lane (and one in the next block) and a student documentary being made about harvesting food from trees overhanging lanes in the inner city.  

Even zombies drink tea.

The short film is called 'The Zombie Monologues' and as a resident who was asked not to use the lane that day, I was also invited to be an extra 'zombie' in the cast.  A friend and I donned our best zombie make up and starred as the moaning undead in the film.  It was an awesome experience.  We attended the film premier (at a pub) and had a real laugh.   I was also interviewed for the documentary about urban harvesting.  I won't post links here, as I am not really sure I agree with the practise of advertising people's overhanging fruit trees to large numbers of people.  I also don't really think that all of the trees listed are really 'overhanging' or are really providing excess fruit.  Telling people to 'bring a ladder' to harvest fruit from someone else's tree, kind of smacks of invading their privacy a bit. 

The market gardens and chooks at CERES.

There is real history behind the bluestone lanes in Brunswick.  The stones were mined from a local quarry on the banks of the Merri Creek. The site where CERES sits now.  Once the stone had been collected the quarry became a landfill site.  In recent times has been converted into an environmental park, which any local knows.  CERES has community gardens, a café, restaurant, and schools program among other things. 

The lanes were built to give access to properties to the ‘Night Man,’ the man who would come and collect sewerage from backyard toilets.  Most toilets were in the back corner of the yard, and Brunswick still has a good collection of ‘Dunnies’ that you can see if you take a walk in any laneway.  In my old house (incidentally in the next street to the one I live in now), we had a grotty backyard dunny.  It was always covered in cobwebs and had no light.  Sounds gross, but I can’t tell you how PLEASED my housemate and I were to have it after a house guest accidentally burnt our inside toilet down after leaving a lighted candle on the plastic cistern.  For months we had to traipse outside to the dunny until a friend can around with an old cistern he had lying around and fixed our inside loo. 

First Aid Kit.  Young and cool.

Another laneway treat is Sideshow Alley.  This organisation films music being played live in laneways all over the place!  It is well worth having a look at their stuff.  I fell in love with 'First Aid Kit' after seeing the video of 'Waltz for Richard' which was filmed in an city laneway in Melbourne.  I love that a few of the videos are shot in Brunswick laneways.  

An old photo taken in a Brunswick lane.  Details here.

Take a walk down your local laneway before the days get too cold.  There is so much to look at.  So many wild plants and vines that have grown over back fences, untended and jungly.  Our streets are filled with manicured front gardens and renovated cottages and terraces.  So infrequently does a laneway back fence match up.  Most are made of ancient brick, or rusted corrugated iron.  Weeds are often knee high and pieces of discarded furniture or rubble can be found.  Walking down a Brunswick laneway is almost like walking into a time warp.

Fixies

The FIXIE:  what a lovely thing.

Brunswick is awash with FIXED GEAR BICYCLES, or FIXIES.

I love them, and I want one.

I love their compactness, their clean lines and their multitude of colours (my favourite being eau de nil or perhaps the shiny black).  

There are several bikes at my house.  My partner and I have a pair of mountain bikes (ridiculous, heavy things not at all suited to riding in the inner city...what were we thinking!?), and a multitude of trikes and bikes for children (mostly found in hard rubbish, and waiting for the day that the children will be big enough and coordinated enough to ride them).  But, my best bike is actually my CARGOBIKE!  A three wheeled people mover which totes the kids, and their friends (up to four of them!), around Brunswick.  A friend of mine even borrowed it for her wedding recently.  Her husband pedalled her from the wedding to the reception in Cargobike style.  We decorated the bike for the big event.

Don't get me wrong, I love my cargo bike.

 It is very popular and trendy to own such a thing among the 'kinder-mum' set.  

 But it is not a fixie.

 Although I lust after a beautiful little fixie to get around the 'hood on, I am sadly brought back to earth by these revelations:

1.  Owning a fixie does not magically mean my children will disappear and that I will get to ride with free abandon to local cafes and parks without them.

2.  Owning a fixie will not give me more time to do the aforementioned cafe hopping.

 3.  Owning a fixie will not turn me into a very tall, very skinny, very Gen Y, HIPSTER.

Owning a fixie will have to wait until my children can ride their own bikes to kinder and school, until I have a free moment to get down to the cafes and read the paper over a leisurely breakfast and cup of tea.  I may not be free to ride a fixie for the next ten years or so, and even then I may be way too old...but, I am still free to dream.

Cookbooks

I have lots of cookbooks.

I really enjoy reading, and have quiet a collection of novels in my home.  We had book shelves especially built along two walls to house them.  One of these walls is dedicated entirely to children's books which means that some of our books are still boxed up in the shed.  I fear that one day we will be those people you see on TV with piles of books all around them and no room to sleep.  Or even worse, those people who die when a pile of books fall on them and they can't get out from under the weight of all those words.

My collection is varied.  There are trashy novels ( I have written a Mills and Boon style romance - sadly it has not been published, yet), poetry, classics, a collections of early Famous Five novels, some non-fiction, Australian works, contemporary stuff and COOKBOOKS.

I used to read a great deal.  My partner and I are both teachers and it was our love of books that was one of the attracting factors when our romance was young and tender.  We have always had piles of books on our bedside tables and could spend a whole day on holidays lost in a good read.   Now we have children.  The desire to read, and the interest in books (both new and classic) has not wained, we still read the paper on the weekends and are aware of the latest novels that we should be reading.  But what the old saying 'The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak'?  Usually by the time the children are tucked up in bed and we have finally fed ourselves and done the chores that we didn't manage to cover during the day we are just too tired to open a book, let alone try and make sense of the words swimming on the pages.  Don't get me wrong, we still read when we can.  Holidays, or long weekends, or when travelling.  But the luxury of hopping into bed at 7.30pm with a good book just because, is not a possibility at the moment.  Maybe in 10 years or so.

Kids should be surrounded by books.  The should be able to pull them from a shelf and read them whenever they like!

Cookbooks are a different kettle of fish entirely.  I have several shelves dedicated to cookbooks.  Flimsy paper ones, magazine style classics and heavy hardcover epic works.  I do not discriminate as long as the recipes are good, and they are written well.  I rather like books that explain where the recipe is from; "I first tasted this sponge at my cousin Flo's wedding...etc".  Cookbooks to me are perfect reading material for the time poor.  Each recipe is like a mini chapter.  You could spend a minute skimming over it, quickly looking at ingredients or the pictures, or you could spend hours reading up on various dishes, imagining how well they would go together, what variations you could impose on the recipe, and who you might cook it for.

One of my favourite cookbooks is Maggie Beer's 'Maggie's Harvest'.  Not only are the recipes delicious and manageable (in most cases), the book is a joy to read in a tactile sense.  The cover is padded fabric with a quince tree and pheasants embroidered on it.  The paper is heavy and creamy.  It is lovely to flick through these pages reading about Maggie's food adventures, her family food loves, and of course the recipes!  Maggie has recipes for fabulous terrines and all kinds of wonderful seafood and gamey kinds of things.  Mmmmmm.

Mrs Beeton!  The original guide to cookery and household maintenance.  This is an edition from some time in the 40s or 50s.  There was no way I could afford one of the earliest editions, which if complete sell for thousands and thousands!

A few years ago I bought my partner a copy of Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book for a birthday present.  It is gold!  The recipes are rather dated, or outright weird, but the book is magnificent.  Apparently lots of it is Mrs Beeton stealing recipes and ideas from other writers at the time, but we can forgive her the plagiarism as it seems that her book is the only one to really have stood the test of time.  The copy I bought has some amazing coloured plates inside, as well as a rather fetching image of a dead rabbit on the spine.



I've included a couple of shots of the plates.  I love the one which shows all the different cuts of pork.  And who doesn't love a good picture of CHEESE!







One of my greatest food pleasures is not in the eating, but in the thinking about!  I enjoy putting together imaginary dinner parties in my head.  I usually go with a theme (Persian for example) and think of the dishes I would cook, the wine to accompany, who to invite and how to serve it up.  I have had a wonderful Persian inspired dinner party in the past.

The Persian Dinner Party Menu (Ideas inspired by Greg and Lucy Malouf's series of books about Middle Eastern food - a whole other post will be devoted to these books alone)

Entree: gorgeous bourdon blanc sausages with a Persian 'twist' (pistachios in the chicken mousse), served with a capsicum and onion jam and a rocket salad with home made dukkah on top.

Main:  Quail  deboned and stuffed with vine leaves, marinated in olive oil, verjuice, chopped vine leaves and garlic.  Panfry the little sucker, and once golden wrap in katafi pastry and finished off in the oven.  I served it on a buttery rice with yoghurt dressing and saffron oil.

Dessert:  Rhubarb and rosewater topped with vanilla yoghurt, chopped pistachios (love the vibrant green colour) and Persian fairy floss.

DELICIOUS! 

Cooking with kids.

Cooking with the kids is always an exciting event (for them anyway).  My little girl LOVES cooking.  Baking in particular is her favourite activity, I suspect it has something to do with licking the bowl.  She can also stretch to cooking pizza and pasta dishes.  She likes picking the vegetables and herbs from our own garden, chopping them with her own knife and watching them change as they are heated or whizzed up in the blender.  There are plenty of cooking with kids cookbooks out there.  We have Stephanie Alexander's.  She is such an advocate for children growing their own produce and then cooking it.  Her Kitchen Garden program  is a huge hit and is implemented in many schools around where I live.  I have been to a couple of the conferences when we were setting up a kitchen garden at the school where I work.  Stephanie is a quiet woman, but spoke so passionately about this project.  I am happy to support her by buying her books and using them with my class and my own children.

Well, cookbooks.  There are magnificent things and I love them.  Even for the non-cooks there is a cookbook you could surely appreciate.  Even if it was purely for its kitsch value!

A great op shop find.  Terrible recipes though.

Ray

Ray has been an institution in Brunswick for quite some years now.  Originally set up by Mark Dundon of St Ali and Seven Seeds fame, it is a cool little place with a few small tables and one large table for communal worship of coffee.  I remember when Ray opened.  Mark was the best café owner ever.  He stood behind the coffee machine like the captain of a ship stands behind the wheel.  He surveyed his domain with a careful eye, directing his staff to tables and always delivering quickly on an order.  He recognised locals (well, he recognised me and still does if we visit him at his new establishments) and could remember what you had ordered last time.  He was often trying out a new coffee and my partner got quite a few free sample cups.

 

Ray has since changed hands.  It is still cool and groovy.  There is a bit more stencil graffiti on the walls out the front, there is a new (yarn bombed) bike rack to house the fixies, and the inside has the worn patina of a café that has served a vast number of people.  I usually order a chai when I am there.  They have recently switched from loose leaf chai to a tea bag (the fault of their tea supplier) which I am a bit sad about…but there are plenty of other loose leaf teas to choose from.

Ahh, we love Nick!

I don’t visit Ray as often as I used to.  It is hard work with a pram.  When it is quiet (not at lunch or breakfast time) I try and pop in.  It is very close to our house, and when we bought the place the fact that it was 400 metres to Ray was a huge selling point.  They are always welcoming, and do serve a ‘little coffee’ as we call a babyccino (hate the word babyccino).  The last time I actually ate at Ray I was in the very early stages of labour with my son.  I knew it was coming, someone had taken our then three year old daughter while we got down to the business of having a baby, my partner and I jumped at the opportunity to have a last supper - or last brunch as the case may have been.  We had some delicious pumpkin/fetta/rocket Turkish pide.  It was, as I knew it would be, delicious and reasonably priced.  The focus on food with a local flavour (Middle Eastern) is right up my alley.  One of the reasons I love Brunswick is the huge Middle Eastern and Turkish influence.

Last week we stopped for a cuppa at Ray, after dropping our daughter at her first day of kindergarten.  It was great to get out amongst it with only one (immobile and not yet talking) child.  We sat out the front (easier with the pram) and while we sipped our very good beverages we noticed a few small changes.

•  The council has made changes to the rules about café tables.  Ray used to have three tables attached to the front wall of their café which were shaded by the red awning.  No more.  There is outdoor seating which offers the same ply box seats as before, but with a low ply box bench as the table.  It isn’t quite the same, and would make eating with cutlery a challenge.  It is also no longer in the shade of the awning…we roasted a bit.   
• The walls out the front, and the décor inside were looking a little tired.  The external walls used to have a few stencil bombs.  Cool.  Now, it is a hash of so many bombs that you can hardly differentiate one from the other (okay, maybe I am a bit harsh).  But, they really are a bit OTT.  Inside the things that were once a drawcard, and a bit different, (like the little CCTV which showed the baristas making coffees which is still on the wall but doesn’t work) are not looking so hot.  The pieces of fabric that are framed look like they need a wash, or a complete facelift.  
•   The opening hours are shorter than they used to be (a bit sad for those who want to stop in late afternoon).  There were all sorts of rules about when the kitchen shut, and when you could only have a take away coffee.  C’mon guys!
•   There were two signs up calling the café RAYS.   One sign apologising for the moved outdoor tables ‘from RAYS’, and the other stating ‘RAYS opening hours’.  

  

  Rays??  Where is the apostrophe?!

  
  

The joy of visiting Ray!

Now…I am a teacher (so is my partner) and this addition of an S without the apostrophe is a real crime in our world.  Unless the café has changed names to Rays (like rays of sunshine), we would like to know where the apostrophe is!?  And Rays is much less cool than straight Ray.  Ray is enigmatic.  Is it a ray of light?  A man?  What?  It makes the café seem like its own entity.  Rays…hmmm, just a tad outer suburban?  Sounds like Ray own the place…and has forgotten his apostrophe.

 

Anyway.  I still like Ray.  I vaguely know one of the baristas (lovely young guy) and I still recognise many of the regulars.  But best of all, I still feel like one of the cool and groovy people who know the secret, when I step in the door.