Day 4: The green shoes

Today I decided it was time to think about fulfilling one of my new year resolutions: to take a break from work around lunchtime each day.

Thus at 12.30 I walked up Gurners Lane and New Chancery Lane to the Queen and Bourke tram stop and before too long was trundled up to the Paris end of town. I like this end of town for three reasons: having gone to school in East Melbourne I'm very familiar with it; several years at Casselden Place made it even more familiar; and it boasts both the Cricketers Bar and one of the few op shops in central Melbourne.

Pausing just for a few moments to step into Mitty's newsagency (one of the few newsagencies in central Melbourne that supplies the Geelong Addy), I made my way to the Salvos op shop. $11.95 later, I was the proud owner of two Belgian cushion covers and a pair of green shoes.

The green shoes

Day 3: Rhubarb

After a refreshing glass of rhubarb juice and a pot of Russian Caravan tea, I walked to the station earlier than usual this morning. This proved to be both a good and bad decision - bad because I had to stand all the way to Richmond, but good because there was a Flinders St train on platform 7 which meant I could avoid the trip around the loop and the long walk from Flagstaff station.

Even better, I met Christian at the Degraves St barrier when his myki failed to scan and he held up a line of impatient commuters - but finally he was through and we walked to Collins St together chatting away about javascript, xsl and a replacement for the new books program - some of my favourite conversation topics at the moment. We also discussed where and when to have my going-on-leave drinks next week, with some support for The Elms, for old times sake, but probably for expediency we will go with The Mitre.

Work was a mixture of meetings and dealing with unexpected things from left field (a pretty normal day really). I really need to set aside some clear time to work on a project proposal before the end of this week.

I also had company on the walk home as I met my neighbour at East Camberwell.

When I got home Michael made me a rhubarb juice cocktail. Now I feel ready to face the evening.

Day 2

Just prior to day 2 I fell asleep before Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy were united.

On the way to work this morning I decided to resume reading the e-book I recently borrowed from Melbourne Library Service - but alas the loan had expired. Fortunately only a couple of stations passed before I had successfuly re-borrowed it via the Overdrive app. It even took me back to the exact spot where I'd left off, which was pretty impressive. The book is Devil's food by Kerry Greenwood.

Flagstaff Station was mercifully quiet so the walk down the usually congested William Street was more pleasant than usual, particularly with a beautiful clear crisp Melbourne morning exerting its rare charm.

Before too long I was at work and spent the day sorting out the usual assortment of minor crises, issues, queries, problems and occasionally being productive. LibraryThing for Libraries is now live in the online catalogue after too long a delay.

Tonight I made rhubarb juice, which I'd never heard of before. Not sure if I'll actually drink any of it but it looks pretty. After about three hours pottering about I decided on a very simple dinner - marinated tofu, mushrooms, onions and red capsicum baked in a cast iron pan in the oven and served over baby spinach.

Tomorrow's task will be to choose an iPad blogging app that will allow photo uploads - BlogPress looks promising but seems to have a few issues so I think a bit more research is in order.

The Vegetarian Inn

Does anyone remember the Vegetarian Inn in Glenferrie Road Malvern in the 1970s?

Tonight I turned to one of my all time favourite soup recipes, Tomato soup with Tamari, and the memories came flooding back.

The restaurant was run by a French family who cooked a set menu of vegetarian macrobiotic food. The first course was soup with home made flat bread. The main course was a platter of mixed delights, a combination of grainy things, salady things and veggie things. I don't remember if there were sweets. While waiting (often quite a while) for the meal to be served, we listened to Alan Stivell on the stereo and enjoyed a glass or three of wine and beer and the company of good friends.

One night the soup was so delicious that I ventured to ask for the recipe, which was generously given. This is a beautiful soup with a lovely fresh taste, best served of course in a 1970s style pottery bowl. In fond memory of the Vegetarian Inn, here is the recipe.

Tomato soup with Tamari
1 lb tomatoes
1 onion
1 medium zucchini
1 medium potato
2 cloves garlic
Mint, parsley
Tamari
1 1/2 pints water

Saute chopped onion, mint, zucchini, potato and minced garlic in oil. Add chopped tomatoes and water, simmer one hour.
Put through mouli, add Tamari, salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with parsley.

Here is a picture of the soup in preparation.

The Antipasto Table by Michele Scicolone

This book was published twenty years ago and in the fashion of its time it's all about the food. There are no glossy photographs (or any illustrations at all, if it comes to that). The recipes speak for themselves.

There are so many new ideas that I'd like to try - Frittata di ceci, Taralli (crisp fennel bread rings), Frittatine di cavolo (miniature omelets with cabbage and leeks). And I am determined to follow the author's insistence that beans must be baked in the oven in the Tuscan way: 'the result is far superior to beans cooked on top of the stove'.

A beautifully written book full of beautiful recipes.

View all my reviews

Morgan Bach published

Some time ago I promised to let you know when the Ancora Press publication Morgan Bach became available. That happy time has arrived and the book may now be ordered from Ancora Press.

A wonderful description is available in Trove.

An image of the title page is available on Flickr.

Morgan Bach is the haunting tale of a mother and son separated and reunited after Morgan's voyage to Australia in colonial times. Setting the original poem in Welsh posed many challenges for the journeymen and master of the Ancora Press and we are very proud that this beautiful book is now available.

Tapenade

This evening I decided to use up a backlog of olives by making tapenade. I searched around for vegetarian versions and found that capers seemed to be the generally agreed substitute for anchovies.

Scorning such niceties as exact quantities of ingredients, I squashed my olives with a big knife to remove the stones, chopped them roughly and chucked them into the mortar with a squashed clove of garlic and a spoonful of drained capers.

The olives were a mixture of kalamatas marinated in olive oil with lemon and chili from the wonderful Boroondara Farmers Market. Some miscellaneous green and stuffed olives had been languishing for a few days in the same marinade.

Adding a little more of the marinade and some lemon juice, I worked the mix with the pestle until it was broken down but still a bit chunky. Then I added some chopped rosemary and a few pine nuts and ground it up a bit more. Finally some coarsely ground pepper and a bit more lemon juice, and it was ready to scoop into a bowl and serve with some olive bread croutons (made from olive bread thinly sliced and dried out in the oven).

Not exactly a recipe which would pass the MasterChef test of being able to be reproduced exactly by any competent cook carefully following the instructions, but it worked for me.