Friday, February 29, 2008

Back from New Zealand

February 29
It’s been two weeks since my return from New Zealand. My cubicle is cluttered with bottles of Antipodes water (counterintuitively pronounced an-TIH-puh-dees), my cufflink collection enhanced by a new pair — one cufflink a silhouette of the North Island, the other of the South Island — my DVR set to record every episode of Flight of the Conchords, to which I was introduced by the audio-visual system that I enjoyed during my trans-Pacific flight, flying business class, thank you very much.
Look at the seating in business class. That thing actually unfolds into a bed at the press of a button. It’s magic. I could live in Air New Zealand business class.
But my trip to New Zealand really ended in Matakana, which from what I can gather was once a little country town and is now a food-oriented getaway for wealthy Aucklanders. There’s a farmer’s market and cute shops with books and knickknacks and art galleries and a high end “butchery” and an organic ice cream shop. You get the idea.
We met in the home of Cuisine magazine food editor Lauraine Jacobs, who if she isn’t the doyenne of the greater Auckland culinary scene certainly could be.
She hosted a casual luncheon for us, and for her house guests Janie and Gary Hibler — Janie’s a food writer based in the Portland, Ore., area, so Bill already knew her, which is an amusing coincidence — along with Kim Crawford, who makes wines of that name, and some other representatives of New Zealand products, including Wayne Startup from The Village Press, an olive oil company, and Karen Brux from Zespri, the big kiwifruit company. I’d met Karen through IFEC, which isn’t that coincidental or amusing, but indicative of how disconcertingly small the food world is.
Also at lunch was Simon Woolley, the founder of Antipodes Water Co.
Kevin had brought along some sausage that a friend in Queenstown had made. Lauraine didn’t like it, but I did.
Here’s Lauraine with a big bottle of Moa beer, which we drank along with Kim Crawford’s wine and Simon Woolley’s water. We also sampled Stonecutter Scotch Ale from Renaissance Brewing Co.
I mostly ate outside, at a picnic table under a gigantic umbrella, and somehow still managed to get sunburned. That Kiwi sun is murder, I tell you.
After lunch, Bill and I were pitched by Wayne, Karen and Simon about olive oil, kiwifruit and water (Kim Crawford left without pitching, apparently content to let the wines speak for themselves).
Did you know that Zespri sets prices for farmers based not on the size of the fruit but on its brix content? It seems like such an obvious way to help improve the quality of fruit, but I don't know that anyone else does it.
Here's what kiwifruit looks like on the vine.
We were supposed to spend the afternoon sailing, but the weather, once again, was inclement, so we repaired to our individual villas, where I updated my blog and took a nap in preparation for dinner, also at the home of the Jacobses.
Joining us, along with the Hiblers, was Sam Lewis, director of New Zealand Trade & Enterprise’s food and beverage taskforce, and an extremely interesting guy who spent a bunch of time overseas. I sat between him and Lauraine, and Sam and I had a great chat about life choices and values and stuff — at least I think we did; we drank a lot of New Zealand wine.
We must also have spoken about science fiction, as “Iain M. Banks” is written in my notes.
And we ate a delicious lamb dish that Lauraine made — a shank marinated with kaffir lime and other things. I told her about Bernie Oliver’s moves to sell the meat of Merino hoggets and she actually shuddered with disgust. Lamb, she insisted, should be served very young and mostly milk-fed. And I must say her lamb was the best I had in New Zealand.
I also see in my notes that she likes barrel-aged Sauvignon Blanc, showing that she doesn’t have qualms about going against conventional wisdom.
The next day we got up early to meet with Ian Langridge, Jim Dollimore and others at Snells Beach to take a barge to one of their oyster farms.
We did this in the wind and rain as New Zealand’s summer continued to elude us.
Their specialty, believe it or not, is frozen oysters that they sell on the half-shell. And you know what? They taste like oysters on the half shell.
This is a picture of one of their older farms, at which horizontal sticks are laid out within range of the tide. Microscopic young oysters are caught there and grow.
From there we met up with Lauraine again at Matakana market, a farmers market that also has prepared food, so I had a Vietnamese steamed dumpling (bahn bao) and a sausage in flat bread with rocket and sweet capsicum sauce (or, in American, arugula and sweet pepper sauce).
Here are Lauraine and Kevin in the market.
Then we wandered around the area, to that fancy book store and butchery I mentioned above, as well as an organic ice cream and sandwich shop called The Blue Ice Cream Cafe. It was the only organic ice cream and sandwich shop I had ever been in that had Eminem playing on its sound system (“Haile’s Song,” but still...). I drank a long black (which is what Antipodeans call a double espresso), and ate a blueberry ice cream cone.
We were leaving New Zealand that day, so you’d think we would have been done. But we went on to Brick Bay Wines in Matakana to drink and have a snack and then drove out to a kiwifruit farm to meet Carlos Verissimo, who shared with us information about the high water demands for kiwi fruit and its specific temperature needs (it needs to stay below 7° Celsius for a certain length of time for the fruit to set, but if it gets much below freezing the vines suffer).
From there we headed to the airport, so let’s just close this up with another picture of kiwi fruit — this time gold ones.

adventures in music

February 29

“Hey man, do you know where I can score some coke?”
I like wearing a suit on the Lower East Side. It’s sort of like wearing a mohawk in Midtown. It sets you apart, lets you make a statement that you’re comfortable enough in your own skin that you don’t have to look like everyone else. The possible drawback in either case is that you could easily be mistaken for someone involved in the drug trade.
My friend Kenyon was performing at The Mercury Lounge on Wednesday, and that’s always bound to be a good time. But the annual C-CAP fundraiser was going on across town, at Pier 60 on the Hudson River, honoring chef Alfred Portale, pictured here with his daughter Victoria. So I went from the latter to the former, wearing my black pin-stripe suit, discussing the state of the world with my Pakistani taxi driver (he’s a Clinton supporter, arguing that the Clintons are very much loved overseas and the United States needs to rebuild its global reputation).
I actually got to The Mercury Lounge in time to see the very last song by The Dirty Pearls, who were playing to a packed house.
Then as I headed to the bar to buy a beer (Brooklyn Lager) a droopy-eyed young man asked me the question with which I started this blog entry.
“Nope. Sorry,” I said, and shrugged an apology.
“Really?” he said. He seemed half disappointed and half incredulous, as if I were holding out, keeping my cocaine to myself for reasons he didn’t understand. What’s the point of being a drug dealer if you’re not going to sell your cocaine to local fiends?
Had I been a drug dealer, he would have had an excellent point.
Beer in hand, I went back to watch the performance of A.I., which was opening for Kenyon’s band, Unisex Salon.
A.I. was a remarkably androgynous-looking trio of Californians, wearing long bangs that covered their faces (including their big masculine noses, hence the androgyny). I later described the haircut to my colleague Sonya Moore, who nodded with mild boredom and said “a scenester haircut.”
The lead singer was an old high school friend of Kenyon’s, and I think I would have enjoyed them, but they had all sorts of technical difficulties and had to reboot their computer to run their synthesizer or something. It was sad, because if you’re performing, you have to perform. Your equipment not working is not an excuse. Jump around on the stage and bang pots with a broom handle if you must, but entertain your audience.
The band made its way in fits and starts to their last song, and as they played it the lead singer and guitarist sort of wandered off to the back of the stage, apparently uninterested in the very polite and patient audience for which he was playing.
So I left the room in the middle of their song — which I think is really rude, but A.I. clearly didn’t care — and got another beer.
Kenyon was very, very excited to be performing on stage for the first time with his older brother Stephen, who's a composer and is working with Kenyon to produce his first album, which will be released someday, probably soon.
I took some pictures, but I gave Kenyon red eye, so he looks like the devil.
Actually, Kenyon would probably like to look like the devil, so, here‘s one of those pictures, on the left.

Kenyon introduced me to a metal-working jeweler named Michael. He called her “Michael the girl,” although she goes by “a girl named Michael.”
She borrowed my camera and took extremely unflattering pictures of me (it happens; good pictures of me are difficult to take), but a pretty good one of herself (on the right), and also not a bad one of Unisex Salon.
Obviously that’s Kenyon in the middle. Brother Stephen is on the left.
I had arrived late at the C-CAP benefit, so I didn’t get a chance to eat much, so after Kenyon's show I was thinking of going to Bereket for a doner kebab, but instead went to Philly’s for a cheesesteak.

The Artist Chef on ABS-CBN

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Poetry of Hafiz - A Sufi Master

To Build A Swing

You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare-
Don't mix them!
You have all the genius
To build a swing in your backyard
for God.
That sounds
Like a hell of a lot more fun.
Let's start laughing, drawing blueprints,
Gathering our talented friends.
I will help you
With my divine lyre and drum.
Hafiz
Will sing a thousand words
You can take into your hands,
Like golden saws,
Silver hammers,
Polished teakwood,
Strong silk rope.
You carry all the ingredients
To turn existence into joy,
Mix them, mix
Them!
Hafiz reflects my idea of what church should be about: Using our collective genius to build a swing for God so we can celebrate together an existence of joy.
Just a thought,
P.C.

Med in England

Considering the number of risottos (risotti? Risottums?) I’ve made and the variations thereof, I was slightly surprised by the realisation that I’d never made a paella. Not surprised in the conventional sense, as it can be rather difficult to be taken back by something of one’s own creation, rather I was surprised in the manner by which you may react to finding a long forgotten boiled sweet in the pocket of a jacket you haven’t worn since last winter. It wasn’t through any conscious decision, I’d not written paella off my culinary repertoire in the same sense that I shall never, ever cook a nut roast or use Quorn (or any meat substitute manufactured in a laboratory, for that matter) but it was just one of those dishes that hadn’t been on my radar for so long that it remained forgotten and neglected like a copy of Descartes’ Mediations on the Beckhams’ bookshelf. But my memory was triggered by the discovery of a bag of Spanish paella rice waiting patiently in the back of the cupboard and my curiosity nodules were aroused to a degree that warranted further investigation.

Aside from tapas, paella is probably Spain’s most famous contribution to global cuisine. Much like its Italian counterpart, risotto, it was originally a dish created to use up leftovers and make an edible meal on a tight budget (rice is cheap and filling). It has since risen above such lowly origins and additions such as prawns, mussels, squid and rabbit can turn it from peasant food into a real treat.

After some diligent research I found a recipe that claimed to follow an authentic Valencian method although I am almost certain that paella is one of those dishes, much like bouillabaisse or minestrone, that has as many variations as there are people willing to cook it and no such definitive recipe shall ever exist (personally, I think that this is one of the most exciting things about cooking a dish such as paella: there are no rules and you can experiment as much or as little as you wish allowing the finished article to evolve and change as it must have done over the last few hundred years). The key ingredients are rice and stock. Nothing more. From this point on feel free to go off-road, take a few chances and do as you wish. Go on, you know you want to.

For me, as a first-timer I wanted to keep it as simple as possible to try and allow each specific flavour to shine. I simmered the fish stock with some chopped garlic and two generous pinches of saffron whilst softening a couple of finely diced shallots and more garlic in plenty of olive oil (any large frying pan will be fine, this is a two pot dish, tops). A handful of finely chopped cherry tomatoes then went into the mix to cook off slightly just before the addition of a teaspoon of paprika and the rice which can be liberally scattered over the onion, garlic and tomato mixture. A stir at this point would be wise but this is one meal that should have the minimum amount of fuss lavished upon it because excess movement will break up the rice creating a soupy mess rather than a mass of tasty individual grains, each ready to burst in the mouth and release a barrage of flavour. Finally I added about ¾ of the stock, holding some back in case the pan needed topping up with liquid before the rice was cooked. I cheated with the seafood and bought a frozen cocktail of mussels, prawns and squid which I defrosted and fried off in a little olive oil, lemon juice and garlic before adding to the finished paella along with a couple of handfuls of steamed sugar snap peas and a squeeze of lemon. For a meal that required minimum effort, the result was superb and certainly one to do again – the perfumed saffron was subtle but added a vibrant deep yellow colour, the rice retained a nice amount of bite and the taste was readily reminiscent of the warmer climes of a Mediterranean summer as opposed to the cold damp of north-west England in February.


www.justcookit.blogspot.com

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

random grossness

February 27

Just for fun: Some FDA guidelines for maximum allowable contaminants in human food, sent from Rachel Laudan to the Association for the Study of Food and Society listserv.


Brussels sprouts: 10 aphids per ounce
Shelled peanuts: 1 insect per 5 pounds
Gold raisins: 4 fly eggs per ounce
Tomato juice: 3 fly eggs per ounce
Popcorn: 2 rodent hairs per ounce
Peanut butter: 9 insect fragments per ounce
Canned mushrooms: 5 maggots per ounce
Whole peppercorns: 1% mammalian excretia

Contemplative Prayer

It feels at times that we are constantly bombarded by noise, both externally and internally. It is hard to hear the Presence of God because of the percussive cacophony. How can anyone be expected to find restoration for the soul when there is so much dissonance? Contemplative prayer is an opportunity to just be.

In contemplative prayer "we move from communicating with God through speech to communing with God through the gaze of love. Words fall away, and the most palaple reality is being present to the lover of our souls. When we let go of all effort to speak or even to listen, simply becoming quiet before God, the Spirit is free to work its healing mysteries in us: releasing us from bondage, energizing new patterns of life, restoring our soul's beauty. Here we allow ourselves to be loved by God into wholeness.

Such communion with God is an end in itself, not a means to another end, however good."
Marjorie J. Thompson from Soul Feast.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Fun with fish

February 15

My trip to New Zealand continued...

Here’s the view from my townhouse. Nice, huh?
I left that view so Kevin could drive Bill and me to Leigh Township, where we visited Leigh Fisheries (DBA Lee Fish), which exports wild fin fish, largely caught to order. Who did I run into but Rachel Taulelei, whom I’d met, oh I don’t know, several years ago at one of those New Zealand trade functions. She looked well, as always.
Leigh mostly exports snapper, but other things, too, like red snapper, (on the left), blue nose, John Dory, terakihi, big eye and southern blue fin tuna, and hapuka, which English speakers outside of New Zealand call grouper (and which you can see below, or possibly on the right, depending on your Internet browser).
All of the fish is sent out unfrozen and 95 percent is exported.
So, we toured the plant and looked at all the fish, and then we were taken to see the giant spiny lobsters, which New Zealanders, for reasons of their own, call crayfish, although gigantic ones like this six-pound puppy that Bill’s holding are called pack horses. They’re a different species from red spiny lobsters and about three-quarters of the price.
From there we headed to Black Dog Coffee & Country Kitchen in the heart of Matakana for breakfast, where I had a flat white and a breakfast wrap made with scrambled eggs, spinach and chutney.
A word on New Zealand coffee terminology. A short black is an espresso. A long black seems to me to be a double espresso. A flat white is sort of a cross between a macchiato and a latte. A cappuccino is a cappuccino. Australians apparently use the same terminology.
Then we had some downtime, followed by a day spent at the home of the inimitable Lauraine Jacobs. And I think she deserves a blog entry of her own. Stay tuned...

Monday, February 25, 2008

The Artist Chef on The BEAT QTV11



For those people who weren't able to watch the show. :-)

Paprika Prawn Skewers

My favorite seafood is prawn and paprika is my favorite spice. Combining those two elements I came up with something easy to prepare but very flavorful. The paprika prawn skewers with thai chili sauce. The overnight marination of salt, pepper, paprika and lime in my prawns gave my recipe a different kick. Paprika is a mild spice, adding salt and pepper balanced the taste and the lime as the kicker. Everyone should try this and grill the skewers in butter for added flavor. Everyone can cook most specially a simple recipe like this. Appetizer to all the beer drinkers and pica-pica lovers!


New Items

I have added a couple of new things to this blog. One is a connection to podcasts of sermons and worship. If you like to listen rather than read the sermons you can either sit at home with a cup of joe and listen using your computer, or you can send the podcast to your IPod or mp3 player and take my voice anywhere. Kinda scary. Go There Now.

I have also added a section I am calling "Expand Your Faith Awareness." I will be adding different websites that offer video vignettes of people talking about faith and spirituality. Check out Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason. I am hoping that you might watch a video that triggers a deeper level of thought reagarding your faith. Perhaps we can discuss your thoughts via this blog or meet with a small group to explore further.

There is also a new section called "Spiritual Classics" which is a collection of audio podcasts of the "greats." An electronic library for your spiritual growth and edification.

Just a Thought,
P.C.

Pan(ettone) Perdu

W. Somerset Maugham once quipped that to eat well in England, you should have breakfast three times a day. I am assuming that he was referring to the Full English rather than a bowl of muesli, half a grapefruit and a glass of broccoli and garlic juice or whatever is de rigeur at the moment. I am also assuming that he was quipping in an era when obesity, coronary heart disease, type two diabetes and other such ailments were viewed as aspirational conditions rather than with the scorn lavished upon them today. Or perhaps they just didn’t exist. Either way, I don’t think that eating two fried eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomato, black pudding, baked beans, hash browns and fried bread three times a day is the most balanced diet, nor am I willing to attempt this in a very British version of ‘Supersize Me’. I just don’t think eating all my meals at the Little Chef will have the same impact as Morgan Spurlock managed with his Herculean McDonalds effort, although the prospect of a documentary called ‘Olympic Alex’ does have marginal appeal (the Little Chef’s largest offering is called, somewhat amusingly, The Olympic Breakfast but despite this I’m not sure it will be the official meal of the 2012 games, given that it contains enough calories to power a coxless four for a week). Nor will it do much for my arteries, health, weight or general well being (unless Channel Five wish to make a documentary about it in which case I might consider it). Also, why is he called the ‘Little Chef’ when he is clearly a couple of burgers short of being morbidly obese? Anyway, I digress.

Thankfully, things have improved greatly on the gastronomic front since Somerset Maugham made his astute observation but breakfasts in this fashion remain a uniquely Western concept popular solely in Britain, Ireland and America whilst the majority of Europe seems to get by on little more than a swift coffee and cigarette. Admittedly, few of us now have the time to create such lavish and heart stopping starts to the day, and even if we did the collective health consciousness of the nation would prevent most of us from indulging in such a fashion. However, there are occasions when breakfast can be a real treat as opposed to a hastily burnt piece of toast eaten on the bus. Sundays lend themselves particularly well to this sort of fayre as do national holidays and New Year’s Day was no exception.

I know the turn of the year seems like a while ago, but I remembered this particular treat only yesterday and felt I had to share it with you. Plus I’ve cooked nothing of repute recently and this is one way of climbing out of a self-induced culinary chasm. French toast, or pain perdu as it is called in France, is a fairly light in terms of the amount of work involved. It’s also a great way of using up bread that would otherwise be thrown away (or lost, hence the French term – ‘lost bread’). With a little imagination it can also become a luxurious treat: dusted with a little cinnamon and icing sugar and served with a hot chocolate is one option. Another, and the one we went for on New Year’s Day was to substitute the bread for thick slices of Italian panettone which, when dipped in beaten egg and fried in butter, goes supremely well with thick strawberry jam and steaming hot, black coffee. It may not have been the healthiest start to 2008 but it was a great way to see in the year.

Please see www.justcookit.blogspot.com it's got some photos and other such treats.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Tuna Pasta with Vegetables


Serves 3

Ingredients:
1 can of tuna in water
1 cup of chopped tomatoes
1 cup of mixed frozen vegetables
1 cup of milk (or cream)
3 cups of cooked pasta (Penne or Fusilli)
1 small chopped onion
1 chopped clove of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of Italian mixed herbs
1 tablespoon of fresh or dried basil
Some fresh chopped cilantro
Salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese

In a pan, add olive oil, onions and garlic, salt and pepper, let it cook for one minute then add the tomatoes, Italian herbs and basil then add the thawed frozen vegetables and let them cook for about 2-3 minutes. Add the milk or cream and drained tuna. Meanwhile cook the pasta. When the vegetables are cooked toss the cooked pasta and mix all together. Serve with parmesan cheese on top and fresh cilantro.

Easy Apple Dessert


About 4-6 servings

Ingredients:
2 and a half chopped apples
1 cup of sugar
Vanilla
1/4 spoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 egg beaten
1 cup of flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup crushed walnut

Mix apples with sugar and let it sit for half an hour.
Mix the egg, oil, salt, spices, flour, baking soda, few drops of vanilla, nuts, then the apples. I used the regular baking pan that I use for banana bread or any cake. Bake for 30-35 minutes, in a 350 degrees oven. You may serve with powdered sugar on top.
PS: It will stay a bit moist when it comes out of the oven until it completely cools.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Australia vs Canada

Sup my hombres! So i know many of you are dying to know, just how does canada compare to the great land of Oz...so here is my attempt to do just that:


I suppose the most important question here is how does one compare two countries in the first place? A wise person may use factors such as socio-economic status, level of employment, or political structure, while over-simplifying economists may look at the latest figures for GDP. But really, none of you want to hear about that as much as i could be bothered writing about it, so here are some different criteria...


1) Sport


I think i've almost said enough on this topic after i tell you that instead of having a 'Sport' section in the Calgary Herald, they have an 'Ice Hockey' section, and that their supposed sport stores contain no more than the equipment and accessories required for playing hockey and going skiing/snowboarding. It is most certainly true that during the winter season sporting activities in Canada become quite restrictive, especially in a place like Banff. Year-round sports in Australia such as golf and tennis are solely summer sports, while water activities such as skiing and recreational boating are difficult to pursue on frozen lakes and rivers. On top of all this, Australia is home to the greatest sport of all, Football, and has a national soccer team that would kick Canada's arse...


Australia 1 Canada 0


2) Beer


The social lubricant, a most integral topic. Almost all countries brew some magnificent beer, Australia the Crown Lager, Canada the Alexander Kieth's IPA, so in order to compare i will have to focus primarily on how it is served. For example, if you order a beer at the local pub in Melbourne, you will most likely recieve a 'pot' glass, no more than a few sips really. However i am yet to see such a small portion of beer served in Canada, you will almost automatically be served a pint, quite the perfect size. Another positive for Canada is the 12-pack carton, something i cannot recall coming across too often at the Dan Murphy's in Alphington. Not so large that you cannot take it on the bus home with you, and not so small that you find yourself back at the liquor store the next day...


Australia 1 Canada 1


3) Wildlife


some may question the relevance of this topic, since the argument of what animal is better than another is purely subjective. Therefore, the only reasonable means of coming to a conclusion is to hypothisize some sort of scenario where native animals from each land are put together in a room and compete in some sort of all-in fight to the death. While neither country contains any type of lion-eating hell beasts, I have to say that Kangaroos, Emu's and Koala's would have difficulty holding their ground against cougars, bears and mooses.


Australia 1 Canada 2


4) Food


With the wonders of international trade at work the products you find on the shelves at the local safeway (yes, they have safeway here) are practically identical. At least until you take a closer look for some subtle differences. One thing that caught my eye is the absence of lamb in Canada (what i wouldn't do for some tender juicy crumbed lamb cutlets right now). And the bacon here can be summed up with one word - rubbish, with a noticeable lack of any thing i would call 'meat'. I also sense a severe shortage of fresh seafood, and i dont think your traditional Fish 'n' Chip shop exists here. On the plus side i like the fact that you dont have to worry about your ice cream melting on the walk home from the supermarket.


Australia 2 Canada 2


So at the moment the scores are tied, but I'm going to settle the debate on the grounds of a few annoying facts regarding Canada:


- The existence of the penny, a completely useless form of currency. If a penny fell from the sky and straight into somebody's palm, they would throw it on the ground since it is not worth the effort it would take to reach into your back pocket and get your wallet out.


-The 'tipping culture' and pricing system. Not only are you expected to tip someone for merely pouring you a beer, but the majority of prices you see around do not include tax. People should not have to need to calculate 7% tax in their head to determine exactly what they are paying for their deli sandwich.


- It's proximity to the USA, and the Frenchies.


In regards to the videos, we had trouble uploading to Youtube so you guys will have to see them on our return (thanks mum for sending the CD-rom though!)


See you all soon


Aussie Aussie Aussie...


Golden



Lux Cinema / Farewell Party.

As most of you may know, Josh, Cam and I served popcorn for a living in Banff. It turned out to be the perfect job for us, as the most difficult part of the job was probably fighting off the boredom between each movie session.

Box office. This is where tickets got sold by the 'box officers'.
Corridor leading up to the theatres and the concession stand. the big orange thing on the right is a standee of the new Dr. Seuss movie that Cam and I spent around 5 hours putting together. It looked good for about 5 minutes before it started falling apart.
Cam bucketing some ice into the ice bucket. This was probably the pinnacle of physical labour that we had to go through at this place.
The 'Pop' machine. Ignore the underside of the drink taps, it doesn't taste as dirty as it looks.
Cam busy at work again, transferring popcorn from the popcorn machine to the warmer. All the English tourists that came into the cinema were flabbergasted when they found out that we didn't serve sweet popcorn.
Organizing candy, the pinnacle of mental exertion required.
Regular bars, family bars, then M&M's.
Popcorn machine hard at work.
Josh the Box Officer hard at work, he owns the box.
Cam and I hard at work, doing what we do best.
19th of Feb was the night of our self-imposed going away party, where we got to watch the Night at the Roxbury on the cinema screen. It was a fun and emotional night, where Cam and I got our shirts signed by our co-employees and bosses.

Lola & Luz, two Phillipino ladies who keep this place going.
Theatre No. 1
Inside the projection room.
Juno!
Movie containers. Most are labelled under fake names to prevent theft or piracy or something of that nature.
Letters for the marquee.
Spot the asian.

From left: Luz, Lola, Lucy, Sherrel, and Darren.

Nice little group shot.
Jae and Lucy signing our shirts.
Adam, 7000th Aussie to work in the cinema, with a love of Family Guy to rival even our own.
Michael's not the only one who steals your M&M's, Darren.
The cinema crew + heathy.
A Cheesy farewell-shot of Cam and I with our boss Teela.
Best wishes to all our friends at the cinema, hopefully we'll get to catch up someday.

RAMBO! I mean Jin.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Sand-which?

Making the perfect sandwich is an activity fraught with difficulty. Sure, it is easy enough to place a couple of slices of ham between two thin pieces of plastic bread or cut open a roll and spread with a liberal layer of mayonnaise before adding a hastily cut tomato and some tasteless cheddar but this is mere sustenance rather than the gastronomic perfection that a sandwich can offer. And I’m sure you know me well enough by now to know that a basic butty would not be enough to satisfy.

The beauty of a sandwich lies in its inherent simplicity but that simplicity can also be its downfall: if each element is not perfect then the whole thing disappoints and serves to stave off hunger rather than create a perfect food moment. And before I go any further I’d like to point out that it really isn’t about cost, I’m not snobby about these things and there are times when a stack of watery wafer thin ham and three Kraft cheese singles wedged between two slices of Warbutons bread can hit the spot like nothing else. To go even further, a few minutes under the grill or in a Breville and you’ve got the food of the gods. But it wouldn’t be right to do this in rye bread, for example and this is at the heart of what I am trying to say: the elements have to fit. A burger wouldn’t be right in a bagel, a toastie in a teacake is just plain wrong and smoked salmon and cream cheese just wouldn’t taste right in cornbread. A hot dog should be served in a fluffy white roll, brie belongs on a baguette and a chip barm cake could come in nothing other than, well, a barm cake.

The origins of the sandwich are often attributed to John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich and is one of the more famous stories in food history. The legend has it that he enjoyed eating meat between two slices of bread because it allowed him to continue playing cribbage without getting the cards greasy. Although the Earl may have popularised the eating of sandwiches, and gave his name to the snack, they have been around in various forms since the first century BCE and no doubt prior to that as well. What hasn’t changed is the convenience and the speed with which they can be created and eaten. It takes very little skill to create a butty worthy of consumption but perhaps a little more to craft a memorable one. The £85 sandwich on sale at Selfridges, for example, probably contains a bit more than the ubiquitous ham and cheese as it was, until recently the most expensive sandwich in the world, an honour that now belongs to a £100 creation available at Cliveden House, Berkshire and containing Iberico Ham, white truffles and quails’ eggs.

My budget doesn’t quite stretch to that, at least not yet (and even if it did I am uncertain as to whether I could part with £100 for bread and filling) but I still enjoy creating and eating the humble sandwich especially with some unusual ingredients which arrived in the form of Serrano ham and Manchego cheese, a gift from my parents brought back from their recent trip to Majorca. Freshly baked wholemeal bread, homemade mayonnaise, a generous wedge of the cheese, a slightly decadent number of slices of the ham, some thinly sliced Spanish tomato (I have no idea how they managed to get that back on the plane without it exploding into a red mush in a suitcase) and a handful of baby spinach. OK, it might just have been a ham and cheese sandwich but that didn’t stop it from being damned tasty.

www.justcookit.blogspot.com

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Bill’s a legend

February 15

Straddling the peninsula that makes up the northern bit of New Zealand’s North Island is the pulsing metropolis of Auckland. The city is home to a full quarter of the country’s population, and apparently the object of scorn and hostility for the other three quarters of New Zealanders, which is pretty much what you would expect. As a New Yorker, I can sympathize.
Locals complain about crowds and traffic, but although Auckland is the largest city for more than a thousand miles — until you reach Sydney — it still has just about 1.3 million people.
Kevin Parish, Bill King and I arrived there yesterday and immediately headed to the Villa Maria winery, where we met representatives from Family of 12, a coalition of a dozen winemakers that have joined together to market themselves.
We met representatives from a few of those wineries and were taken to a large table in a board room where, to my horror, each place setting was appointed with 28 glasses and a spittoon.
A wine tasting.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I don’t like tasting wine. I like drinking it. Wine is meant to be enjoyed with food — one variety, or possibly on a weird night two, per course at maximum — not to be swirled, smelled, slurped and spit out by the dozen. Now, if you're a winemaker, a sommelier, a beverage consultant, a wine buyer or a wine writer, you have to taste wine. It’s your job.
And that’s one reason I'm none of those.
Still, I was a guest, and if your hosts want you to taste 28 wines, you taste them.
And they did apologize in advance, acknowledging that working through 28 wines was not the ideal way to appreciate them, but what else could they do?
Swirling, smelling and slurping are really perfectly fine things to do, but the spitting, oh the spitting.
I'm a bad spitter. Sloppy. The wine got caught in my beard. It dripped on my notes. I drenched my napkin wiping my mouth and, to the credit of my hosts, one of them handed me another napkin.
It was both nice and deeply humiliating that they were paying attention.
I did my best. If I tasted or smelled something distinctive, I said so. “Lychee!” I said. And “smoke!”
Bill later thanked me for drawing their attention away from him, so he could taste in peace.
Bill is a great and powerful man. He tried 28 wines without spitting. Or so he claims, and I believe him, even though I think I would have fallen down.
After the tasting — first of Sauvignon Blancs, then one Chenin Blanc, and on to Chardonnay, Riesling, nine (9!) Pinot Noirs and finally Bordeaux blends — we chatted, and I picked some of my favorite Pinots and sipped them, actually swallowing.
The representatives from Family of 12 said they were going to concentrate on presenting Chardonnay in the United States at the NRA show, since that’s what Americans like. Bill suggested that perhaps they shouldn’t be focusing on such a crowded market, although he admitted that since New Zealand was sort of a blank slate in the minds of American consumers, he wasn’t sure the best way for them to proceed.
We both restated the notion that, as a small country, New Zealand should aim for niche markets and charge higher prices. Bill said that for Pinots in particular they should be charging more so that they’ll be taken seriously.

From Villa Maria we went to Auckland’s Viaduct Harbor (excuse me, Harbour) for dinner at Soul.
Being an American, I expect meals at restaurants in touristy parts of town to be boring at best, but at Soul chef Gareth Stewart’s food was creative and delicious.
Of course it didn’t hurt that we were being specially looked after by owner Judith Tabron.
We told her about our tasting that afternoon and Bill confessed that he didn’t spit, at which Judith memorably declared: “You’re a legend!”
Then she sent out three wines per course, and so I take back what I just said about two wines per course being the maximum acceptable number. Three works.
I had a beer first, actually, a Speight’s Gold Ale

Then with my smoked paprika-spiced prawns on grilled watermelon with cucumber and mint relish, Judith gave us two Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs — S. Claire and Brancott — and an Aurum Riesling from Central Otago.
Then with my roasted rump and braised shoulder of lamb with garlic confit and slow cooked pukekohe onion, she served three Pinot Noirs — 2006 Te Tera from Martinborough, 2005 Tohu Reserve from Marlborough, and 2006 Bannock Brae from Central Otago.
Having drunk six glasses of wine, I didn’t photograph the desserts, which were a lemon tart with raspberry essence, buttermilk sherbet and a bitter chocolate marquis.
We also had a Whitestone Moeraki Bay blue cheese from Oamaru (south of Christchurch).
We drank a No. 1 Family Estate Cuvée from Marlborough, a Pegasus Bay noble Chardonnay from Waipara, and a Cottage Block noble Riesling from Marlborough.
Kevin did not drink with us as he had to drive us to the country town of Matakana, where we were staying at Quest, a collection of townhouses, of which we each got one. So I had a kitchen, a living room, bedroom and two bathrooms. Two televisions, too.

A Little Help!!!!!


This year, I have the honor and pleasure of participating in MDA's DeWitt Lock Up 2008 to help "Jerry's Kids®". To reach my goal I need your help! I'd like to include you on my list of contributors who are helping me reach my goal. Your donation would help MDA continue the important fight against muscular dystrophy. Check out my web page by clicking on the link below. There you'll find all kinds of information about MDA, and be able to make your tax-deductible donation on-line using your credit card.

MDA serves people in our community with neuromuscular disease by providing clinics, support groups, assistance with the purchase and repair of wheelchairs, braces and communication devices, and summer camp for kids. MDA also funds research grants to help find treatments and cures for some 43 neuromuscular diseases that affect people of all ages, right here in our community. I sincerely hope that you'll take the opportunity to support MDA. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call or e-mail me.
On behalf of the families MDA serves, thank you!


If the link above does not bring you to my Participant Page, cut and paste the address below into the address bar of your internet browser.

Body and Soul


Romans 5:1-11
"Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."
I just got back from a workout at the Rec Center - a little biking, a little running, a lot of sweating. Since the summer of 2006 I have been training for and participating in triathlons: Sprint and olympic distances. What that means is swimming either a half mile or mile; biking either 12.4 miles or 24.8 miles; and finishing with a run of either 3.1 miles or 6.2 miles. One right after the other. My youngest son, Keegan, inspired me with his efforts in that realm. I was also inspired by my older son, Jesse, who was running a half-marathon and my wife, Sue who had run an 11 mile race. I have done races with each of the boys and the three of us raced in the Des Moines Hy-Vee Triathlon (olympic distance) in June of 2007.
To be honest my competitive nature kicked in and that is why I wanted to race. Well... they raced and I survived.
But it has given me hope. Hope born out of suffering and enduring and a change in my character. I am still competitive but against myself more than anything. I have lost weight and know that my physical health has improved. But more importantly I have used the time that I workout as a time for meditation and prayer. It clears my thoughts and opens my soul for the possibilities that the Holy Spirit offers.
Consider a way to exercise both your body and soul. Let it be an experience of God that gives you hope.
Just a thought,
P.C.