Cat on the Bench

Clean-out-the-fridge and nourish-your-loved-ones frittata

Last night's meal was to serve three people and two purposes.

Firstly, as I am going on holiday tomorrow and the boy cannot be trusted to consume vegetables of his own accord, the plethora of vegie odds and ends needed to be used up (and preferably ingested by the boy so there is some chance he won't have died of scurvy by the time I return).

Secondly, N's little sister, R, had appeared at our house.  R moved to Melbourne from Castlemaine, the town we all grew up in, at the start of the year.  Her diet is fairly typical of an 18-year-old fresh out of home: tea, toast, beer and deepfried balls of mashed potato from questionable Elizabeth St curry houses. As kind souls did for me at 18, I try to feed her as much protein as possible when she comes within my grasp.

Thus . . .

"Clean-out-the fridge frittata"
1. Stick a peeled chunk of pumpkin and a zucchini through the food processor so it grates into largish chips.
2. Cut the squishy bits of a red capsicum and dice.
3. Chop 3 rashers of bacon into little strips.  Fry the bacon in a tiny bit of oil (it will leak its own fat).
4. Once cooked, add the vegies. Stir a bit then put a lid on the frypan, shake a bit, then leave on a low heat until the vegies go softish.
5. Preheat the grill.
6. Beat 5 or 6 eggs with a bit of milk, salt and pepper. Stir in some chopped parsley and basil from your garden (beaming with pride as you do so). Take the lid off the vegies and pour the egg mixture over. Move the pan's contents around so the egg gets under some of the vegies. Cook uncovered over a low heat until you think the bottom is cooked.
7. Grate some cheese over the pan's contents.  Chuck the pan under the grill until it smells sublime and goes golden brown on top.
8. Cut into wedges and nourish your loved ones. Serve with a salad if your fridge is better endowed than mine.

Serves three with leftovers for breakfast (or four).

"a minestrone for the lovely lady"

Confucious say girl who spend morning lugging barrister's briefs up Collins St deserveth a hearty lunch. And since the best way to fill a cold tum is with soup and the heartiest soup is minestrone, what was I to do but obey the universal forces of logic and head to Pellegrinis.

I first went to Pellegrinis with my mother as a child on a daytrip to Melbourne.  I wasn't normally allowed coffee but she allowed me a sip of her cafe latte this particular day accompanied with the solemn utterance: "this is what good coffee should taste like".

Yesterday, I wiggled myself onto a stool at the crowded bar, between a bearded man dribbling ragout on a Supreme Court transcript and a little girl slurping a granita. My order was hollered to the kitchen and within two minutes, my soup arrived.

My face fell in disappointment.  The parmesan looked like supermarket sawdust, the soup was a dull brown and not the vivid tomato and bacon picture in my head, and it contained both pasta and rice which made me immediately think of my own efforts to pad out sharehouse meals.

But appearances are deceiving.  The cheese tasted like the gutsiest reggiano.  The pasta and rice were imbued with the flavoursome broth which tasted as though it had been slow-cooked with bacon bones or a ham hock. There were less beans and vegies than my version, but the soup itself had a meaty complexity that mine definitely lacks.

An excellent espresso finished off a perfect lunch (albeit waking me up to the fact that the afternoon was likely to be spent carting another pile of briefs back down the hill - sigh . . .  eighteen months until I finish this damned degree!)

Pellegrinis, Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000.

The Lambsgo Barrr

No joke, it took me eighteen months to realise that the above was a pun.  But luckily it is also one of the better bars in Fitzroy (being a safe distance from the vapid hellhole that is Brunswick Street) and so those eighteen months spent shelling peanuts, playing Connect 4, pondering, chuckling and supping cider were not entirely wasted, despite my slow-wittedness.

I hadn't been there since I returned from London, and the soul-destroying weather of late had been triggering cravings for the warm embrace of its real ales and cushy couches. So when J and I were brainstorming for a place for S's birthday drinks, the promise of delicious beer plus its spacious seating arrangments and good heating was sufficient justification to direct everyone to the Lambsgo.

I couldn't decide if I was in the mood for a gutsy ale or a dry cider (and they have a wide choice of both), so M said he would choose a drink for me.  The eternal peacemaker, he returned with . . . apple-flavoured beer from the Guest Tap.

I was openminded as the English Campaign for Real Ale festival that I attended in London gave me an appreciation for flavoured beers (raisin stout, anyone?), despite my original scepticism based on my Passion Pop-tinged teenage years.

This particular beer didn't really have the tartness that I wanted from the cider or the complexity of a skilfully brewed ale and was a bit sweet for my tastes.  That said, it was refreshing and a much appreciated gesture - thanks M.

Lambsgo Barrr, 135 Greeves Street, Fitzroy VIC 3065.

Y'all ready for this??

For three reasons, I am going to spend the next hour publishing the last two week's backlog of culinary adventures:

1. the camera connecty cord has shown up - it was being used as a dressing gown cord (?!?) Bring on the photos!

2. to the masses who have been telling me to tape up the live wires on my laptop charger, let's have a big "I told you so" on the count of three because it sparked, hissed and went to heaven last night.  Luckily M has finished exams so I can use his computer.

3. I won't get another chance to do computerness for a week because tomorrow, my bestest buddy J and I are going to Byron Bay for a week to lose our ghostly Melbourne moon-tans, catch up on non-legal reading, find J a yummy surferboy, yoga, hammocks, beach walks and seafood. Mmmmmm.

So here goes . . .

A Saturday by any other name . . .

As the majority of Saturday was spent under the doona reading Ruth Reichl's 'Comfort Me with Apples', my week has felt somewhat out of sync having not undergone its usual Saturday 'newspapers/errands/Friday night debrief over coffee' course of events.  Luckily, I didn't have work or uni today, giving me a chance to rectify this unfortunate situation.  I dropped off drycleaning, bought cat food, paid the gas bill, then met N and his bro - S - at the Rathdowne Street Food Store.

We all ordered coffees and I got a spinach and fetta muffin for lunch (which was bizarrely sweet for a supposedly savoury muffin).  We talked about our exams, the status of the beautiful Russian girl that S had brought to a party some weeks back and the short film that N is about to shoot. 

The Rathdowne Street Food Store is one of our favourite places in the world. It was where my brother (after saving for months) took N and I for our kangaroo and duck for our 21st birthdays. It's the perfect people-perving perch on a Saturday morning, especially over croissants and jam. It's two-thirds of the way home from Cinema Nova - an ideal spot to pause for pudding after a cheap Monday night movie and argue that the book was far superior.  It's the place to take your Dad for a pie when he has driven up the country, or a sad friend for a glass of wine.

I have only ever had three full meals there (and I can recite, course by course, the dishes, wine and conversation topics enjoyed!). However, it is equally magnetic as a late-night dessert or mid-afternoon coffee - it manages to cultivate a serenity that other places on the street lack, despite being one of the more popular destinations.  Perhaps it's the leafiness (is that a word?). Or the combination of being set back from the road but still not being under cover. Or just wilful blindness.

Here comes the 'but'.

We noticed that the 'bread of the day' was corn and polenta, which we deemed highly appropriate 'dipping' material for the lamb shank casserole we had planned to cook that night.  We pooled our change and bought a loaf, then ran home to avoid the impending rain. 

Back at the house, we removed it from the paper bag to show M.  It didn't look corny.  It didn't smell corny. Even toasted and spread with butter, it tasted good, but definitely not corny.  Sigh.  It was definitely definitely wholemeal.

But we'll still be back for coffee on Saturday.

Rathdowne Street Food Store
617 Rathdowne Street
Carlton North  VIC  3054

Farewell Queens Parade

Yesterday I worked my last day at my job as a legal secretary for a small firm in Clifton Hill.  It was a bittersweet day - I really liked the people I worked with and the clients.  However, I was contacted out of the blue by a family lawyer I had met a while back (we bonded through a mutual love for duck rice paper rolls), and she offered me a job as a legal clerk at her practice in the CBD.  Family law is the area I want to practice in and she does 'high-end' family law which I've never really been exposed to having always worked in legal aid firms.  It was a really difficult decision and I hope I won't regret it.

Anyway, as my 11 am caffeine deprivation headspin came around, I hurried down the street and broke the news to Amad, my friend at Cliftons Cafe.  Amad makes the best coffees on Queens Parade.  There are always people waiting for his coffees when I go in, which says something because the two-block Queens Parade shopping strip has a ridiculous number of cafes.  He has a gaggle of dedicated regulars whom he greets by name, and you don't get the usual huff you get from baristas when you order a regular cappucino, soy cappucino and a skinny hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. The soy cappucino is mine - I bet you can guess which of the orders goes to the male barrister and female solicitor I work with!

I usually drink black coffee because most cafes in Melbourne use the nasty watery soy protein isolate soymilks that ending up tasting more watery than a long black.  But Cliftons uses Vitasoy which makes a lovely creamy coffee (another notable exception is Ici in Napier Street, Fitzroy, which uses the deliciously nutty Australia's Own).

Cliftons also has a great sandwich bar and if my stomach is digesting itself, I get an omelette, beetroot and salad doorstop sandwich.  The hot food is a bit more pricey than other places on the street but it is always fresh and you can mix and match to your heart's content.

I had a lovely picture of Amad but until N sobers up and locates the camera cord, he will have to remain an enigma to the online world.

Cliftons Cafe
310 Queens Pde Clifton Hill VIC 3068
ph: (03) 9481 6343

Anticlimax

It's just not going to happen.  My first blog entry is just not going to be the aesthetic masterpiece that panned out in my head, the mouthwatering photos of my gastronomic week that would cause a nationwide phenomena of malfunctioning keyboards due to excessive dribbling by their operators.  The connecty cord thing has gone AWOL and the only person who may know where to locate it (the love of my life - N) is out gallivanting around Brunswick, making up for his previous fortnight of social isolation and sobriety as he churned out three essays, the final of which was handed in today.  Even if he did manage to answer his phone, I doubt he'd have sufficient neuron pathways working to be able to place it.  Sigh.

Oh well, here goes anyway.  You'll just have to use your imagination . . .