Category: family

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My latest review – cheers Freo Herald!

A THAI TREAT

 · by  · in Dining Guide. ·

WE are really blessed here in WA. 

My good friend Bondy (not related to Alan but James was her dad!) visited from Darwin recently. Wow, a visitor. 

First stop was David Thompson’s renowned Long Chim, situated in the State Building on the corner of St Georges Terrace and Barrack Street.

Bondy lived on Phuket for 10 years so it’s safe to say she knows her Thai food. 

Visiting her there years ago turned into a three-week moving feast, a revelation. 

So much has changed since since then, as Thai seems to have become our national cuisine.

We started our evening with a drink on the deck of Wildflower, the feather in the cap of the magnificent State Building, taking in the sweeping views of our city and river. A great start to the evening. 

We kept getting lost in the labyrinthine building but fortunately there seemed to be no shortage of tall, dark, handsome men in expensive looking suits ready to show us the way.

Long Chim is crowded with young, hipster folks enjoying animated conversation. 

The room was awash with bearded blokes and women with false eyelashes. 

Thai food is usually beautifully presented, but Long Chim takes it to another level. 

Our tiny table was a bit of a concern, but by the time our mains had arrived the folks at the next table had gone and the waiter joined it with ours. 

As far as comfort, prompt service and arrival of food, they had it covered. Very gracious, very Thai. So, what did we eat? Not a huge choice of entrees so we ordered the vegetarian spring rolls ($14). 

They were suitably crisp with a delicious moist filling. We would have tried the prawns but we were helpfully informed they were small prawns. 

We even had a senior moment when we asked where our prawn entrée was and had to be reminded (so sweetly) that we hadn’t ordered one. 

We went to town on mains, starting with the beautifully displayed half roast duck with choy sum, pickled ginger and Tanongsak’s excellent sauce ($45). 

Tanongsak is Thompson’s life and business partner. His sauce was excellent and the duck was sensational: tender, served on a bed of crunchy choy sum. A delight to the eye and the palate; a meal in itself. We also ordered the deep fried-fish with three-flavoured sauce ($40).

I’m not going to say I recognised three flavours in the sauce but I did enjoy its intensity – we’re sure we got tamarind. 

But here our opinions diverged slightly. We were expecting a whole fish as experienced in Thailand but Long Chim had cut it into large pieces individually fried. 

Probably just as well as their dim lighting might not have leant itself to dissecting a whole fish. Bondy was not as happy about this. 

The fish was perfectly cooked though – crunchy on the outside, encasing tender sweet flesh and another complex but restrained sauce. 

We could probably have done without a separate vegetable dish but we couldn’t resist the Siamese watercress (S14). It grows so prolifically in Thailand and provides just the right crunch. We were glad we did.

You’d be right in wondering where we put all this food – in a cheerfully provided doggie bag of course.

We just couldn’t leave without sharing a dessert. I’m a sucker for anything pandan flavoured (pandan pudding $16) but Bondy was keen to try the banana roti ($18) – an old favourite of hers. 

These are made with ladies finger bananas in Thailand, but we were served Cavendish bananas. 

When Bondy commented on this to our waiter, we were told they’re not easy to get here. I did smile to myself seeing them at my local IGA the next day.

Long Chim
State Building
Corner St Georges Terrace and Barrack Street

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Hotter than Hell

So the ex has been hassling smartfoodmama for my chilli sauce recipe. Some might think that this is an issue for his solicitor, but I think it’s an opportunity for a quid pro quo – feijoada recipe Gomez!

Like so many recipes, this one just sort of developed.

I had spent a day in the kitchen with the late Alan Mansfield and wonderful ex-South Africans Aunty Joan and Ivan. We were there to make lime pickle and chilli paste.

I’d never seen anyone drinking port before lunch so as you can imagine it was an unforgettable experience! I still have the lime pickle recipe somewhere but I don’t think I ever wrote down the chilli paste recipe.

My “recipe” resulted from the need to use a half full sandwich bag of the hottest chillies I have eaten (not quite scotch bonnet – bird’s eyes). I bought about 300 gm of milder chillies and set to work.

The sauce I made was then used by the drop. Except for the ex-South Africans Gomez worked with up North. They woofed it down, making me think I might have got Aunty Joan’s recipe right.

While we’re talking chilli, for the longest time I wondered (well occasionally) what Shriracha chilli was and why it was so special. So one day I actually read the label on my chosen commercial sauce. Seems I have been using Shriracha chilli for years! It’s the only one that doesn’t use (that dreadful) bottled garlic.

But I digress.

Smartfoodmama’s Chilli Sauce

Finely dice:

2 large cloves of garlic

Ginger: approx half a thumb size piece (perhaps not Jason Mamoa’s thumb)

Gently sauté in about 2 Tbs EVOO (okay, extra virgin olive oil) for about a minute then add:

1 tsp raw sugar to caramelise (not carmelise as our American TV chefs are won’t to suggest, they also like to marinade things! Of course we know that you put things in a marinade to marinate them. Life is not easy for a food AND grammar Nazi).

Then add the chopped chillis (4/500 gms) and sauté till softish.

To seed or not to seed? The seeds have much of the heat and when the paste is blended it thickens it.

Add a cup of water, cover and simmer for about half an hour.

Remove lid, keep cooking another half hour or so, adding water if it starts drying out.

Blend and put in a container of your choice, keep the surface covered with oil to preserve.

I’m not one for sterilising jars – too much carry on and this will keep for ages in the fridge as long as you keep the surface under oil.

This can be made with any chilli you like, but will be unpredictable. If you made it with birds’ eyes do warn guests, though I have had a guest douse his entire plate with it, despite the warning. We really enjoyed watching him try to eat it. Feats of strength should not include chilli!

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Still feeding me

I’m not sure anyone at all will read this, given the fact that I’ve been absent for so long. Illness and catching up on work have definitely got in my way. Travel tales will have to wait. Then there’s dealing with loss. I recently travelled to Sydney for Mum’s consecration. Jewish mourners wait a year before the headstone goes on the grave, though it can be a shorter period. It gives folks the chance to recover form their grief and join together to celebrate the life of their loved one.

Like any secular Jewish family the food was the most important thing. I spent the previous evening making Mum’s sausage rolls. Rolling out the pastry in a kitchen no bigger than my Mum’s tiny kitchen with the radio blaring maudlin hits from the 70s. I got a little reflective. Observant Jewish women bake challah bread on Fridays and the kneading and rolling provides the rhythm for serious meditation. Mum never baked challah though it was always on the Shabbath table warm from the oven.

My mother spent the war years ‘on the land’ as she put it.  Here she is pretty as picture growing food for the nation. Of course I have been watching Home fires.

My paternal Grandmother is known to have said “It just isn’t a simcha (celebration) without smoked salmon”. And there was smoked salmon. But it wasn’t a party without Mum’s sausage rolls, so I made them. Lisa baked the richest chocolate brownies I have ever encountered and Sam continued her “I am Zumbo” trajectory with a chocolate and hazelnut cake as big as the centrepoint tower. Well retro theme. And it tasted as good as it looked. I even learned how you slice these darlings, thank you Shirley Smith!

Of course food is at the centre of most celebrations and certainly for Jewish families, and Chinese, Italian, Greek…and on it goes. But food is crucial here because of who Sheila was. She was an archetypal Jewish mother who cooked Shabbath dinner every Friday night. Prayers were minimal but the table heaved with favourite dishes of her children and then grandchildren. Mac cheese and soya Chicken? Why not?

I’ve written a great deal about the way grandmother’s go on feeding their families after their demise .. family recipes? Hence the demand for her sausage rolls, her matzo balls and more. But in my garden I have a miracle, a final gift from Mum. In my last house we had a massive mulberry tree I was sorry to leave. A baby tree had grown next to it and Mum had potted it. I took that one with me when we moved and after an extended period of neglect I finall planted it. It grew and grew as trees do and each year more berries turned up on it. But they were all small. This year the tree is full of mulberries and they are properly sized and sweet, though just beginning. I like to think it’s the Consecration miracle but dynamic lifter should take more credit.

My Mum is still feeding me.

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Remembering Sheila Newman 1922 – 2016

It’s two months since we buried our mother; a remarkable woman who lived her life for others. Sheila was generous and she was brave. I’d like to say she was fearless, but only the ignorant are fearless. Being brave is having the strength to confront fear. Sheila was brave.

She complained all her life of the pain of her legs swollen by varicose veins. I was to blame apparently. She said she got varicose veins because she stood for so many hours with the other women of the Black Sash, protesting the apartheid regime whilst heavily pregnant with me.

I asked her once: “Well why did you do it”? And she told me she didn’t want anyone to think she was afraid. That says so much about her. As far as my mother was concerned, what was in your heart was not enough – you had to use your voice and you had to call out wrongdoing. No surprises if I tell you that she picked me up from school aged 16 so I could join her picketing the Springbok Rugby team, having given me an absentee note my headmistress nearly choked on.

Generous? Yes. Sheila wanted so little herself; and gave so much to others. Her unrenovated kitchen in Murriverie Road, was her command centre – she would have fed the world if she could. I learned everything from her. I am my mother’s daughter, I have cooked for my living, taught food studies, written two theses on food but I will never give as much of myself as Sheila did.

Perhaps this excerpt from my MA thesis – Didn’t Your Mother Teach You Not to Talk With Your Mouth Full: Food, Families and Friction, will say what is so hard to express now that she has gone:

Mama cooks dinner every night and it’s such a comforting place to be, perched on my wooden stool, lecturing mama’s back. I wanted her to be ‘mama’, not plain ‘mum’; wanted her to cover her head with a shawl when she lit the candles on Friday night. Wanted a mother of image, of warm brown eyes, big soft bosoms and open heart. I wanted a ‘yiddische mama’, which was in fact what I had.

I see her standing before a steaming pot, ladling out bowls of pee-yellow chicken soup. How tenderly she scoops two glistening, plump matzoh balls into each one (and I wonder whether Marilyn Monroe really asked Arthur Miller’s mother what you do with the rest of the poor little matzoh); because it’s always two, you know, except for Dad, who gets three, and maybe Robin. We all get three, in the end, but first you have to eat two and then cajole, and promise to eat the rest of your dinner. But who wants it anyway when you can eat light as air, starchy dumplings, clear broth and just the loneliest bit of carrot?

Now I look back in awe, remembering how she was always home before we were, with the shopping, to spend a stolen half hour resting her swollen legs. And she never seemed to mind, or didn’t let me see, as she heaved herself from her bed and the paper and took up her position by the stove.

Was there ever a meal without three movements? And the up and down and backwards and forwards, me too, sometimes, while they sat, and we served. And I never even noticed, that she did it every day and how little we helped and how late it was before she finally sat down and rested those legs.

And now that I know more about the monotony of work that will never be finished, I marvel at her acceptance and the time that she did find for me. Ah, breathe deep, remember all the glorious matzoh balls of my youth, beat the eggs, boil the water and cook my little, light as air dumplings for my little family. What could make me happier than feeding my baby chicken soup and matzoh balls?

Want Mum’s kneidlach recipe?

In Jewish culture feeding anyone is considered a mitzvah, (a good deed which also blesses the doer), which is why we take our Jewish identity from our mothers. Many people assume this custom comes from a misogynistic suspicion of paternity. This isn’t the case –the old rabbis of the Gemara believed that men offer money to the needy while women will offer food and this is the holier act and after all, so much of Jewish practice is situated within the home. Certainly we learned all things Jewish from Mum.

There’s no doubt that Mum learned at her mother’s side as I did at hers. Her mother, our Nana, had been raised in a Dickensian Jewish orphanage where she starved. Nana wasn’t having a bar of Orthodox Judaism, and certainly there would be no fasting. No child would go hungry on her watch. On Yom Kippur Nana would stay home with food at the ready for any local children who escaped the Synagogue and came to her. Nana’s fear of hunger was over-whelming, she slept with a biscuit next to her bed every night.

Nana transferred this fear to my mother and then to me. Mum taught me that when it comes to food, only too much is enough. That is the Jewish way. But Mum did not waste food. It could be said she may have, at times, diced with death – hers and ours. But that’s another story, one I’ve told before: http://www.smartfoodmama.com/all-my-children-have-eaten-from-the-dogs-bowl-at-some-point/

Mum did not restrict her love and kindness to her children and grandchildren.  I have also written about her love for my cousins and their love of her.

Mum spread love and food throughout her family circle but it went so much further. Friday night always with “mitschleppers” as my Dad would say. Shabbat dinners were usually followed by Saturday lunches – always with guests. Sure my Dad would (over)cook the chops and boerewors, but Mum would cover the table with other dishes – always sweetcorn, potato salad, pickled cucumbers, fried fish and her big wooden bowl of somewhat ordinary looking salad (this was the 60s – no quinoa or sprouts). Mum’s concern was never with presentation, only with abundance and flavour. My paternal grandmother once infamously said: “Well, with Sheila, quantity you will get”! Oh the slings and arrows she bore from her mother-in-law.

Mum and Dad helped the Smith family to come to emigrate from South Africa, possibly the first black family to sneak into Australia before the infamous white Australia policy came to an end. Ray was a baker and he opened a shop in Bondi Junction. Was it every Saturday that our mother went by his shop to pick up his left over stocks to take to the Wayside Chapel, or only most Saturdays?

Mum was 80 when she gave up delivering Meals on Wheels – how many of the recipients were younger than her?

These photos were taken a month before she died, our last hurrah, I had exhausted Mum the day before with many hours of conversation, so she was not at her best and yet she was of course glad to see her children, grandchildren, nieces and nephew. I made her sausage rolls. Mum always baked these for parties – no store bought pastry of course – she would make them a week in advance and they always survived freezing so well. She taught me how to make this quick and easy pastry, but that’s one recipe I’m not sharing.

If you look closely you will see the packet of cheap wafers she hoed into with gusto. No point monitoring Mum’s diabetes any longer.

When the Second World War broke out Mum joined the Land Army: and here she is growing food for the nation:

She loved those years on the land and how she loved her garden. My last house had a huge mulberry tree. It reminded me of our tree in Murriverie Rd. If you knew our frugal mother you may imagine what we suffered as a result – mulberry jam is one thing. We feared one day we would confront something like mulberry curry. Mum found a sucker growing under my mulberry tree here in Perth and she lovingly potted it. I brought it with me when we moved and duly neglected it. Carlos gave it some attention and it recovered. I planted it, and it has flourished. I love that tree and the knowledge that my mother is still feeding me.

The year I moved to Perth was probably the hardest of my life. We had found somewhere to live, and finally work. I was working in the city and came home one night to find a strange package in the fridge: a take-away container with 2 thick rubber bands round it. Those rubber bands looked scarily familiar but the grey stodge inside did not and some .. instinct told me not to open it. So instead I woke Jon up, he opened one eye and muttered “Your Muddah!”

I went back to the fridge, my jaw dropped in horror. Without dry ice, express post or even an airtight container, my mother had posted me a batch of gefilte fish. Just a take away container, her 2 signature elastic bands and brown paper. Perhaps she had glad-wrapped it – I don’t know because it had been stripped of its noxious wrapping.

I imagine the postman has long since recovered from the experience, though I doubt that his van was ever the same. He stood at the door holding this soggy, foul – smelling parcel, shaking his head and handed it to Jon with the question, “Mate! What is it?” Then he asked if he could wash his hands.

“Has she posted you any gefilte fish lately?” has become a family joke. I can’t tell the story without laughing so hard I cry. I remember phoning her the next day, when she answered the phone all I said was:

“Are you completely insane?”

She laughed and replied:

“Oh, it’s been quite cold here, is it still hot over there?”

Mum’s mental state was not, of course, the point. The point was her impulse, mad, generous and devoted. She had missed me at the Seder and sent a little something special for her prodigal daughter, as if it had the power to draw me back and seat me, at the table by her side with her other chicks. And I was lonely and so unhappy and had the gefilte fish survived, I would have eaten it and it would have taken me back to that table.

Mum always pretended to hate me telling that story. But I knew that was performance. She enjoyed her rebellious nature. And she certainly taught me a thing or two about that. My daughter Zenna and my nieces know that we follow a long line of dissident women (and excellent cooks).

Rest in peace Mum, your work is done.

Please add your own memories.

Her Eulogy follows:

Sheila Rhoda Newman 1922 – 2016

Born 1922 in Nottingham Sheila grew up in a tight-knit Orthodox community in Sunderland, England. She won a university scholarship but declined to take it up in order to work and support her family.

When WW2 began she quit her job and joined the Land Army growing food for the nation. She always said that she loved that time on the land, though the work was hard.

After the War she went with her mother Zena to reunite with her younger brother who had been evacuated to the safety of South Africa, where Sheila’s aunt Nita lived.

In Cape Town she met Hank Newman. Upon marrying Hank she became mother to his six-year old daughter Carol (now Phillips).

Robin, David and Felicity followed.

Sheila was a founding member of the Black Sash, the women’s movement opposing the Apartheid regime. Sheila was fearless in speaking up where she saw wrongdoing. In 1962 the family migrated to Australia.

As well as settling and caring for her family and friends, Sheila helped succeeding waves of migrants. Sheila and Hank helped the first coloured South Africans settle in Sydney and their home in Bondi was open to all.

Sheila was politically engaged all her life, even running twice for local council, when she called on voters to “put a Sheila on the council”! Sheila was a spirited woman of conviction. A proud feminist, she was a founding member of the Women’s Electoral Lobby, and a member and President of her Toastmistress club for many years.

They say that if you want something done ask a busy person. Sheila only quit delivering meals on wheels at the age of 80.

Hank Newman was the great love of her life and she cared for him through many years of illness as she did for her mother Zena.

But the greatest joy in her life was her grandchildren: Robin and Valda’s children: Samantha Newman, Simon Newman and Lisa Newman, followed by David’s children Joel Newman and Grace Newman. Eventually a grandchild from Felicity: Zenna Newman-Santos.

Sheila was then finally blessed with great-grandchildren. Simon and Beth Newman’s beautiful Amelia Newman and Toby Newman.

Sheila’s life was a one of service to family and community. She was not a woman to sit still when there was help to be offered, mouths to be fed or children to be loved. Yet she was known for her candour, she spoke her mind and stood up for those in need.

She was a Yiddishe Mama in every sense of the word: loving, kind and strong.

Pallbearers:

Simon Newman, Joel Newman, Warren Jacobs and Max Jacobs.

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My Mum is surrounded!

My daughter is somewhat amused by my love of Mother’s Day. Especially since I usually express disdain for crass commercialism and enforced celebration. So I remind her of the many years I spent celebrating the day with my siblings, their wives and children. Always alone. I had accepted a life without children and taken responsibility for that. Don’t misunderstand me, there is a full and beautiful life to be had without children, but not if you desperately want children.

Mother’s day is not a happy day for all. Certainly not for those who wanted children but haven’t been blessed, for those who have lost their mothers or lost their children. We need to remember that not all mothers love and protect their children and that not all of us cherish mothers who have done their best.

My Mum is in care in Sydney and today she is lunching with my brothers and cousins, their partners and their children.

Mum is surrounded by those who love her. I have just spoken to her and heard their laughter in the background of a noisy Newman get together. But I won’t be there and she will miss me.

My cousins lost their Mum way too early and direct their affection to my Mum. And how happily we share her. I’ve written about the symbolic value of the all-embracing Jewish mother – to argue that we are all Jewish mothers, that children need the love and care of the village. So on this mother’s day it’s good to take a moment to think about those for whom this day is bitter sweet, and sadly sometimes, just bitter.

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Barley Soup for David

I should be sharing the joys of my week in tropical Darwin, but it’s cold and raining and I’ve just had a great chat with my brother regarding soup. His household in the cold Blue Mountains have feasted on a batch of homemade minestrone for some days. He suddenly realised that soup had been a missing ingredient in his past life.

No, I don’t believe Mothers should be the only providers of nurture, but his ex did have “domestic goddess” aspirations, unfortunately they did not extend to comfort food. So when I told David I’d just made barley soup he requested the recipe. My barley soup tastes somewhat like my mother’s, except that being a lazy baby boomer if I make a pot of barley soup, that’s dinner. Not for my Mum who regularly provided three course dinners, midweek, and yes, she went out to work. Here she is with her grandchildren and one great grandchild – she’s looking pretty good from 90 years of homemade soup, as are her descendants.

So, some years ago, driven by nostalgia I figured this would work – and it does, though I doubt Mum used lamb shanks, though they were so cheap back in the day, damn our new found cosmopolitanism! Back then my father couldn’t give away the massive tuna he caught. But those were the days, when men were men and squid was bait.

Now be warned I have no accurate measurements for this soup– only estimates and you will add or subtract whatever you do or don’t like, beef bones can be used instead of lamb, but for me the soup should be thick with cabbage. I blame it on my Eastern European ancestry but recognise that not everyone likes cabbage.

Barley Soup

In a large pot sauté:

Olive oil as needed (not that my Mum would have used olive oil)

A few bay leaves

2 lamb shanks

1 large chopped onion

2 cloves chopped garlic

*½ large diced capsicum

*2 celery sticks finely sliced

then add

2T ground coriander

2t ground paprika

Then add ¾ cup of barley that has been soaking at least 2 hours

Cover with water or stock of your choice and ½ cup of wine.

Add 2 diced carrots

*2 diced potatoes

Bring to the boil reduce to simmer and cook for approx. 2 hours till barley is tender and lamb is falling from the bone.

At this point I season with salt and pepper.

Finally I add half a coarsely chopped cabbage, I like big hunks and just submerge it in the soup till cooked through, I like to keep the crunch.

You may remove the lamb from the bone if you like or provide a shank in bowl, obviously more shanks can be used.

Enjoy.

*these are optional and to taste, any vegetable can be used really but I try and avoid cauliflower when using cabbage, because sometimes you can have too much roughage!

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Time for Chicken Soup

Monday night is the beginning of Passover, what we Jews call Pesach. The festival commemorates the hasty flight from Egypt, the Exodus.Pesach is a celebration of some duration — eight days in fact and as such preparations begin long before. There are various tasks which are performed even in a secular home such as mine. For me these involve mainly extended shopping expeditions, but it is not so easy for Orthodox Jewish women. In Orthodox homes preparations begin with the removal of all chametz or leaven, from the home. Leaven is literally the substance that makes bread rise, yeast most commonly.

Everyone looks forward to the meal eaten on the first night – the seder, the central set piece of the celebration of Passover..  “Seder”, comes from a Hebrew root word meaning “order”, and indeed the meal will progress in an orderly fashion, each piece of the story represented by a food item.

There was no time to allow the bread to rise and so we eat matzo, flatbread. Tracey Rich adds that: “It is also a symbolic way of removing the ‘puffiness’ (arrogance, pride) from our souls”

So the flattened matzo sheets are used instead of bread. After 8 days there may be uncomfortable digestive repercussions. Matzo is also ground and rendered into flour (matzo meal), fine medium or coarse. The finest matzo meal is used for baking cakes and biscuits. I use coarse ground for my kneidlach, (matzo meal dumplings) since fine meal would make the kneidlach too solid. There are many families who like them that way, I’m told.

As Oded Schwartz has observed:

There are two opposing schools of thought about the making of these simple, delicious dumplings: one maintains that they have to be ‘as light as a feather and quiver under their own weight’ and the other, which is almost as popular, insists on a heavy, substantial kneidlach ‘which will sink to the bottom of the plate’. (94)

My mother’s recipe should produce “light as a feather” dumplings.

Mum’s Kneidlach

Beat well:

2 eggs

2 tablespoons oil

2 tablespoons cold water

pinch of cinnamon

salt and pepper

Then add coarse matzo meal, one tablespoon at a time until the mixture drops from the spoon, loose but not runny, should make a ‘bloop’ sound as it drops. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Roll into little balls (use about a teaspoon of mixture) with wet hands, drop into rapidly boiling, salted water and cook for thirty minutes, or until cooked through. This quantity will make 12- 15 kneidlach.

Serve with clear chicken broth and cooked carrot rings. Add shredded chicken if you want to make it a meal.

Enjoy!

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Of Mothers

I love this photo of my mother, taken sometime during WW2. Mum joined the Land Army and grew food for the nation. My mother was a mother of the old school, no canteen lunches for us. Breakfast at the table and a packed lunch. Most days she went to do the office work in my Dad’s fishing tackle shop. She was always home when I got back from school. She would usually be on her bed with the paper and the dog, having unpacked the shopping. When I came home she would get up and make me something to eat and then begin dinner.

Dad got home most days in time for the 6 o’clock news. When it finished we would eat. We usually had three courses. My mother didn’t really take to the industrial food products of the sixties, though she did have an ongoing fixation with packet mushroom soup. Thus we were spared instant mashed potato but I dreamed of rice-a-riso imagining it to be spicy and so much better than Mum’s soggy rice.

But I had a Jewish mother so we entertained with chopped liver and chopped herring, made from scratch, no French onion dips in our house. My parents entertained a great deal and Mum cooked everything. We had barbecues every Saturday and while my father indulged his pyromania I would set the table while Mum produced mountains of potato salad, sweet corn, pickled cucumbers. Her offerings were not “plated” in restaurant fashion, but they were delicious and bountiful.

Jewish holidays were celebrated without recourse to the Synagogue but with chicken soup and matzo balls, smoked salmon or whatever was called for. I was blessed to have a proper Jewish mother who had been raised in an orthodox community by her unorthodox mother Zena , my gloriously eccentric Nana. My best memory of Nana’s cooking was her pot roast but she was also famous for her taiglach. Taiglach are incredibly hard biscuits which have been boiled in a thick syrup and then Nana rolled them in coconut. Only Lithuanian Jews cook them.

I have learnt to make all my mother’s Jewish dishes, the way her mother made them. I do not have her dedication though; I’ve only made gefilte fish once. I have taught my daughter to make matzo balls. She is yet to master chicken soup. We were cultural Jews and it was the food we ate, cooked with love and dedication by our long suffering brown-eyed Yiddishe Mama that led me here.

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Down South

You know you are a foodista when your 18 year old leans across the table and solicitously tells you:

“ Don’t worry Mum, one day we’ll eat the degustation menu at the Fat Duck”. My heart swells with pride. My child was never fodder for Masterchef Kids; she cannot make a soufflé and I’m not sure she has ever eaten one. But when asked whether she’d like a few days of feasting in Margaret River with Mum, to my shock she leapt at the chance.

So here are the highlights of our week in Margaret River – no weigh-ins permitted.

Margaret River is glorious in summer, and pretty damn fine in winter, think log fires, fine wine. We stayed at Margaret’s Beach Resort at Gnarabup (The “G” is silent, as they say!)

www.margaretsbeachresort.com.au/‎

I’m not sure what constitutes a resort, Ketut serving cocktails? Not here though the cocktails on offer did keep the 18 year-old happy. Certainly MBR was fine (no breakfast service) but too cold for the spa and pool anyway.

But the view!

What can beat watching the sun set into the ocean? No need to speak of sunrise, I am not a morning person.

Day one saw us visit the cheekily named Knee Deep winery with restaurant for their degustation menu.

kneedeepwines.com.au/‎

My 18 year old’s first ever “dego”. Did I say I was a foodista? Surely I should have introduced her to the joys of “sand” and foams by the age of five. Surely by 10 she should have mastered confit? We left ourselves entirely in the chef’s hands – not something this particular control freak is known for. So we kicked off with a sous-vide egg with shaved truffle.

I haven’t made up my mind about sous-vide though I’d best hurry as this cooking technique is probably reaching its use-by date that, is if we consider food as fashion. And don’t we?

Next we were served Bunny two ways.

(Why does that sound so rude?) I greedily chomped a mouthful of the rolled loin only to find I’d also eaten the bunny’s liver. Shameful me, not an offal fan, moment of drama till I swallowed it, knowing an offal enthusiast would be purring. By this time a waitress had appeared, registered shock and whipped our plates away. How did she know I don’t much care for offal? She didn’t. Apparently the rolled loin still had its plastic round it so we were then represented with this dish I wasn’t so keen on. But things happen and I feel mean mentioning it.

So mortified were they we got a complementary course – 3 fat scallops with Jerusalem artichoke and truffle.

Followed by a perfectly cooked serving of Barramundi and a pea puree.

This was elegant, simple presentation of fine produce, seriously good, possibly my favourite course. Of course by now we were less than peckish.

But when the warm imported brie arrived with gorgeous bread I was left to battle alone. I struggled and would have it found it easier to consume with crackers – a second negative thought – why am I eating French cheese in dairy country? Margaret River is known for its use of locally sourced produce.

A palate cleansing sorbet is delightful and then dessert – described as a panna cotta it is more dense than I would have expected and for me, too large a serving after such a meal. My young companion disagreed and wolfed hers, but then she didn’t eat the brie did she?

Day 2 thankfully we have no lunch booking. So buoyed with a serious breakfast in town, Zenna has now eaten her first Croque Monsieur (toasted ham and gruyere or béchamel sandwich), – it won’t be her last, then we head for the aptly named Gabriel chocolate. And really this is chocolate to make an archangel sin.

www.gabrielchocolate.com.au/‎

Their chocolate is made from single sourced beans, fair trade produce. I am still working my way through my selection. Zenna is hoarding her last hot chocolate mixer.

Just heat the milk and melt the chocolate, yup, that’s hot choc! Rocky Road to die for and the chocolate brownies we devoured for super? I’m grateful Gabriel is so far from my home, though their chocolate can be bought at The Boatshed http://www.boatshedmarket.com.au/

The Venison Shop is a carnivore’s oasis as you can see from their board:

www.mrvenison.com/‎

I like to think of myself as a conscientious omnivore – seeing deer wandering through fields is reassuring. We returned home with some “low fat” venison snags. Low fat they were – this was guilt free sausage eating, note the virtuous beans please.

We had saved ourselves for the next day’s lunch at Cullen’s Winery. This wasn’t my first visit; this is my favourite venue in Margaret River.

www.cullenwines.com.au/‎

What’s not to love? Organic, biodynamic wine producers who promote sustainable farming and viticulture. Cullen wines have been certified organic since 1998 and then they introduced biodynamic practices in 2004. Cullens have done a great deal to defuse the idea of biodynamic growing being a hippy practice.

http://www.cullenwines.com.au/philosophy/biodynamics

I’d enjoyed the scallops at Knee Deep but these two fat scallops presented 2 ways provided the standout dish for the week followed by a perfect slab of barramundi with a burnt butter sauce and hefty spuds and snow peas from their garden. Zenna had the special – beef pie with a massive, fragrant, crunchy (also from their) garden salad I was happy to polish off.

I’d seen their garden on a food tour year’s ago and asked if we could wonder through after lunch. The waitress told us we couldn’t just wander through, tours may be booked by arrangement, however the waitress told us she would see if someone could take us. Really? Yes, really. Cellarman and food enthusiast William appeared and took us through the garden. This was fabulous. We saw the lot and had the organic/biodynamic process explained to us, from worm wee through to fresh salad on the plate.

What about the wine I hear you shrieking. Sadly dear reader – I’m a far better eater than drinker. However I did enjoy a glass of 2013 Rosé of Wilyabrup, the perfect complement to my meal.

Our final big lunch was at Flutes and sadly this was a very rainy day so this most if idyllic of settings was a little grey. We also made the mistake of having the set menu – though at $50 per head for 3 courses why wouldn’t you?

www.flutes.com.au/‎

My entrée of venison spring rolls was indeed divine as was the dessert selection. The mains (a chicken ragout with couscous and a pork fillet) were unexceptional. I’d return here though and give the a la carte menu a workout.

We’d stayed on so we could check out the Saturday Farmer’s Market. Cambray cheeses sell an amazing line up of hand made sheep’s milk cheeses, so good I found myself again wondering about Knee-Deep’s use of imports. http://www.cambraysheepcheese.com.au/

Sensational bread from the Margaret River Bread shop, a Cambray cheese and a decent bottle of wine, that’s a lunch.

We had other adventures in MR and so will you – Olio Bello, http://www.oliobello.com.au/ The Good Olive – great selection of oils to taste and apricot jam like the old days, http://www.thegoodolive.com.au/ Blue Ginger Fine Foods, http://www.bluegingerfinefoods.com/.

Bon appetite!

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Food Stories from Sydney

Can’t really go overboard with food stories from Sydney as I had little opportunity to eat out. I was there to cook. However I did score a meal at Luke Nguyen’s Red Lantern on Reilly (Street that is).

Took my bro who can be somewhat ambivalent about food, in other words the non-foodie brother, okay the thin one.

First dish was tofu with enoki and inari mushroom in a mild, silky sauce.

That tofu just rocked and we ate it in seconds, followed by lemongrass chicken and crispy chilli prawns. At this stage I have to confess I was sick with some exotic Sydney virus and tasted very little. So why was the less highly spiced tofu the standout dish for me?

I will return with taste buds intact to find out..

The big news was my mother’s 90th birthday – and isn’t that an achievement?

So we had invited her remaining friends and the children of those passed as well as the rest of the Newman clan.

It was held the day after her birthday– on my daughter’s birthday.

So my foodie brother and his long-suffering wife, were the ones hosting the event.

However there remained Mum’s actual birthday – where to take her for lunch but her favourite – Rob’s club. Clubs fascinate me – they are hanging on, relics of the past. Mum’s generation love the cheap food, almost regardless of quality. She was a member of the Jewish comm. Club in Sydney for years – the Hakoah club ad loved the cheap food there, cafeteria style. You got it , my Mum loves sizzler, in fact quantity over quality has always been her mantra. I’m my father’s daughter apparently. At least at this time of life (will own to over 50, go no further) I want quality – perhaps I’ve finally found my inner Jewish princess.

We’d already had a meal there. My sister-in-law was not happy with the salmon, my daughter had the fisherman’s basket – where was the basket? Rob had oysters kipatrick fllowed by a staek with an egg on top. I felt my arteries clog just watching him.

On my second visit I did a foolish thing, ordering the 41,300th lobster mornay.

A kekka as we say in the west – sure it would have been on the 440 g mark but isn’t that too small, really? And as for half? The mornay was, well mornay, Perhaps I ordered it as a homage to the prawn cocktail served at Mum’s Xmas lunch. You just don’t expect retro food in Sydney.

Then to the party.

I love this kind of thing and going shopping and all that and loved doing it with Rob. Sure he objected to many of my plans and told me I was crazy. Yes we argued over junk food. And no we couldn’t do anything about the weather. A hot day was predicted – I would not be heating the sausage rolls in the oven.

So Rob made egg salad, smoked salmon and cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches. We were aspiring to high tea of course. I made humous to prevent Rob buying some ghastly dips from the super market. I also made chopped herring – just like my Mum. In fact Rob interrogated me on this insisting I didn’t know how to make it – an old game. He did have the grace on tasting it to say it was “quite good” in Rob-speak that means excellent.

I also made her sausage rolls – for which I had no recipe other than the pastry so we’re talking cooking from memory and intelligence. And lo, they were good.

Zenna, my beautiful daughter, was responsible for finger sandwiches, also Mum’s recipe – also subject to Robin ‘s interrogation and complaint. No-one complained about the sandwiches which were excellent.

My final thoughts of Sydney the next day at the airport we eat at a noodle bar. I eat a laksa as good as most served in Perth. Here in Perth we have 2 outlets at the domestic airport once you clear security. Both are truly dreadful and of course overpriced. Sigh – Perth get it together!!