17/9 1130pm - Watch "Julie & Julia" on DVD. The scene where Julie tries poaching an egg for the first time in her life sticks in my head. The last thing in my head before I fall asleep is that I should try at least one new thing each day for a week, just to see what discoveries I make.
18/9 - Attend Regional Producers' Market at Queen Victoria Market. Try liquor-filled chocolates from Rutherglen Chocolates (tick!), and I am stunned at how good tokay goes with milk chocolate. For dinner I take out a Korean recipe book I bought in Singapore and make chicken kimchi dumplings (tick!) using shop-bought dumpling skins. The recipe takes me approximately one hour to complete while watching TV and yields me enough to cook 1/4 for dinner (pan fried they are excellent), cook 1/4 for work lunch and freeze 1/2 for future consumption. Must try the same recipe on beef mince the next round. Tag for future use.
19/9 - AUD2.05 for a pair of pig's ears (tick!). Cleaning the ears is arduous - must buy a disposable razor blade if I want to do this recipe again so I can get rid of the stubborn black pig's hairs. Even my sharpest knife has trouble. Scald the ears with boiling water. Then I braise them for two hours in a self-concocted mix of ground white pepper, whole black peppercorns, Chinese wine, sesame oil, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, chilli powder, five-spice powder and chicken stock. By the time I turn off the gas, the lid on the pot has decided to fall apart and the flat smells of five-spice powder & soy sauce. I know they are cooked because my chopstick went straight through when I poked to see if they were tender yet.
20/9 - Fingers get a shock from handling nettle leaves (tick!) even though the leaves are meant to have been tamed. Hurriedly wash them while wearing gloves before throwing them with hot pasta. Salt, pepper, grated parmesan, dollops of blue cheese to form the sauce. Slice up a pig's ear and pan fry to throw on top of the pasta. End up with a sticky pan and delicious pasta, though just a touch bitter - maybe too much blue cheese? Nettle reminds me of kale. Would have preferred the pig's ear to be crispy but cannot complain about the flavour.
21/9 - AS, the seasoned pig's ears gourmet, asks for my braised pig's ears recipe which I take to mean that the taste test over lunch is a success. I turn up at JJ's place for a Mid-Autumn Festival (aka Mooncake Festival) hotpot dinner. Try a slice of cold blackforest mooncake (tick!) and think that it tastes more like chocolate ice cream in a little no-melt cake form. We all start talking about our favourite mooncakes over oolong tea while FH plays with her lantern. Then she comes in and we all start talking about our childhood lanterns. Sigh.
22/9 - I remember the AFL Grand Final Morning Tea that I am hosting which asks for staff members to wear their footy colours and bring foods which reflect those footy colours as closely as possible. I decide that I will produce a French fruit tart in a single rectangular form to meet the requirement on my part (tick on so many levels it is scary). I line, chill and blind bake half the box of Careme Pastry vanilla shortcrust pastry with guidance from, where else, the inside of the Careme Pastry box (tick 1). I put the inverted packaging into the Hints and Tips section of my recipe collection book for future use. In the meantime, Margaret Fulton ('s Encyclopedia of Food and Ingredients) guides me through making a creme patisserie (tick 2) and I realise the wonderful quality of the vanilla pods from Bougainville that I purchased at the Meat Market Christmas fete last year (tick 3 - 1 gone, 29 to go, yeah!). Margaret also guides me through the making of the glaze (tick 4) and the whole assembly process (tick 5). I wonder about making my own pastry the next time, but decide that I am not that brave yet, judging by the pile of dishes and pans in the sink I see after I place the tart into the fridge to set. I wonder how my sister copes with making little individual fruit tarts (including pastry) from scratch while taking care of two children under eight...
23/9 - The raspberry and blueberry French tart is quickly cut up on the morning tea table after the guys realise that it is not a store-bought dessert. One colleague asks for the recipe, and another wants to take home the leftovers. A third comments on how well my fashion and food met the morning tea criteria. I am so pleased that I stop by Oriental Tea House after work for a light yum cha dinner with Happy Tea (tick!). Happy Tea is not a bad concoction but I decide that I still prefer a traditional tea, like Pu-erh with crysanthemum flowers.
24/9 - I confirm that Toby's Estate Brunswick has closed its retail operations, becoming a full-time roastery and training school while its retail operations get transferred to weekdays at a little CBD-placed box. The loss of the best retail coffee in Brunswick depresses me so much I mope around on Sydney Road for half an hour, eat pad thai at Tom Phat before 11am and drink two coffees in one sitting at Seven Seeds. Fortunately Taylor is at the machine so I perk up after a medium body, not too bright Costa Rica San Jose long black and a still-a-little-too-sour but perfect milk temperature Seven Seeds house blend 3/4 latte. I go to a forum that is totally unrelated to food and end up meeting new friends. By the time PN feeds me homemade mother-in-law eggs with sweet chilli jam (tick!), I am chirpy and ready to be an entertaining companion to my fellow diners. I am surprised that few Thai restaurants in Melbourne serve this delicious dish, and struggle not to grab more than my allocated one egg. More rice and tom yum soup please, slurp!
25/9 - The week has gone by so quickly and I have actually had a lot of fun exploring new ingredients and dishes. This day becomes the eighth day of this Try a New Thing week when I go for floating yum cha with friends (tick!), enjoying the warm spring weather on the boat around Williamstown and Port Melbourne. The food is nothing to shout about, but it is a great opportunity for us to catch up and I get to see the insides of a Yarra River boat especially designed for events and functions.
Then I remember the kohl rabi sitting in my fridge, and wonder how to treat it...###
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