New chocolate bar: A review
Several weeks ago now, I heard of a brilliant new product from Kit Kat:
It is a chunky Kit Kat with three different sections – each one filled with a different type of caramel. There’s caramel fudge, crunchy caramel, and flowing caramel. Since I love caramel, chocolate, and chunky Kit Kats, I was intrigued at once. After a wait of several weeks, I finally acquired a bar and tried it out.
Sadly, although the concept is brilliant, the execution is lacking. The smooth flowing caramel is perfect (hard to get that wrong) but the fudge is very ordinary, and the “crunchy caramel” is clearly just the fudge again, but with crunchy bits put in (the crunchy bits are nice).
Frankly, I don’t think the fudge is actually fudge. It’s just filler. I suspect real fudge is too expensive to produce.
Kit Kat is currently advertising at least two other riffs on the three-in-one theme, but I tried the chocolate version and was equally unimpressed by the amount of effort put in to the fillings.
Verdict: Genius plan; poor follow through.
Belucci’s Restaurant
It’s a pretty, pretty Italian place in Woden (Canberra). CJ and I ate there last week in an effort to entice my body to take on more food. It worked well at the time.
I love all the wood, glass, and brick – with highlights of marble and steel. One of our friends did the lighting. This photo was taken with CJ’s phone, and doesn’t do it justice.
We took photos of the (rather nice) food, but I can’t stand to look at them again, sorry.
Pregnant women are infamous for vivid dreams. Last night, between 1am and 8am, I dreamed the following:
A pleasant afternoon with my long-dead grandparents; sneaking lemonade cordial into a radio station where I was due to read out 1 Kings (from the Bible); the pregnancy side-effect of mushrooms growing out of my hair, forehead, and the roof of my mouth (that dream also featured Lily and Marshall from “How I Met Your Mother) – oh, and my blood turned green; kissing a girl (who was displeased that I’d suddenly turned goth since we began dating); learning to drive a big rig during Christmas traffic.
*shrug*
I haz discovered cheese!
Pay attention, and I’ll tell you the secret to the most awesome home parties: Know the weaknesses of your guests.
Here’s some examples from my own life:
Parental units: They no longer have children at home sucking them dry, they have actual real jobs, and their mortgage is almost paid off. This means they have a steady income – and they’re old enough that they no longer try to impress people with home-cooked meals (that’s a phase young parents go through). They’re also polite and reliable.
Conclusion: Whatever part of the party you assign to them will be bought, and will be high quality. It will also arrive on time and on the right day. Exploit this for all it’s worth.
Intellectuals/Writers: Poor. Addicted to sugar because they can’t afford alcohol.
Conclusion: Ask them to bring lollies. Their nose for cheap, tasty lollies is infallible. Plus they’re constantly on the verge of starvation, so they’ll inevitably impulse-buy far too much. Make sure they know in advance that there is going to be a free meal and a lift home.
Sidebar: Make sure you get them to take home any leftovers – especially meat or vegetables.
Sidebar #2: I had scurvy one time (self-diagnosed and self-treated with instant results). Another friend of mine used to look through university rubbish bins for scraps others had thrown away (before we met, obviously).
Extroverts: The default extrovert social occasion is, “Let’s go out for drinks” which means they live in a mental space that simply assumes wine must be present.
Conclusion: Ask them to bring drinks. Leave the interpretation of the word “drinks” up to them (but be aware that they probably won’t think to bring anything for those who don’t drink alcohol). They’re probably good for taking people home, too.
Vegetarians: Will probably have to cook their own meals at/before many parties.
Conclusion: See if they’d like to cook the main meal. It means they get to eat WITH everyone else, and the meal will probably be both healthy and delicious (assisting the intellectuals, and totally offsetting all the lollies).
Close friends: Love you.
Conclusion: Some friends can handle complicated tasks – others can’t. Since they’re close to you, they have specific likes and dislikes, and specific weaknesses. Individualise tasks accordingly – keeping reliability in mind as your #1 concern (eg don’t assign a vital ingredient to your heroin-addicted workmate).
My friend Ann has a weakness for cheese, so I tend to suggest it whenever she’s bringing something. It seriously paid off last week when she brought a BRAND NEW CHEESE.
Okay, it wasn’t a brand new cheese really – but it was to me. Can you believe I’d never had goat’s cheese before?
It’s a lot like really delicious cream cheese (but tastes nice by itself on a cracker). We ate it with quince paste (another substance new to me). It was a taste sensation and a personal revelation (that’s brie and hommus in the background, in case you’re wondering).
Today’s blog entry was brought to you by my new book How to manipulate friends and influence pizza.
Oh, and you can get away with ridiculously complex demands when it’s your birthday.
For batter or worse
In 2006 I decided to do nothing but write – mainly in order to discover if I could handle it (I can; I still write for a minimum for twenty hours each week). For a period of three months, that’s all I did. In order to keep going as long as possible before going back to the world of paid employment, I was EXTREMELY careful with money. I worked out later that I’d spent an average of $5/week on food and even less on transport (usually I walked up to two hours in each direction).
(For those who are wondering, this is not a recommended career choice for writers. 95% of us keep our day jobs for life – and that’s just the ones who get published.)
Previous poverty experience had taught me that if I don’t get three meals a day I stop being able to function. So I ate pancakes – generally twice a day, and sometimes three times a day. I had a regular schedule of three actual proper meals each week, which I relied on for my nutrition (I’d spend dinner with my parents – who of course didn’t know how badly I was eating – W, and another friend). Towards the end I staggered when I walked, and was hovering on the edge of illness. But I could still type, so I didn’t care.
(As you can tell if you know anything at all about CJ, this was before we met.)
The pancake recipe I used (really crepes, since they’re so thin they’re see-through) was:
Batter: Mix 1 egg, 2 cups milk (mixed from powdered milk), 1 cup of plain flour.
Fry pancakes in margarine and eat with sugar and lemon juice.
The astonishing thing about this piece of personal history is that I still like pancakes (although they absolutely must be fried in real butter these days). So for our monthly date this month CJ and I went to The Pancake Parlour for breakfast (expert’s tip: If you eat out for breakfast somewhere with freshly-squeezed orange juice, DO NOT brush your teeth beforehand).
The Pancake Parlour in Canberra is a subterranean wonderland of leather-padded seats, wooden booths, and brass fittings. The franchise began in Melbourne, and is found in most large Australian cities.
CJ had a full country breakfast:
I had a “Red Dawn”, which consists of two cheese pancakes with rashers of bacon cooked into them, served with a giant scoop of butter (it looks like the sun at dawn, see?), and grilled tomatoes. (As you can see from photos taken this week, that beanie is staying firmly planted on my head until Spring.)
I didn’t finish the tomatoes (just empty vitamins). I did, however, steal some of CJ’s maple syrup – because although bacon and maple syrup is gross, when served with a pancake it’s sheer gastronomical genius.
Mmm. . . pancakes. . .
Why not make your own this weekend?
Hosting Christian Passover
My family has two feasts each year: Christmas and Passover. Both are hugely significant. In some ways Passover is more special because I’ve never knowingly met another family that celebrates it – so there’s absolutely no commercialisation (not even presents – not even *gasp* chocolate!)
I blogged about our Christian passover ritual last year, and I’ll almost certainly blog about it again next year.
This year was unusual. My Mum was running a passover at her church, which meant I could either join her church for the day or do something completely different. Since I’ve recently developed a strong phobia of church and even church buildings (sad but true – although a Bible Study group still meets at my house each week), I decided to look at it as an opportunity rather than a barrier, and run my own.
It was actually quite special to run my own without my parents’ presence – it meant I could do things in whatever way felt best to me – instead of trying to recreate past Passover experiences. (For example, my parents have a script with questions and answers that we read aloud – but I just told people what things mean.)
Sidebar: Passover is a Jewish festival. According to the Christian Bible, Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples just before he was arrested (Christians know that meal as the last supper). The reason Easter moves around each year is because it’s linked to Jewish Passover (which moves because it’s linked to a different calendar) – which is the Thursday night before Good Friday.
For better or worse, CJ and I celebrated our own version of Passover this year (with four friends who had never been part of a Passover ritual before). Be advised that I’ve blurred together several quite different rituals with information from google and my own family’s traditions.
As people came in, they washed their hands in a bowl of clean water.
All the ritual foods (except the lamb) were set out on the table:
In the centre is the matzoh bread – bread made without yeast, representing the hasty departure of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Beside it is a full wine glass that doesn’t belong to any of the guests. It is called the Cup of Elijah, and it represents the expectation that Elijah will return. Many Christians leave it empty, on the basis that we believe Elijah has already returned.
On the right and left of the matzoh there are bitter herbs (I used mustard, ugh), representing the bitterness of slavery; and sweet charoses (a blended mix of grated apple, grape juice, cinnamon and crushed walnuts – yum), representing the cement used by the slaves to bind bricks together.
On the right there are boiled eggs, greens, and salt water. The eggs represent life and the perpetuation of existence. The greens (parsley) represent hope and redemption. Salt water represents the tears of slavery.
The lamb represents the lamb sacrificed and eaten at the original Passover. On God’s instructions via Moses, the Israelites put lamb’s blood over their doorways on a particular night. The Angel of Death passed over those houses – but killed the firstborn children of the Egyptians (note to self: don’t make God angry, particularly after being warned by Moses and by numerous miraculous plagues). That night, the Israelites were finally released from generations of slavery.
And on to the ritual. . .
We drank the first cup – the cup of sanctification.
CJ took the three pieces of matzoh, broke the middle piece, and hid it.
We ate the other two pieces of matzoh with the bitter herbs and then with the sweet charoses (putting the charosis in a matzoh sandwich to represent bricks).
We drank the second cup – the cup of deliverance.
We ate the eggs and greens (first dipping them in the salt water – they taste very nice that way).
We drank the third cup – the cup of hope.
At that point we served main course and dessert, and I took this photo of my friend’s seven-month old trying sweet charoses for the first time:
We drank the fourth cup – the cup of praise (which for Jews is the final cup).
At that point, with a teensy bit of help, our youngest guest found the hidden matzoh from the start of the evening and gave it back to CJ.
I personally believe that it was at this point in the last supper that Jesus (like CJ, the patriarch of the ritual) took the matzoh – the bread that was broken, buried, and then brought out again – and said, “This is my body broken for you. Eat this in remembrance of me.” I believe that he then took the Cup of Elijah and passed it around for everyone to drink saying, “This is my blood, shed for you. Drink this in remembrance of me.”
I believe that when Jesus was crucified the next day, he fulfilled the symbolic promise of the original sacrificial lamb of Passover – saving us from death and slavery to sin – and that the Passover ritual was designed as a supernatural foreshadowing of Easter. Because God knows his literary techniques.
Christians echo the bread and wine of Passover every time they take communion – but most don’t realise the fact that Jews celebrated this ritual for centuries before Christ was born.
#303: When he cooks
This is what it means when I cook: The food generally costs under $2.50 per serve, and takes less than half an hour to appear.
Here’s what it means when CJ cooks: The focus is on one thing – deliciousness.
Both of us are “good” cooks in our own way, but everything is more epic when CJ cooks*. Last night he made my favourite meal: Lasagna (by request from his parents).
The house still smells delicious. . . and, best of all, we have leftovers.
Today is 14 March, which means *drum roll* there are only TEN official year-of-awesomeness days left. Don’t worry – I won’t suddenly stop being awesome**. I will be making an announcement on Friday 25 March about the blog’s next manifestation. . . and I think you’ll like it.
*Including the dishes
**”Impossible!” from the chorus
#291: Mars Bar Slice
Right now I’m what my friends call “off the wagon”. It’s a chocolate thing. . .
Today’s awesomeness is a slice that makes even me think, “Wow, that’s a lotta lard there.” According to archaelogical digs on the subject, the Mars Bar Slice was the result of Greek philosophers asking the eternal question, “How can mankind make the Mars bar less healthy?”
My sister-in-law introduced me to it, and I returned the favour by making some for her (and by “for her” I mean that I took it with me to visit her, but ate most of it myself).
Ingredients
3 x 65 g Mars Bars, chopped
90 g butter
3 cups Rice Bubbles
250 g milk chocolate
Method
- Grease a slice tray (with butter, not oil).
- Combine loosely-chopped Mars Bars and butter in a saucepan.
- Stir constantly over low heat, without boiling, until the mixture is mostly smooth. The remaining lumps will be absorbed, never fear.
4. Stir in Rice Bubbles and press mixture evenly into greased tray.
5. Melt the 250g of chocolate over hot water and stir constantly until smooth.
6. Spread the chocolate evenly over the slice mixture and refrigerate until topping is set. (Or freeze it for half an hour, then refridgerate.)
7. Cut into squares.
6. Eat far too many. Get so hopped up on butter and chocolate you make another batch the next day.
7. Die of heart failure, thus eliminating the need to post that karaoke video this Sunday.
#284: Leftover Fu
Arguably the most peculiar challenge of a decently epic party is what on earth to do with the leftovers. This was far more random than usual after the epic international feast.
I took this photo many times, as I kept finding another odd pot of something here or there.
From approximately left to right you have soda water (which I fed to CJ until he begged me to get rid of it), crosstata (which we had for dessert after dinner), chocolates & macadamias (which we browsed on all day), sour cream (which I’ll get to later), brazil nuts (we’re still happily eating those), tacos (which we froze), two bowls of satay sauce (I’ll get to those later), maple syrup and pancake mix (that was my breakfast), a coconut (which we ate some of, then threw away because it was a little dodgy), baklava (morning and afternoon tea), hommus and vegetables (which we ate some of, then threw away), halva (we got through that entire bucket at break-neck speed), caviar & mini toasts (which we ate gradually, over several days).
In the fridge I also had a large amount of uncooked yum cha dumpling mix which needed to be eaten, stat. Also some cream. So I fried all the yum cha dumpling mix, then added all the satay sauce and a whole bunch of cream. I mixed it with fresh-cooked rice and served it with sour cream to offset the chilli. It was seriously delicious, and a fitting epilogue to the international madness of the feast. It was, literally, a melting pot.
Speaking of epilogues, I had about seven different lists making the party happen, and this was the main one on the day:
I know how that list feels.
Last night CJ and I went to TROPFEST 2011 in Canberra. Tomorrow I’ll be writing a full report, including reviews of every single film AND a bonus film I made myself – capturing some of the hundreds of bats that responded to Tropfest by flying over our heads all at once.
#283: World Map of Food
This all started way back here.
I’ve mentioned that mashed potato inspired me as I prepared for the Epic International Feast. Here’s the result:
And yep, we ate it all.
At the poles there are cups of ice (which are melting in a realistic manner).
The Americas (from top to bottom) are represented by maple syrup and pancakes for Canada; coke (in a bowl) for the USA; tacos (with beef, corn, and tomato) for Mexico; chocolate for Central America; Brazil nuts for Brazil; easy-to-shape mashed potato for Argentina.
Africa (from bottom to top) is represented by banana; coconut; sweet potato; halva (very popular in West Africa); mango; historic bread and honey for Egypt.
Europe is represented by Devonshire Tea for the UK; a savoury French tart; Italian crosstata fruit pie.
The Middle East is represented by Turkish Delight; hummus; baklava.
Asia gets caviar (and mini toast) for Russia; sushi for Japan; dim sum dumplings and soy sauce for China; butter chicken on naan bread for India.
Australiasia has satay for Indonesia; muli wari (lemonade) for Papua New Guinea; macadamias for Australia; kiwifruit for New Zealand.
You can post this map and/or the food list anywhere you like as long as you link back to this blog.
And yes, I know I missed a lot of great food, and made some odd choices in order to balance the map (a lot of food is well-known for coming from a lot of places/Europe is seriously small) and to pick only dishes that I like.
The only food not bought in a supermarket (or made from supermarket ingredients) was halva, which I bought at a Middle Eastern shop. During the party I discovered it’s traditional fare at Christmas in Spain. Yay for multiculturalism.
The above photo was taken while standing on a chair, as demonstrated here by the bearded brigade:
About twenty people contributed by bringing various dishes. Here’s one last delicious photo before we started eating:
Mari makan!
Tuck in y’all!
Hen hao!
‘Ave a go then, gov’nor!
Kaikai i winim me!
Nom nom!
#280: Make yum cha
There are about a million different yum cha dishes. The easiest to make (while still looking awesome) is dumplings.
Here’s the recipe I utterly mangled:
500g minced chicken (or half chicken half pork)
6 canned water chestnuts, drained and finely chopped (get sliced ones)
1 small carrot, finely chopped
1 tsp ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 spring onions, finely chopped
1 tsp each Asian sesame oil, rice wine, and soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 tablespoons cornflour
30 wonton wrappers (which are in the ham and cheese aisle at Woolies)
500mL peanut oil
1. Mix together everything but the wonton wrappers and oil.
2. Lay out the wonton wrappers on a clean bench, covering those you’re not using with a clean wet teatowel.
3. Put a teaspoon or so of mixture in the middle of each wonton wrapper, then wet the outside edge and push it together at the top.
4. Steam some (in a steamer lined with greaseproof paper) for twelve minutes. Fry others in oil for about two minutes each (you can tell the oil is at the right temperature when a cube of bread dropped into it immediately sizzled and turns golden). NB: Do not leave boiling oil unattended. It spontanously combusts. NB#2 If your oil suddenly bursts into flame, move it off the heat and put the lid on. You are now a real cook.
5. Eat with soy sauce.
Coming soon: The epic international feast, featuring yum cha dumplings, sushi, and so much more. Getting the mashed potato a day early was the catalyst for something deeply strange but ultimately beautiful (and, my peeps, photogenic).
Felicity Banks 