Tuesday, November 03, 2009

FOOD MEME - PART ONE

I have to do this in stages or I'll end up sobbing. The scales were most unkind this morning probably something to do with humidity affecting the internal workings of the machine. Anyway, chocolate, ice-cream, apple cakes (sob) and anything else remotely pleasurable is verboten.

1. What's your No. 1 comfort food?

I know you lot, you're all thinking chocolate, right? Wrong, it's bread. Gorgeous wonderful bread in all its varieties especially straight from the oven. And with butter, which I'm not allowed to have but occasionally sneak onto a bread anything. Is there anything more delicious than a sausage with fried onions and tomato sauce on a thick slab of fresh white bread? Sanatarium make tofu sausages that almost equal the meat sausages so I recommend them. There's a shop in Hampton that bakes huge blocks of Turkish bread, divine. Cheese bread with olives and tomatoes......... I'm dying here.

2. If you were stranded on a desert island, what 5 foods would you want to have with you to survive on?

All the fixings to make bread.
Chocolate.
Butter for the bread.
Ice-cream to put the chocolate on.
Gin. Bombay Sapphire is too a food especially if it has a lemon in it.

3. What are your signature dishes (what dishes are you known for making)?

I had signature dishes once when I used to cook. It makes me tired just to think about them.
I used to make tiny meatballs wrapped in bacon, on a bed of rice, covered with a tomato sauce and sliced stuffed olives.
I used to make a Christmas cake full of fruit full of booze but not ordinary booze, Tia Maria which gave it a coffee kick.
Then there was the year (talk about Julie and Julia) where I cooked my way through Charmaine Solomon's Asian cookbook. I even made my own coconut milk and hand ground the spices.
My signature dish is now bread and jam and ice-cream with melted chocolate, okay two signature dishes.

4. It's Friday, you don't know what to cook, you opt for......

Chips. If I want to be fancy, chip butties. If I've forgotten to buy spuds, it's butties anything that hasn't died in the fridge. I know chips come under cooking but if you can cook it in your sleep, technically it isn't cooking.

5. What's your ultimate food weakness?

Pavlova. Coffee pavlova, plain pavlova with cream and passionfruit, praline pavlova with chocolate cream, anything pavlova. I'm like a truffle pig, I can sniff out a pav within three miles.
At a buffet, I start at the Pavlova end and finish there. Crispy shell on the outside, luscious marshmallow melting centre, whipped cream and raspberries with drizzled melted chocolate. If only they made blokes like this, I could get to like sex again.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

A female friend once asked me why all gay men like lemon meringue pie. I don't know, but I certainly do.

Brian Hughes said...

"I know you lot, you're all thinking chocolate, right? Wrong, it's bread."

Actually I was thinking of steak pudding and chips.

Elisabeth said...

Thanks for your advice about plum puddings on Pav's blog, JahTeh.

I am ashamed to say I'm addicted to Jarrah coffee, the vanilla flavoured one, with my own style of frothed milk. Oh so Kath and Kim, my daughters tell me.

My favorites these days come in the form of beverages. I'm also addicted to sparkling burgundy, Andrew Garrett, for preference, though I used to enjoy Omni Red when it was available, again a shameful thing to admit to because it is so uncouth.

All the other sweet things I've gone beyond. I don't why but well into my fifties now, I don't enjoy sweets much anymore, though you could occasionally talk me into a Forbidden Apple, an Italian ice cream confection, put out by Taranto's.

I associate with a number of food connoisseurs and exquisite cooks,including my husband, who regrets the fact that his daughters and to a lesser extent me, do not like offal as much as we ought. we also eschew tripe and all things pork.

My husband goes in for the esoteric and often eats certain foods alone - pig's cheek, bull-boar sausages, the richer the better, any salami and pork knuckle.

Me, I prefer chicken. I am also partial to fruit cake.

JahTeh said...

Elisabeth we seem to have been separated at birth, I used to love Forbidden Apples but I haven't seen them for ages and my ex was addicted to the same food your husband likes. For a really lovely sparkling red, try Jacob's Creek and it's only uncouth to put ice-cubes in the glass.

Poor Fleetwood, given the current monetary crisis in Pomland I'll bet that's tofu steak pudding. You know I used to cook a fantastic steak and kidney pudding with the secret ingredient of burgundy plonk in the gravy.

It's the sweet and sour of gay life, dear Andrew.

Jayne said...

Hmmmm steak and kidney pie hmmmmmmmmmmmmm phwoar. My mum made the most to-die-for S & K pie with flaky pastry lid and *slurp* gwavy and *burp* yummy bits.....
Then she flew off on her broomstick and I haven't got the hotline to Heaven to get her recipe.

Kath Lockett said...

Chips - YES!

...and you must try the chocolate pavlova at Chokolait Hub in the cit. I took my parents there last week and Dad said - almost reverently - that it was the best he'd ever tasted.

JahTeh said...

Jayne, my grandmother would make the most divine sponge cakes in a wood oven but it wasn't the recipe, she just had the knack and you can't replicate a knack.

Kath, I read that review and you're lucky I didn't email the drool to you. That pav looked like it had just dropped from Heaven.

River said...

I'm liking your food choices, especially the tiny meatballs wrapped in bacon and covered in a tomato sauce. I'd skip the stuffed olives though. And pavlova! Oh yum!

iODyne said...

The biggest fastfood in Ballarat is Chips N Gravy.
Is this the case everywhere else?
It floors me.
Elisabeth has now got me yearning for a Taranto's Cassata - creamy and with hazelnuts.
But I agree with JahTeh on bread (good bread, sourdough or Phillipa's olive bread) and in it's toasted form is
My Absolute Comfort Food.

Oh toast!

BwcaBrownie said...

Antikva has tagged me with this meme now. Me, the one who thinks the five main food groups are
Maccas
KFC
Pizza Hut
Hungry Jacks and Subway.

BwcaBrownie said...

OMG this meme has 10 questions and I only did 5. drat drat drat.
Bwca funks off.

iODyne said...

must share blogger Domestic Sluttery
who has genteel teacups with periwinkle-blue flowers and matching floral handgun.
Thanks to Other Rants for the tip.