The Tribal Tomato

Mum's 'tselemente' story in SBS Voices...

Thanking SBS Voices for supporting diverse voices and stories.

Here is a piece they published about my Mum's tselemente, the cookbook she bought to Australia in the 1970's...

Mum's tselemente...

American snow is softer

‘The first person to see snow gets $5,’ says my husband. It’s a cheap shot to raise the energy levels in the car, but it works. The kids perk up, start paying attention.

It’s grey and misty up on the mountain; even the denuded trees look cold. Our 14-year-old would prefer to be in her bed, still fast asleep. Our 12-year-old is a bit more animated – the only time he has seen snow was when it came out of a snow machine some years ago. For the past two months he's worn us down by reading out the snow levels each day. We knew we had no hope when he started checking the mountain's webcam . The snow was coming down and we had to go and see, in his words, the 'real thing'.

The $5 bet is the cheapest part of the day. It’s still early in the morning, and we have parted with more than $250 – for petrol and chewing gum; hired gear and fees to get up to the mountain; a vanilla slice, jam donuts and coffee. And there’s still lunch to be bought. Last time we were here, I packed sandwiches; I remember looking longingly at other diners as they hoed into their hot chips and pies. This was comfort food weather. No cold sandwiches for us this time.

I’m the first to see the snow – just a glimmer up at the top of the mountain, only a little lighter than the grey landscape around it.

‘It’s not fair,’ complain the kids. ‘Dad meant spotting snow on the ground.’ They’re pissed off that I saw it first.

A little later, ‘There’s the snow on the road – I’m still the first to spot it!’ I gloat. 

‘That’s not snow,’ says the 12-year-old. ‘It looks like dirty soap suds.’The soap suds get more prolific as we head up the mountain.

We get to the car park. My son digs his hands into the mounds that have been pushed to the side of the road, expecting the snow to spring back. It’s hard and icy. ‘American snow is better. It’s fluffier. Softer.’ He says it reverently, as if the snow he’s seen in B- grade Christmas movies is a warm, cosy entity; a whole different species to this friendless variety.

He repeats his mantra when we join the many thousands of snow seekers at the top of the mountain. He calls it out as he crashes roughly over the unforgiving bumps of the toboggan run. And he repeats it as he grumbles his way up the mountain towards the lookout.

‘It’s cold. My gloves are wet’. He wrings them and the water runs down his pants leg. ‘American snow is definitely better.’

By this time, my patience is running thin. The anticipated hot chips were lukewarm. The din on the mountain was deafening. And the run down the slope painful. I can’t move my neck – I heard it crack after coming down too hard over a bump on the toboggan run. I mentally add an appointment with the physio to the tally of today’s expenses. Is it too much to expect a little gratitude when we’ve spent all this money so that our 12-year-old can experience the snow, in all its pristine, fluffy glory?

‘American snow is NOT softer. It’s NOT better. It’s just as cold and hard and wet as this snow is here. So get over it and start having a good time!’

There, I’ve said it. I stomp off. From the corner of my eye, I see him give his gloves a final wring. Put them back on. He soon veers off the path to find the spots among the trees where the snow is deep , where he sinks in over his knees. He invites me in. I too sink down into the soft, soft snow. Before long, he’s making snow angels and throwing snow balls and doing all the other things that, in Australia, one has to pay good money to do.

On the way home, he says, ‘Thanks for taking me to the snow Mum and Dad. I had a great day. But I still think American snow is softer…’

 

Bird watching in Footscray

Pink-eared Ducks, Stilts and Raptors: Amateur birdwatchers Ros and Thomas Nataprawira wax lyrical about the thriving feathered bird life in Melbourne's inner-western suburb of Footscray. Check out their story in this post I wrote for the City of Maribyrnong News.

Image by Thomas Nataprawira

Goodbye tomatoes, hello pumpkins

For weeks. tomatoes from our garden had been sitting in a large glass salad bowl, ripe and fulsome. As I used each one of them up, and my husband George stopped bringing more in, I put them in progressively smaller bowls. Finally, there weren't enough to fill a bowl - there were only three little (now ever-so-slightly mottled) tomatoes left. I didn't want to use them, for to eat them was to finally acknowledge that summer was behind us. Yes, the calendar said that summer finished a full month ago, but those tomatoes spoke louder than any silly old wall chart.

I was in denial, despite watching the plants in the garden yellow and shrivel up, with only the most stubborn tomatoes hanging onto the vine. George started talking about clearing the summer vege beds, making way for the autumn and winter produce. Then, last week, the weather got about ten degrees cooler in one foul hit. Summer was definitely over. But still those tomatoes sat, waiting on the bench while I dealt with my post-summer existential crisis.

A few days ago, I got a nice email from one Leonie Andrews. Leonie is the author of the blog Voted with our forks - where she celebrates gardening, foraging and cooking - but most of all, she honours the seasons. She told me she was reading my book Afternoons in Ithaka, and that she had tried the fig-sap ricotta recipe that I'd included within it, and she was inspired to blog about it. And thank goodness for small mercies, the recipe worked. But even more pleasing was that she went on to make my beloved 'tomato sandwich', using her own homegrown tomatoes, oregano and homemade bread and cheese. When I saw the photo of her sandwich, something shifted in me. It made me realise anew that this is what the seasons are all about. Each one has its distinctive features and joys. As if to seal the deal, later that evening, our son carted in two huge pumpkins to add to the collection already piled onto our butcher's bench. The universe had spoken - it was time to open my heart to Autumn and say goodbye to Summer.

I washed those three little soft summer tomatoes, cut them in half, and with a little flourish, added them to the fry pan to flavour the lamb skewers that I was making that night. Just like that. They turned in a delicious, sweet sauce that begged to be mopped up with crusty bread.

I felt very evolved after that -- perhaps there's a lesson here about enjoying each moment, and about embracing the transitory nature of our lives and the world that we live in.

Now, what to cook with those pumpkins?

Photos by George Mifsud. To see more photos from our garden, see George's Instagram account at @viewfrommygarden

It takes guts to run a business

I love stories. And more and more, my work involves hearing them, recording them and sharing them. Does my work help pay the mortgage? It's getting there. No one said it's easy running your own business.

The perks? Being home when my kids come back from school. Hearing rosellas from our garden when I tap away at my keyboard. Doing some really interesting projects that I find meaningful. And not having to ask anyone to have time off if I need to take a family member to the doctor.

The downside? Cash-flow. Not being able to say hi to people at the water cooler.

I love that I have to live off my wits to make a living. Not knowing what's around the corner excites me (in a nervous kind of way!).

I was reminded recently that it takes guts to run a business. And charisma. Money? 'Phhah, you don't need that', said my source. 'I started with nothing...'

The advice was dispensed in Footscray. While standing on a showroom floor. By someone you will quite possibly recognise. Read on.

 

Memoir on a plate

I remember crusty just baked bread, rubbed with juicy tomato flesh, swimming in a puddle of thick green olive oil….

So you want to write about your life, or that of a loved one, but you’re not sure where to start? Maybe you have a few ideas, a bunch of notes, or perhaps even a few chapters? If you want to kick start your memoir, join me for a day workshop in Box Hill (15 March) or a weekend workshop in Aireys Inlet (18-19 April). Of course, there will be food involved. Check out my workshop page for more details. 

The festival of the grape

Some years ago, I took my mother away for the weekend. It was hard work getting her to agree to come – the idea of putting her needs over those of my husband and children was anathema. Still, once I’d booked the accommodation, she begrudgingly agreed.

I’d planned all sorts of nice things for our first ever weekend away, things I thought she would enjoy – a spa experience, fish and chips on the beach, breakfast at a café, dinner out. But the hot waters of the spa raised her blood pressure. And the fish and chips gave her indigestion. We spent the first afternoon in, trying to recover from all that decadence.  On the second day, all she wanted to do was go to church.

And so we found ourselves winding up to the extensive grounds of the Monastery of Panagia Kamariani in Red Hill on Victoria's Mornington Penninsula. Us and a few thousand other people. We’d chanced on the annual Festival of the Grape. The festivities were reminiscent of a Greek village square on a feast day – we danced, watched children squish grapes, and ate souvlaki among the olive trees. There was just one thing missing – the rest of the family. I vowed to bring them next time. 

Fast forward to February 2015, when I learn that the festival is on again. I shoot off a quick email to half a dozen close family and friends. The festival is only a week away, so I’m not holding my breath for a good turnout. Still, as the week progresses, texts and emails fly back and forth. A bunch of people are coming – and they’re bringing their parents too.

On the night preceding the festival, I lug out the picnic basket. Pull some of George’s home-made bread and my theia Georgia’s spanakopit.out of the freezer. I dish up some home-made olives, boil a few eggs. Cut up some home-grown tomatoes and cucumbers. This, along with the souvlaki and fried honey donuts (loukoumades) available for purchase at the festival, should be enough. I worry about how our friends and family might all sit together. It’s going to very crowded. I throw half a dozen old blankets into the boot of the car.

On the morning, we wake the kids early. George leaves the house at 7 to bring Mum back to ours. By 10, we are parked in a dusty parking lot – us and hundreds of elderly people who are trampling off to church. Mum joins them. Clearly those with young children are having a sleep in. Which is what my kids would like to be doing. They look around – what is there to do here?

But my first priority is to mark the territory – George can tend to the grumpy children. Most of the tables near the church and bandstand are already taken. I practically jump on the last remaining table set back under a massive pine. I dust it off with a tea towel, spread a tablecloth over it, and it’s ours. I quickly lay the blankets out around the table. The territory-marking exercise is complete. George and the kids huddle under the remaining blankets, amused and a little mortified. My inner Greek has been unleashed – today, we are hosts; we need to look after our guests.

‘Is anyone coming to church?’ I ask. I eye my daughter’s denim shorts, bright red socks and purple Doc Martens. Emmanuel is now exploring the best way to climb up the pine tree. George has his phone out. Maybe not.

I join Mum in church. It’s packed, bodies exuding warmth. I’m enveloped by the scent of candles and incense, the colourful glow of ecclesiastical paintings in the naïve style, the meditative chanting. But I'm preoccupied – the family is outside, huddled against the cold.

By the time I return, some friends have arrived. The kids have a souvlaki each. The loukoumades are satisfyingly crisp and sticky. Dancing has started. And our guests are bonding over homemade wine, salami and bread. The blankets around us sit unused. There is plenty of room for everyone.

Now I can relax. Homemade olives anyone?

Photos by George Mifsud

Check out this video of the day by our young guest John Stamellos.

A very berry Christmas

'I could make some pizza dough,' says neighbour Joe.

'I think George will take care of that. He's become quite the expert on making large quantities of pizza dough. You know, what with having a wood-fired oven and all...'

I'm inviting Joe and his family to what is fast becoming an annual event for neighbouring houses - a Christmas pizza party at ours. Okay, so it's only the second one, but I think it’s going to stick.

'I don't want to impose, but the gelato you made last year was excellent. If you really want to bring something, what about that?'

When the day for the party arrives, George fires up the oven. He makes enough pizza dough to feed the whole street and beyond. I lay out slow cooked passata, marinaded artichokes, mushrooms, prosciutto and all manner of pizza toppings, ready to be placed on the pizza dough.

When everyone arrives, they come bearing gifts. Cookies and cream cheesecake. Copious bottles of wine. Homemade cards. Flowers. A sugo bottle filled with chocolates and decorated like santa. Dip and crackers. And gelato. Six different flavours. We quickly tuck these into the freezer.

There are many willing little helpers who assist with pizza production in the kitchen. I send them out one by one to George, who is yielding the long-handled pizza padle like a pro. We mill about, eating pizza slices and salad on paper plates. There’s plenty to drink, but Mario's homemade moscato is a hit, and he has to run home to get a second bottle.

There's nothing like food and alcohol to oil the wheels of neighbourhood conviviality - and the kids are bonding too. There are ten of them on the trampoline, and their laughter and screams reverberate down the street. 

Soon after, we bring out the gelato. Conversation stops. Seasonal fruit and good quality ingredients, lovingly tended into a mixture of creamy bliss; mango, raspberry with a dash of fresh mint, passionfruit, yellow peach, cantaloupe (we debate as to why it is also called rockmelon), and divine chocolate. I swoon. The combination of berry and mint flavour has me speechless.

Joe says he learnt to make gelato when he was a student in the '80s, working at Carlton’s Casa del Gelato. Joe remembers 'hoodlums' in their hotted up cars performing burnouts in front of the shop, while a large crowd of people waited patiently in line to order their gelato. People would knock on the shop window at 3am, pleading for more ice-cream, but the staff were too exhausted to work any longer. He remembers serving a young Tom Cruise chocolate, vanilla and strawberry gelato one night  - and being promised free tickets to his upcoming movie Top Gun. He says he's still waiting.

When it's late and the fire in the oven is turning to a low glow, people make their way home. Lucky it’s not a long trip - there’s a fair few empty bottles gracing the garden table.

Soon after, our son makes a beeline for the freezer. He pulls out the last of the gelato. Without speaking, we take four spoons and polish it off, right out of the tub. And then we go to bed, sated.

Download Joe's berry and mint gelato

(plus bonus tips on how much to spend when choosing an ice-cream maker)

The powerful daydream

The smell of Marlborough cigarettes; the din of soccer finals on TV; the sound of dice against a backgammon board - my lover and I let it all wash over us as we drink cognac in the little seaside café. Outside, the rain pelts the muddy pot holes of the square, eventually washing out into the Aegean Sea. 

Image by George Mifsud

All it takes is a downpour outside the suburban café where I now sit, and I’m off – daydreaming about something that happened 15 years ago.  The rain is pounding the muddy banks of Melbourne’s Yarra, which looks nothing at all like the Aegean.

Daydreaming is the stuff of time wasters. No hopers. Dole bludgers. I’m sure that was what my grade six teacher was thinking when he wrote that ‘Spiri daydreams too long before she starts her work…’ in my school report. When, all the while, I was just getting my head ready to tackle those long-division sums.

There were lots of famous people whose daydreaming helped them creatively - John Lennon, Albert Einstein,  Sigmund Freud, Thomas Edison, Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe to name a few.

But you need not have Einstein’s IQ or Twain’s talent to be a daydreamer. We daydream for about one-third of our waking hours, according to Eric Klinger, a clinical psychologist at the University of Minnesota. And there’s compelling evidence to say that it’s good for us – it helps us to relax, and to create, to visualize and to hope. It’s so refreshing to be unavailable – even just for a few minutes. In a daydream there are no bleeps and flashes, no missed calls and bulging in-boxes.

For me, a daydream is a blissful pause; a decadent space where long forgotten memories can surface; where tricky problems may get solved. Occasionally I get lucky in a daydream, and the muse offers me creative gifts from a deeper place. The challenge then is to quickly find a pencil and a bit of paper on which to write my insights before they disappear into the ether of mundane thought.

There's no forumula for how to daydream. Relax and let thoughts float into consciousness, unbidden and unchecked, like a sentence without punctuation. It’s like a brainstorm; only there’s no one else there to tell you that your ideas stink.

I’m a daydreamer, and proud of it. After all, I’ve just come back from drinking cognac with my lover in a rain-soaked square on the other side of the world. And it’s helped me to remember why I still love the man who now takes the bins out after our kids have gone to bed.

The Croque-en-bouche

I swore every year I wouldn’t do it again.

Why? Because weeks afterwards, I would find crusted chocolate icing underneath the bench top. Electric blue fingerprints on a corner kitchen tile. And dried butter cake residue stuck fast to the blender that I had been too tired to clean up on the day.

The Book was to blame. According to this blogger, who is cooking her way through it, there are 104 cakes in it. Yes, you know the one: The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book.

We would take it out a whole month before each of our children’s birthdays. They would pore through it, pointing to the cake with dollies sitting in jelly, or the train with its quaint lamington carriages. Gently, gently, I would steer them to the cakes I thought would be easy to make. Not so gently, they steered me straight back to the ones that required electric blue food colouring and intricate decorations that didn’t seem to sit on the shelves of our local supermarket. And the clean-up afterwards; it didn't bear thinking about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

But what joy this little yearly ritual bought them, and I couldn’t find it in my heart to say no when they asked again and again for another homemade cake. And so, each year, on the kitchen bench our children sat, among the chaos of ingredients – and they helped to stir and decorate with their sticky little fingers, all the while fighting over who would lick the bowl. And even if we strayed a little (or a lot in some cases) from the bible of children's birthday cakes, they didn't complain.

But then something happened when my daughter was 12.

She asked if she could make her brother's birhtday cake. All by herself.

I confess: I felt a twinge of loss.

And a sense of relief.

She’d taken the baton.

And I was relegated to the sink.

Our now 13-year-old daughter is quite the baker. This year, she and her friend even offered to make the cake for their bestie’s birthday party.

I reached for The Book.

But she reached for another. I shuddered.

She flicked through it, a whole month before the party. And again in coming weeks. She spoke to me about the possible choices. Was I listening? Only in that I'm-too-busy-cooking-dinner-and-not-really-concentrating-kind-of-way.

Finally, she decided. 

As the date drew near I looked over the ingredients. I read the pages of instructions.

And I decided that Zumbo's croque-en-bouche was impossible.

 

But it was too late. Her heart was set. 

Almost three dozen eggs. Vanilla beans.  Two tubs of glucose syrup. And more. Sixty dollars later, we were ready to start. I drew the line at unsprayed chemical free flowers and a croque-en-bouch cone. That was going too far, even for a budding pastry chef.

The party was at 6.30pm. The girls met in our kitchen at 9am that morning.

They piped and baked the choux pastry. They whipped the crème patisserie. They set the caramel base. They boiled the glucose syrup. They burnt their hands in the hot toffee. And at 5.30, it was like the frantic last minute on Masterchef; while one was building the tower, another was sticking on decorations. As the girls went off to put on their party gear, sweaty and exhausted, I was madly wrapping the whole creation in angel hair, not caring any more how much sticky toffee mixture was making its way on all the surrounding surfaces.

I drove the girls and the cake, balanced precariously on a nervous lap, to the party. The guests ‘oohhed’ and ‘aaahhed’ in a suitably enthusiastic fashion. And my daughter and her friend looked so proud. They set out to conquer Zumbo's Croque-en-bouche. And they did.

But guess who still had to do the dishes?

 

Golden Gozleme

What to cook for dinner? Getting something on the table that is tasty, nutritious and tempts each of the different palates in our house is quite the task. Sadly there are no accolades or medals for achieving this superhuman feat on most nights of the week – the best I can hope for is the occasional ‘Mum, that’s my favourite’ or ‘Mum, you’re the best’ when I’ve made something particularly appetising. Mostly my kids just eat – at times begrudgingly, especially when the nutrition factor outweighs the wow factor – generally pushing the vegetables that I’ve cut into itty bitty pieces (read ‘hidden’) around their plate.

On this particular occasion, it was late Sunday afternoon. We’d had a busy weekend, and had been out for a big lunch earlier that day. The energy levels were low, the fridge a bit bare. Perhaps a light dinner of scrambled eggs on toast was called for? But first, I would cast my eye over the weekend papers. They were looking a little lonely there on the coffee table.

I learn that French actor Louise Bourgoin, who poses in lacy lingerie, finds philosophy comforting (particularly that from pre-Socratic times); making movies in Kabul has its challenges; and how a Californian bungalow has  been given a ‘modern and colourful’ makeover. Interesting, but not particularly life changing. However, I do see that Bill Granger is talking Turkish – and he’s speaking my language. I read how to make spinach, mint and pinenut Gozleme – a Turkish take on Greek spanakopita – and I’m salivating. It’s unlikely that we have all the ingredients to compose his dish, but I do a quick mental inventory regardless: I bought spinach the other day, and it will go to waste if I don’t use it; my husband made pesto with basil from our garden last week and there’s still a generous handful of pinenuts in the pantry; feta is a no brainer, that’s a staple in our fridge; and woo hoo, mint is growing strong and luscious in our garden. We even have a sad looking lemon in the fruit bowl. All the planets have aligned. My dinner mojo is back.

The kids look somewhat alarmed when I hop up, energised, and start making pastry like a woman possessed. I roll out thin circles of dough and fill them with cooked spinach, pinenuts, feta and mint. I seal each one up and in the hot pan they go. Even the youngest, who isn’t a fan of spinach, thinks they’re pretty good. They rest of us think they are amazing – the golden, crispy skin of the pastry; the feta oozing out as you bite into them, and the mint and lemon zest add a high note to the subtly flavoured spinach. Ooh, so much better than eggs on toast.

But the best thing of all? I doubled the recipe and made enough to freeze. That’s another dinner taken care off. Now, hhrmm, where is that medal?

Download Bill Granger's Spinach, Feta and Pinenut Gozleme