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...
One fine summer’s day this food-obsessed writer and a hungry photographer were looking for meal in Footscray for $10 or under, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner. Just to make it more fun, we decided that the eateries had to be within a ten-minute walk from the Footscray Railway Station. And we wanted to sample cuisines from ten different countries. Was it possible? Check out the blog post that I wrote for Footscray Life to find out.
Images: George Mifsud
Last year, my husband, daughter and I were talking with our then ten-year-old son about relationships, marriage and the like. Despite maintaining that he would never get married, our son did feel he was in a good position to dispense advice for people going on a first date. My scribbled notes while we were having the conversation have resurfaced in a recent filing frenzy. Here they are:
Emmanuel's tips for going on a first date
Never mention bad stuff like your dad's farts or a disease
Let her start the conversation first
Listen
If you talk about a hobby, and she doesn't seem intersted, move on
The restaurant shouldn't be first class because you'll have to wear a sports jacket, and not third class because that's bad. The restaurant should be second class.
Think before you speak
Always be yourself because if you move in with her and you change personaility, she may not want to go with you
Never mention ex-girlfriends
Try to stay off the wine because you might get drunk
Image by George Mifsud
This weekend, I’ve got a gig to cook at Antipodes' Lonsdale Street Greek Festival. I’ll be cooking recipes from my new book, Afternoons in Ithaka. I’m quite nervous about it. I’ve been asking myself, ‘What is this home-cook doing sharing the limelight with the likes of more professional cooks like Phil Vakos (Spitiko), Kathy Tsaples (Sweet Greek), and the fiesty My Kitchen Rules' contestants Vicki and Helena.
On Saturday, I have the skirts of the formidable septuagenarian Theia Georgia to hide behind – she is preparing her famous spinach pie with homemade filo pastry. This morning I rang her to make sure she’s still OK to cook in the heat – “Anything for you Spiri” – and then proceeds to tell me what she is bringing along. Her broomstick for rolling out the pastry. Her ‘special’ flour. Dill from her neighbour’s garden. And can I get some greens from my mother’s garden? Of course I can. She’s the boss. Thank God for strong Greek matriarchs - they've always got everything covered.
That leaves Sunday’s cooking demonstration. I’m preparing fried calamari and little fish, along with Yiayia’s tyganites (fried) patates. If I can convince my mum and daughter to come up to the stage; there’ll be three generations of Greek-Australian cooks strutting their stuff. We’ll try and spare the audience our bickering as we work around each other.
It’s been some time since I’ve prepared calamari – the last time was in the south of Greece in my aunty’s kitchen, circa 2010. There we cooked it slowly in onions, fresh tomato pulp and garlic. A dish to die for, especially when mopped up with crusty, just-baked bread. If only I could teleport myself back to that moment right now, I would.
To alleviate my nerves and make sure nothing goes wrong, a test run is called for. I buy some calamari from my local fish monger, as well as a kilo of silver whiting that look particularly appealing. I bring them home and clean them on the kitchen bench while my kids do homework. I make a show of pulling the head and tentacles away from the body of the squid – my son says ‘no way am I going to eat that’, and leaves the room dramatically. Next, I divest the little fish of their scales and innards. It’s looking like a massacre on the kitchen bench and I’m wondering how I’m going to make this look pretty on the day. But there’s something satisfyingly primal in preparing this dish; getting down and dirty, using as much of the squid and fish as possible. It reminds me of where my food is coming from, a feeling I don’t get when I’m working with a pre-prepared fillet or the rubbery squid rings that come in 2kg packets in the freezer section of my supermarket.
I fry the little fishes and calamari in the gorgeous green olive oil that my aunty still sends me from Greece, and the kitchen smells divine. A bit of salt, a wedge of lemon, a salad to accompany it all and it’s done.I call the kids to the table, and they eye the calamari. My son hesitates, takes a tentative bite.
‘It’s good, Mum.’ He heaps his plate with the crisp offerings. I think smugly that the massacre on the bench was worth it - in more ways than one.
Antipodes Lonsdale Street Festival, Melbourne, Sat 8 and Sun 9 February. We’ll be cooking in the Flavours of Greece Food Market at 1pm each day.
Some years ago, I was in one of my favourite bookshops and saw author Arnold Zable, who I’d met briefly on a few occasions. I had long admired Zable’s storytelling ability, and his stance on refugees. I made my way up to him to congratulate him on the release of his new book, Sea of Many Returns. As I bowled up to him, I realised too late I’d interrupted a moment – he’d been staring at his book on the shelf, in a kind of reverie; clearly it was the first time he was seeing it there. I mumbled my congratulations and slinked off sheepishly, feeling like a stalker in a b-grade movie.
It takes a long time for a book to reach a bookshelf. And the moment of seeing it there for the first time is so fleeting. Now I’ve experienced it myself, I would do anything to give Arnold back his moment in all its fullsome glory.
For me, the process of creating a book started some years ago with nothing more than a vague idea that I would write about growing up in a Greek family, and on the many trips I took to Greece to find out where ‘home’ really was. Of course it would involve food. And lots of it. There was always the question: are these ideas/stories/grains enough to carry a book? I believe there’s no way of knowing the answer to this until you start writing – a word, a sentence, a page. Soon you might have some chapters and even a proposal, which you might show to a few people. They usually tell you where you’ve gone wrong (why do they have to do that?), and what you can do better. When you’ve honed the words, your agent puts these out to a publisher. Then you wait. And wait some more. Finally, a miracle happens and a very nice publisher asks if you could please provide another 60,000 words or more in the same vein. Something that has a beginning, a middle and an end; preferably something that might move people just a little.*
So you sit on your laptop day after day. Try to relax enough to let the magic alchemy happen. You let the words bubble up from somewhere deep within; sometimes inspired by a photograph, a strong memory; a smell. When you lose track of time, you know you’ve reached that elusive place that is the ‘zone’, where nothing else matters except the words flowing onto the page. A few hours later, that particular story comes organically to an end, and you think you’ve nailed a good first draft. It's your story, your voice, your experience. That’s all the matters.
You do more of this most days, trying all the while to ignore that irritating voice that pipes up occasionally– it says, ‘no one wants to know that you ate the thyroid glands of young lambs when you were a 10’. You push through it, feeling the satisfaction of stories finding their rhythm; chapters connecting with each other; the beginning and end eventually forming a circle, just like a Greek dance. You dig up poems you haven’t read for a while; re-discover anew how much you love the lyricism of the Greek language; wish you’d concentrated more in Greek school. Your wrists and back start to hurt but you keep going regardless, pruning the original draft. You shift a chapter here; cut something back there. Finally, after many months, you have something that resembles a manuscript.
Despite wanting to hold on to it for a few years to let the dust settle and fix those pesky dangling modifiers, your deadline comes around; you really do have to press the ‘send’ button. Some months later, your editor’s report uses words like ‘beautiful subtlety’ and ‘artful way’ to describe your book. But it also says your story has several individuals named George and half a dozen named Kathy – it’s hard to tell who is who. There is more work to be done. You have to explain things, add a chapter, prune a little more. And so begins the editing process, back and forth over months. The changes get tinier, until you’re staring at a bunch of typeset pages that include your husband’s beautiful photos. Your baby is nearly ready to see the light of day.
So you’re standing at your favourite bookshop and your son says, ‘I’m proud of you Mum.’ And your daughter beams. Your husband takes a few photos and then you shoo them away, a little embarrassed. But secretly pretty chuffed. This is your moment.
*That's in really insy winsy writing in the contract.
Afternoons in Ithaka is now on sale. You can purchase it at all good bookshops, such as ABC Books, Readings and Hill of Content, where the book will be launched on the Thursday 13 February.
For upcoming book- and food-related events and musings, go to the Tribal Tomato Facebook page.
A whole season has passed since my post on our Roman adventure in our suburban garden – the building of our wood-fired oven.
Spring is now but days away; bright yellow freesias have snuck their coquettish heads from the earth, the garden beds have more silverbeet than we know what to do with, and the wood-fire oven has produced its first loaves. Despite it still not being quite finished.
But I’m running ahead of myself. Let me backtrack to a few weeks ago. Before we could have loaves, we needed fire. On the first lighting, daughter Dolores and husband George go through a whole box of matches before they look at each other, concerned. How does one light a fire?
I muscle my way between them. Perhaps I even say in a patronising voice, ‘The woman might have left the village, but the village hasn't left the woman’. I feel confident that I can channel my mother and grandmother here, tap into my deeply-ingrained Greek rural roots.
I bundle up bits of The Age, dry rosemary braches and kindling in an arrangement I remember from my sepia-toned Greek school reader, circa 1977. With the lighting of the first match, the fire takes hold. My husband and daughter are impressed – I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but I can see a look of admiration in Dolores’ eyes. Mum knows how to light a fire.
As I watch the flames getting bigger, I feel a deep-seated
pleasure. On this, the first day of firing, George and I tend to the fire in
turns. I stoke it carefully, blowing it when it threatens to die down; exulting
as the flames reel up when I place another log onto it. I push the fire around
the hearth, curing the virgin bricks. All of this feels strangely right. The smell gets into the wool of
my jumper, into my hair, so that the fire follows me even when I leave it.
If I’m undisputed queen of fire, George is the undisputed king of bread: he’s been baking since Dolores was a baby. A week later, when the bricks have cured after a few slow firings, we brave making bread. George prepares ten plump loaves, which he leaves to rise under blankets on the kitchen table. When the oven temperature reaches 300°C, he places them gently into the oven with his new long-handled spatula. And, as we don’t yet have a door, he seals the oven with fireproof bricks. Like eager childrem, we watch the temperature gauge to see if the oven will retain the heat. It does.
Fourty minutes later, George removes the bricks. The smell that exudes from the oven takes me instantly, blissfully back to my grandmother’s village, where I had watched her bake bread more than thirty years ago. And the loaves, oh the loaves – hot orbs of crusty, doughy bliss.
Now I know without a doubt - it's been worth the wait.
George has been using Tom Jaine’s Making Bread at Home book for many years - it's covered in dried bits of dough. For more on Tom Jaine and his philosophy and obsession with bread, as well as numerous recipes, see this article in The Independant.
These are some things I particularly dislike about winter: fingers and toes that refuse to defrost throughout the course of the day; the push and pull of eating too much (‘it’s primal winter behaviour; don't fight it’ says one voice, while another says ‘don’t make excuses’); and watching excessive amounts of trashy television when there are so many other useful things to do if only one could be motivate oneself to do them in the cold, dark evenings.
In the wintertime, there is a palpable increase in the general noise level at our house; usually when our ten-year old tries to sneak in just a few more minutes on the laptop and my husband and I are nagging him for the hundredth time to just get off it. Meanwhile our daughter might be found sitting in front of cooking shows that spend more time advertising a major supermarket chain than creating food. Deep down we sympathise with the kids and the need for sedentary pleasures - wheras in the warmer months we wouldn't hesitate to send them outside to play.
After one too many nights like these, we decide radical action is required. The solution? Camping. The television, iPad and other devices are switched off. The boys collect what they need. Pillows. Books.Sleeping bags.
Us girls stay put. My daughter and I get the Scrabble out and snuggle on the coach with our hot beverages.The boys are delighted: they get all the marshmallows to themselves. They collect their implements and before we know it, they're off.
An hour later they come back. They forgot to take snacks.
And the toilet beckons. It’s lucky their campsite isn’t far: the back studio is
merely 15 metres away.
'It's not too cold out there?', I ask, concerned.
'No. The campsite has an electric heater'.
Early the next morning, the phone rings.
‘Are you still organising pancakes Mum?’
Clearly this campsite also has room service and telephone reception too.
‘What sort of campers are you that you can't even organise your own breakfast?’ I baulk.
There’s a guilty chuckle – but our son knows he's got me. And so, soon after, my daughter pads out in her pyjamas and slippers with the pancake batter and the vanilla sugar, the cream and the bananas. I'm not far with the espresso pot and two mugs. The family warms their hands around the electric grill and our breath forms clouds in the winter air as we talk about who won the Scrabble game and how much sleep the boys didn't get. And, even though my fingers and toes are very very cold, suddenly, winter doesn't seem so bad.
It’s been a long time in the making.
First there was the idea, now more than a decade old. Whimsical, romantic, just like our younger selves.
To bring the idea to fruition, my husband George would have to do a course. But our kids were born and my father got very sick, and anyway, the yard was too small to hold our grand vision. So doing the course was postponed.
Then we bought a house with a bigger yard and a meatier mortgage and it became one of those ‘one day’ types of ideas: a project that always got pushed aside when things like the leaky roof needed to be replaced or faulty wiring repaired.
Then ‘one day’ came around unexpectedly when I added the project to a book proposal that was subsequently accepted by ABC Books. We were finally going to build a wood-fired oven in the back garden. And I was going to write about the whole process, complete with instructions on how to build it. How hard could it be?
I fantasised the oven would be just like the ones in Mum and Dad’s villages in Greece: the beloved, rustic workhorses that were made from stones and mud found in the surrounding gardens. These were fired up weekly to bake massive loaves of dense, hearty bread. Our family talked excitedly about the dishes we would cook; slow-roasted lamb with lemony potatoes, rich, sticky crumbles; crusty loaves of sourdough and thin-based pizzas topped with rosemary and olive oil. But mostly, the excitement stemmed from a primal yearning to share food with family and friends around the hearth. We talked about people gathering around in anticipation of what was to come out of the mouth of the oven; about neighbours bringing their uncooked dishes over so that we could get the most out of each firing. It would be just like a village, albeit in the suburbs.
But first, there were decisions to be made—what sort of oven? Domed or vaulted? Big or small? Made from found materials in the garden, or using expensive fire-proof bricks and mortar?
George, took charge. Drawings were made in a lined note book, which quickly became dog-eared with use. Options were weighed up. Books were ordered and online forums consulted. It started to become a full-scale project,complete with burgeoning timelines and project plans.
George decided on a dome-style oven, the sort that is traditionally built in Italy. It heats up quickly, is self-standing, burns fuel efficiently, and holds the heat over a long period – all things he felt would suit us well. More than thirty such ovens have been uncovered in Pompeii. He reasoned ‘If it’s good enough for the Romans, it’s good enough for me.’
A concrete truck arrived one fine summer morning, and the concrete laid for the oven's foundations. Friends were invited to help. The base was built over many weeks. A time capsule made by the kids was embedded within. The heath laid down. And finally, as the winter approaches, the dome is starting to take shape, with each of its bricks painstakingly cut by hand to fit. The deadline for the book has come and gone, but George refuses to be rushed. Rome wasn’t built in a day; and it we want a great roman oven, we’re simply going to have to wait.
My mother has a number of tables at her house, and they are always ready for action.
There’s the table in the garden bungalow, where many of Mum’s neighbours gather each day for coffee and sweets. There’s the table in the kitchen, where day-to-day meals are had. And there’s the table in the lounge room, where we gather to have more formal meals, such as at Easter or on New Year’s Day. On these occasions, the crystal vase filled with bright plastic flowers is put to one side, the lace tablecloth is whipped off, and a crisp linen one laid out. On it might go platters boasting a few roast chooks, Mum’s delectable handmade chips, a Greek salad, an oversized spanakopita, plates of feta cheese and olives, and some crusty homemade bread. Then, three generations of family sit around the table, talking too loudly and eating too much. Invariably, someone will spill something on the white tablecloth.
Be it at my mother’s table, or at our own at home, we take it for granted we will have enough food to put on the table each day. It’s sobering to know that for some people, food is a discretionary item – and sometimes they go without if an unexpectedaly big bill comes along for example.
The result of editor Nick Richardson’s vision, with production by ABC Books, is the gorgeous-looking Kitchen Table Memoirs. It's an anthology of 21 poignant, funny and heartfelt stories that make for delicious reading. If you buy the book, you will no doubt be enveloped by that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you know you are helping a great organisation put food on the table. Dare I say it, but I think it might be perfect gift for Mum!
Find out more and buy Kitchen Table Memoirs.
The broth is rich, the flavours clean and simple. The soup warms me, sates a deeper need for consolation -- it brings me back to myself, grounds me. I revel in the taste, the sensation of it as it trickles down my throat. I scoop up the vegetables and the rice at the bottom, plump with the fish stock. There is other food on the table, but this is all I need.
Just over a year ago, days after my lovely friend Katerina had passed away, I ate a fish broth soup that her aunt Angie had made. It was one of the many offerings that would be made by Katerina’s family and friends to honour her life, and to help keep her in our thoughts, days, weeks, months after she had passed.
As the soup bubbled, we looked at family photos, picked figs from the garden, sipped at Greek coffee. At lunchtime, we ate soup at Aunty Angie’s table. It tasted as delicious as the first time I’d had it. As I took my leave, I was loaded up with homemade bread, an oversized tub of the soup, a bag of garden greens and a few peaches from someone’s tree.
Now I’m wondering – was it the really the soup that gave me solace, or was it the person that made it?
Download Aunty Angie's fish soup recipe.
There are two smells I strongly associate with summer: that of zucchinis and tomatoes sizzling in a pan, and the smell of meat on a barbecue.
Our backyard is a treasure-trove of edible pleasures at this time of year thanks to my green-thumbed husband: fulsome eggplants, aromatic basil, pert zucchinis, juicy tomatoes, wee cucumbers, rosy peaches and the odd whitefly-afflicted corncob that’s a bit sickly-looking but still edible. With all this prolific bounty, our charcoal-fuelled barbecue is getting quite a workout, as is that of our neighbours judging from the smells wafting over the fence. I must say that after all the excesses of the festive season, it’s nice to load up the barbie with produce that has travelled from our garden to our barbecue (usually via the kitchen).
I’ve worked out that in order for vegetables not to dry out or burn on the barbecue, they benefit from a fair bit of basting. I’ve been marinading them in olive oil, lemon, oregano, salt and pepper. I regularly ‘reapply’ this marinade during the cooking process, and feel as if I am liberally covering them in sunscreen (another of summer’s quintessential smells) to protect their delicate flesh.
My beloved cousin Stathis in Greece has another Mediterranean-inspired marinade for vegetables on the barbecue: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, freshly grated tomato and sugar (1 tablespoon sugar to each litre of marinade). For best results, he suggests marinading vegetables at least two hours before cooking. He feels that vegetable souvlakia make for a far superior ‘souvlaki’ to those with meat. The literal translation of ‘souvlaki’ is ‘little skewer’. He reminded me that the humble souvlaki has many guises, from skewers endowed with pieces of kid goat, to those with artichokes. Makes me want to run off to Greece this very minute.
Stathi's mother, my thiea Kanella, visited us a few years ago from Greece. She was very taken with our public barbecues in parks and gardens: she felt it was very generous of councils to make them available to patrons free of charge. She said that if she had such barbecues in her town, she (and many of her friends) would never cook at home.
Hail then the humble barbecue, be it in our backyards or public spaces; and blessed be the bounty that our garden is producing to put atop it.
