FOOD FOR LIFE Gift EBook http://www.goldcoastwriters.org/
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WINNER Congratulations to: The Origin of My Affliction by Michael Clancy
TOP three Competition entries from a field of seven.
STORIES
1st
The Origin of My Affliction
2nd 3rd
Dinner at the Motorcycle Garage. Crabs Bite
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The Origin of My Affliction By Michael Clancy
Sometimes our best recipes are still the ones we have saved over the years I blame it all on Jon Ables. Had he not knocked on the door of my Adelaide student flat on that hot February evening back in 1971 I might never have developed the depravity I live with today. But that was 40 years ago and I have learned to adjust to my affliction. I had only just moved in. It was the last year of my postgraduate course and I had a thesis to write. The month previously I had left the college in North Adelaide that had been my home for the previous three years. College life was fun – too much fun and now I had to focus. His call was unexpected. I opened the door to see the Incredible Hulk standing in the porch. Jon was a Texan and a postdoctoral fellow working in our lab. He was a typical brash Dallas man but a good humoured guy. “Grab your things, Mike”, he said “We’re going to my place and I am going to teach you to cook pizza.” He added as an afterthought “Oh and grab a notebook so you can write the recipe.” Armed with my notebook, which in those days was made of paper and required a pen or pencil to activate it, Jon took me by the shoulder and to his car parked up the street. “Mike” he said, “if you can cook pizza, two things will happen to your life. You will never go hungry and you will never be short of girls.” That sounded like a plan. Despite the passing of 40 years, it was an evening that I remember well and one that changed my life. A cultural diversion is in order. The Australia of my youth was very different from today. Back in 1971, there was only one place in Adelaide where you could buy pizza; Mario’s Pizza Bar on the corner of Hindley and Morphett Street. Together with the Pie Cart on King William Street, Marios was a refuge after late night revelry and an opportunity to sober up (or at least line the stomach before continuing to binge).
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I am not sure whether it was a 24-hour operation, such things did not exist at that time and after all, Adelaide had only just shucked off the ‘six o’clock swill’. But as I remember it, Mario’s was never closed. It was a place of debauchery. Mario was a middle-aged Italian who always looked dishevelled as though he had just been beaten by his wife. A cigarette always hung from his mouth and we all sat around a circular bar that had a pipe in the middle of it enclosing a dumb waiter. The pizzas were ordered by Mario shouting into a tube, and twenty minutes later, a pizza appeared from the bowels of the earth. What went on down below was anyone’s guess. Was it a den of vice? Was it the secret Adelaide headquarters of the Mafiosi? Or was it just the kitchen? Surely not! There had to be more down there than just a kitchen. Mario’s pizzas were all we knew. They were 8’’ in diameter and the crust was one inch thick. (One inch equals 2.54 centimetres for those who are imperially challenged.) The standard topping, aside from cheese and tomatoes, was ‘Russian salad, a strange creamy-brown coloured concoction with bits of meat and vegetables buried within it and which would not have looked out of place on the pavement late at night outside one of the pubs. In that situation you would have walked around it rather than put it into your mouth. But that was pizza as we then knew it. Jon, bless him, opened my eyes to another dimension. His pizza was THIN CRUST and not a doorstop. His pizza was loaded with goodies like Polish sausage, capers, stuffed olives and oh so much more. His pizzas were divine. I wrote down the recipe like a dutiful scribe at the feet of his master. I hate the man. After that experience there was no going back to Marios. His pizzas were passé. I had discovered a whole new world and I set out to conquer it. I bought oven trays (it was a couple of years later that pizza trays came onto the market), I made surreptitious trips each weekend from my home on Greenhill Road to the Adelaide markets in Grote Street. It was there that I discovered that there was more than one type of sausage. I discovered salami, pepperoni, Greek olives and so much more. I was on the primrose path to decadence and I was loving it. Jon was true to his word. I never was hungry. I discovered that pizza was just as good taken straight from the fridge as it was from the oven. Girls from college started coming around and invitations to my pizza parties were eagerly sought. Sometimes I had to pinch myself to make sure it was all real. I had never had such attention. Friends, usually drunk, turned up on my doorstep late at night demanding that I cook pizza. My lust for pizza has lasted a lifetime now. The toppings have changed slightly – no… dramatically, but the base that I make has never deviated from Jon’s original recipe. The sauce has developed over time. And despite the myriad of permutations and combinations we have today, I still maintain that there is nothing so fine as a pizza home-made and from scratch. ‘Bless you Jon.’ ‘Curse you Jon.’ Whether I bless or curse the man depends on whether I am waiting for the pizza to finish baking or whether I am sitting back with a bloated belly.
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I still have the notebook I grabbed that day and it formed the basis of my first recipe collection. Nowadays my kitchen recipe book takes a different form, except of course when I am cooking pizza. Pizza is certainly the food of MY life. Postscript
Sadly I lost touch with Jon. I last heard he was working for CSIRO in its radio astronomy department; but that was 20 years ago. My search on LinkedIn and elsewhere has brought to light many with the same name but never the big, humorous Texan I knew so well.
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Dinner At The Motorcycle Garage By Gail Luck One of the most memorable and, certainly, the most amusing meals we have ever had was at a restaurant called Les Trois Frères in Hoi An, Vietnam. Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage listed city in central Vietnam, full of houses and public buildings from the 16th to the 19th century, many of which have been faithfully restored to their original glory. It was a very successful sea trading port for much of its history, a major centre for the silk, porcelain, pepper and cinnamon trade. The city is unique in Vietnam because no cars are allowed in the main streets and motorcycles do not blow their horns constantly like in other parts of Vietnam. The resulting peace makes sightseeing and walking a much more relaxed affair. It’s easy to get around in Hoi An, everything seems to be within walking distance, although the high humidity can be a problem. Nowadays, the city is like a giant museum, divided into four quarters. Chinese merchants lived in their own quarter, with clan meeting houses and temples, Japanese traders lived across the river, linked to the city by a beautiful covered Japanese bridge, while Vietnamese and French citizens of Vietnam lived their separate cultural lives in different areas of the city in their own traditional houses. Some of the houses in the Chinese sector are still inhabited by fifth or sixth generation members of the same family. Restoration work still continues to this day, as more and more of these old shops and dwellings are brought back to their original appearance. During the day, we checked out the address of the restaurant. We wanted to be sure we could find it when we returned at night, in the maze of alleys that crisscross the main streets, parallel to the river. However, all we could find, at the address we had been given, was a motorcycle parking garage. Inside, the ground floor was covered with what seemed like hundreds of bikes, parked in orderly ranks, awaiting their owners. We knew a friend had been to eat there the night before because she had recommended the food so we decided to risk going to this non-existent restaurant although we half expected we had mistaken the street number or the name of the street. We had yet to meet the proprietor/chef of this elusive establishment. When we arrived in the evening with our friends, the motorcycles had mysteriously disappeared (taking their owners back to their villages after their working day in the city, I now suspect) and the lower floor of the establishment was covered in tables, set for dinner. We were the only patrons and the chef rushed out to embrace us in a bear hug, usher us inside with many grand gestures and lead us up the narrow staircase to the upper floor. He was a small round man in chef’s whites, with short cropped black hair and a grin made larger than life by a set of large, yellow teeth. He seated us with great fuss at a table on the balcony, which overlooked the road and,further away, the Thu Bon River. Because Hoi An is a river port, there is always traffic on the water and this evening was no exception, with interesting boats travelling up and down the river, all with eyes painted on their sides, to protect them from evil and lead them safely home, and with overloaded ferries, jam packed with people and bicycles, constantly moving backwards and forwards across the river.
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We had been advised that the chef didn’t stick to any menu but simply cooked the best produce he could find in the market that day in his own unique way. This sounded interesting and indeed, proved to be most enjoyable, with all flavours and textures balanced finely and many different small tasters and dishes for our delectation. The highlight of the evening, however, had nothing to do with the food. As the smiling chef presented each dish, he placed it reverently in the centre of the table, leaned over and inspected the dish, then picked out, with long, not-too-clean fingernails, all the black bugs which had landed in it either in the kitchen or on the way up the stairs. Once the dish was picked clean of bugs, he would smile beatifically, murmur ‘bon appetit’, then rush down the stairs, cross the road and stand on the pavement opposite, gazing intently up at us while we ate, obviously interested in whether we enjoyed the food or not. Mid meal, the light above our table fizzed to a dull glow and then extinguished completely. Our host looked crestfallen and, rushing once more down the stairs, he returned with the tall, skinny kitchen hand in tow. After carrying a large heavy ladder up the twisty narrow stairs, the kitchen hand then staggered to and fro, desperately trying to manoeuvre the heavy ladder across the small space, apron flapping, until he set it beside our table. Up and down the ladder the two men toiled, trying unsuccessfully to remove the bulb, while we, hearts in mouths, watched as the long-legged and very uncoordinated kitchenhand swayed back and forth above us, his shock of black hair flopping wildly. We tried nonchalantly to eat our latest dish and chat to each other in an exaggerated attempt at bonhomie. After many attempts to unscrew the bulb and many trips up and down the ladder, the recalcitrant bulb shattered, spraying glass everywhere (hopefully not in our food, but who could tell in the semi-dark?) Finally, the chef bustled out, his smile temporarily dimmed, to find a replacement bulb but returned some time later, empty-handed. He apologised profusely, picked out a few more bugs and returned to the kitchen, no doubt to cook up another dish. The shock-haired kitchen hand then manhandled the unwieldy ladder down the steep stairs again while we sat on in the semi-darkness trying to conceal our mirth at the unrehearsed antics of a real-life Vietnamese Abbott and Costello.
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Crab’s Bite By Christopher Low I had never been crabbing before, and even though I was only nine years old, I could tell that neither had my Dad, nor his brother, Neil. In fact, it looked as if they had never even set foot in a boat before, let alone launched one. The truth was they had launched plenty of boats, but this was something different. Trying to get a ten foot tinny into the water of a mangrove estuary at low tide with no boat ramp was actually quite an unfamiliar and awkward act. A twenty-five foot expanse of treacherous mud made certain of that. The air was thick with voracious sandflies, and with blue curses that would have made my grandmother weep. By the time the boat was in the water Dad didn’t need any insect repellent, because I could not see any part of his skin that was not covered in the dark stinking mangrove mud. Uncle Neil was no better off, but at least I was clean since I had been told to wait on the creek bank and await further instruction. Dad putted the boat over to where I stood at the edge of a steep section of creek bank, where the water lapped about six feet below. It was my job to pass the crab pots, bait and esky down to them. I wanted to ask Dad why he hadn’t put all that stuff into the boat before launching it, but previous suggestions of a similar nature at various times during my short life had not borne the fruit of a positive response from Dad before, and I had no reason to believe I would get one today. The half dozen pots and the bait were handed down to Uncle Neil’s outstretched hands as he balanced on the bow of the boat without too much drama, but the esky filled with beer and ice weighed more than I did. I had to pass the beer down one bottle at a time, and most of the ice tipped into the water as I tried to hand the esky itself down the embankment, prompting Dad to teach me new word. However, the cracking of the first beer of the day seemed to have a relaxing effect on Dad and Uncle Neil. The frequency of expletives diminished as we baited the pots, and the discussion focussed on the high potential of having a crab sandwich for lunch. The instructions from Bruce, Dad’s other brother who had loaned us his tinny and pots for the day, were simple. Bait the pots, chuck them in the creek fifty or so yards apart, and check them every hour or thereabouts. Wait an hour? Blow that! The thought that there might be a crab already in a pot, probably eaten all the bait and therefore seeking to exit the facility, caused considerable angst to all three of us. It was my very important job to lean over the side of the tinny and grab hold of the crab pot float as we coasted up beside it, and then pass it over to Uncle Neil, who would then haul on the rope and hoist the pot from the murky depths. The incoming tide was racing as we approached the first float, a “V” of ripples parting around it and spreading upstream. I managed to grab the float and not simultaneously to fall into the creek, and my Dad’s“Onya mate!” was worth more than a day off school to me. I passed the float to Uncle Neil, and the three of us nearly tipped the boat as we all leaned to the side where the pot was to come on board, aching to see what would be revealed. And the revelation could not have been more to our satisfaction.
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A huge buck clambered around the base of the pot, massive blue grey claws stretched wide, pincers open in a most convincing threat. We all hooted and exclaimed in excitement at the splendid specimen, marvelling at its immense size and display of fearless aggression. Uncle Neil held the pot aloft and Dad unclipped the door, whilst I perched myself on the bow of the boat so that no part of my person could be gotten at if the crab managed to miss the bucket and scurry about the floor. But the crab did not warm to the idea of walking through the door and into a five gallon bucket. If fact, he was firmly committed to staying where he was, curling the pointed tips of his legs through and around the wire mesh. Vigorous shaking of the pot proved only to harden the crab’s resolve. He was going nowhere. Dad quickly determined that since he was a higher order mammal with a large brain it should not be too difficult to distract a crustacean, albeit a large and angry one, by waving a twig of mangrove leaves in one hand whilst deftly securing a safe grip on the animal from behind with the other. As Dad reached into the pot, his large higher order mammal brain neglected to consider, and therefore judge potential outcomes, that the eyes of a mud crab are on stalks and are capable of seeing in all directions at once. Prior to this trip, my Dad had always said that nothing moves as quick as Muhummad Ali. He now says Muhummad Ali, or a mud crab. So Dad extricated his hand from the pot, and thus the mud crab. It had fastened one of its avocado sized claws deep into the fleshy part of the hand between thumb and forefinger, and as Dad held it aloft, he was very lucky to grab the other claw with his left hand and hold it before it too gained purchase. Now, if you could imagine a full grown Brahman bull with its testicles lodged in a bear trap, then the accompanying bellow might come close to the sound Dad made. ‘Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhh! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh, f#@% me! Get it off!’ Uncle Neil, also a higher order mammal, tried to use his own fingers to prise the pincers apart. When that didn’t work, his large brain told him to pour water over the crab, and then the small brained crab, thinking it was safely back in its natural environs, would let go. But Uncle Neil’s brain made the same mistake as Dad’s, and those eyes on stalks accurately informed the body upon which they were attached that it was still in perilous danger, and should therefore increase the pressure it was applying to the enemy’s soft fleshy part between the thumb and forefinger. ‘Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhh! Stop! It’s biting harder! Arrrrrrgh! Get the f#@%in’ thing off me!’ Though Uncle Neil adored animals, most of the time he held his brother in higher regard, and so on this day he decided to put Dad’s wellbeing above that of the animal. He picked up a twelve inch shifting spanner that was on board the tinny, a tool required to occasionally give the uncooperative outboard motor bludgeons of encouragement. With calculated aim and incredible force, Uncle Neil descended the spanner upon the crab’s claw. I think the wind must have gusted somewhat at that precise moment because the head of the spanner completely missed the crab’s claw, and instead made very solid and audible contact with the back of Dad’s hand. ‘Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhh! You f#@%in’ stupid dumb #*%@! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhh!’
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It was around then that my tongue started to bleed, since I had no other method of distraction at hand to prevent myself from laughing at the funniest thing I had ever seen in my life, which in all likelihood would have been the very last time I was physically capable of laughing had my amusement been made known to my father at that particular point in time. With no consideration as to what the crab might be experiencing, Dad placed it on the floor of the boat and pounded the poor creature with the heel of his right foot, over and over. Bits of crab shell, flesh and guts sprayed in all directions, and even though he had to jump on his own hand, the end result proved less painful and far more successful than the water or the spanner method. Thank heavens for the soothing power of cold beer is all that I can say, and even though it would be at least a week before Dad could hold a pen in his right hand, that first trip was the best of all. We caught about a dozen crabs that day, and hundreds over the following years. It wasn’t the last time Dad was bitten, but at least every trip after that included a compulsory set of large pliers capable of crushing the top section of a mud crab pincer quite adeptly within a very short time frame.
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RECIPES CONTRIBUTED BY AUTHORS PIZZA By Michael Clancy
The original recipe as I wrote it Ingredients
Garlic salt Basil leaves Stuffed olives Ground chillies Crushed red pepper Sage Continental capers Old hickory smoked salt Polish sausage Parsley flakes Leggo’s tomato paste Mozarella cheese Tomatoes 8oz cup warm water and 1oz dried yeast – combine these. (these days I add a little brown sugar and use low-fat milk instead of water) Add 1½ cups of plain flour and stir until smooth. Add 1 dsp of olive oil and a tsp of salt.
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Add in a further 2 cups of plain flour and mix as well as possible. Dump on a lightly floured board and start kneading until it becomes a smooth elastic ball. Put in greased pan and allow to rise, approximately 2 hours Pat down and chill until ready Sufficient quantity for three 9” pizzas. Divide into 3 parts. Roll out and out into greased trays Add the trimmings, mozzarella, tomato paste and the garnishing. Cook approx. 20–25 mins at oven temp 400°F (200°C) In those days, the sliced mozzarella was placed first with the tomato paste on top of it. Now we do it the other way around. Since then I have adapted the tomato paste. I finely slice a couple of onions, chop up several cloves of garlic and sauté in olive oil until they begin to caramelise. I then add a mix of passata and tomato paste or a can of diced tomatoes and simmer for 20 minutes or so. As seasoning I add sea salt flakes, ground black pepper and a dash of Tabasco sauce. I then let it sit and cool for several hours so that the flavours infuse. The base recipe is perfect and I have never varied it. ***
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Sticky Ginger Chicken By Gail Luck
½ teaspoon Ketjap Manis (Indonesian thick sweet soy sauce) 2 teaspoons oyster sauce 4 tablespoons fish sauce 2 tablespoons soft brown sugar 500 g. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (cut into 2 x 3 cm pieces) 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 10 cm piece of ginger (peeled and julienned) 4 garlic cloves (finely chopped) 1 teaspoon sesame oil 1 small handful coriander leaves 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
In a large bowl, combine the Ketjap Manis, oyster sauce, 2 tablespoons fish sauce and 1 tablespoon brown sugar. Mix well, add chicken. Cover and place in fridge to marinate for 20 minutes. In a small bowl, combine 4 tablespoons of water with the remaining fish sauce and brown sugar. Stir to dissolve sugar and set aside. Heat a wok or electric frypan, add sesame seeds. Stir constantly until just turning light brown, remove from pan and set aside. Add oil and ginger, stir fry over medium heat until fragrant. Turn heat up high, then add the chicken to the wok or frypan, tossing to seal all sides. Add the water and sugar mixture, stir for 2 minutes, then reduce heat to medium. Add the garlic, cover the wok or frypan and cook for a further 3 minutes. Remove the lid and increase the heat to high to reduce the sauce by half, then stir in the sesame oil. Transfer to a serving plate and garnish with coriander and sesame seeds. Serve with jasmine rice.
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Crab Bites A simple and delicious entrée or finger food.
Ingredients:
250 g raw crab meat, finely diced (works equally well with raw prawn meat) 1 ½ cups soft bread crumbs (2-3 slices of wholegrain bread in a blender is best) 1 egg, beaten 2 tablespoons mayonnaise 1 tablespoon mild or wholegrain mustard 1 tablespoon minced garlic 2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley 2-3 teaspoons chopped fresh coriander or dill (add more for stronger flavour) A few shakes of black pepper 1 cup cornflake crumbs Olive or Canola oil spray Seafood sauce for serving
Method:
Combine crab meat, bread crumbs, beaten egg, mayonnaise, mustard, minced garlic, fresh herbs and pepper in large bowl Cover and chill for 1 hour Preheat oven to 200° Celsius Form mixture into small balls with a teaspoon Roll balls in cornflake crumbs and place on baking sheet, spray with oil Bake for 15 minutes or until browned
Makes 25 to 30 Crab Bites. Serve with seafood sauce.
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Sarah’s Chocolate Cake Collect enough fire wood to keep the fire going. Make sure the temperature reaches 350 – 370 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius). Ingredients:- 4 ounces butter (120 grams) 6 ounces castor sugar (2/3 cup) A few drops of vanilla essence 2 farm fresh eggs, beaten (organic) 8 ounces self-raising flour (2 cups ) ½ teaspoon of salt Method:
Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence and eggs, beating well. Sieve the flower and salt together and fold into the mixture alternately with sufficient milk to give a dropping consistency. (It should drop off the spoon in five seconds). Bake in a 7 inch ( 20 cm ) round tin for 25 minutes When cooked the cake should be ‘springy’ to touch. Cool on a wire cooling tray near a window.
Chocolate:- ½ teaspoon of cocoa Icing 1 teaspoon of butter Ingredients 11/2 tablespoons hot water 4 ounces (3/4 cup) of sieved icing sugar Method:- Dissolve the cocoa and butter in the hot water and gradually beat into the icing sugar until smooth. (Use an electric beater for a fluffy mixture). Spread on top of cooled cake. Decorate with raspberries, shaved chocolate or whipped cream. Bon apetite!
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