Public Service Announcement

Zoom Out

When inundated by media telling us to fear each other and science telling us to stay away from each other, feeling a bit misanthropic is fair enough. Maybe you don’t want to go out with your work friends. Maybe your family catch-ups are more stressful than they should be. Do your housemates leave things in the sink for days?

Public Service Announcement: the world is full of other people. People you haven’t met yet. People you might not ever meet. Sometimes it’s good to remind yourself that if your life is a film, narrated by you, there are other films, other stories, happening all around you.

Somewhere, possibly near where you are right now, is someone you haven’t met yet who might just change your life. Possibly in a tiny way – by introducing you to a new flavour of tea or giving you a brilliant tip about the best way to poach eggs – or possibly in a huge way, like becoming a hilarious friend or helping you be the best version of yourself.

Any person you say hi to when you pass them in the street could be miserable. You could be the only person they’ve spoken to all day. Small talk, which often feels insincere or pointless, can sometimes shift someone out of themselves in just the right way. Use your little bit part in other people’s life stories to inject a bit of kindness or humour or lightness. Or don’t. Just nod at them. Or say hello, using only your face.

Last year, when the wonderful musical theatre genius Stephen Sondheim passed away, people noted that he was brilliant from a very early age and was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. He was born in just the right city for his skillset. He had the right friends, and the right family. Sure, he worked very hard, but there was a place where that kind of work was celebrated, and it was basically his doorstep. So here’s to the people who are born in the wrong town, and the wrong family. The geniuses living in poverty or held down by menial jobs. The imaginations that could think us all out of trouble if we only gave them a chance.

Something we don’t get when we encounter other people while taking part in our own narrative arc is their perspective on us. We don’t see life through their eyes. We don’t watch us walking towards them. We don’t assess ourselves through their lived experience. This is why it’s sometimes interesting to have those conversations with friends about their first impressions of you. They thought you were shy. They thought you were loud. They thought you thought they were an idiot. Rarely is a first impression entirely correct. Usually, the data people are using to build their impression is largely self-generated. In other words, it’s more about them than it is about you. For this reason, when you see someone in the supermarket and you think they’re looking at you with judgement or disdain, chances are there’s something going on that isn’t about you. I watched a woman becoming irritated with someone in a shop recently. “Are you right?” she demanded of another woman who was quite close to her elbow. The second woman, surprised, turned and apologised. Then she put her hand to her face and said, “Are you okay? Have I upset you?” Never have I seen the heat sizzle up and off a situation so fast. They were chatting together by the fruit and veg for ages.

There is someone, somewhere, right now, writing some words that are going to change the way people think. There’s someone playing the opening notes of a song all of us are going to know this time next year but nobody’s heard yet. A discovery, in a lab maybe, or out in a field, or deep in the ocean, is probably taking place in some form right now. It might change your life, but you don’t know the person who thought of it. You will probably never know the person who thought of it.

People can be truly terrible. We’re responsible for basically every problem, ever. But people are also wonderful, and surprising. Sometimes, wandering out into the world and coming across a brand-new human, even if only for a second, can serve as a useful reminder that our own lives centre the main character. Sometimes it’s good to zoom out, and borrow a few paragraphs from someone else’s story.

Lorin Clarke is a Melbourne-based writer. The second season of her radio series and podcast, The Fitzroy Diaries, is on ABC Radio National and the ABC Listen app now.

Whole Snapper

Ingredients

Serves 4-5

1 large, whole snapper, about 2kg, cleaned and gutted 3 tablespoons Chinese rice wine 10cm piece of ginger 1 bunch spring onions 1 bunch coriander, chopped 3 tablespoons light soy sauce 3 tablespoons chicken stock 1 teaspoon sugar 3 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 tablespoon sesame oil ½ teaspoon white pepper

Method

Cut several diagonal incisions across the skin and flesh of the fish. Put the fish in a large non-metallic dish and pour the rice wine over it. Cut the piece of ginger in half and cut one half into thin discs. Cut half the spring onions into 10cm lengths. Put the ginger discs, spring onion pieces and half the coriander in the cavity of the fish. Cover and set aside for 20 minutes.

Peel and cut the remaining ginger into thin matchsticks. Cut the remaining spring onions into similar-sized pieces to the ginger.

Combine the soy, chicken stock and sugar in a small bowl, stir to dissolve the sugar.

Tear off a sheet of foil, ensuring it is larger than the fish. Tear off a similar-sized sheet of baking paper and lay this on the foil. Put the fish on the baking paper. Now lay another sheet of baking paper and then foil over the fish. Fold around the edges to seal. Set aside for 20 minutes.

Your firepit is ready to cook on after about 2 hours of burning, when the timber is charcoal black, has transformed into red hot coals about the size of golf balls, and the smoke has all but subsided. To test for heat, you should not be able to hold the palm of your hand 5-10cm above the grill for more than 2-3 seconds. Replace the grill over the firepit and give it around 10 minutes to heat up.

Put the fish parcel on the firepit grill and cook for 30 minutes. Leaving the fish wrapped, transfer to a serving platter. Unwrap the parcel and pour the sauce over the fish. Scatter with the ginger and spring onions.

Put the vegetable oil and sesame oil in a small frying pan and place on the firepit. When the oil is smoking hot, pour it over the fish then quickly scatter with the remaining coriander and white pepper to serve.

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PLAN TO RECREATE THIS DISH AT HOME?

Ross says…

Home, to me, was the western suburbs of Sydney at a time when new housing estates dominated the landscape. In a culture that was almost entirely white Aussie, my family was fortunate enough to have neighbours from Greece, Egypt and Hong Kong. I only realised many years later, long after I had moved away to the big smoke of Sydney, that many were political asylum seekers. We would share food. My dad was a mad cook and loved his food, so he both encouraged and relished the occasion. The Chung family lived directly behind our house, with only a wooden fence separating us. With our Sunday roasts and meat and two veg, and they with their homemade dumplings and Cantonese stir-fries, food would be passed over the fence. This ignited in me a passion for Asian flavours. I enrolled in a Chinese cooking class at the local TAFE when I was 14 and the rest is history.

The Chungs would make a weekly pilgrimage into Sydney’s Chinatown. Sometimes, I would tag along. On these excursions they would get all the ingredients they needed to get them through the week: fresh ginger, spring onions, garlic chives, Chinese greens and seafood.

I clearly remember fish head soup and curries and the classic steamed whole fish with ginger and spring onions. This recipe translates perfectly well to cooking on a firepit. It is simple to prepare, impressive and delicious.