Playing with food words

Meatloaf - but I won't do that.

Family GP had a bit of a riot around the table the other night.

I'd managed to pull off one of those meals that was both made up on the spot (along general guidelines provided by Mrs G) and evoked actual "wow"s from the minions. I don't like to brag, but I like telling you how impressed they were. OK, I'm bragging.

I'd made individual meatloaves in silicon muffin forms. In the mix was your standard onion, beef mince, salt and pepper to taste, but I added a very finely grated carrot, some finely minced mushroom, and left out the egg and breadcrumbs, which are really just stand-ins for reasonable food. I also added a good dollop of hoisin sauce to the mix, and another sneaky one at the bottom of each form, so that it bubbled up through the stuff as it baked.

I don't think this is exactly restaurant-grade anything, but the result impressed.

Conversation moved to how it could possibly be improved. The first suggestion was for a little blob of fetta in the middle. Then the fetta had to be poked inside a potato gem (a tater tot, for any Yanks reading) before the meatloaf mix was formed around it. Then the fetta-stuffed potato gem needed a bacon blanket before disappearing inside the meatloaf.

About then we got sidetracked by how it should be described. Following the example of the "turducken" (a turkey stuffed with a duck, itself stuffed with a chicken), and after much hilarious experimentation, we settled on "me-baco-tater-fetta-loaf" to describe this entirely fanciful concoction.

Nobody at any point actually thought we would ever make such a thing, it was just a silly conversation where everybody got to throw in a ridiculous idea and see where it led.

Do other people have dinner table conversations like this? I remember well the terrible punning conversations I and my brothers (and Dad) would have when we were young, while our Mother groaned and sighed. When I married Mrs G, Mum advised her to ignore us when we started to try to out-do one another with ever more terrible puns. Anything else just encourages us. We still do it, because the only encouragement we need is each other.

There's a harmless, silly kind of fun in creative wordplay. I'd much rather be collaborating in the naming of a "me-baco-tater-fetta-loaf" with my minions than talking about the weather, or what they might have seen on television.

There's also laughter.

It's so good to laugh with your minions. The healing power of laughter should not be underestimated.

For all the trials we've faced this year, getting around the table and being silly quickly restores a bit of perspective.

Mrs G and I are blessed to have families which are only mildly dysfunctional. For those of you less fortunate, yet who are obliged at this time of year to share meals with the odd people you're related to, I hope you're able to spot some absurdity and run with it.

You never know who'll try to keep up.

The Joy of Platta Paket*

Whaddaya mean, "the wall's not plumb"?!  GAAAHH!!!

As mentioned elsewhere, we've been doing a major kitchen renovation here in Bendigo.

And when I say major, I mean we completely demolished the old kitchen, threw out all appliances bar the fridge and microwave, re-sheeted parts of the wall, and built a whole new kitchen in its place.

A splendid day out

A week or two ago we received a letter in the mail from the power company, informing us that the power would be off between 9am and 3.30pm one day coming up. There's a new residential development going in up the road, and they needed to put up some new poles or something.

Usually the lack of power during these hours would not be a problem. On a weekday we're out before nine and none of us is back before 3.30 so, apart from having to reset all those clocks, we wouldn't really notice.

On this occasion, however, the nominated day was a Sunday.

No point in getting all upset. We simply decided we needed to go out for the day.

Today's excursion was to Daylesford.

Sometimes you have to build a Tardis

Artist's impression

As some of you may already know, the Easter weekend project here in Bendigo was to build a Tardis.  Preparation began weeks ago, with the gathering of pictures and plans.  We began gathering materials about a week ago and work in earnest began on Good Friday.  We invited a bunch of friends and family to join us for the weekend and had a blast.  Unfortunately we didn't quite finish the build, but it's close enough that we can finish it off over the next couple of weekends.

When I say we aimed to build a Tardis, we weren't actually trying to build a time machine.  Rather, with our combined backgrounds in theatre production and cutting-edge cocking about, we aimed to build a passable, three-dimensional facade of a Tardis, place it out in our backyard near the rail line that passes by there and, hopefully, entertain some bored commuters from time to time by activating the flashing light on its roof.  We reckoned the necessary skills and inspiration could be gathered for the weekend and, with the right combination of determination, idiocy and whimsy, there was always a good chance that we could pull it off.

It's their party, and we all get chocolate, so be nice

I have something of a community service announcement here.

In past years I have noticed a propensity amongst certain of the non-believers amongst us to make light of the Easter festival.  Zombie carpenter jokes, and the like.

Yes, yes, it's all fun until someone loses an eye for an eye.

Listen up.  We don't make alien abduction jokes when Muslims are celebrating the night-journey of Mohammed.  We don't make refugee jokes when Jews are celebrating Passover.  And we certainly don't make Mazda impound jokes to Zoroastrians, for fear we'll be attacked by giant marshmallow men.  So, just because Christians seem able to take a joke doesn't mean it's OK to get up in their faces about it.

We all here in Australia benefit mightily from Easter.  Two public holidays, hot cross buns and Easter eggs.  You get all this without having to cross the threshold of any place of worship.

So let's keep it nice this Easter and not insult the beliefs of those who happen to justify these benefits for the rest of us.  I'm just saying it's not really all that funny when you consider that friends of yours take this stuff to heart.

Oh, and stay safe on the roads, people.

Everyone has their own autism

As some of you may have gathered by now, there's a bit of a foodie theme going on here.  No, not gourmet foodie, just wholesome, home-cooked, comfort foodie foodness.  Making pancakes from scratch on a Sunday morning.  Macaroni and cheese without a box in sight.  Bacon.  And so on.

Making yummy, un-fancy food is fun and satisfying, and it can become an obsession.

Now, I can't take credit for what follows, but it did kind of start way back in the days when I used to come into professional contact with Child Support Agency cases, and I became aware of the enormously detailed financial disclosures their clients have to complete.  One day I looked at one of those forms and thought it would make the solid basis for a family budget.  The budget we work from today had its origins there.

Victory, from the jaws of culinary defeat

I had a bit of a cooking crisis this evening which turned out well, involving my attempt to tart up a frozen crumbed fish dinner by making fancy chips.


As fortune would (eventually) have it, the potato bin contained two very slightly different kinds of potato today.  They both had the same kind of pinkish skin, but one kind had flesh that was a tiny bit darker than the other.  This should have been a warning, but it wasn't.


Anyway.  I noticed this difference as I was peeling the potatoes and preparing them for the two-part cooking process I've come to trust: slice them into the chip shapes you want, then par-boil them to give them enough moisture inside that when you oven-bake them they go crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside.  This process also involves gently tossing the things in vegetable oil prior to baking, and at that point you can also get fancy with the flavouring.  Tonight I cut them french-fry style and chose a ground rosemary and rock salt flavouring, which smells divine as they bake and tastes wonderful.