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The year in food. (And I found my brother.)

He rang me the next day from a hotel on the other peninsula. He had completely forgotten. I said not to worry about it, we'll catch up later. I might even visit Alice Springs this year, finally.

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Back to food matters, Food Nazi posted this culinary summary of the year the week before Christmas. Here is my version, a little shorter, I'm afraid. I don't get about much any more.

Dish of the year:
Flash-fried steak, a minute each side and topped with a thin slice of blue cheese and warmed, thinned home-made pesto. Rich but stunning. Served with fine chips and a simple green salad.

Best eating experiences of the year:
1. See above.
2. A plate of glistening, quivering seafood dumplings at any number of the new Asian cafes that make the old sesame toast, sweet and sour, fried rice places look like something out of the 1950s. Which is what they usually are.
3. Barbecued salmon steaks under a setting sun.

Favourite cafe snack:
One man's journey through a world of foccaccia and ciabatta and zataared this and sumacced that always ends up where it started: sitting up at the counter at Pellegrini's (kitchen end), with a large thickly buttered cheese roll in front of me. And the newspaper and a strong cafe latte.

The kitchen accessory I finally bought this year:
A salad spinner. No more wet leaves.

Perennial favourites:
Breakfast: porridge with chopped bananas and sultanas; hot sweet white tea; newspaper.
Lunch: chicken and Swiss cheese sandwich on Flinders white bread thickly spread with home-made pesto.
Dinner: Linguine tossed with very finely chopped chilis, anchovies and semi-dried tomatoes.

Best bar:
I remember bars. I visited one once.

Melbourne food scene question of 2007:
How many cafes can one city support?

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Over to you. How was your year, in terms of food or otherwise?

Comments

  1. Great post! I may have to do this myself! Your steak sounds fabulous! Yumm!
    Marie
    http://journals.aol.co.uk/mariealicejoan/MariesMuses/

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  2. Happy New Year Kitchen Hand! The steak sounds lovely as does your breakfast.

    Haven't been to Melbourne since 2000 so can only imagine. May have to put it on my list for this year.

    Cheers!!

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  3. Oh the salad spinner! Mine broke this year and in the spirit of amalgamating 2 households worth of kitchenware resisted the urge to replace it, instead using the Significant Eater's inferior one.

    This year's resolution: life is too short to use crap salad spinners!

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  4. Thank you, Marie.

    Happy New Year to you, Breadchick! Do visit down here soon.

    AOF, I can't believe I cooked for years without a salad spinner. My resolution for this year: throw out my old knives that are so worn out they have concave blades.

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  5. This year I finally got a new Foley food mill to replace the one I inherited from my Nana (it was missing the bolt that secures the blade to the bottom of the containing pot. I hate the new food mill. Somehow in the intervening years, this very simple tool has been made so cheaply it is almost unusable. Other than that, my year in food has been immeasurably enriched by the addition of my 10 y.o. daughter to the ranks of those-who-love-to-cook. Happy New Year to you! (I am glad your brother turned up.)

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  6. Anne, replacement items are unfortunately often far inferior to the old ones. Congratulations on your daughter's new-found love of cooking - and happy new year to you as well. (Yes, I was relieved to find my brother!)

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