I love surveys and questionnaires, I can't resist them.
Sara has invited me to answer the following questions. Apparently this is known as being 'tagged' with a 'meme'.
So here are my answers. Hope this not too self-indulgent.
What is your first memory of cooking on your own?
Four years old. My older brother and sisters are at school and I have to amuse myself. At the end of the garden, behind the garage, is a circular concrete drainage outlet - a 'gully trap' - with a raised lip and a grille at the bottom. This is my stove. I fill it with timber offcuts from my father's workshop, take a battered pot from mum's kitchen, fill the pot with water, add some fallen camellia flowers and 'cook' them on my makeshift stove.
Who had the most influence on your cooking?
Mother - she turned out millions of perfect home-cooked dishes over fifty years (still does) and critiqued every one of them. "It's a bit burned!" (about perfect lasagne), "I just threw this together!" (about some elaborate stew), "They're like rocks!" (about her scones), "It's not gourmet, it's just ordinary food ..." (about some magnificent meal that everyone has thoroughly enjoyed). She's the most self-deprecating cook ever. She doesn't believe she has ever cooked anything that was any good, despite our reassurances.
Do you have an old photo as evidence of an early exposure to the culinary world?
My brother and I had a banana eating competition when I was about ten. He won, downing 14. I only managed 12. No, wait, that's not culinary, that's gluttony.
Somewhere there's an old photo of me picking mint and radishes from Dad's vegetable garden when I was about five. Mint for the Sunday lamb roast; radishes for the salad (lettuce, celery, quartered tomato, halved hard-boiled egg, scored radishes and cubed Kraft cheese).
'Mageirocophobia' - do you suffer from any cooking phobia?
No, but I will probably never make head cheese although I would quite happily eat it. There's a great deli near me that stocks it, otherwise known as 'brawn'. Lovely in sandwiches with pickle.
What are your most valued or used kitchen gadgets or what was the biggest letdown?
Just last year, I threw out my worn-out egg slide after owning it for probably twenty or more years. It was split laterally across the slide section and wobbled horribly when I flipped something, but I just kept using it. (I used to wonder why, when I pay $50 twice a week to fuel my car, I held onto a $7.50 broken egg slide for that long.)
Letdown: any product - every product - with a sticker on it that reads: 'As Seen on TV.'
Name some funny or weird food combinations or dishes you really like, at which others turn up their noses.
Brains - Lebanese style with lemon, garlic and olive oil at Lebanese House in Russell Street.
Tripe - in soup at Mekong Vietnamese cafe in Swanston Street (sign in window: Bill Clinton had two bowls, how many will YOU have?)
Toasted cheese and vegemite sandwich - at home.
All three totally delicious.
What are three edibles or dishes your simply don't want to live without?
What! Only THREE???? That's impossible.
Your favorite ice cream?
Two favourite ice-creams.
To the Sunday roast lunch mentioned above, my grandfather always brought a 'brick' of Peter's triple-flavoured Neapolitan ice-cream, packaged in waxed cardboard in those far-off pre-plastic days. Of the three flavours, I liked the chocolate. As kids, we would do trades with each other - 'I'll swap some strawberry for your chocolate!'
My other favourite ice-cream: Streets Creme-B-Tween which I licked around the edges until just two wet wafers were left. (Summer of 1967, Essendon Baths, mercury thermometer nudging 100 fahrenheit, loudspeaker booming out All You Need is Love. I was 9. All I needed was ice-cream.)
You will definitely never eat:
Whale. Or savoury muffins. That's just wrong. Muffins should always be sweet.
Your own signature dish:
Ribbon pasta with: cubed chicken breast poached in white wine, asparagus, peas, red capsicum and mushrooms; all bound up with home-made pesto. Unbeatable.
*
And now, in the manner of 'meme-tagging', I understand that the correct protocol is for me to invite three others to answer the above questions; varying, ignoring or adding questions as they wish. For this purpose, I have chosen three people whose blogs are not primarily focussed upon food.
They are: Filegirl, Janis Gore and Kimbofo.
Sara has invited me to answer the following questions. Apparently this is known as being 'tagged' with a 'meme'.
So here are my answers. Hope this not too self-indulgent.
What is your first memory of cooking on your own?
Four years old. My older brother and sisters are at school and I have to amuse myself. At the end of the garden, behind the garage, is a circular concrete drainage outlet - a 'gully trap' - with a raised lip and a grille at the bottom. This is my stove. I fill it with timber offcuts from my father's workshop, take a battered pot from mum's kitchen, fill the pot with water, add some fallen camellia flowers and 'cook' them on my makeshift stove.
Who had the most influence on your cooking?
Mother - she turned out millions of perfect home-cooked dishes over fifty years (still does) and critiqued every one of them. "It's a bit burned!" (about perfect lasagne), "I just threw this together!" (about some elaborate stew), "They're like rocks!" (about her scones), "It's not gourmet, it's just ordinary food ..." (about some magnificent meal that everyone has thoroughly enjoyed). She's the most self-deprecating cook ever. She doesn't believe she has ever cooked anything that was any good, despite our reassurances.
Do you have an old photo as evidence of an early exposure to the culinary world?
My brother and I had a banana eating competition when I was about ten. He won, downing 14. I only managed 12. No, wait, that's not culinary, that's gluttony.
Somewhere there's an old photo of me picking mint and radishes from Dad's vegetable garden when I was about five. Mint for the Sunday lamb roast; radishes for the salad (lettuce, celery, quartered tomato, halved hard-boiled egg, scored radishes and cubed Kraft cheese).
'Mageirocophobia' - do you suffer from any cooking phobia?
No, but I will probably never make head cheese although I would quite happily eat it. There's a great deli near me that stocks it, otherwise known as 'brawn'. Lovely in sandwiches with pickle.
What are your most valued or used kitchen gadgets or what was the biggest letdown?
Just last year, I threw out my worn-out egg slide after owning it for probably twenty or more years. It was split laterally across the slide section and wobbled horribly when I flipped something, but I just kept using it. (I used to wonder why, when I pay $50 twice a week to fuel my car, I held onto a $7.50 broken egg slide for that long.)
Letdown: any product - every product - with a sticker on it that reads: 'As Seen on TV.'
Name some funny or weird food combinations or dishes you really like, at which others turn up their noses.
Brains - Lebanese style with lemon, garlic and olive oil at Lebanese House in Russell Street.
Tripe - in soup at Mekong Vietnamese cafe in Swanston Street (sign in window: Bill Clinton had two bowls, how many will YOU have?)
Toasted cheese and vegemite sandwich - at home.
All three totally delicious.
What are three edibles or dishes your simply don't want to live without?
What! Only THREE???? That's impossible.
Your favorite ice cream?
Two favourite ice-creams.
To the Sunday roast lunch mentioned above, my grandfather always brought a 'brick' of Peter's triple-flavoured Neapolitan ice-cream, packaged in waxed cardboard in those far-off pre-plastic days. Of the three flavours, I liked the chocolate. As kids, we would do trades with each other - 'I'll swap some strawberry for your chocolate!'
My other favourite ice-cream: Streets Creme-B-Tween which I licked around the edges until just two wet wafers were left. (Summer of 1967, Essendon Baths, mercury thermometer nudging 100 fahrenheit, loudspeaker booming out All You Need is Love. I was 9. All I needed was ice-cream.)
You will definitely never eat:
Whale. Or savoury muffins. That's just wrong. Muffins should always be sweet.
Your own signature dish:
Ribbon pasta with: cubed chicken breast poached in white wine, asparagus, peas, red capsicum and mushrooms; all bound up with home-made pesto. Unbeatable.
*
And now, in the manner of 'meme-tagging', I understand that the correct protocol is for me to invite three others to answer the above questions; varying, ignoring or adding questions as they wish. For this purpose, I have chosen three people whose blogs are not primarily focussed upon food.
They are: Filegirl, Janis Gore and Kimbofo.
Okay, papa, I did my part.
ReplyDeleteJanis
I like: cheese, chicken, mayo, salt and pepper, toasted sandwich. Mmmm!
ReplyDeleteWhy am I not surprised Tripe and Brains made the list.
ReplyDeleteBLECH.
I am still partial to the peanut butter and pickle sandwich, though. So what do I know. :-)
I like your answers!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tag. I will try to do sometime this week. (I've just returned from a long weekend away up north)