When I first met my boyfriend, he didn’t know how to make mashed potatoes. He was uncomfortable making salad.  He once ate an entire can of condensed tomato soup complaining that it didn’t taste very nice, without even thinking that there may have been any preparation involved.  Yet, through gentle encouragement, he’s entered the kitchen, and with the lure that he’ll get to eat more meat if he adds it himself, he’s branched past the barbeque and the George Foreman Grill and into stir-fries and anything involving cheese.  And then, he bowled me over with some baked fish.  He even innovated on the recipe! Beware, an apron with “house husband” isn’t far away….

Now, we all know men don’t like sticking to the rules, and cooking is not exception. But, if you wanted to make something like this, this is the basic premise:

2 fish fillets, 1 tablespoon of oil, 2 stalks of lemongrass finely sliced, 5 shallots finely sliced, 1 chile seeded and finely chopped, 1 heaped teaspoon of ground ginger, 3 tablespoons of chopped cilantro/coriander, rind and juice of 2 limes, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, dash of fish sauce, salt and pepper, few handfuls of grape tomatoes.

Clean the fish fillets and rub in the salt, pepper, and oil. Combine the rest of the ingredients and wrap in foil in a baking dish.  Bake for 30-40 minutes at 425F. Noice!

I love galleries.  I can spend all day in the Met.  The Art Institute of Chicago made me giddy with excitement. I can’t stop talking about the Frick (don’t get me started).  But Moma? I left feeling very jaded and couldn’t get it out of my mind that this was a complete RORT.  I can appreciate art wear talent meets innovation.  But this, this, and this are just silly.  Not to mention anything by de Kooning or Rothko. Did that really take skill and talent? Or does the genius belong to the artists’ agents, who concocted ridiculous reasons for artistic merit, weaving in tropes of “evolution”, “microcosm”, “revolutionize”, and “minimalism” (artistic code for lack of skills and materials) and threw in some made up words like “calcificationism” or “misogynmorphosomism” so that no art critic is willing to reveal their complete lack of comprehension. But then, my faith in art was restored. With asparagus.  At a recent dinner party, a friend revealed a simple masterpiece.  It was beautiful, skillful, functional, and really tasty.  Yes, the new wave of contemporary art is culinary, and I embrace it.

Today, my petite Californian-Korean colorist and I were lamenting over our lost food innocence.  Remember when we used to drink wine out of cask, and cheese from plastic packaging, and think it was really good?  I may have progressed past the evils of fruity-lexia early in my career of under-age drinking, but once I tip-toed past the goon bag, I warmly embraced a medium-bodied red in its convenient cardboard cask.  I felt a bit posh, actually, drinking red wine during my student days, sometimes accompanied by a cheeky slice of coon.  But, a few years later, cask wine was unacceptable and grocery-store cheese was horribly déclassé. I was happy in my ignorance of the finer life, but well-meaning food snobs dragged me into the era of refined taste and the days of cask and coon were long gone.  First it was wax-encased soft cheddars from Margaret River, bought in delis.  Then it was gooey wedges of brie sourced from a Parisian fromagerie. Then, I became able to order cheese with phrases like “cloth-bound”, “sharp”, or “I prefer undertones of licorice” (don’t worry, in the back of my head there was always a voice saying: You_are_ a_tosser).  Then, I was seduced by Murray.  Murray’s Cheese is apparently a New York institution, but all I know is that it’s 73 steps from my front door, and my gym is 221 steps.  It’s an incredible shop, and I’ve never had a bad recommendation.  I may have lost my innocence with food, but like an experienced older lover, Murray is guiding me to be more adventurous and my taste is the richer for it (bank balance, not so much).  If you live in New York you should become a Murray’s regular, and if you’re just visiting you should definitely grab a wedge and have a little picnic in Father Demo Square.  One surprising fact for foreigners: the American cheese they have is excellent.   

My Manhattan Urban Family loves celebrating traditional holidays with big dinner parties.  We may be cynical heathens who have no right to dine in the name of Jesus, but we do love food.  I was allocated a traditional American dessert that originated in the South: Red Velvet Cake.  Despite the salacious name, it’s actually just a type of chocolate cake with red food coloring.  So, I put on my apron, whipped up my best Paula Deen accent and got baking.  Happy Easter, y’all! I adapted the recipe from one I found on bon appétit, where the user reviews let me know that Americans take their red velvet very seriously.  Despite my censure of the hoards that line up lemmings outside Magnolia bakery for hours on end (they’re just cupcakes!!!) I adapted the recipe for the frosting from theirs.  This is a ridiculously complicated recipe for frosting, but it is worth the effort. 

2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour (sifted, then measured)
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon red food coloring
1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract2 tablespoons of oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs 

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 1 1/2-inch-high sides. Sift the already sifted flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into medium bowl. Whisk buttermilk, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla in small bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until well blended after each addition, and then add in the oil. Beat in dry ingredients in 4 additions alternately with buttermilk mixture in 3 additions. Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 27 minutes. Cool in pans on racks 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto racks; cool completely.

The frosting:

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract 

In a medium-size saucepan, whisk the flour into the milk until smooth. Place over medium heat and, stirring constantly, cook until the mixture becomes very thick and begins to bubble, 10-15 minutes. Cover with waxed paper placed directly on the surface and cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes. In a large bowl, on the medium high speed of an electric mixer, beat the butter for 3 minutes, until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar, beating continuously for 3 minutes until fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat well. Add the cooled milk mixture, and continue to beat on the medium high speed for 5 minutes, until very smooth and noticeably whiter in color. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes (no less and no longer—set a timer!). Use immediately.

Last week I got a little excited by the red letter entry in my desk calendar: March 20 —Spring Begins.  I tucked my winter coat into protective plastic sleeve and buried it deep into storage, shoved my boots underneath the bed, and dressed myself in some too-pretty satin sandals and a flippant floral skirt.  Fool.  I walked around the village waiting to see daffodils blooming and cherry blossoms budding on the trees and promptly shivered into startled oblivion.  Clearly, my desk calendar had not consulted with meteorology.  I climbed my five-floor-walkup in satin ice cubes craving the ultimate comfort food and ready to revel in the west village winter wonderland for a few weeks longer. Thus, I made my favorite spaghetti and meatball recipe and tucked up in a blankie on the sofa and waited for some feeling to creep back into my toes.

Meatballs: 2 hot Italian sausages, 1/3 lb of minced beef, A little hot pepper seeds, Pepper, 1 egg lightly beaten, 4 green onions finely sliced, Chopped parsley, Spaghetti or fettuccini  

Sauce:1 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 onion chopped, 1 teaspoon of garlic, 1 packet of grape tomatoes, 1 cup of pasta sauce

Combine all the ingredients for meatballs and combine and form into balls.  Arrange on a foil-lined baking tray and spray with oil.  Bake in a moderate oven (350) for 30 minutes.  Combine the ingredients for the sauce and stir until hot and serve with the meatballs over cooked pasta.  Top with parsley, pepper, and parmesan.  A blanket over the knees is also a lovely accompaniment.

New York has provided me with everything I’ve asked her to: a job, a visa, a beautiful little cubby-hole of an apartment in my favorite part of Manhattan, and more restaurants and bars than I could have ever dreamed of.  Yet, somehow I still miss little pieces of home, namely decent coffee and bread without sugar.  Apparently, the coffee is an issue in London as well, but they have had a larger antipodean invasion to rectify the problem.  Fortunately,  I live around the corner from Amy’s Bread, which is heavenly, so that means I have some bread for my vegemite,  and I’ve finally found a few little haunts that make a flat white.  Kingswood is a new restaurant in the West Village that is perennially packed even though it has an unexceptional dinner menu and their bar staff are complete tossers.  But I find myself their every Sunday morning for their amazing brunch, which is complemented by several flat whites.  I’m always surrounded by dozens of expats who are sinking down enough flat whites to last them the week.  So please, New York, I know I’ve asked a lot, but Manhattan would be such a better place if a few more baristas knew how to make the flat white.  It’s not hard—even kiwis can do it! And, you’ll get lots of business from the tens of thousands of us from down under who live here!

Somehow, I was at home last Saturday night.  We had gone out for the previous five nights and were both exhausted and broke, but nevertheless I felt like a complete nanna.  By 11.00pm, my boyfriend had fallen asleep reading Alan Greenspan’s memoirs and I was restlessly pacing around the three square feet of our loungeroom.With a guilty smile, I remembered I had the Keira Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice on DVR. As much I as abhor that wanton waif and her snarl of smile, this movie is significantly better than I expected, and two hours of tortured pride and sexual tension later, I was swooning on my couch confessing how ardently I admire and love Mr. Darcy, even if it is against my desire and better judgment.  So, if I can’t have him, I’ll bake the best love substitute I know: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies. .

When I moved from Sydney to New York, to live in a flat that’s an eighth of the size of our house back home, my one rule was to have a proper kitchen.  Five floor walk-ups, sporadic hot water, and very dodgy plumbing were nothing compared to the idea of a kitchenette with its pathetic single burner and bar fridge.  In the middle of the bustling sex-shop district on the West/Greenwich village divide, I found my oasis.  A teeny, tiny kitchen with a real oven (that works at least 80% of the time), three working burners, and enough bench space for some very efficient preparation. I think it’s fair to say that I enjoy cooking more than I prefer eating.  And I love it when people enjoy my cooking.  There’s something very calming about the methodology of cooking, and once you’ve learned enough of the rules, you can calculate your experiments in a way that they’re generally bound to be edible.  I love being able to meditate over my day while chopping, mixing, and stirring. Because I treat my kitchen as an escape from my arduous anxiety-filled middleclass white well-bred world, I’m not very good at letting people into it, so this is the closest I can come to sharing my kitchen therapy with you all.