Rhonda Bracey: At Random

When were coming back from Bunbury the other day, a roadside stall was selling fresh cherries for $18 a kilo. Oh man! Were they good!!! Unlike store-bought cherries, which are often small or have some too green and others too rotten, these were perfect. And fresh. And delicious. And big. We’ve been savouring them all week…. But they’re all gone now 😦

Fresh cherries from Donnybrook, Western Australia

For a long time now, my American friend Char has sung the praises of Krispy Kreme Donuts, but whenever I’ve been in the US recently, there hasn’t been a KK that was easily accessible. I’m not a big fan of doughnuts anyway, so have never gone out of my way to hunt them out. Kirsty, from Brisbane, has also sung their praises, so with their recommendations ringing in my ears, I was chuffed to find a Krispy Kreme shop close to the hotel. I even went across the road to get one! And OMG. They are delicious. So light and melt-in-the-mouth! The server recommended I start with the Original as I’d never had them before, but having now had that one, I’d be keen to try vanilla, cinnamon, and others!

So Char and Kirsty – thank you for recommending them to me. I’ve changed the way I think about doughnuts as a result of that one light and fluffy experience late this afternoon. Man, they’re good!

It’s been a hectic week workwise, so I’m only now getting around to blogging about the long weekend just gone. I did the Japanese Meshwork workshop on the Saturday, then I had the craft group afternoon up at the estate on Sunday afternoon where Bobbie taught two of us some patchwork piecing basics. This was good—it’s been 20+ years since I did any patchwork/quilting classes, so while I do this hobby for my own enjoyment, I really don’t know the best practices I should be following. We started work on a ‘Blankets of Love‘ quilt each.

On Monday, we took a drive on a big loop along Channybearup Rd (south of Manjimup), around the back of Pemberton, and back through to the Southwest Highway. Channybearup Rd was interesting—I’d heard that Manjimup grew a lot of the state’s avocados but had never seen an avocado tree on any of our trips down that way. That’s ‘cos they were hiding out along Channybearup Rd! Thousands of avocado trees, from brand new ones to well-established ones. And some vineyards thrown in too.

We stopped in at Knights Distillery. I’d heard good things about the liqueurs they were producing there, and I’m pleased to say that my information source was absolutely correct! We tasted some FABULOUS liqueurs, and even bought some of our favourites. It would have been easy to buy one of each, though the bank manager might not have been happy with that!

The ones we purchased were Arabian Knights (cream liqueur with chocolate and Turkish Delight flavours), Frosty Knight (chocolate mint cream liqueur), Mid Knight (coffee liqueur), and Regal Knight (the house specialty). We also bought some home-made chocolates, filled with various liqueurs, and scoffed off all eight of them after dinner that night!

So, how do you do a liqueur tasting when you’re driving out and about? They had these tiniest little shot glasses that probably held not much more than a thimble full. And the guy behind the counter pours a tiny amount, enough to come maybe 5 mm up the side of these little glasses. So you get the taste without too much alcohol. He did say, however, not to drive after eating six of the chocolates as that equivalent to one standard drink! The minimum alcohol content of the liqueurs is 20%, with the Regal Knight and the schnapps varieties at 37%.

My friend Char alerted me to this – thanks Char!

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From Serious Eats comes a push to Very Good Taste, which posted The Omnivore’s Hundred (“a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life”).

If you don’t recognize everything in the list, Wikipedia usually has the description. The goal is to try everything eventually, although you can cross out those things you plan on never trying.

From Very Good Taste:

1. Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2. Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3. Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4. Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

Here’s my take on the VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (I’ve also had alligator)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle (a tiny bit!)
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (just a tiny bit!)
27. Dulce de leche (something very similar made by heating a can of condensed milk)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (well, it was a thin cigar!)
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (though I have eaten witchetty grubs…)
    
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (once!)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Well, surprisingly I’ve eaten 61 of those foods! So…how good an omnivore are you?

Update 2014: Bolded two more on the list, so I’ve now eaten 63 of them

Yesterday was one of those gorgeous sunshiny days we get in winter—very little heat in the sun, but the light was glorious, and the air was clear. Time to prune the grapevine and the wild rose bush down the back…

And time to pick some more lemons (I’m giving nearly all of them to the pub at the moment—there’s way too many for me to deal with and I don’t want them rotting on the ground), and some oranges. Last year, the oranges were pretty pathetic—small, dry, sour and not worth peeling to eat. But something’s happened this year. They’re much bigger, sweeter, and juicy. Maybe it’s our natural ecosystem…

So I picked a bag full, then cut and juiced some 20 of them straight away. That fresh orange juice was like nectar from the gods! Talk about ‘low food miles’! These had come from less than 20 metres away and were juiced within about 15 minutes of being picked. I juiced a few too many and thought the juice would be nice this morning, but it was starting to go acidic and tart, just like the 100% orange juice you buy in containers, which I don’t like. So next time, I’ll just juice enough to have now, and juice more as I need them.

One of the delights of the depths of winter is the yummy stews and casseroles you can make. It’s many years since I made lamb shanks but I gave them a go the other night. Unfortunately, they didn’t taste anywhere near as good as they looked—I don’t use salt in my cooking, but I do use some chili mixes and suspect there may quite a bit of salt in them as I didn’t use them this time and these lamb shanks tasted very bland. They were definitely missing salt.

The ‘recipe’ was one of those ‘bit of this, bit of that’ ones—look at what’s in the fridge and just toss it in! I’ll try and formalise it…

Ingredients

• 2 lamb shanks
• Lots of veges, all chopped coarsely into chunks. From memory I put in a couple of onions, some carrots, pumpkin, sweet potato, half a zucchini, a few mushrooms, some celery stalks,  maybe a potato or two… whatever you think goes together, really.
• 1 or 2 cans tomatoes
• half a long red chili (to taste—if you don’t like chili, don’t add it); I think I also added a slurp of chili sauce too
• a couple of sprigs of rosemary
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

I used a heavy cast iron pot with lid on top of the stove, but you could do this in the oven too, or in a slow cooker.

1. Brown the onions, chili, and mushrooms in a small quirt of oil.
2. Add the lamb shanks and brown them lightly.
3. Add the rest of the veges, including the tomatoes and the rosemary.
4. Add some water if you think it’s necessary. But don’t add too much otherwise you’ll have a soup.
5. Throw in the rosemary and a pinch of salt and pepper.
6. Turn down the heat and leave to simmer for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally if it’s on the stove top. Add water as required if it seems to be cooking too fast and drying out. (If using an oven, this is the step where you put the dish into the oven!)
7. When the lamb shanks are nearly falling off the bone, they’re cooked!
8. Serve with something to absorb the lovely tomato-ey juices/gravy, such as rice, couscous, or mashed potato, and some green veges for color. You might want to have some crusty bread on hand too, to mop up those juices!

Here are the lamb shanks nearly ready for serving—look at all those lovely veges in the sauce:

And here’s one meal—one lamb shank is MORE than enough!

I was catching up on some RSS feeds this afternoon, and came across one of Smashing Magazine‘s latest offerings: Beautiful and Original Product Designs.

Yes, most are beautiful and I’d guess many are original. But there was one I can’t believe no-one has thought of before. It’s just so simple…

The “Easy PB&J Jar“—a jar with straight sides and most importantly, lids at both ends so you don’t have to scrape the sides looking for that last little bit of peanut butter, mayo, Vegemite, or whatever. Having spent a couple of minutes this morning scraping the last of the Vegemite in the jar, I would’ve appreciated one of these simple jars!