Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Ten freelance foods you must eat before you die. Well, well, well. I was mighty amused to see that Jill Dupleix, aka Mrs Terry Durack, has turned her foodie sensibilities to my staple Freelance Food diet of things on toast.
When I think of Jill Dupleix I think of a resourceful woman who, her husband once proudly recalled in Fairfax's Saturday bourgie organ, once whipped up a chocolate cake using two forks as an impromptu whisk and a tinfoil takeaway container as a cake tin. So all I can think of now is Jill frantically whisking away with the forks like some deranged silver service attendant.
But unfortunately, her take on Freelance Food is straight from the Durack school of showing off about the fancy toasty things she has eaten at restaurants across the world.
"Come with me if you want to eat!"
When I was decorating it I went through several stages:
1) Dismay
In which you realise that butter icing is yellow because of the butter, and so your planned blue metallic icing (coloured with blue curaçao) is mint-green instead. Also, the alcohol is making the icing separate and it looks faintly mouldy. But your guests will be arriving in 15 mins and you've got to ice that fucker with something.
2) Helpless mirth
In which you are arranging bits of licorice and lolly teeth on this monstrosity and it just looks irretrievably comical and you actually laugh to yourself on the way back home from the milk bar, thinking how it looks like a cross between an alien head and a Kabuki mask.
3) Delicately unfurling pride
When your guests actually compliment you on the cake and say it looks good, and you begin to believe it yourself.
When I think of Jill Dupleix I think of a resourceful woman who, her husband once proudly recalled in Fairfax's Saturday bourgie organ, once whipped up a chocolate cake using two forks as an impromptu whisk and a tinfoil takeaway container as a cake tin. So all I can think of now is Jill frantically whisking away with the forks like some deranged silver service attendant.
But unfortunately, her take on Freelance Food is straight from the Durack school of showing off about the fancy toasty things she has eaten at restaurants across the world.
"At Cuisine de Bar in Rue Cherche-Midi, you can lunch on tartines of the famous pain Poilane (from the bakery next door) topped with creamy Saint Marcellin cheese and country ham. At Gabrielle Hamilton's adorable Prune restaurant in New York, lunch is all grilled tuna clubs with aioli and rocket, and bacon and marmalade on pumpernickel toast; while in Spain, San Sebastian's legendary pinchos bars line their counters with little toasts topped with salt cod, tomato and quail egg, or chorizo, potato and pimento peppers."Still, she has inspired me. Here is what I am going to have for dinner: a Pizza Toastie made by spreading tomato paste on bread and filling with salami, chopped up red capsicum and lots of shredded tasty cheese. NOM NOM NOM. I am pretty hungry as all I have eaten today are two mandarins and two slices of Terminator head sponge cake. Would you like to see this cake?
"Come with me if you want to eat!"
When I was decorating it I went through several stages:
1) Dismay
In which you realise that butter icing is yellow because of the butter, and so your planned blue metallic icing (coloured with blue curaçao) is mint-green instead. Also, the alcohol is making the icing separate and it looks faintly mouldy. But your guests will be arriving in 15 mins and you've got to ice that fucker with something.
2) Helpless mirth
In which you are arranging bits of licorice and lolly teeth on this monstrosity and it just looks irretrievably comical and you actually laugh to yourself on the way back home from the milk bar, thinking how it looks like a cross between an alien head and a Kabuki mask.
3) Delicately unfurling pride
When your guests actually compliment you on the cake and say it looks good, and you begin to believe it yourself.
