Stomachs on legs are proud to present

I just read this cute blog on Blue Lotus about a person who has never liked raw oysters, trying one fresh in Hokkaido and becoming a convert. I like this story. I like it when people try something new and change their opinion. It always fills me with hope.

Except I know if I was her friend and there with her, she would probably still hate oysters. This is because of the way I embarrass and harangue people into trying new food.

I'm a bit of an old nasty hag, you see. I know that.

I recently berated someone I like very much for never having eaten a raw oyster. Our common friend had a dinner party and bought fresh oysters which he shucked himself. A real treat. I happily downed my allotted two and then turned to my friend D and enquired as to why he wasn't eating them?

"I've never tried them before"

"let me guess, you grew up in some inland rural town of Australia"

"yes" he said relieved that I understood that raw oysters were not native to him

"yeah, but you're 31 now and how long did you live in Melbourne? I'd understand if you were 18 and fresh from the bush, but goddamit your 31 and you still haven't even tried one? What the hell is wrong with you"

So then, ummm, yeah. He tried one. I patted him on the back and he gave me a look like I am evil.

I know I am. I like to point out people's sore points, give them a hard time, see if they'll crack under pressure. If I had not said anything maybe he would have tried one, decided he liked it and ate another. But having eaten one under such trying conditions, I'm sure that he was left with a bad after taste, raw oyster or not.

I guess that makes me a not very nice person.

But really the story of raw oysters and me is not really a very nice one to begin with.

I was eating oysters in the womb. I kid you not. My mother reckons that when she was pregnant with me she constantly craved raw oysters, even though she herself doesn't like them. Nonetheless she gouged on them, swearing it was me demanding them. Pregnant women are not supposed to eat raw oysters, or raw anything for that matter as a bad one can give you such violent food poisoning that it can kill your baby. So perhaps I was so demanding of raw oysters in the womb that it was impossible to resist, or maybe she was trying to abort me from the start. And given that my mother and I have never really gotten on, I sometimes think it was possibly a little of both.

Sometimes I like to think being fed raw oysters in the womb has given me some sort of bad raw oyster immunity

Today, happily alive and blogging, my raw oyster fetish continues unabated. They haven't killed me yet. However on a recent trip to Sydney to see my sisters, I'm now a little more wary of the true dangers of oysters. As per family tradition, we all trundled down to the Sydney Fish Markets and I bought five dozen oysters. 3 trays of Sydney Rock oysters (small and sweet), and 2 trays of pacific (larger and salty).





They were pre-shucked. It was the last day of the Easter holidays. We ate them and a few hours later my little sister was in agony out both ends.

I stayed up the entire night with her. Bought her glasses of water and kept a watchful eye to make sure she didn't cark it. She survived the night and the next morning was driven to the airport, placed in a wheelchair and flown back to New Zealand.

She has made a full recovery, but is unlikely to eat a raw oyster for a very long time.

I'm so glad that it wasn't her first time eating an oyster. I'm glad that she wasn't my friend D and that on top of being harangued into eating an oyster he wasn't nearly killed doing so.

I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that the next time I tease someone into eating something they've never tried it will be fresh, cooked and unlikely to kill them.

So the weekend before last I was in Auckland attending our annual sisters' reunion. There are four girls in my family, no boys. This is usually a weekend in either Auckland or Sydney and involves copious amounts of food, booze, giggling, bitching and sometimes tears.

This reunion began with foot massages and yum cha at Pearl Garden for which I was not present, instead I was standing at the kitchen sink grumbling about everything being organised far too early for my tastes, when I realised I just needed to go back to bed for a couple more hours (I had spent the previous day travelling 13 hours from Canberra to Auckland because I had decided to save money and catch the bus from Canberra to Sydney)

So the real get together began Saturday night. I collected kokoda and uni from the Nola's fish shop,



whilst other sisters bought oysters, salmon sashimi, crab, pipis and mussels.

Our dinners when held at my older sisters' are usually a movable feast. First off someone popped some champagne and then I decided to make guacamole with corn chips to serve with the kokoda, a la mexican kokoda that had worked so well when I made in March in NZ....the combination of Pacific Island style fish ceviche with mexican accountrements works and I recommend you try it.

We drunk more

My sister made the pipis and mussels smoked inside the bbq.



We drunk some more

I made kina spread on bruschetta with a bit of butter, salt and pepper and lemon. I had intended on serving it raw but it had a strange bitter after taste that Japanese uni doesn't tend to have so I decided that grilling it would be better. It was. Although reactions to the idea of kina bruschetta by my sister's partner's Maori and Pacific Island work mates was one of confusion "Kina...hmmm....Bruschetta????" Kina Bruschetta is an abomination to anyone that grew up fishing and diving in the Pacific seas.



Then we decided we were full....the live crabs sitting in a bucket in the garage probably thought they had made it past dinner



But then a few hours later came a second wind. We plunged them into hot water, pried back their heads and quartered them and threw them on the brazier



The night ended with cheese, whiskey (seconded from our father's booze cabinet) and a card game that couldn't be won on account of the fact that a number of cards were missing from the deck but everyone was far too drunk to notice



Sunday morning rolled round and began with my sister's spelt flour pancakes served with strawberries, yoghurt and maple syrup. An indulgence that made me wonder where the indulgence was.

We then went cockling at Cornwallis



Once everyone had collected their alloted 50 cockles each we recounted them and threw back the littlest ones





We headed for the grass for a rest beneath the pohutukawa trees, the classic red flowering tree of NZ often called the NZ Christmas tree.



Until we decided we were hungry again

So lunch of smoked salmon, salmon sashimi, cockles, bread and every single condiment we could find was amassed on the table in addition to a salsa verde I whipped up from my sister's kitchen garden.





We peeled off. I had a nap, others went for a walk and the littlest went home to feed her kitten. We reconvened at another Huia beach for a high tide swim



We returned for one last mammoth eating effort, lentil salad, toulouse sausages, tomato ragu and watercress, avocado, pear and walnut salad.



And said goodbye for another year.

This blog post is a purely self gratuitous exhibit designed to elicit jealousy and desire on the part of you, dear reader.

I ate a nova scotia oysters, New England clam chowder, a bucket of "steamers" and a lobster roll at Pearl Oyster Bar, New York. It's a NYC take on a Maine-style seafood restaurant, specialising in Maine lobster rolls.



It's not quite the same as eating it in Maine, but it is as close as I am likely to get this side of the decade.

Ever since I had heard that such a thing as a lobster roll existed I have wanted to eat one. Finally my dream came true. Plus due to the melt down of the global finance system, there were no queues, so we didn't have to wait for a table at peak lunch hour.

Steamers and chowder


I was a little bit perplexed by how to eat the bucket of clams. They came accompanied by a cup of hot water with lemon, what I assumed was olive oil and lemon. Each clam had a weird little penis like appendage on the side covered by a sandy little foreskin....yes, true. I started to fluff around with the objects on the plate when the waitress came over and explained.

you remove the foreskin


hold the penis-thingy and dip in the warm water to clean


then dip in the clarified butter


Then you eat. It's up to you whether you eat the little penis-thingy too. I tried a couple. I guess its not really a penis but it felt weird. I once knew a women who refused to eat anything that had eyes. A weird form of semi-vegetarianism which I believe she may have had to rethink had she been with me on this day and been confronted with tiny clam penises.

Lobster roll


and oysters as dessert



The lobster roll wasn't actually the highlight of the meal, the clams and oysters were. I think I prefer my lobsters plain, steamed and with lemon and not smothered in mayo and couched between soft pillowy bread. Nonetheless I'm happy to have fulfilled another goal in life - eat Maine lobster roll.....tick. The oysters were wonderful, with a much cleaner fresh sea taste than oysters I've eaten down under. Although they erred on the side of salty not sweet oysters, which I generally prefer the overwhelming fresh ocean flavour was as refreshing as a big gulp of icy water. The clams were also great, weird tiny penis aside, they were plump and flavourful. Although I hesitated at first about the idea of dipping them in clarified butter, I rolled with it and can attest to deliciousness. Whoever said that dairy has no place in seafood dishes should go to Pearl Oyster Bar.

After a good "hour" of fishing off the rocks of Huia situated in the now not so polluted Manukau Harbour we called it quits and went and ordered way too many fried things: fish and chips and fried oysters and fried scallops and fried potato cakes (unfortunately no french fry hotdog mashups ) from the 120 year old Huia store. The wait was long and the fry up was mediocre or as my sister-in-law put it "It wouldn't be NZ if it wasn't slightly disappointing". Its one of the most annoying paradoxes of NZ that no matter how close to the ocean you are, or how many fishing boats you see dotted in the harbour you can only ever seem to get seafood covered in batter and deep fried.





A flock of ducks hang out near the Huia Fish and Chips store and seem to make a comfortable living from being fed left over fried things. I am sure that the ducks also have plump little foie like livers and would be much tastier than your average wild duck, but because they are so domesticated by their daily chip feed and it is illiegal in NZ to shoot a "sitting duck", I guess they sit in the same category as the NZ wood pigeon.



As far as fried fish goes, we faired much better on Auckland's other harbour the Waitemata , we ordered from the Fish Pot Cafe a "light snack" of Tarakihi and fried pacific oysters which I personally don't care for but these were simply delicious, just barely cooked but with a very crispy batter yum!







Oh, and instead of fat ducks and westies there were cute little naked asian babies swimming in Trevor Moss Davis Memorial Fountain.

Why make breakfast in your family bach, when you can stroll down the road to the Sawmill Cafe and have an eggs benedict or french toast with pears stewed in earl grey tea, that's actually better than any you'd be able to buy in old Ponse-snob-be (aka Ponsonby in downtown Auckland), while sitting outside in their nice garden and listening to the low throb of some Augustus Pablo dub reggae?



The Sawmill Cafe is awesome. It's not run by rich jokers and everything about it is just...good. It somehow does not clash with the township, and it's brilliant to have somewhere to get breakfast and a really good coffee after going to the beach. I've known Ed, Ben & Nicola of the Guiness family who run the Sawmill, since my late teens and shared many hazy early morning moments with Ed & Celia. I had some of my most enjoyable DJ gigs ever at the Sawmill, back when dropping Outstanding by the Gap Band or Flashlight by Parliament-Funkadelic next to Indio Silver Club by Daft Punk was unheard of in the city (way before Daft Punk got revived by indie kids) but would go down a treat with the Sawmill's mix of country kids, city escapees and artist bohos. The Sawmill makes me think of playing New Year's eve in a gypsy tent in a paddock with Ed making ridiculous watermelon cocktails. The Guiness family do everything so well: it's the only place in New Zealand where I had PROPER thin crust pizza... (their pizzas are named after their family members, e.g. the Picky Nicky) and their new microbrewery's offerings are mighty fine - especially the Crystal wheat beer. The beer is actually made by a guy with some kind of pro bono system where he keeps his brewery on the Sawmill property without paying rent and uses the Sawmill logo; the Guiness family have no financial investment in it, but they have it on tap.

Anyways, the Guiness family keeps it reals, and when I complained of missing watercress in Germany, Ed'll say "Just go down to the creek and grab some mate" and then launches into a story of fishing on choppy water or the cows he's keeping by his little house that he built right beside a waterfall. Ed's lifestyle in Leigh is a panacea to city-dwelling emmigrants like me & Celia. Maybe we wouldn't be much good at wrestling crayfish with our bare hands, but the fact that he does is a reassuring fact, an ideal to hold sacred.

So far, Leigh has remained the nice little harbour fishing village with baches that it always was, with the Sawmill as the jewel in its crown... however, nearby Matakana (about 15 minutes drive away) has lost its dishevelled bohemian edge and fallen prey to the march of the middle class, the crassest sign of which is the Matakana Farmer's Market and the surrounding complex of villas with jewellery stores and an upmarket butcher with Jamie Oliver kitchen ware.



I felt I wasn't the only person at the market feeling slightly at odds with the white glare of the sun umbrellas and the harsh ochre tones of the ornamental gravel underfoot. Not to mention the obvious 'life style block' owners like the dude selling italian sausages or the grey haired American selling olive oil. To all of this, one reply seemed obvious, in fact it loomed over the site, painted on a building on the opposite side:



Still, we did get a nice sack of mixed salads with edible flowers, some smoked garlic (it didn't have much noticeable impact on anything I cooked with it, though it smelled nice while preparing the steamed cockles), some delicious sparkling feijoa fruit wine (which also takes me back to sun soaked recoveries in the late nineties at the Sawmill), some Mahurangi oysters, some dark purple grape juice, and some figs.

The duck eggs, and the location by the river, are pretty, if you can manage to ignore the shit-coloured gravel underfoot:







The flabby personality-bleached Omaha millionaires munching on mussel fritters got a bit much though, so we escaped with the oysters back to my family bach in Leigh, and ate them with a cup of what we kiwis call 'gumboot tea' (i.e. cheap & black like PG Tips) by the BBQ where two fat kereru pigeons ate their own lunch. And we in turned threatened to become the lunch of mosquitoes.
I couldn't really enjoy the oysters after having had two recent feasts of Bluff oysters.

March marks the month where some of the Gut Feelings team members, including Kinakojam, Hock, Maytel and "the Hoff" will officially all be in New Zealand!!!

Hoff and Kinakojam are already kicking it in Welliwood, if I'm not mistaken, although they've been very quiet of late

Anyhoo, Hock and I arrive in Auckland on the 7th for some much deserved R&R, although I will be travelling with the books

What I am looking forward to most is hanging at my sister's house in the Waitakere ranges and having meals that look like this on her balcony nestled amongst the beautiful native bush.....ahhh sigh....the very thought of it relaxes me



and if the weather isn't too chully then heading down to the beach to go and pipi and cockle picking in the shallow waters (and be stared at by white locals who think we're veracious mainland Chinese coming to strip their beaches)

and.....

good smoked fish
pavlova
kumera
maybe a ponsonby pie
The French Cafe - dego menu
tamarillos and or feijoas
montheith's beer, emerson's beer, mac's beer
bluff oysters (season's just started)
Empress Garden Peking Duck meal
A good roast
Some great sushi and yakitori
Vogels!!!

and of course good wine and lovely company

Another good meal we had in Singapore was here. It's on Hok Lam St.



They serve an excellent bowl of Teo Chew (Chaozho in Mandarin or Chiuchow in Cantonese) beef noodles.



The noodles are somewhat similar to a bowl of pho bo but much much richer with a far more deep fragrant herbal broth, my guess is probably more cinnamon, more star anise and probably some shaoxing wine.

Teo Chew cuisine is renoun as a herbal almost medicinal version of Cantonese food. Other famous Teo Chew dishes include a herbal pork anise stew, a great steamed fish in herbal ginger broth with wolf berries and chinese prunes, and dishes such as what is known in Thailand as goong woosen, frangrant glass noodle and prawn claypot, goose feet noodles and fried oyster omelette. Teo Chew people hail from Northeast Guangdong, they are the original rice smugglers and triads (yes the original gangstas) of China and make up the majority of the Chinese diaspora of Southeast Asia, thus most of Southeast Asia now has regional variations of Teo Chew dishes, I'm thinking of Thailand's Khai Paloo and Singapore's Ba Ku Teh. Thailand also has a beef noodle dish that is similar to above said noodles, but it's sweeter and they put Thai basil in it.

My Thai/ Chinese side of the family are Teo Chew, that's how come I know this shit.

Anyway, if your interested in learning more wiki has some info although I'm not sure about the fruit carving comment, this is prevalent everywhere in asia, not specific to Teo Chew people

In keeping with the easter theme, not that I mean to bum you all out, but I found this blog on the morbid topic of the last suppers requested by those about to be executed by the government of the United States of America

Dead Man Eating posts their name, their date of expiry and their last supper

Tellingly food favourites of America's southern black population overwhelmingly dominates the menus: fried chicken appears to be most requested

Fried chicken eaters watch your back, the American government wants to kill you

If I have a choice I think I would go with fried chicken too plus:

dimsum dumplings (high quality hand made)
a couple of bluff oysters and a scallop or two
and enourmous pile of fresh Santa Barbara uni (sea urchin/ sea egg)
some Tattinger reserve champagne
a piece of vogels and a tamarillo

Not all food is good, some can make you very sick or even kill you. Globalised trade basically means pooh in the food can have far reaching implications. Mushrooms grow in pooh. In 2000 an estimated 2.1 million people died from diarrhea !!!

Perhaps what the world needs now is not another celebrity chef, but a food safety hero

Introducing food safety's biggest NERD

And his repetoire of food safety covers including:

"Who Left The Food Out: Who, Who Who Who Who"
"Fifty Ways to Eat Your Oysters"
"Don't Get Sicky With It"