Stomachs on legs are proud to present

So we have been living in Auckland since March when our plans to move back to Asia crumbled along side Thailand's aspirations towards democracy.

We are still working on "Plan B".

It's not so bad. The winter here is very mild. I go jogging around Mission Bay on sunny days and think that life is on the whole pretty good.

However, I am experiencing extreme, cross-Tasman national level food envy.

Let me explain. You know how when you go to a restaurant and order the wrong thing and wished you had ordered what your friend ordered and spend the rest of the evening eyeing up their plate? Well it's like that but on a national level.

I once thought that Canberra was at the ass end of all agro-food supply chains. How wrong I was. I've decided that New Zealand now takes that dubious title. Being an major agro-exporter to the world and extremely proud of its local food culture, I know that any New Zealander would argue that I am wrong until they are blue in the face. To which I would respond with a big fat "whateva". Yes we export a whole lotta milk powder...ngeah!

And I can say that because I am a bourgeois female – vanguard of the 21st century – the new working class male (Make way for a whole new type of chauvanism people!!! Possibly involving unbleached tampons) . I also think that most notable food critics and chefs agree with me. I've noticed in the local food press that journalists love to ask visiting food dignitaries such as Rick Stein and others what they think of New Zealand food. The overwhelming response that I have noticed is a slightly uncomfortable shifting in one's seat followed by the very diplomatic comment "it has come a long way from where it was before".

Which isn't really that far. Quite frankly I think the food here, the quality and the variety can be pretty second rate. Given the very small size of the local population, their limited spending power and generally unadventurous palates, top quality, interesting produce does not make much of a showing on most supermarket shelves or farmer's market tables (back in April, I was outraged on a fishing trip to Leigh that the local fishery there does not do any public sales and exports all of its catch directly overseas).

In the meantime, I have been endlessly taunted by Australian cooking shows. MasterChef Australia, SBS's Luke Nguyen's Vietnam and Food Safari have been goading me on cable tv. I have a serious case of Australian food envy. Sitting here in the living room eating yet more kumera, broccoli and chicken, I'm amazed to learn that the Maltese community of Australia is large enough that they make their own Gbejniet. Luke casually mentions that you can buy most varieties of mango and Vietnamese herbs in Australia now and I grimace (not in NZ tho). And to add insult to injury, histrionic Masterchef contestants get to cook with massive pieces of truffles (I asked for a truffle for my birthday but the NZ truffle crop rotted in the floods this season and of course no one imports them because NZer are just too poor to buy them, meanwhile Canberra had a bumper crop).

I love New Zealand, it will always be home. It will always be my birth place. But an unfortunate part of being a New Zealander is feeling like the poor and envious sibling of Australia. To bring it back to the intimate scale of a dining table. It's like always going out to dinner with the same friend who is richer, luckier, more worldly, interesting and louder than you and always gets the better meal...every single time.

Hock said that I'm like a dog with a bone on this whole animal/vegetable diet debate, and maybe I am. Perhaps it is all part of an internal wrestling with what diet choices I should try to be making, perhaps not from a moral but more a health standpoint....I tend to flail between "body as temple" vs "body as fairground". Like Kjam, from time to time I self reflect on the choices I should or should not be making regarding my diet....An obsession if taken too far becomes an exercise in extremly self-absorbed naval gazing. Should I be this concerned with my own consumption?

The battle has long been waged, and will certainly continue in spite of this study. Are humans designed/evolved to eat everything and at risk of malnutrition as vegetarians? Or is vegetarianism the healthy and ethical choice? The most impressive data arises from a study of 1904 vegetarians over 21 years by the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsche Krebsforschungszentrum). The study's shocking results: vegetarian men reduced their risk of early death by 50%! Women vegetarians benefit from a 30% reduction in mortality.

Long-term Study of Vegetarians
The participants of the the German Cancer Research Center study included 60 vegans (no animal products consumed), 1165 vegetarians (eating eggs, milk but no meat) with the remainder described as "moderate" vegetarians who occasionally ate fish or meat. The health of these study participants was compared with the average German population. Living longer seems not to be exclusively related to eating meat, though, as the results for moderate vegetarians was not statistically different from those for vegan or strict vegetarian diets.

To the argument that it is not vegetarianism but a general interest in a healthier lifestyle which leads to such notable results, scientists reply with evidence that the majority of vegetarians do not cite health reasons for their lifestyle, but make their choice based on ethical commitment, environmental concerns or simply personal taste.

Vegetarians and Malnutrition
Research by a team led by Professor Ibrahim Elmadfa at the University of Vienna found a much better than average intake of Vitamin C, Carotinoides, Folic acid, fiber and unsaturated fats. Where shortcomings may arise is for Vitamin B12, calcium und Vitamin D in a vegan diet. Astoundingly, however, study participants did not suffer from diseases, such as osteoporosis, typically related to inadequate intakes of these micro-nutrients.

Link

Via Die Welt (german)

But I'd like to know what the study defines as moderate.

All things in moderation, even moderation they say....other wise you could end up as fodder for the less scrupulous as humorously outlined in stuffwhitepeoplelike.com's item number 32

The client from my Sabbath Day ladypose invited me out to dinner. I should have bù huì'd, but I said OK and ended up confronted with an all-pig Szechuan hotpot.
As I rooted around in the hotpot with the ladle, hoping to find some small intestine submerged in the depths, I heard the massive sound of a needle scratching off a record. Hoping to find small intestine? Yeah, small intestine: doubt me if you want, but I have lately discovered that it is a fucking delectable part of a pig. Texture of liver with no hideous fat or gummy bits wobbling on it as on pig muscle. Alas, this particular 'pot contained naught but vile cubes of congealed blood and rubbery ciliated large intestine. Chinese people, I know you love a bit of blood in your breakfast congee, or any time really, but I just can't get down with it. At dinner, I swallowed a single jiggling clot, a postage stamp-sized scrap of tripe, then filled up on cabbage and kept my hands busy by chopsticking black peppercorns into my mouth one by one.

OK, so I thought I was going to take a day or two's break from the burning digestive issues of Gut Feelings, but then, ya know. As it happens, this week, inspired by Coco, I decided to start a music blog, and just now I was browsing around to see if there were any other worthwhile music blogs that I should link to.

So I was surfing through the links provided by the New Yorker's music blogger Sasha FrereJones, as you do, and I clicked through randomly to Elyse Sewell.

Who the hell is Elyse Sewell? You might ask. (As did I).

It turns out she is a model. (Whoop de do, I hear you reply. Well, stick with me). This girl is not only a model, but a model who appeared on the first season of America's Next Top Model. And apparently there is a fan site dedicated to her. This is remarkable because I am surprised that any ANTM graduate has a fan site, let alone from Season 1 - who can remember back that far?
(I'm getting to the food-related point, I promise).

Most of all, I am surprised to find that this girl's blog actually kicks ass! A blog that doesn't make me want to crush my head with my keypad is rare, but written by a model?? Who has been on an American reality show??

Life is too weird sometimes.

Anyway, Elyse seems to be a fan of food, from spicy to hormonal and gelatinous (no ominivorous dilemmas, sic, for her), from asparagus juice to squid ink meatballs and frozen candied plums. She makes Fuschia Dunlop seem like Eliza Doolittle.

She is somewhat linguistically inspired, writing that she wants to "elevate the status of "conversate" from a Biggie-perpetrated malaprop to a legitimate member of the lexicon".

And her caption for the photo below:
"I burned my finger poking this aperture. I burned my head trying to climb through it into Narnia."

Go Elyse. I still don't really understand who you are, but I like your writing. A lot.

There was a strange study released the other day saying that fat people contribute disproportionately to global warming. Fat people apparently just emit more greenhouse gases in their day to day lives from the extra carbon they need to haul their fat asses around in cars, to the extra packaging they use from all the extra food they eat.

The thinly disguised discriminatory attack on fat people did not go unnoticed and this finding was disputed by some environmental economists who said that a switch to a healthier diet would probably lead to greater incidence of methane production (aka farting) thereby offsetting the the potential reduction in greenhouse gases resulting from fat people loosing weight.

In order for this to be true you'd have to go from the premise that skinny people fart less than fat people and that fat people don't really fart much at all.

Research anyone?

I can't help but feel sometimes that we're all getting a little too bogged down with asinine point scoring over who's holier than thou in terms of greenhouse gas production and that this is perhaps detracting our attention away from what our focus should be...THE POTENTIALLY MASSIVE THREAT TO ALL HUMAN LIFE FROM ECOLOGICAL DISASTER

Henceforth begins an adventure in which a beer lite-weight tries out brews from the local kiosk, biomarkt and 'beer museum' shop in Cologne, Germany. Starting with Paulaner Hefe Weizenbier. (above).

Hefe-Weizenbier is the unfiltered version of Weissbier (the latter served in the tents at Oktoberfest), popular amongst all Germans young and old, & originating in Bavaria.

The results of this tasting experiment indicate that my research into unfiltered white beers will be quite limited... a shame since there are loads of them on the shelves of beer shops here.

Erik likes this type of beer more than most, because of how filling yet refreshing and unique it is. I will allow that it might be nice under the hot sun in Munich ... tasting as it does somewhat like a brewer's yeast health drink.

- swirl of tangy/sharp & raw
- nice malteser opaque amber colour
- guts feel slightly uncomfortable, both upper and lower tracts
- sticky roof of mouth feeling
- feels like something that could be used as an eco-friendly toilet cleaner
- reminds me of the yeasty home-brewed taste of Frankfurt apfel wine
- head of foam deflated fast leaving 'lace' rather like a tall glass of urine
- this German beer drinking occupation is very direct and not for the faint of heart...




Next up, Pinkus Pils.

One review enthuses: "The bronze/gold Pils is a revelation in the age of bland and fizzy pale lagers."

Of course the review goes on about gentle resins and things.

At the Biomarkt it's one of the few non-Bavarian-style bier options. (it is brewed in Munster).
'juicy?'.....mayyybe... The first mouthful of this organic Pils was appealingly malty and the rest of the experience was astringent. Stickiness in the mouth was manageable.

Ingredients are hops, malt and water.

The beer started to taste more malty again in the last 30% of the glass. As roof of mouth became more anaethetised, sensation was more creamy despite being a thin beer.

I like it quite well. But think it would benefit from the context of spicy noodles. Then the 'fruitiness' would become way less anecdotal.

Anyone who follows food writer Jeffrey Steingarten's columns in American Vogue will have often remarked on how odd it is to be reading about his cheese fondue experiments in a magazine that is a pillar of an industry that (whether consciously or not) by promulgating certain body types, implies a much less voluptuous version of what and how much we should be eating.

Last year the New Yorker magazine noted on its website "how bizarre it is that the dean of American food writers should be publishing his scientific food forays amid images of Caroline Trentini jumping in Prada and furs", for a piece about burger science and Heston Blumenthal. (see picture above).

The sometimes gothic or even horrific relationship between fashion and food was highlighted again this week when France's lower house of parliament adopted a measure that makes it illegal to "incite extreme thinness." The law will apply across all media, including magazines, websites and advertising.

The law was supposedly in part a reaction to the recent death of a Brazilian model of anorexia - and by all accounts is largely aimed at the extremely disturbing trend of 'pro ana mia' websites. Ana and Mia are shorthand for anorexia and bulimia respectively. The French Federation of Couture responded defensively, deriding a law that would allow the goverment to decide 'who is skinny and who is not'.

When it comes to the eating disorder websites, health experts say a crackdown will be hard to enforce as well as not necessarily having much effect on preventing the eating disorders.

So, having read this, I naturally went to one of those websites out of curiosity. Blech.... of course, it was disturbing, to say the least. The hints for distraction, deception and purging, were just too pitiful to be repeated here, involving talk of stomach-acid bursts, pretending to be vegetarian, and mind-controlling mechanisms involving food and repulsive visual stimuli.

In general I think mental illness as a whole deserves more sympathy and understanding from society - but these types of eating disorders are somehow much harder to feel sympathetic towards. At once deeply narcissistic and nihilistic: they are a scary reminder of how twisted the human mind can become...


So Coco Chanel isn't directly responsible for eating disorders that are far more complicated than simply feeling guilty for having eaten one too many strawberry-lavendar muffins or a boxful of chocolate eclairs from Laduree in Paris.

But I guess we all know women who never eat a full meal: who often have nothing to eat all day except for one slice of cake and one piece of toast, and temper their moodswings with anti-depressants, cups of tea and/or shopping on their credit card. Or boys who complained when you ate your whole plate full, because they are used to girls who left half their portion for them to consume? And what of Karl Lagerfeld, who reportedly stays trim by simply chewing things up and spitting them out?

Whether you think predigestive regurgitation is sexy or not. The relationship between fashion and food is pretty fucked up.

Girls, will you please just eat your granola?

Or even turn all those obsessive-compulsive controlling impulses into something useful like creating your own sourdough starters from the natural yeasts that hide on freshly milled flour?

Basically, just behave more like Jeffrey Steingarten. As if he was on a south beach diet.

Somewhere along the line, somewhere at the time when espresso machines and whole coffee beans landed on NZ shores in the late 1980s early 1990s, budding new coffee roasters and their espresso pulling co-conspirators decided upon a meme that has spread like a terrible virus throughout NZ. That meme goes as follows "the stronger and darker and over extracted you like your coffee the more manly you are". This being a country where cauliflower eared rugby playing men are like demi-gods, people all seemed to agree and this dark and henious style of coffee quickly spread. It's rare to meet an short espresso drinker in NZ, most people drink flat whites (cafe au lait) because to drink it without milk usually entails having to suffer through drinking a thick black gunge that is so over-extracted it will instantly give you the shits. Those that do order short espressos (or short blacks as they are known in NZ, not small blacks...Austin) are quietly viewed by kiwi barristers as "tough".

It's time to call a spade a spade. Its not tough or macho and does not signal a sophisticated palate to drink a cup of undrinkable black bitter coffee.

I mentioned this to a roaster in NZ and all the kiwis smiled in embarrasment by my forwardness on the coffee subject

But really....isn't it at least supposed to be.....ummmm....drinkable?

It probably suits the dairy farmers that it isn't.....and I have to say, even though the few NZers reading this post will roll their eyes and think me an insufferable snob (as if that hadn't been established already)....but when I went to Rome I could drink and even enjoy an espresso...there in the home of espresso







My advice when in Auckland, don't do as the Roman's do and get your coffee with milk even if it's past breakfast time...although you might get someone fucking with the froth, trying to write your name for half an hour, believe me....you need the froth.

Bracu's menu begins with some wafty, self-aggrandising and cliched quotes and desciptions designed to inform the diner of the chef's unwaivering dedication to excellence and great produce....words like "handcrafted" and "sophistication with a twist" are employed and sentimental stories are told about warm jelly as a child and cooking being a journey .

I'm always a bit suspicious of restaurants that feel the need to explicitly spell out the merits of the chef, and overall atmosphere they are trying to achieve at the beginnning of the menu. It seemed patently obvious from the moment I entered Bracu, situated on the outskirts of Auckland in the rolling hills of the Simunovich olive estate in an old country house exactly what they are aiming at. The setting and decor immediately convey everything that they so annoyingly spell out on the the menu. Except perhaps I would have thrown in the word "mumsy"

Seated in the restaurant when we arrived were ladies who lunch, daughters taking out their mothers to a special lunch and a few patrons who looked as though they'd found the place by mistake. The white veranda seating and modern floral wallpaper gives Bracu a very la-de-da feeling that seemed to have middle class NZ mothers fawning. The place just screams "heirloom organic tomatos picked straight from the kitchen garden".

Anyway, once we finally sat down after the late members of our ensemble arrived after taking a wrong turn on their "journey" off the wrong motorway exit, our journey through lunch began.

First they served what you'd expect to be really great olives...and they were, really really great

OLIVES



ENTREE

After a week of far too much gluttony and a new found obsession with watercress, I opted for the:

WILD WATERCRESS & WHITLOF SALAD
roasted local hazelnuts, pedro ximenez vinegar dressing ...$8.50


Others around the table had the following:

TORTELLINI ‘BUBBLE & SQUEAK’
soft agria potato tortellini, poached quail eggs, sweet heart cabbage, parma ham $18.00



CARAMELISED FRESH GOATS CHEESE FILLED
WHITLOF ‘PACKETS’
beurre bosc pear salad, candied almonds $18.00



AKAROA SALMON
marinated in tea petals confi t, rhubarb and orange salad, toasted walnut
and mirin dressing $19.50


SEARED DEEP SEA SCALLOPS
toasted wheat and cranberry ‘muesli’ coconut and lime leaf ‘zepher’, curry oil...which was changed to potato and proccuitto
$19.80


Oooohhh and aaahhhs were exclaimed and Hock didn't complain.


MAINS

As with the French Cafe the mains were enormous. Even after eating just a salad I couldn't finish my salmon which arrived with not one but two fillets. One would have sufficed. Again, I would have prefered half the amount and to have paid half the price and it seemed odd that such manly proportions would prevail in a restaurant filled mainly with women.


TOM BATES PAN ROASTED AKAROA SALMON IN PAPER
rolled crab and ginger kedgeree, celery branch fondue...$37.00


Hock had the duck, even though it wasn't on the standard menu. He fell in love with the pastilla

BREAST OF LOCAL CRISP SKIN KING COLE DUCK
pastilla, pistachio, cocoa, caramelised mango, quatre épices



JOHN FLYNN, SOUTHLAND HEREFORD
PRIME BEEF FILLET
béarnaise reduction, salsify ‘étuvée’, freshly shelled broad beans...$38.00



KIDS STEAK AND CHIPS


Dessert was definitely the highlight. We ate it in the garden and swapped mouthfuls of sweetness.

DESSERT

CALVADOS & RAISIN PARFAIT ‘pain d’epice’, thyme poached apple, almond financier, granny smith sorbet, caramel foam $16.50



‘FOURME D’AMBERT BEIGNET’ seven spice breton biscuit, walnut and szechuan croquant, beetroot and pear sorbet, baby watercress $16.50


CHOCOLATE MOUSSE
fluid rose water stones, orange fl owers crème brûlée, pink grapefruit gelato, chocolate soil $17.50


LOCAL ICED STRAWBERRY & YOGHURT ‘SANDWICH’ meyer lemon curd, italian meringue, strawberry and elder flower caviar
$16.00


A final note on the overly descriptive menu. I noticed when I downloaded the pdf of the summer menu there was also this piece of text on the third page of the menu.

"It is not just about how the food is created and served,
it is about the food itself and this menu celebrates just that.
Our wine director, Josselin de Gésincourt, will help untangle
the mystery of pairing wine and food and recommend wines
to accompany each course."

The problem with this is that, unless they actually deliver on their promises all it does it serve to highlight...in writing, their shortcomings. I didn't see Josselin anywhere 'untangling wine mysteries', instead the service was sloppy and slow and on several occasions I had to get up from the table and get the waitress myself. At the prices they charged the service was pretty appalling. Hock's parents paid the bill so I rounded up the tip. The others in our party nominated to pay a measly $10 each. And so I bumped up the tip myself. It seems to be a common occurrence with kiwis. It's hard to complain about the service when you only tip $10.

Guess that ingredient?

A "gut feeling" is becoming recognised as more than a poetic turn of phrase.

Researchers have discovered that the gut, with its millions of nerve cells, acts as the body's second brain.

BBC explains the gut

Three programmes start here