Stomachs on legs are proud to present

"Kedgeree" with brown rice and split mung beans, boiled egg, lime pickles and raita and crossword


"Kanom Jeen" creative reconstruction attempt



"Kanom Jeen" and macbook



Wakame and silken tofu soup with crossword


Parsi style scrambled eggs and silken tofu with avocado on rye


Udon Salad


Lentil, spinach, celeriac, onion and carrot soup with chorizo


My latest excellent Sunday morning fry up creation - paratha bread, with chickpea vege pattie, fried egg, tomato kousondi and raita

The money shot. Click on the above fridge for annotated Flickr.

There is something that I deeply enjoy about the trend of food bloggers to post the contents of their unstyled refrigerators because it is a nice glimpse of normality amongst the soft-focus shots of cupcakes, or whatever the hell passes for food over at tastespotting.

Mine looks like a sad indictment of my eating habits and is probably of more interest to future cultural anthropologists than to the present day; a random mix of Asian food and white bread middle class.

Until I had to label them, I thought that I owned a more diverse selection of condiments. Random sauces and jams that don't require refrigeration end up there like I've been possessed by a limited bout of dementia.

I have been writing my second to last chapter lately on vegetables. Within agricultural development ciricles it is a well known fact that the emergence of fresh fruit and vegetable commodity chains are indisputably linked with a rise in development and propserity specifically of the middle class urban dwellers. Growth and propserity in Asia in recent years has seen the proliferation of fresh fruit and vegetable production and marketing, with this region now accounting for over fifty per cent of worldwide production. Most of thise produce is consumed locally if not regionally.

In Cambodia, kitchen gardens are a common sight around the raised household lands or river banks where the perils of flooding are diminished. These polycultures are known in Khmer as chamcar. More recently specilaised growers have emerged in nearby provinces supplying the growing consumer market. But still, for the most part, kitchen gardens in Cambodia exist to service the day to day non-market needs of domestic kitchens

On the other side of the world vegetable gardening has seen a resurgence in the developed world. Garden centres have reported increased sales during the financial crisis as people turn to cheaper hobbies that also provide sustenance.

Growing your own occupies a special place in a lot of people's psyches. My own little vegetable patch in Canberra gives me unique sense of satisfaction, and I find myself often memorised by my vege.

It is however, far more of a hobby than it could ever be called "livelihood strategy". For that I would need a much larger plot, seedling production centre and possibly be growing some grain as well.

But for now I potter and I gaze. I relish in the fact that my strawberries are so happy and I am puzzled by my tomatos sad performance.

It seems that in the west the history of kitchen gardens has always been an earthly pursuit of the wealthy or middle classes, first emerging as part of the economies of large feudal estates, and toiled by estate workers to cultivate and provide the freshest and most seasonal and sometimes exotic varieties to the tables of their masters. I read this in the History of Food book, which also noted that the popularity of kitchen gardens grew tremendously in France with the rise of the bourgeoisie.

My sister's has a kitchen garden of this order,of course, in true big sister style the eldest has the most enviable of gardens, carved out the clay soils of the Waitakere ranges, the garden is unlikely to ever "pay" for itself in vegetable yield terms, least the entire world meltdowns and New Zealand remains cut off from international trade and the film industry in which she works (an event it seems that my sister is apparently prepared for giving her predilection to hoard cans of food and bottles of wine)



The garden cascades down the hill from fruit tree terraces lined with feijoas and heirloom variety pears, limes, grapefruit, lemons, peaches etc etc which is interspearsed with edible herbs and other vegetables such as squashes, cabbages and cucumbers. The pergola with sitting bench is framed by two grape varieties to the side and passionfruit vines to the front



The raised beds are planted at the moment with summer vegetables of all variety, corn, tomatoes, potatos, raddishes, peas, beans.....These are interspeared with marigolds and other herbs



Plans are afoot to start bee hives behind the garden shed too

The garden gets a lot of sun but is sheltered from wind by native New Zealand bush. Around the outer borders before the bush begins are strawberries, sage, tamarillos trees.

Finally there is a platform suspended up the terraces where one may lounge in partial shade , read a book and survey with satisfaction the view of fruit and vegetables growing.



This garden truely out does my modest patch of dirt, it verges on an estate garden in my books and fulfils in all my family's pastoral fantasies that our middle class status permits us to have....When I'm there I wander around the garden, picking off sprigs of herbs for making salsa verde. My other sisters like to sit and wander too. But of course my sister has a gardener that comes a couple of times a week to look after the garden, she is after all very busy making money "off-farm"

Which brings me to all the kerfuffle about the White House garden and the Alice Watery and Michael Pollan demands for the White House to dig up the lawn and plant an organic vegetable garden. This is in some way supposed to be "symbolic" of the presidents commitment to good fresh local food, and a commitment to transforming the american agricultural system from the pit of disaster that it currently is..... But should the Obamas capitulate to these requests by middle class food champions? Should the White House be aiming to fulfil the pastoral daydreams of Alice Waters by planting an organic garden. They'll be no shortage of serfs this year to tend these gardens no doubt.....or should Obama not worry so much about the front lawn and concern himself with the very real challenges of transforming the agricultural system and rural communities, rethinking farm policies and introducing a new farm bill?

If you happen to be in Canberra on the 19th of January, then you may be interested in this.

Thai fresh markets to Tai hypermarkets: new class based consumption in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Increasing attention is being given in academic and policy research to the rise of TNCs supermarkets in the Global South but few cultural analyses or ethnographic investigations of this 'supermarket revolution' are yet available (Coe and Wrigley 2007). This research uses ethnographic study in Chiang Mai, Thailand to reveal how European supermarkets are integrated into national and local level modernities, histories and narratives, and used by local subjects to define class differences and create middle class identities around notions of cleanliness, leisure and development. In particular, this paper examines how Chiang Mai hypermarkets transfer agency away from the consumer as they present themselves as new spiritual and cuisine authorities, rendering fresh markets as nostalgic motifs of obsolete Thai tradition. The research also explores the possibility of local circumvention and resistance of global markets by considering Chiang Mai consumers' parallel participation in the relational economies of local fresh markets.

Australian National University Human Geography Seminar
Monday, 19 January 2009, 3.30pm - 5.00pm, Seminar Room C, Coombs Building

Bronwyn Isaacs
Geography Honours Student (University of Sydney)
ANU Summer Research Scholar

Question? Are Thai hypermarts "red" or "yellow". Personally I prefer to shop at Wealthy Mart in Siem Reap in Cambodia to affirm my class status.



Source

Sometimes I feel like the parallels between class and food is overstated and somewhat boring, especially in places like Thailand where even the "middle class" love to eat at shabby noodle shacks. Indeed, the princess of Thailand is rumoured to eat at a number of famed street noodle stands. And if supermarkets are all about development and supply chain domination then perhaps its only a matter of time before every poor man/ woman and their dog is sourcing their cheap eats from sterile isles?

So I've been engaged in a very long email battle with my father over Thai politics for sometime now....but today it reached the level of food analogies so here we go with a blog post.

There is a long and boring back story to this but I'll just give you the most recent titbits.

Maytel

you can throw all the incriminating evidence about Thaksin you like. It makes little difference now

Get with the program. Your country is crumbling

Father

No, this country will survive. This is like waiting at the queue at supermarket check out.

The check out girl is trying to hush you up by saying that you are holding other people up when you try to stand for your case to put thing right.

This country will survive. It still has enough reserve, about 100-120 billion USD. And the Thai can survive well on mere salted fish and sticky rice

Maytel

I hate it when people like you say that Thais can survive on salted fish and sticky rice, yes they can, so could I but that's not development, it's not poverty reduction.*

The problem is that people have been left to survive on sticky rice and salt fish for too long. And they want better for themselves

Until someone delivers a better life to rural people Thailand will continue to be plagued by these problems

You may find yourself standing at the supermarket with your gourmet cheese and wine for quite a long time

You may or may not agree with me, but don't worry, I won't get the last word, I never do when it comes to my Dad

*Actually for me it would probably be a wise diet choice

Here's a new idea....Chez Panisse is passé

GASP!!!!!!!

I took the train to Berkeley, less than two hours from Davis towards San Francisco. I checked in at the French hotel and dined in the restaurant across the street. We are talking about Alice Waters’ place, Chez Panisse a restaurant well known to the readers of this blog and in-flight magazines.

There is the formal restaurant downstairs (fully booked) and the café upstairs (a late table was available). I had wine made of Zinfandel grapes.

I took the US$29 fixed menu. It had a garden lettuce salad, spaghetti alla Norma with eggplant, tomato, basil, and ricotta salata, and a Concord grape sherbet with roasted Thompson seedless grapes and langues de chat.

These were the variety names on today’s menu: Concord grape, Thompson seedless grapes, and Little Gems lettuce.

And these were the farm names on the menu: Cannard Farm3, Andante Dairy, Soul Food Farm, Marin Sun Farm, Lagier Ranches, and Frog Hollow Farm.

Terroir trumps agrobiodiversity at Alice’s place.

It is a good restaurant. It is very French. The waiter spoke of terroir as if his name were Claude Duchateu. It is very cheap for a famous restaurant. It has a local twist to it. The food is good. But is mainstream now. The menu in the Davis Best Western Palm Court was not that different.

I suppose it is fair what everybody says, that Alice created some sort of revolution. From the wasteland of the American diner to Good Food. Just like her neighbor Alfred Peet transformed mainstream American coffee from diluted sewage to the best coffee anywhere save (perhaps) Italy. But that is ancient history.

But, just for your information, Chez Panisse is passé now. Go look somewhere else. I have heard of an underground restaurant movement in New York.

Chez Panisse is sold out every night, I think. Alice can experiment. But she does not. She chooses the middle of the road. Their produce comes from “farms, ranches, and fisheries guided by principles of sustainability” but the majority of entrees (main dishes) are a fish or meat dish.

Chuck out the meat. Serve different varieties of other veggies than tomatoes (even the Andronico’s supermarket across the street sells heirlooms). Use something locally evolved rather than merely locally grown. The native Californians used hundreds of edible plants.4 But no miner’s lettuce or acorns on the menu of the Queen of Slow Food. Come on, Alice, surprise me!

Source: Robert Hijmans Agricultural Biodiversity Website

Hmmm, so where can slow food and "locavores" go from here? A good point indeed since the restaurant business is so competitive one does need to constantly be redefining ones niche in order to add novelty and therefore value. It is essential to maintain the buzz.....and with more and more restaurants serving Alice Watery style menus.....such as Applewood in Brooklyn I'd have to agree with Robert.




The meal we had here was not astounding. While everything was well cooked and tasted nice it was simple and I must say that aside from the price tag there was precious little appreciation to be had in eating organic local beets and salad. The food was good, or better yet "nice".

Applewood, like Chez Panisse is a farmer to restaurant type deal. There is organic/ fairtrade hand wash in the bathrooms and the tables were adorned with vases of fresh cut thyme which I snapped off "a la Thai style" and added to my under-seasoned beef tartar (I asked for extra chili but they wouldn't give it to me)

The bill around USD$80 including wine.

I had beets, the tartar and "artisinal cheese selection" to finish

Beets


Beef


Cheese


I was too busy talking to notice what other people ate....but here are some other photos

Delicious selection of handmade butters and dips to start


Maine Lobster thingy


???


???


???


Chocolate Ding Dong, as Hock likes to call them....always a crowd pleaser


So now that most inner city hipster regions of the United States now have their very own version of Chez Panisse what happens?

How much more "in touch" can this restaurant niche get? Should restaurants of this theme, as Robert suggests, go deeper still attaching perhaps scientific names to the menu and explaining the role your food played in an ecosystem? Should they only allow diners to eat a limited portion of meat? Perhaps they should only be cooking off the menu of under-utilised species in line with the principle that eating endangered species is the best way to preserve them.


With some quarters of food criticism already underway against molecular gastronomy , should Alice Watery restaurants be moving towards more sophisticated cooking techniques or furthering the general populaces' appreciation for quinoa?

Or hows about molecular Khmer food....anyone?

This recipe is vegetarian but is so lush and yummy it doesn't feel like your missing out on anything. Do I sound like Nigella? I have been somewhat of a domestic goddess of late in an attempt to save our pennies before our impending trip to the states and japan





Basically make polenta as per directions and when cooked stir in lots of parmesan and butter and then blob out in a baking tray or spring form cake pan lined with baking paper. On top place cooked spinach, or zucchini or any vege you like along with sliced red onion and crumble goats cheese all over it (or gorgonzola or any yummy creamy cheese you like) then beat 4 to 6 eggs with some milk or cream and pour over the whole big yummy mess and bake in a pre-heated oven until firmish- about 40 mins.

Serve with tomato ragout, home made or bought and crusty bread.

How appropriate. Over the weekend, Hock and I went to Bankara Ramen on Sukhumvit Soi 39, on a tip from Austin. And had their ramen with lots and lots of raw garlic.



It was tastey but a little pricey for a bowl of noodles by Bangkok standards. There was a queue of Japanese people obviously waiting for their fix of ramen, with lots and lots of garlic and scallions too.




I had read about Bankara in the Guru magazine, it is said to be the first ramen outlet of this particular chain outside of Japan....is Thailand being food colonised by Japan? With Thai-style sushi now turning up at night markets in outer lying provinces, is this the death of Thai food as we know it? Or the beginning of yet another era of bastardisation?

Haven't seen any Thai-style ramen turning up at street vendors, but its early days yet

Anyway, I still recommend Bankara and would go again. Don't do what I did and put five cloves on garlic in your soup and spend the rest of the day breathing death. Hock also warns against getting funky and ordering the ramen with creamy soup. Just keep it real and go with the original soup or miso. The "sauce applying" looked good, the menu is vaguely amusing on a japanglish tip.



Ra Men Bankara, Sukhumvit 39 (Inside the small arcade called ‘The Manor’ which is on the right hand side about 300 metre from the Sukhumvit entrance. Parking available in the premises. Daily 11am-11pm. T: 02-662-5162-3.

Jake Houseman: Max, our Baby's going to change the world.
Max: [to Lisa] And what are you going to do, missy?
Baby: Oh Lisa's gonna decorate it.


One thing about guilt.
It's bad for digestion.

Generally, I have a talent for guilt. It often feels obscene to be posting about luxurious food stuffs on this blog. Maybe it is a case of the famous 'white guilt' but then I do think white people deserve to be guilty. They kind of suck.

Reading Nalika's post Hand to Mouth Eating#3 brought up a few more of those inescapable food-related guilt pangs.

I think somebody should outline an ethical guidelines for eating. Maybe this could be something like karma credits in Buddhism.
Maybe you don't have a 'nest egg' saved up, maybe you don't have health insurance, maybe you're stealing creme eggs on the reg. These stressors would be like credits for a bonus round.
"Don't get caught"
If you have a huge student loan, no savings to speak of and get down to loose change at least once a month, this gives you the potential for an extra ball to play with, or alternatively, one serving of Hokkaido scallops and caviar.

Does someone get automatic mega karma points (imagine a flashing pinball game screen) for living in the developing world? Do you get minus points for every ten grand you earn per year? Perhaps there should be a sliding scale with purchasing power parity: i.e. if you are the equivalent of a millionaire compared to what the poorest people in your country earn, your social debt increases.

Should poor people be absolved from caring about the planet? Is ecological thinking a luxury?

Does every choice in the 'free world' come with a burden of guilt?
If I take a vitamin supplement, is it automatically a bourgeois sin, because an Ecuadorian might not have the choice to do so?
Game over, next player.

I was telling my friend Hanna about my guilty thoughts, like maybe I should be working as a nurse in the Ruhr area, like maybe at some point I have to take some social responsibility in Germany even though I still feel a negligible feeling of connection to society in general here. She said "You just have to do what you feel naturally driven to do and have some useful talent for, and do it ethically and somehow you will end up having a positive impact on the world."

I guess I sort of agree with her, as long as your natural talent isn't exploiting Polish workers to pick white asparagus or sell mulled Glühwein in the Christmas Markets. Beyond that, I guess I can vote in the NZ elections, read the Mental Detox, try not to throw out half a pot of rice and freeze it instead for next week's chahan, send money to my mother, donate to charities, and just keep dreaming about a retirement fund.

Does all of this make me more hypocritical than the guy who eats a solid block of corn syrup for breakfast, drives an old gas-guzzling pick up truck and eats GE potatoes for dinner because they're the cheapest and therefore the most democratic.

This week I might spend ten euros on a fancy piece of cheese, next week I might have the IRD department banging on the door. Oh well, at least I don't care about fancy cars.


Johnny: Last month I'm eating Jujubes to keep alive, and this month women are stuffing diamonds in my pocket, I'm bouncing on shit and quick as that [clicks his fingers] I could be down there again.

Thai's love branding and packaging more than most I've decided... and Vanilla Industries hits the brand loving spot. Vanilla Industries is the brainchild of the children of mega food conglomerate, S&P. S&P make pretty bad and pretty low grade bakery items for the large scale Thai market. Their children make marginally better bistro food at higher prices and better packaging.

First came the bistro and creperie...now comes dim sum and "japanese cafe" (whatever that is supposed to be)

On Ekkamai soi 12, in one of the many very cool old 1970s era houses that dominate the tree lined back sois of Sukhumvit is Vanilla Royal and Vanilla Garden.




Vanilla Royal is a dim sum...fairly bad, gluggy dim sum....edible mind you. The decor is, staff uniforms and overall presentation is, as to be expected great. So people come and they eat. Note the mercedes and bmw's in the car park. It's not that pricy by western standards but very pricy by Thai standards so its strictly high so in there.




Further down the garden path you can wash down your gluggy dim sum and fishy prawn flavour down with some decent coffee...or choose from their Western-inspired Japanese food at their Japanese Cafe...and try to remember you're in Thailand...





We went back for a second try, after the dim sum to try the cafe. Hock had the katsu pork bun, not quite what he had in mind, but tasty apparently


I had a somewhat comforting prawn and avocado sandwich drowned with seafood mayo wedged on pillowy soft white bread



It wasn't terrible but it was far from memorable.....I like a good garden, especially in Bangkok but there really is little reason food wise to visit this place

Update: well maybe I was wrong....we went back there again and had a coffee and sandwiches. The coffee is decent and the sandwiches were sandwiches of my childhood. Egg and mayo on crustless white bread and ham cheese and mushroom toasted on crustless white bread. Terribly trashy by western standards but decidedly Japanese and hi society by Thai ones. There is something strangely comforting about a well made egg sandwich that takes me and Hock back to our 1970s childhoods, vegemite and cheese sandwiches, cheese and Piccadilly sandwiches, vegemite and chip sandwiches, ham and cheese sandwiches, those strange salad rolls that always had grated carrot in them, lamingtons and custard pies....they probably just need to put asparagus rolls and some curried egg on the menu and it could quite easily be renamed the New Zealand Edmond's Cookbook Cafe. But then probably no one would go

Answer: when its dim sum

On a quick, work related dash to Melbourne (sorry to those of you who I didn't manage to meet up with) I managed to hit up The Oriental Teahouse in Prahran where I had some pretty unspectacular dumplings and good tea. It was a bit of a middle class gentrified food experience, obviated by the fact that they describe what they do as Chinese tapas

WTF

what the hell is wrong with the name "dim sum"?

I also managed a stop in at Borscht, Vodka and Tears in Windsor/ Prahran and had an excellent meal of what they described as "Polish Tapas"

And I thought...."Oh now you're just taking the piss"

What is with this newfound Melbourne proclivity to call any food served on a small plate "tapas"

Or is it a global phenomenon? Who gave the Spanish naming rights over small plates of food?

At last...at long last. The German fine hand-crafted goods emporium Manufaktum, and its signature Bread & Butter bakery/cafe, has come to Cologne. It's in the Disch-haus, a beautiful curved building built in '28, seen as an early 'manifesto of modernism'. We went along on their second day of business.

I first ate Manufaktum's signature sour 'sauerteig' bread at their branch in Munich - Erik and me ate a whole half loaf drowned in pumpkin-cinnamon jam. I then discovered that they do a very good short black espresso at their branch in Duesseldorf (served on a small silver tray with a glass of water), so I've been looking forward to the Cologne branch opening, a lot.

I'm looking forward to trying out the nicely curated offerings of delicatessan goods over the coming months. And it's always fun to browse the kitchenware like raclette machines, utilitarian yet impracticle modernist toaster models from the 50s, Haussler wood-burning ovens for 3000 euros, Kenyo Warikomi knives, hand-made copper & porcelain bain-maries from France, and very serious looking small metal gadgets for removing plum or cherry stones.
And the gardening section is fun too.

Bread tapas, anyone? !



Manfaktum's cafe Bread & Butter is mostly for 'brotzeit' - not as in dinner but as in a snack of something on bread. They have a selection of thick cut sour rye bread with a thick layer of hand-made butter and then cheese, salami or a gouache of quark, taramasalata, sun dried tomatoes or other spread.

The bread with a blue-shot creamy cheese or italian salami both came daubed with barbieri aprikosen-senf - a sharp, tangy apricot 'Mostarda' jam from Lombardia Italy.



The poppy seed cake was the yummiest thing actually. I recommend to order that and take a loaf of bread home. These bread snacks are overpriced at 4 euros each. Whereas half a loaf will cost you 2 euros.

The poppyseed 'mohnkuchen' is nutty tasting and minimally sweet.





Latte art is mocked (mocca-ed?) by some, but in Europe it's a crucial indication that the barista has paid due care to a velvety texture milk and a well-extracted oily espresso. If you are ever in Cologne, come here and order an espresso macchiato: you'll be served a nice small-sized flat white as in the photo above (no, not as strong as in NZ, but thank god, not a milky milkshake - unless you order a latte macchiato, which was my first folly). A capuccino here means something similar to the espresso macchiato pictured, but in a slightly larger size.

Bread & Butter use Mokaflor beans from Florence, (70 & arabica, 30% robusta) available from the store in a gold shrink-wrapped packet.

Or you can have this delicious fizzy French grapefruit drink instead:



And across the road is the rather attractive new Kolumba museum which, when seen from the inside, has really quite amazing natural light effects, star bursts and jagged rows of pin pricks, from the holes in the facade.



Felt a bit sick after this maiden voyage to Manufaktum Koeln though. Probably too much bread and butter.

It was a lovely warm easter weekend in New Zealand, and out in West Auckland an informal home made pasta lesson took place. "It's easy" said Hock in the kind of way that Jaimie Oliver says things are easy and really they are time consuming and difficult.



With Hock over seeing, G&G rolled it and folded it and rolled it again, and when at first they failed...they tried again



First homemade pasta dish of the weekend involved our dead easter bunny....Hock and Ginny took charge of this. First they pan fried the loin and the kidneys, then they made a stew of rabbit, bacon and tuber veges with a light white wine and sage sauce. They served it with fresh "beginners home made pasta" parpadelle





And we drunk it with some damn good NZ wine.




Later that weekend the lesson continued and G&G graduated onto the ever tricky ravioli, stuffed with chicken. Hock pronounced, as resident chef, that the "ravioli must be sealed properly with no air bubbles otherwise it would split and we'll end up with a gruesome bowl of boiling water with bits of broken up pasta and poached mince meat."...He said and everyone looked horrified and set about double checking the ravioli for air bubbles and broken seals.

"Ravioli is difficult, that's why in the 1990s there was that time when everyone made one big ravioli, because making small ones is annoying and often disasterous".



But of course, it's not exactly rocket science either


We put basil, roasted tomato, mozzerlla and parmasan on top, well they did...I watched and drunk wine and complained about being hungry. Then they heated it in the oven, just enough for the cheese to go gooey.


Someone set the table


And we treated ourselves to another damn good bottle of NZ wine, a well earned bottle of Mt Difficulty. I love my sister and her wine cellar.



Papadelle hanging out to dry