Unexplored

Up a dead end side street that in 15 years I've never walked in previously is this - courtesy of a wet Boxing Day interlude and a Xmas phone - discreet and yet imposing entrance. It's the only door in 30 metres of identical brick wall. Opposite are a bakers' supplies depot, an electrician's workshop, a taxi depot and something that purports to be a gallery over a derelict garage. At the cul of the sac are two logistics depots, which along with furniture and car repair make up the majority of the local industry.

It's possible, due to the absence of people on a public holiday, to skulk up the driveway of one of the depots and have a look at the back. Corrugated iron is a staple of Australian rears; in these modernist times people even use them for frontages, but when Marrickville was growing up (the last half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries) hiding things behind impressive brickwork was the norm. Not just a desire to impress; brickworks were a major industry in the 19th century, as evidenced by Henson Park, a former quarry recycled as a velodrome for the 1938 Empire Games. Also, I feel, by the texture of the clay about two feet down in my backyard; it could just about be used for modelling clay unwashed. Also, it's the same colour as local brick. The marble sheets have the look of a kitchen benchtop business.

But actually, not just benchtops, but art. If you had a friend who was (or yourself were) a truckdriver using the depots behind, or a bus driver working for the three coach bus line that shares the forecourt of the despatch sheds, and you were looking for an original greek sculpture, this is where you'd come. I wonder if s/he works in the pre-classical, classical, or post-classical style? Or is continuing to refine the craft, informed by the 20th century?

This is the side of the sculptor's shed. Maybe a picture is worth a thousand words, but this picture needs its sound effect; through this window is coming the sound of a piano, practised...heedlessly. A lot of mistakes, but plenty of competent passages too. Casual, bored by the long (Tuesday*) afternoon. If the window was still intact, maybe they'd know it had stopped raining?

* You need to understand public holidays in Australia. While it's true that Boxing Day was Sunday, Sunday is already a holiday. Not wanting to waste the few public holidays we have, it was moved to Tuesday.

Kitchen update

This is what $150 worth of physiotherapy looks like - plus a bit extra for paint and masking tape. More than 60 meters of masking tape went into doing this; in fact, just the masking alone took up the best part of half a day. Not being able to stand safely on the counter top (who knows how strong it is?) slowed me down a fair bit. It's a long stretch from the ladder to the top edge of the ceiling, which is about 12 ft. up.

This picture was taken immediately after all the stuff was moved back in; it may not look that tidy to anyone else, but for us this is the epitome (or apotheosis) of tidiness.

The main feature of the repaint is in fact the "feature" wall; although it's pretty un-startling compared to feature walls I have known elsewhere. Still, my thinking is that the blue has a fairly strong presence as well, so best not to overdo it. The off-white has changed from pink undertones to green/blue undertones, for obvious reasons. What else can I say? Oh yes, I filled about 20 meters worth of cracks as well. It's a complete mystery why Australian tradesmen (we've had 3 plasterers though) don't use lime mortar. It doesn't crack under small movements, so, perfect for walls on a clay footing. OK, now I know enough to insist on it, but I wasn't an expert on

renders when we moved in here.

If I knew what I needed to know to supervise the people who worked here, I wouldn't actually need any of them to work here. That seems faintly odd to me.

The cat doesn't like the new arrangement, and has decided to move into a new catcave. Perhaps it's the smell of the paint.

Just passing

Of limited interest to most, but Coffee Alchemy (see elsewhere) has just won the 2011 "God Coffee" award from one of the international coffee magazines (who knew?). They are quietly pleased with themselves, fair enough too. Since my last review the coffee probably isn't any better, but the range of coffees for tasting just increases all the time. Still with the San Emilio as my favourite.

I had a great training run Tuesday. I don't know whether the new training regime, which includes 2 days rest with a loooooonnnnngggg slow run (21.5K along the Cooks River) sandwiched between them, or just a random confluence of positive influences was responsible. Hopefully it's a promising sign for the Penrith half marathon, which is coming up in October. Weird business.

Coffee Alchemy - Single estate tasting notes

All these beans are run through a Jura C5 as a medium strength long black. Sometimes I try them with milk, sometimes not.


El Savador - San Emilio
??????
This is seriously one of the nicest coffees I've drunk. It's particularly fantastic with milk, but also excellent black. I don't know coffee tasting language, but it seems velvety, not at all bitter, rich but not extreme.

Red Icatu
I think this is a different bean from the same estate; similar but less rich in flavour. I'm not completely sure though. It's certainly from San Emilio.

Guatamala - Huehuetenango injenta


This is another good coffee, more vigorous, almost like a dark chocolate, although again. not bitter. I haven't tried it with milk, but I suspect it might not work quite so well. (It doesn't) For me this coffee is best after cereal - seems to bring out the flavour, although that's puzzling in a way because the dominant after-taste of cereal is milk, but I can't get the same effect by milking the coffee; as a standalone or with bread it doesn't work quite so well.

Sumatra - Blve Batak?/Balak?


Kind of a blurred taste, then the next two mouthfuls were a bit thin, but finally ended up with quite a rich & fulfilling mouth feel. (I've decided to make up my own language). Sadly, not enough to take home & try with milk. I'm increasingly of the opinion that coffee tastes in its context. With a crusty bread roll it tastes different than with a croissant, etc. etc. Obvious you may say, but often overlooked I feel.

Ethiopia Sidarra - Haile Selassie


I haven't tried this yet, but one thing I can say is that it smells like no other coffee I have ever smelt. Can something smell dry & dusty? This does, like summer soil. Turned out to taste pretty good, as a black coffee only. It didn't taste nice with milk at all.

Kenya - Oreti


This was an OK coffee that didn't particularly distinguish itself in any direction. Pleasant, but not outstanding. As exemplified by the fact that I didn't bother to blog it until after it ran out, and now I can't remember anything particular to say about it. Oh, except it was good with yeasty white bread.

Ethiopia - Nigus(s)e Lemma
 What I think of as "typical African" taste, thin, with the impact on rear sides of tongue. Fantastic bouquet in the beans, strongly floral/grassy, but not coming through to the brew.

Tanzania - Ruvuma AAA
Has an "African finish", a little bitter, which is OK, it's not at all unpleasant, and not present while drinking. The beans have a chocolatey smell, a little dry. Pleasant to drink black or with milk. Perhaps a little undistinguished in flavour, but not bad. About on a par in the mouth with the Guatamala above, only better with milk. Certainly nicer than the Ethiopian & Kenyan.

Panama - Paso Ancho
Another OK, but not outstanding bean. A little bitter, not too much. Nice aroma as a bean, but not following through to the mouth.

Brasil Moreninha Formosa
Great aroma, the chocolate drifts in towards the end. Nice to drink, not bitter. Not an overwhelming flavour; good with milk.

Mexico - Oaxaca Organic
I thought this had a kind of egg-y smell, not unpleasant. Then I thought of pipe tobacco. A pleasant drink, particularly good as the first coffee of the day; not because of the caffeine content, just because it seemed to deal with the "morning mouth" syndrome particularly well.

Costa Rica Garanbito (honey cured)
Not a bad breakfast coffee; the honey is a long way back in the flavour, but it's noticeable. For my money, better as a black than white coffee base.

Columbia - Naryano? 
I forgot to make a note while I was still drinking it, and now I can't remember: I guess we could assume that means it wasn't outstanding in any particular direction.

Guatemala - Finca Ceylan y Anexos
Most noticeable about this coffee is that it packs a killer caffeine punch; no way can I drink 3 a day & even 2 is beginning to seem risky. As to flavour, it's a bit earthy/dry, lacking in aromatics. Not so great with milk. A coffee to wake up to, but not one to savour with a croissant.

Winter sun

 There's no particular reason to post these pictures, but it was the first day after about two weeks solid of rain & I like the cold clear wet feel of those days. Also, staying inside would probably have meant writing an essay.

This is (in) the backup frog pond. We had so much rain last year that one of the frog families relocated to this old milk crate, and we've kept it going as a pond even through the dries of summer. Whatever this stuff is called, it grows like a weed in water.

 It just hasn't been a success, this maple. It look good about twice a year, once in Spring when the leaves are brand new, and once in autumn, when the brown edges are forgiveable.

In those moments though, it's quite something.

This actually self-seeded from the other fern tree which we planted on purpose. Now it's nearly caught up and provides perfect shade in summer. In winter, it's part of a conspiracy to keep the washing from drying.

And as you can see, it's got no plans to stop growing just yet. The washing line will be relocated this summer.





This camellia is part of the original imagined Himalayan rain forest section of the garden, but the canopy tee next door was cut down a long time ago & so it generally dries out too quickly. But after weeks of solid rain, it exactly matches the original specification.










First blue sky in a fortnight. And in fact, this tree is borrowed from the neighbours. I can see it from the window in front of my desk.

Sunday Market

OK. Technically this is not part of the Sunday market, other than that I saw it walking home. The picture reminds me of one of my absolutely favourite childhood books - tile,author, long forgotten - in which a postman, so as to deliver the mail during a local flood, removes the tires from his bike so he can cycle along the power lines.

I haven't succumbed yet, but it's a cute idea. Actually, I did see one at the market, with a tow-along cart, the roof of which was constructed from photo-voltaic cells. Quite neat.  I don't know if the electric bikes convert the spare rotational energy (as in going downhill) into electricity. They should. Anyway, one way or another, Sunday markets bring out the locally ingenious.

We've been patronising this market for about, maybe, eight years? Since it started. It limped along for an awfully long time; failed to survive a few winters and then finally, in I think the hands of its third lot of entrepreneurs, has really kicked into gear. Most summer days it's absolutely packed and even in winter there is a pretty fair turnout. This is the middle of the food section. I think Sunday markets say something about the demographic of the neighbourhood. They are a luxury product, despite their down-at-heel charm. For example, dumplings at the Chinese dumpling stall cost more than any Ashfield restaurant. The meat prices would make my local butcher blush. But that isn't really the point. Charm is what's on sale, and there is plenty of it. Plus, undeniably, there are things you get here that you just can't get anywhere else.

Take the cheese man for example. It's pretty hard to find good cheese in Sydney; the Greek deli has some, but the range is pretty narrow and they don't really understand blue. This guy, on the other hand, is a fanatic. And he has some fantastic cheeses, from Australia, Spain, Italy, France, South America. It probably is expensive ($70 a kilo is about his minimum charge) but I have no idea where to get cheese this good, and I don't need a car to get it. I just buy $10 worth, big lump or small, and enjoy it. My favourite cheese story is the morning/afternoon cheese; in each round the bottom half is morning milk; then a layer of ash; then the top is filled up with evening milk.  I hope it's true, but I really don't care that much if it isn't. It's a fantastic cheese, irrespective of the story, sort of a mild Tilsit.

Liz is the mushroom connoisseur. I have to admit that they look fantastic - in salads maybe it's possible to tell the difference. The way I cook, I'm not sure that I'm doing them justice.  The only thing I know about mushrooms is that shiitake contain natural glutamate - which is allegedly the "fifth flavour", very "in" at the moment. Tomatoes contain it too; that's why everything made with tomatoes tastes good. Shiitake have replaced salt in my cooking.

It kind of reinforces the boutique luxury product ambiance, though. Think authentic.

Once you move beyond the food section - Mexican, Chinese, organic, Nepalese, Turkish, Malaysian, Chinese, three bakers, the bratwurst man, Indian, scone/muffin/cake stalls, cheese times 2, meat twice, pickles, nuts and finally olives: this is the winter list - you get to the stuff section, clothes and junk. This is my section of the junk, although I'm trying not to buy books at the moment. The patch of grass you can see in the background illustrates that the weather today is not encouraging. If the sun were shining there would be no grass un-stalled.


I've left out the picture of the fruit and vegie stall (there are three) where we do the weekly food shop. I get to practise Chinese; really, simple repetition is the best practise plus you actually learn useful things like the names of food in Chinese, stuff that is in no text books, but is so fundamentally basic you can't imagine why not.

Croissants

Among the many weaknesses in my character, the elevenses croissant is relatively recent, although the breakfast croissant stretches back to 1989 and La Cucina on Chapel St when I was working for the ANZ around the corner. Every morning I'd clock on at 8 & then duck out for an hour to read the paper, drink coffee & eat a croissant. That job was probably worth ten of the 100-odd kilos I used to cart around. Anyway, even 1989 is recent compared to the espresso coffee vice, which dates back to 1978 (it was an instant coffee vice before then).

The idea of elevenses (one of the great words) was pretty much absent from my life until I started eating breakfast in 2008, after about a 30-year gap. One of my objections to breakfast had always been that it made me hungry at 11, and curiously, despite being 20 kg overweight already, I was worried about putting on more. It's a kind of pseudo-logic; ignore the idea of a healthy eating pattern on the grounds that adding two meals into an unhealthy diet will only make things worse. Sort of like comparing apples and, say, lard.

Getting back to the main line, eating at 11 is a side-effect of eating breakfast and it just happened that when I was experimenting seriously with breakfast I was living in Guangzhou, and bizarrely Guangzhou is one of the best places in the world to buy croissants. Bread is pretty haut-moderne in big Chinese cities and as a luxury good they take making it very seriously, part of the justification of the unbelievable (in relative terms) price. A good croissant in Guangzhou costs as much as a cheap croissant in Marrickville, that is, around AUD $1.30. (Most food in Guangzhou costs about 1/3 to 1/2 of what it would cost here) But that Guangzhou croissant is a helluva thing. It's fantastic.  (This continues a trend of China supplying some of the best European-originated experiences I have had - three of the best four coffees, for example.) They're light, fluffy on the inside, crisp on the outside, a little bit flaky, an ambiance of butter, damn near perfect. Perhaps, carping, fractionally too small. You can in fact try one in Sydney (probably in Melbourne too) at one of the Breadtop franchises. Breadtop croissants tend to be a little overcooked, IMO, but it only affects the outside. It is an amazing tribute to their franchise quality control that this is as true in Sydney as it is in Guangzhou (at a total of about seven outlets altogether - I'm sure it would be true for all of them).

So, thanks to Guangzhou, I'm a croissant-at-11 addict. Now still, if I'm in Sydney CBD, Haymarket particularly, I'll go looking for a Breadtop croissant. But in the Marrickville/Enmore parts of Andrewsville, there are no Breadtops. But there are still croissants.

Peter's croissant on kitchen table

Peter's (the local milkbar) gets them in from somewhere, they're excellent and cheap. But he doesn't get in that many & if they're gone, I have to duck in to the newsagent. There, they're more expensive, and sometimes a day old. Beware a place that offers to microwave your croissants and looks surprised when you say no - a failing of 2204, the most local coffee shop (pretty much their only fault, other than expense) as well.


Moving on from the croissants that are less than 2 minutes away, there's a fork in the road at Victoria St. Left, up the hill to Enmore, and neither of the two bakeries up there that I frequent does an outstanding croissant (one does an outstanding donut, but I haven't eaten donuts for about three years). Adequate, so if I am there for other reasons I don't see any reason to forgo morning tea, but not at all outstanding. Right, down to Marrickville proper past Mitchell St and the Bourke St bakery (it's a franchise - guess where it started?). I'm a bit ambivalent about the Mitchell St croissants. On the good side, they are big and fluffy. On the other side, for me, they are a little bready, not as light as I like and they don't have enough butter, or, more accurately, they don't have the right butter taste. They tend a bit towards the Breadtop colour, which suggests overcooked, and they are, as befits an East Sydney franchise, the most expensive croissant for miles around, by some margin. Bourke St do a bunch of things - sourdough, tarts, bakery coffee - outstandingly well, but their croissants are only adequate by comparison.

Heading into Marrickville Rd you can easily walk past the first bakery, it's tiny. Whether or not they have croissants is random, but when they do they are very buttery, and cheap. They don't do service with a smile, but I guess if I was 70 and had to get up at 3am to start a 17-hour working day, I might be a bit grumpy from time to time.

Opposite them but a bit further up the hill is the Paris Bakery; the winners as far as I am concerned. Their croissants are not quite as light as the Breadtop version (really, those Chinese croissant bakers do magic on that score, it's not just Breadtop) but they are light, they don't feel like bread, they have plenty of butter & they are not burned. They are also cheap - sometimes I buy two.