Tough Cookie

Well…. it has been awhile. The fates, sport and uni seemed to have all conspired to keep us from blogging the past couple of months, but fear not! We have not abandoned this pursuit, and the interim between posts we have compiled a backlog of delectable foodie escapades to share.

Back to business.

One would be hard pressed to find a favourite morsel more ubiquitous than the ever-sacred Choc-Chip-Cookie. Glorified by our american cousins, this ensemble of butter, sugar, flour and chocolate is something many of us remember making as children. Even if we feel we have never indulged in food culture, everyone can appreciate the appeal of a warm, gooey cookie. And as such everyone has their personal favourite recipe.

Give us links and suggestions!

I’m also trying to find some great links that I can include on the right hand side of the blog, as well as make some improvements to this blog.

At the moment I’ve linked the Tummy Rumbles blog – this blog has lots of links to other Melbourne food blogs and you should go check it out if you have some time. I also linked this useful breakfast blog which covers a number of suburbs and metropolitan Melbourne. You can keep your cursor over the link to see a picture of it and a useful/cryptic/lame description I have of it.

Otherwise, please do leave suggestions under the comments for this post if you think there are some things I should do to improve the website. Also, do do do subscribe to this blog, the button is right to the right side. I want to be able to reach a point where I no longer have to suggest visiting this blog through facebook, so instead my status updates can be about far more mediocre aspects of my life.

Thanks heaps,

Hsiang

Phở Hung Vuong

Phở Hung Vuong

128 Hopkins St
Footscray

Phở (pronounced like ‘duh’ rather than ‘toe’) is a Vietnamese noodle soup, with rice noodles and sliced beef/chicken/meat in a clear broth, served with assorted items such as chillies, Thai basil, lemon wedges, and bean sprouts.

When me, Cam, and our housemates moved to the west-inner-city, I griped a little at the inconvenience of taking public transportation to the Queen Victoria market to do our fruit and veg shopping. However, we discovered that if we rode the 402 bus (which we normally take to and from uni) to the very end of line, we arrive at the suburb of Footscray. I was extremely pleased to discover that Footscray not only had it’s own farmer’s market, it also had a large population of Filipinos (meaning I could thus buy some products which I miss from back home), as well as a large population of Vietnamese people (for the phở.)

My current favourite phở restaurant is in Footscray, called Phở Hung Vuong, and is just around the corner from both the Footscray train station and the end of the 402 bus line. Phở places are, in fact, not that different from one another. There is not a whole lot of variation to the phở dish. So why have I (and the Cheap Eats Guide 2009) singled out Phở Hung Vuong? Because their broth is absolutely delicious and the price which they charge for it makes my wallet happy.

Kūčios: Twelve-Dish Christmas

Well, after a busy Christmas and New Year period, we are now both back to the blogging. Huzzah! And what better way to start than to talk about Christmas!

My family has always loved Christmas and is one of the biggest events of the year in our household. And Hsiang joined us for the first time last year! Our Christmas typically involves a 3-day celebration, largely due to the merging of the typical Western Christmas with that of  Kūčios (Pronounced Koo-Chios), a Lithuanian tradition that we celebrate. This comes from my Grandmother, whose family left Lithuania in the 1940s to escape persecution by the Soviet occupation in WWII.

Now Kūčios as a tradition has an interesting history, as I found out once I had done a little research. Like many Christian Holidays it initially began as a pagan celebration, and in this case for the Winter Solstice. It is a meal with family on Christmas eve, consisting of (at least) twelve dishes and void of any red meat or dairy. This means that most of the food is fish, vegetables or pickled goods, such that might be available in the middle of winter without the aid of modern preserving techniques. This is common to many of the Baltic States but Lithuania has a few subtle differences. Each family largely has their own traditions, like any holiday, but I shall do my best to outline what Kucios entails.

Kūčios is traditionally a very important family event, with family members expected to make every effort to come home. People are only absent during exceptional circumstances. If a family member has died in the past year, a place is still set for them, for it is assumed that they still participate in spirit.

Preparations for Kūčios usually takes an entire day. The dishes are prepared, the house cleaned last minute ingredients are bought and the best room in the house is set for the meal. The Kūčios table table is set with a white tablecloth over hay laden with at least 12 dishes, one for each month of the year. The table is also decorated with traditional pagan symbols of life, such as candles and fir sprigs. During the meal one must traditionally eat some of at least 12 dishes, as it is considered very bad luck to eat less. Each dish is seen to sustain one throughout the year, and not having 12 may mean you won’t survive to see the next Kūčios.

Queen Victoria (Suzuki) Night Market

Happy New Year!

The other day while I was having new year eve’s sangria at a friend’s house, someone put the new decade into perspective for me – at the dawn of 2010, I will have lived in a total of 4 decades. Eeep. I used to think that the “Noughties” (2000-2009) would have been that decade where I have to step out into the ‘real world.’ But by landing myself back in uni immediately after graduating from it, I have managed to avoid this real world business. So yeah, there are a lot of scary and yet exciting years ahead for me, as I’m sure there are for you as well.

But onto more pleasant matters. Summer! More specifically, summer in Melbourne. Which could only mean one thing… Heat stroke! Well, that and the Suzuki Night Market at the Queen Victoria Market is on! I’m not exactly uncovering a secret by telling you about this (and when you are jostled by thousands of strangers as you await one small plate of Dutch pancakes, you will understand what I mean when I say it isn’t a secret), but if you have been in the dark, are new to Melbourne, or haven’t been in a while and need a refresher, here’s a quick introduction.

Cam and I love the Queen Vic market. If you can be bothered, buying vegetables and meat there is the cheaper and fresher alternative than buying things from the supermarket. If you do go to the Queen Vic market, do hop over to their deli section and buy a little of everything. But I digress – the night market! Every year, starting about sometime in November up to about March, on every Wednesday night, the vegetable stalls are all packed away, the plastic chairs and tables are brought out, and the night market comes to life. Alongside stages where performers are playing all night, and vendors who sell everything from hats to soaps to turkish delight to novelty aprons to jewelry to palm readings, there is a long row of food stalls that smack you in the face with the full force of Melbourne’s diverse culture.

D.O.C

D.O.C

295 Drummond Street
Carlton

Living at a residential college at the University of Melbourne was a great experience. College has its own standards, its own language, its own culture and its own heartbeat. Unfortunately, it also has its own food. When Cam and I were living there, the college was being catered by a company called Sodexho – Sodexho who also caters fine penal establishments.

Granted, the 3 meals a day would have been extremely welcome during some of our more hectic days, days which we now just buy takeout or order in because we either don’t have time to prepare food, or we are just too damn lazy that day. It’s an odd sort of nostalgia, remembering how towards the end of the semester when the college’s food budget started drying up, our staple diet was the colour brown. It’s amazing how they tried to pass the same brown sludge as casserole, curry, rogan josh, stew, and (by adding tater tots on top) moussaka. Oh and we still fondly recall that one time, for lunch, we were given a boiled potato.

So you can imagine how often we trotted off, seeking better eating arrangements. And the place to chow, due to its proximity to the university, was Lygon Street. This street has an overabundant number of restaurants, gelati stops, cafe’s, and other random goodies. Most of these restaurants serve Italian Food, and specialize in pizza, their dish of choice. And while I do recommend eating around to find your favourite pizza joints, do stop by and try one of mine – D.O.C.

Social Roasting Company

There is nothing better than discovering something on your own terms. It allows you to gather together an opinion untainted by the dislike or love of those you heard it from. I later discovered that this isn’t exactly a hidden gem, but is reasonably well-known. However, this little find excited me anyway.

The very morning after this blog began I was walking down Racecourse Rd in Flemington with Hsiang and my parents in tow when we came across The Social Roasting Company. As I regularly frequent this restaurant strip I was somewhat confused at how I’d missed its inviting open door, complete with the characteristic rattle of an enthusiastic barista, as I have a weakness for cafe culture. When I examined the door, my confusion lifted. The Social Roasting Company closes at 4pm, and my presence on Racecourse Rd is usually during a hunt for dinner.

Middle Eastern twist on traditional brunch satisfies immensely.

Step inside and you are greeted with the familiar. A smiling barista and a varied clientele, seated down to an obviously fulfilling brunch. A blackboard wall, classically scribed with the menu and a Polaroid collage of photos, presumably of staff shenanigans, all serve to reinforce the appeal of the true Melbourne cafe.

The surprise is in the food. After having a quick surf, many reviews exclaim over their coffee, and culture of the cafe. I found that  what impressed me most was the original way in which brunch was approached. It became immediately apparent that those in charge of the menu had embraced the cultural surrounds of diverse Flemington. Traditionally European food had an enigmatic Middle-eastern twist.

Pancakes came with honey labne, the poached eggs with dukkha and porridge with rosewater, cardamom compote, pistachios and honey. Thoroughly impressed with the menu we spent an excessive amount of time deciding what we should get.

No Knead for Bread

Hello,

I’m Hsiang, the other half of ‘We Masticate Together.’ You can thank me for the pseudo-double-entendre that is our blog title. (Waits for applause to die down.) Since Cam already stole the introductory paragraph and waxed poetic all over it, and since I do not possess the Arts degree background he does… I will go straight to writing about a recipe that is frequently used in our household.

Bread.

More specifically, a bread recipe that requires NO KNEADING. That’s right. Low in effort, high in taste, and very good for bragging rights. Bread that, with the right amount of supervision, a ten year old child could make. An amazing place to start if you’ve never baked before.

In other words, the perfect kind of bread for someone like me. I grew up in south-east Asia, in the Philippines, where I led a sheltered life.

A sheltered Asian life, where baked goods were bought at the nearby bakery and where I never ever touched an oven. Hence my first experience using the oven only happened a few years ago when I moved here to pursue by undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne. That, coupled with the fact that I’m extremely lazy and would abhor any sort of kneading, makes this bread recipe perfect for my needs.

This bread recipe was initially taught to us by Cam’s mother (the apprentice chef), who told us about this video she saw on youtube.com. Basically, there’s this bakery in the states called the Sullivan Street Bakery and they pioneered this recipe. That’s a picture of their book. Basically, the book goes through a bunch of variations of the same recipe.

Unoriginal & Indifferent

Another food blog. They are all the rage in recent years. Julie & Julia itself sashayed onto the big screen mere months ago, popularizing self-proclaimed “foodies” spreading their gastronomical opinions across the blogosphere. Food is popular. We are no longer few and far between we foodies. We are no longer above the masses, deploring the abysmal dominance of fast food. Slow food is indeed in vogue.

This makes me feel particularly self-conscious about my desire to share my own dabbling in the culinary.  I (again like many others) am loathe to be too readily associated with anything so common as popular culture. However, I am as scornful of those who avoid the popular as those who follow mindlessly. In my opinion they are both sheep, just of a different flock. Thus I at once defy and embrace the modern love of cooking. It is as it should be. We SHOULD live in a culture where lovingly crafted meals are something to be supported and recognized by society. Healthy and joyful eating is indeed one of life’s pleasures that should be savored above most else. (Says he who is now finished exams and now has the time and energy to think such things.)

And so it came to be that, over dinner, I said to my boyfriend I would love to write such a blog if only it would not feel so cheap and unoriginal, a Julie Powell wannabe. After a brief discussion he quickly reminded me how I viewed the sheep of the other flock, and suggested we venture forth indifferent to the approval of popular culture. I guess it all comes down to whether you feel you have something to say.

With a seldom used storage of VCE vocabulary force-fed to me, and a habit of eating out too much, I feel I do have something to say. Friends are often asking us where to eat, and taking cakes, biscuits and even borscht off my hands when I have gotten carried away. I have knowledge to share and a passion for food instilled in my by a family food culture and a mother who, having read life’s manual backwards, waited to get married and have four kids before she began her chef’s apprenticeship. And so we begin. Perhaps, having stolen our shining debut, I shall let my other half introduce himself in the next post. But who knows, I am a wordy bastard. (I have even managed to be told that I talk to much by my Japanese friends, when I was on exchange and only had a fragile grasp on the language at best.)

I imagine that this shall be a space, not only to report on our own meandering experiences of food locales in Melbourne, but a general glimpse as to how we approach food. I as believe this a central part of life’s majesty then I dare say that “food experiences” shall be defined loosely at best. Dinner events/markets/restaurants/kitchenware. All is fair game. Food is a tumultuous and exhilarating ride, one day you can be having a table full of  friends around a hotpot, and the next you can be at a Uni barbecue on South Lawn. Each is as special and unique as that over-quoted snowflake. I intend to share it all.

And it starts.

Read. Eat. And enjoy!

- Cameron -