Fiesta Malaysia 2012 – One view

I found out about Fiesta Malaysia 2012 the way I usually find out about events these days: on my Twitterfeed. While our household still gets the paper delivered every day, I never read it anymore. My mum does, and so does my partner. My kids like cutting it up and using it for projects, or mucking around with strips to make papier-mache animals.

I’ve acquired some bower-bird habits since becoming so dependent on Twitter. One of them is noting things for the different feeds I maintain (current count: 4), which is what I used to skim my email for. Usually, this noting doesn’t mean I intend to act on events/gigs myself. My weeks are usually fully subscribed with work, kiddie time, family time, writing, and occasional other things.

Lygon St bombing (Photo by Tseen)

Something that did catch my eye, though, was the Fiesta Malaysia the other weekend (23-25 March).

My partner and I used to be great food/culture festival people, then we had kids. But it’s not as if the kids kept us from going anywhere; we just ended up going to different events: local school fetes, shopping for an endless parade of shoes, library-runs, zoo trips…

Anyway, we thought this might be fun, and my mother would definitely want to go along, if only to declare that her char kway teow was better.

We made it to Fiesta Malaysia on its last day – Sunday – and arrived just as it started at about 11am. We’d parked at the Melbourne Museum and had a glorious stroll to Lygon Street, encountering some great yarn-bombing on the way (pictured left).

That day also happened to be the Melbourne City Romp and spotting marauding crazy-hatted / costumed teams can sure whet one’s appetite for roti.

 

>Presuming cheapness

>This is one of my pet peeves: The expectation that Asian food will be cheap.

What is with the presumption that Asian food in Australia will be cheaper than any other food? Can people not distinguish between being in a country where the standard of living allows their tourist dollar to magnify their consumption potential and…not being in such a country?

I’m a semi-foodie in that I love trying new restaurants, getting together with people to feast, and knowing things about food/dining. I know how much work and consideration good food takes, no matter what cultural heritage produces it. Yes, there are cheap’n nasty versions of most cuisines, but if you want good food, it’s fair enough that you pay for it. On a relative scale, expensive Asian is often still cheaper than expensive European, isn’t it? People complaining that where they’ve just eaten a huge meal in Melbourne is so overpriced compared to that hole-in-the-wall market stall in Penang make me see red. It’s because their attitude sucks. Do these whingers have any idea what goes into prepping and cooking what they’ve just eaten? In general, they don’t seem to acknowledge that Asian restaurants with legit operations have to work under the same conditions as other Australian businesses; same tax, same PAYE, same infrastructural costs. They don’t just exist in a magical state of ‘being cheap’.

My rant isn’t aimed at people who love a good bargain when it comes to eating well; I’m one of those.

It’s aimed at those who presume that Asian food is a ‘rip-off’ if it isn’t dirt cheap. I’m so tired of hearing it.

 

>I can haz social life (the remix…sorta)

>[I ended up adding some sections to this post, after publishing it yesterday. My bad.]

Wow, this is the first time one of my Facebook status updates has morphed into an entire blogpost. I’m feeling a bit like the undead (a few of our favourite things…) because I suddenly had a hyperactive social life last weekend, just before an intense Monday as convenor of the Asian Australian Forum.

Saturday 2 October delivered a hugely fun time at the Brunswick home of Owen Leong and Amadeo Marquez-Perez, the best hosts ever. Truly, EVER. The food was divine and plentiful, the camaraderie unmatched, and I met some witty + wonderful people. The premise of the get-together was to see our Foxy Dr Willing, who was on her way home via Melbourne after a magical jaunt around North America. I also got to catch up with two good buddies, Tom Cho and Jen Kwok, of whom I never see enough even though we all live in Melbourne. Jen has the honour of freaking me out for about 5 mins when he observed that I looked very calm considering I had a major event planned for the Monday; up until that point, I wasn’t worried about the forum at all. Luckily, the gorgeous spring day and fine company worked its magic and I forgot all about being angsty.

After scarfing down part of a 28-egg tortilla, as many aromatic meatballs as I could fit in, some zesty + scrumptious cous cous, excellent spicy garlic prawns and anything else they put before me, I could’ve justifiably flaked out in front of the (tragic) Grand Final. But, no, there were cool, politically sympatico peeps to talk to, which was way more fun and satisfying. In the social mix were HamCar’s crew, and it was a real joy to meet them all after hearing about (and seeing) them in various other media. You gotta love a bunch who will attend a zombie shuffle en famille!

We didn’t pry ourselves away until late afternoon, and the kids had had a full-on excellent time as part of the little tribe. I’m just starting to realise how much of an impact ‘kid-friendliness’ has on an event vibe. Touting a baby around town isn’t such a big deal, and they’re eminently portable when they’re really young. It’s when E. hit about 2.5-3 years that I found myself planning on her amusement as much as our own. This narrowed options a lot, especially when scheduling for windows of well-fed, sleeping babyness from little G. in his earlier days.

All that tangential waffle to get to this point:

The atmosphere of the get-together was totally accepting and easy-going. Our hosts and all the other guests were well attuned to (and very patient about) demands from our little ones; they were more patient than I would’ve been, truth be told.

Along with the pixel-storm of post-lunch pics posted on Fb, I’ll always have my Lego stormtrooper watch with which to remember that day (thanks, Indi!).

Delectable meatballs, tortilla, salads…it was a very full kitchen bench!

Sunday 3 October was a major yumcha feast at the Gold Leaf Restaurant in Springvale, with extended family. While all yumchas exist on a continuum of ‘Good’, this was a particularly good spread in terms of variety and freshness. The restaurant is a great yumcha spot and never disappoints.

I love that yumcha works on the principle of “the more, the merrier” – going to yumcha as a table of 2 is just asking for disappointment. Most servings are 2 or 3 items per plate, and having about 6+ means you get to sample a lot of things rather than having to finish a whole plate of anything. The most difficult yumcha companions are those who are under the delusion that they can be healthy AND eat yumcha properly. I’m sorry to say it can’t be done at most places; I could eat a low GI meal at yumcha, but it certainly isn’t low fat! Lard is a constant companion in the tastiest yumcha (especially those perfectly flaky egg tarts, and even in those seemingly ‘better for you’ steamed dishes). It’s a fact of life I’m happy to live with.

Even after clearing the table of many, many delicacies (and the calamari and hum swei kok were especially delicious that day), we had to waddle downstairs for our requisite bubble tea. Some habits are hard to break.

Part of our yumcha feast – we always have hum swei kok, chee cheong fun (char siew + prawn) and pork spare-ribs

I had included Monday 4 October’s Asian Australian Forum + launch write-up here, but have moved it on to another post for the sake of convenient email ‘pointing’ later on for the events’ participants. Surprisingly, they may not want to read about my social eating adventures around town.

It was a fantastic weekend. When circumstances converge to create such an enriching and stimulating couple of days, I’m very grateful, and it makes me feel more like I belong in Melbourne. Even after six years here, I still feel like I’m ‘arriving’ in the city. I have started saying that I’m ‘from Melbourne’ (rather than ‘living in Melbourne’), so the mind-shift from Brisbane has definitely taken place. The hardest thing about feeling at home in a new city is finding the comfort of accepting, generous, savvy companions. This weekend offered them in spades.

 

>Feed Melbourne Campaign – 2010

>

“Feed Melbourne raises money for food charities such as FareShare to help them rescue, store and distribute good food that would otherwise go to the tip. . . .One-third of the money raised goes to FareShare and two-thirds will go to other food charities.”
(see the full article from Leader community news HERE)

I’ve been wanting this kind of initiative to take place for ages now, ever since I read about how much food gets wasted every day. With a sibling who works as a chef, too, it makes me very aware of the consumption levels out there, and how much material has to fuel the hospitality industry (or gets wasted).

I did wonder whether this kind of thing would interrupt the activities of freegans (there’s an engaging article about freegans by Emma Rush from the Canberra-based Australia Institute HERE [pdf]). I found this article from the Courier-Mail (that very reputatble Queensland rag) about Ko Oishi, who was an environmental science/conservation student living the freegan lifestyle.

Ok, have just done way too much googling about freegans. Must. Stop. Now.

 

>Snackilicious

>

The packaging from a new snack we tried at CNY 2010

It was a sort of wasabi-corn amalgam that had the perfect sweet-salty balance + crunch + more-ishness. My sister had bought it for the packaging (and how could you not?), so we’d opened it with a fair measure of dubiousness.

The whole packet was finished by the end of the evening.

Other snacks that were polished off happily:

• pandan egg-rolls
• fish-print biscuits
• peanut brittle

While researching this entry (a long time ago, it seems now!), I’ve stumbled across a couple of excellent snack food blogs, which are only the tip of the snack-food-blogging iceberg if their respective blogrolls are any indication.

For your delectation, I bring you possibly the two most obsessive and stomach-rumbling-inducing:

• Japanese Snack Food Review
• Japanese Snack Reviews

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On a slightly related note – only slightly – I’d also decided that there are some foods that didn’t take to being photographed at all. These included loh bak (Malaysian spiced pork rolls; one of my mother’s specialties) and kuih kodok (Malaysian banana fritters).

That is, until I saw this kuih kodok post on Rasa Malaysia; they make them look fab. In fact, Rasa Malaysia is a great source of food porn. My photos of loh bak and kuih kodok? The most generous thing one could say about them is that they’re a study in textures.

I’ll include them here as a lesson in how NOT to photograph food:

LOH BAK
Under kitchen lights at night time, necessitating steady hands for flashless pic…hmmm.

KUIH KODOK

Under kitchen lights at night time, necessitating the use of a flash. Hmmm. There’s a common problem here. You’d think I’d learn, ya?

 

>A diet that works! No, seriously…

>I can’t help on-posting this link, even though it’s doing the rounds on Facebook and, therefore, already reaching critical mass:

Weight Watchers Recipe Cards from 1974

http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html

It’s culinary gold. Of a very bad kind. My favourite is the Frankfurter Spectacular, cos how could it not be?

If I had those recipe cards? I’d be losing kilos + kilos…

 

>Post-CNY 2010

>

As a previous post implied, I’ve been trawling through my blog archives a little. The reason why I was back-checking some posts was because I vaguely remembered posting a picture of a bunch of us in our CNY Eve gear. What I’d forgotten was that it wasn’t just us, discreetly cropped, in our loud, loud shirts; the whole entry was about CNYs and featured pictures of our 2006/2007 feasts. Er, much like this one for 2010. Hey, this could be a point for consistency, if not originality.

Our CNY shin-digs have been much lower key than what we were used to growing up in Queensland. Having so many rellies in Brisbane meant that CNY was always at least one dinner party for 40+, and lots of visits/phonecalls over the next 15 days. Here in Melbourne, we have the ‘reunion dinner’ on CNY Eve, and the vegetarian breakfast on the day itself, but nothing really other than that. If we didn’t have the 2 (v. young) sprogs in tow, I’m sure we’d be doing a lot more in terms of engaging with CNY in the city. I love a lion dance; so much excessive noise and colour! And the exploding lettuces are always a treat.

This year, CNY Eve was at our place, with a lovely stray friend included in the family gathering of 11. Below are a few pics to represent the evening: 3 of our pre-dinner snacks, and 1 of the feast itself.

An aerial view of our snacks for the evening

A CNY feast just doesn’t feel right without a plethora of snacks. Because we don’t have that many people around, we limited ourselves to five things. It was hard.

Gnau yee pang (Cow’s ear biscuits)

Think shape, not content. We love these biscuits. They have a great whole-spice aroma and are extremely more-ish. Luckily, a packet of them is rather substantial. My sister and I split the leftovers that night, and no blood needed to be spilt.

Fish-print biscuits
Just plain old biscuits with fish printed on them. I’d expected a filling of some sort, but…no. I forgave them their simplicity, considering their decoration. Our family just loves the fish motif!

Our CNY spread for 2010 (from front):

Roast duck, jiu hu char (stirfried jicama, dried squid, cabbage, carrot, spring onion + coriander), roast pork, my mother’s famous homemade Penang loh bak (deep-fried pork roll), + har lok (prawns braised in spicy tomato sauce).

It also feels different to have CNY in Melbourne. We’re used to spreading ourselves across available verandah spaces in Brisbane’s slickly humid February/March evenings. In a perverse way, the perspiring atmosphere, and sweating through our CNY clothes, makes the event feel more like ‘home’, wherever that happens to be.

 

>Poh’s Kitchen – Series 1, Ep. 1

>

I managed to catch the premiere episode of Poh’s Kitchen last night (Official ABC website for the show: Poh’s Kitchen). It wasn’t a planned viewing as I only vaguely knew about Poh getting her own show. We became die-hard Masterchef watchers near the tail end of that first series, and I thought Poh was erratic and watchable. The good news is that the series appears to capture the best ways in which she’s erratic, and her ‘watchability’ has certainly not diminished (if one must criticise, I think she could be a bit lighter with the rouge…). The series takes place in a swanky (studio) kitchen, with shots of her own home and artwork interspersed. Poh is paired with a celebrity/high-profile chef for each episode. The first one was pasty-chef Emmanuel Mollois (who I haven’t heard of, I must admit; however, the number of chefs I haven’t heard of would fill volume upon volume so…yeah). Mollois was a great person to watch on the show, particularly while he made his almond croissants. For a start, making croissants is a masochistic art, and spectating their creation by a master was fabulous. He also tsk-tsked Poh on her use of a whisk rather than a spatula when she was making her ganache, being ironic about ‘tradition’ while demonstrating why some methods are worth following.

The Herald Sun loved the show (and her), and I was surprised to find out that last night was the first of a 40-part series. FORTY parts?! Who would’ve thought? I guessed first-run series would be commissioned at about 20 eps at the most.

I liked the show for its visuals and pacing. The food that was being done by Poh? Not so much. The thing I love best about chiffon cakes is their simplicity; they’re one of my mother’s specialties and we’ve had them in pandan, coffee, orange, and lemon flavours. Poh split her orange chiffon into three and layered it with chantilly cream + crushed hazelnuts + covered the whole thing in chocolate ganache. She turned it into a cafe-style gateaux. I guess this is a twist on the standard chiffon cake, but I couldn’t help thinking it went against what I liked best about them: the incredibly light, aromatic texture.

Next week, she’s fronting the camera with David “Thai Food” Thompson. Looking forward to seeing the roti. I’m always up for watching roti being made, eating roti, smelling roti…actually, all things roti are a general good. I’d also like to see someone making murtabak on Australian TV; it’s heart-attack food at its best.

While watching Poh, I didn’t get the heebies the way I do when I watch Kylie Kwong. I don’t know what it is about Kylie, but I’ve never enjoyed her TV shows. The way she calls on, and performs, her ‘Chinese-ness’ makes me uneasy. Poh always dips into the Malaysian background, but for some reason the way she does it doesn’t bother me. I’ll have to think more about this because my dislike of Kyles was instant and is long-standing. The dislike increased when I saw bits of her China series. She seemed very much the Occidental intruder in the locals’ kitchens, no matter how much (or maybe because?) she was talking up her heritage and ‘homecoming-ness’ so much. There’s one episode I’m thinking of in particular where she went to a Hakka ‘compound’ and wandered into someone’s kitchen, extolling the virtues of the high-density accommodation and history of the home-cooking spaces within…then boots out the guy whose kitchen she commandeers. It just seemed like he was so much background to the real point of the show, which was showing Kyles cooking something Kyles’ way with only minimal reference to the setting in which she was immersed.

I’m immediately skeptical of anyone who does an all-embracing homecoming schtick. I guess I work on the assumption that anyone who doesn’t see a bit of tension/contradiction in their feelings must be emotionally thick. I do understand the strange relief of finding oneself anonymous and part of a crowd when visiting a majority Asian country (or very racially diverse places), but the immediate tapping into one’s ‘homeland’ culture? I just don’t buy it.

 

>Flat bread – January 2010

>

fresh flat bread

our kitchen, january 2010

[Photo by Tseen]

 

>Summer fruiting

>

I’ve written about our garden before (last April, actually), and this is a bit of an update. Many of the fruit trees and berry bushes were only planted last year, and we’ve been pleasantly surprised with the productivity of a few of them already. Others, such as the nashi pear and apple trees, are yet to hit their stride. The raspberries last year were magnificent, but this year have been a bit disappointing (they were frazzled off by the heat just when the pendants of flowers were turning to fruit). The raspberry canes have been rhizoming (is that even a word?) all over the garden, and we’ve given away quite a few of them. They’re the thornless variety, and oh-so-delish.

The apricots and nectarines are beautiful for first year crops, and we have had fresh-picked stone-fruit for a couple of weeks now. First week or so were the apricots (see luscious pics below), then the nectarines (which we’re still finishing off now). Now that I think about it, I should’ve taken a pic of a cut open fruit, but I think ravening hordes consumed them almost as soon as they hit the kitchen bench.

Apricot tree in the front yard -
ripe pickin’.

Picture perfect fruit.
Just looking at them again
makes me drool.

Mmm. Juicy, sweet, ideal texture.
Can’t wait till next year’s crop.

We’ve also had a few bunches of grapes start up on our very young vines. Not at all sure of the taste/sweetness, but little E. can attest that eating them right now is a very bad idea…

Grapes set + not ready to go…

We’ve been having:

• regular harvests of chives, kaffir lime leaves, Vietnamese mint, oregano, strawberries (mostly by E., directly into her mouth), and flat-leaf parsley;
• occasional crops of capsicum; and
• one gorgeous crop of broad beans.

Our first crop of broad beans,
shucked and silky green.

Things that haven’t worked out as well: tomatoes (they’re tasty but buggy – please advise…), pumpkins (they took over the yard with glorious vines and shaggy leaves but never really produced full fruits), and brussel sprouts (absolutely ridden with cabbage-moths – our bad. We should’ve doused the plant and surrounds with garlic spray or similar).