2012 in review - don't bang the door on your way out

I’m ready to slam the door on 2012. Really, it’s been a c*nt of a year.

They’ve been three deaths: my mother, my cat (truly my familiar) and an old friend. I rail against the creep of cancer into the lives of peers. It feels like a sniper is picking off so many wonderful women in their forties, leaving behind bewildered men and children whose lives are forever altered.

But back to food.

I think I lost my appetite this year. The paucity of recipes posted would suggest so. My return to the Northern Hemisphere, after over half my lifetime away, smashed the barrier between me and the world and I started seeing again.  But tasting? It took until I got to Russia, the place I feared I’d starve for a week due to my pernickety food intolerances, to wake up my tastebuds. It was a country that brings your senses to life but perhaps that’s partially due to the reptilian brain being activated, so much strangeness in a strange land.

Pleased to report that I’m fully tasting again and loving:

• Watermelon, even it’s sticky juices dribbling down my chin (which is a big deal for a Virgo).
• Watermelon and strawberry juice. What’s not to love about a cheery pink juice?
• Homemade vegan iced chocolate, made with a spicy Aztec powder, spiked with a stick of cassia bark.
• Juiced apple, cucumber, lemon and mint – transformed into oh-my-goddess-these-are-amazing icy poles. Perfect coolers on a hot day.
• And wondering what apple, sorrel and cucumber icy poles would be like?
• Carnival cookies.
• Smoked tofu, vegetable, chilli and garlic stir fries – my go to meal this season. An oldie but a goodie.
• So too Asian style coleslaws.

Mourning the end of my last batches of homemade:

• Vanilla extract (in my grief fog I forget to continue to replenish what I’d believed was an endless jar of vodka soaked vanilla beans)
• Red chilli preserved in vinegar
• Mauritian pickles
• Kimchi

Food trends 

Twelve months ago I looked into my culinary crystal ball and channelled the rise of coconut, macaroons (not macarons for a change) and local honey, with middling degrees of accuracy.

For 2013 – I don’t like what I see. I fear the gourmet-ising of junk food will continue. There’s been hot dogs, burgers and silly little sliders dominating dinning landscape from food trucks and corner pubs, to restaurants that could do so much better.

Why I dislike this trend is that it’s a cheap cop out. The punter fills up on bread, there’s varying degrees of quality and quantity of protein and paltry vegetable content. It requires minimum skill and gains maximum profit.

George Calombaris vows that the ''souvlaki is the new burger” and I don’t doubt it. Sadly I predict the trend will continue ‘til chefs (and their accountants) run out of cheap junk food to glamourize.

Perhaps all this meaty stuff (don’t get me started on the rise of meatballs, schnitzel and other carnivorous old favourites) is a reaction against the increasing vegetarian presence in one food-laden corner of the city. Brunswick Street and environs is becoming a veritable Golden Triangle for those who eschew the flesh (or just want a break from it between burgers). With Madame K, Yong Green, Lord of the Fries and the perennially packed Vegie Bar expanding their eco terrain in the main part of the strip, within spitting distance of Mr Natural, The Moroccan Soup Bar and Trippy Taco. There’s talk of South veganizing Collingwood and already a new vegan café within the Golden Triangle that promises Vegusto toasties in the New Year.

There will be more food trucks, I promise you there will, but will they be slaughtering their own pigs or fermenting their own nut cheese? I don't know.

During 2013 I fear even greater polarization between those who choose either the flesh or the bean. And both will come out victorious in their own sweet way.

How’s your year been? What are you loving at the moment? Do you agree with my food predictions (just between you and me I hope I’m wrong)? Have you got any of your own?

Goodbye 2012 – don’t slam the door on your way out.

eulogy

It was an odd Christmas back in New Zealand. I sprung out of bed early to put together a hearty breakfast - scrambled eggs with roasted tomatoes, rosti and smoked salmon. There was ceviche to marinate, a Marie Rose sauce to put together and prawns to peel.

We hit the road with a few treats, following the familiar route to the nursing home. While mum couldn't make it home for Christmas, I was determined to bring some of it to her.

I've written before about what a cruel bitch dementia is, add a stroke and immobility and little is left. Aromas, tastes, sounds and touch can sometimes reach parts of the brain otherwise immune to language. For mum's last Christmas I was determined there'd be a gin and tonic and prawn cocktail, diced small enough to savour a teaspoon at a time.

The G&T hit that hidden spot. A smile as wide as a river. Each mouthful of prawn cocktail swallowed with something that looked like joy.

So pleased we'd found a way to make the day special in some way, for someone who barely knew her name let alone the date.

A little over a week later, my mother died.

I was just pleased she got a last gin, something that had previously been a daily reward for decades.

Back in Wellington, as the northerly wind whips past outside, I try to write her eulogy. All I can think of is standing at the kitchen bench creaming butter and sugar to make a cake, biscuits or a slice.

A year and a half ago I wrote...

Like many of us who are comfortable in the kitchen, it carries a daily reminder of the culinary traditions shared by my mother. Even if for me some of these skills are now redundant – through observation and careful assistance my mum taught me how to cream butter and sugar for a cake and to use the eggs from the pantry, not the cold ones in the fridge, for baking. As a carnivorous child I learnt how to brown cubes of beef for a casserole and the art of gravy making.

Decades on and in a different country, when I stew rhubarb (the only fruit that was ever plentiful in our shady garden) I cut the stalks into thick slices with my mother’s hands. I toss the sugar in carelessly, adding sweetness as required, remembering to only moisten with a little water and keep an eagle eye on the pot while it simmers on a low heat.

Though my mother is still able bodied, she no longer stews fruit. It’s years since she cooked and the poorly stocked kitchen under my father’s reign fills me with waves of grief each time I visit. This was once the heart of the home, now the drawers and cupboards are alarming spartan. It is the room of the house I feel her absence most. Despite that fact mum still bustles in, she might eye the kettle but is unable to reliably make a cup of coffee now.

Lately I’ve found myself honouring her memory by reading the books she used enjoy and keeping some of her kitchen traditions alive, albeit on another continent. I know I can’t blow the dementia from her brain or bring back the woman who raised me but I find these rituals comforting. For now she still has a dry sense of humour and can come up with the odd gem. She knows who I am but our baking days are over.

I'm looking forward to this phase of grief being over, returning to my own kitchen and paying homage to my mum in the way that comforts me most.