Priceless Paintings from W7

I have recently commented on The Secret Society of Men. Well, here I am again to unveil yet another male greeting ritual.

While I am probably not the most masculine role model imaginable, I am certainly male enough to do it. I do it, and I know when to do it, and when not to do it. And I realize that women only do it in extreme situations:

When driving a car on a country lane or in an otherwise remote place, you greet oncoming male drivers. You don’t bother with the females (‘coz they won’t greet back), and you don’t do it in an urban street. You instinctively recognize the (somewhat fuzzy) borderline when greeting starts after having left a town. The smaller the town, and the more remote the location, the closer the borderline is to the town’s edge. You just know – if you are male. You greet by lazily lifting between one and four fingers from the steering wheel, or maybe even the entire hand. You don’t wave, just a simple two-finger lift will do. You’re cool about it.

When we were cruising the wilderness of South Australia, we met a few greeting women. This happened in very remote places only, where one must be grateful to see any sign of human life.

Funny, those rituals.

Thoughts human, society

Image via Wikipedia

Every modern man or woman knows it: The three minute egg doesn’t exist.

I assume it does no longer exist; with the eggs being chilled to the bone in a modern fridge, and supersized, it is no wonder you can’t boil an egg to a firm white with a thick yet runny yolk in three minutes flat.

Some people claim to accomplish the three-minute perfection:

A friend puts the eggs into the cold water, but starts the clock when the water starts boiling – the perfect three minute egg, he claims.

Another friend claims that you need to pre-heat the eggs in lukewarm water, so that they don’t get a shock when being put into the saucepan, and then add them to the boiling water – the perfect “three minute and something egg,” she claims.

Relax. Cool down. Focus on more important things, because I have solved the three minute egg problem.

Three minutes (actually, 2 minutes and 45 seconds) to produce a firm white and a waxy yolk. How come? Well… Have you tried Quail eggs yet?

I have. Works for me. In three minutes flat. <grins>

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Food and Drink cooking

Quantas Airway’s brought me back fro Singapore to London with flight QF31, on board of a brand new Airbus A380.

I was seated in row 81 of 88, all the way back in Sardine Class. Even though the Business Class (upstairs) is probably much nicer, it’s too bad I can’t always fly A380 – even in Economy. It’s better in every aspect. Only a little bit better, but the sum of the small improvements make the whole experience nicer: it’s a little quieter. It offers a little more space in all directions, and it’s generally nicer (if you ignore the fact that 50% of the toilets were out of service). The reading lights are nicer, and so is the seat. The video system has a touch screen, so the remote control can stay parked in the armrest. Only little things, as I say, but the whole is nicer than your standard 20-year old aeroplane.

You’d expect that from a brand new shiny plane.

You wouldn’t expect that it can fly, though. Just consider the essential statistics:

450 passengers. 72 meter long, 24 meter tall. The cabin width is 6.5m, and the wingspan is 80 meter. Eighty meter, yes. A flying range of 14,800km and a weight of 560 tonnes. Man-made.

You’d think it impossible that this thing, this huge and heavy contraption of steel, aluminium, glas and plastic, can fly.

Yet it can, and wonderfully so. A-m-a-z-i-n-g.

Thoughts flying

This week, I’ve been mostly eating how-nice-it-is-to-be-back-home-and-have-my-own-kitchen food. Oh, and it’s-getting-cold-outside food. Home cooked comfort food for (temporary) bachelors, in other words:

Paella. Paella just had to be the first thing on the first day after the holidays, so that I feel well and warm and at home.

Truchas Navarra (or just one): a trout, filled with crispy bacon and fresh sage. Grilled and served with green salad and white bread.

Potato Pancakes with fresh apple compote. Oh lovely!

A very crispy and very tender Chicken in a thin crust of salt and rosemary. More green salad, and more white bread.

A lovely roast beef with Sauce Béarnaise and bread.

Salad day: a juicy salad from the leftover chicken and the leftover roast beef, apples, and chicories.

Food and Drink cooking, food, recipe

Courtesy of Quantas Airways, I have now seen the movie to Audrey Niffenegger’s brilliant novel The Time Traveller’s Wife. I have read the book and loved it. I didn’t expect much from the movie, for I was very doubtful how and if they can possibly do the book justice (as I voiced earlier).

I guess I just wanted to kill time on a 24 hour journey, but I am glad I tuned into this movie.

I still have a lump in my throat. The movie is just as lovely and just as sad as the book. Read it, and watch it.

Funny that Audrey Niffenegger doesn’t want to see it. "Once I signed away the rights I had just had to let go," Niffenegger told The Associated Press. I presume this means she assumes they won’t do the book justice, and screw-up the movie in a way that she doesn’t want to be associated with it – or what else can the reason for distancing in advance be?

If a huge big fat screw-up is indeed what she expected, I think she should not have sold the rights. She took the money though.

Go on, Audrey. Watch the movie. It’s OK. (But better avoid the TV series, if they really make one.)

Thoughts book, movie

This is a severe case of racism towards the animal kingdom, and I confess: I, myself, am the Hitler here:

I confess that I have always spurned Emus, solely on grounds of their ugliness. I simply never gave this species much attention, because I never found them particularly nice to look at.  

Their 2-inch black eyes didn’t count, neither did their strong legs. I wasn’t interested in their family life (the male tends the eggs and raises the chicks, while ‘she’ buggers off as soon as the eggs are laid).

They are just ugly animals, and, in a zoo, I quickly move on to the prettier ones.

It took a trip half-way around this planet –and back-, to change my views on Emus.

An Emu are still ugly in a way, make no mistake. But, the whole ruffed ugliness makes much more sense, now that I’ve seen them in their natural habitat. In the undergrowth of gum trees (a.k.a. Eucalyptus trees), their camouflage is simply perfect. Two steps away, and you can’t see them unless they move.

Still ugly, but in a good way.

Out and About, Thoughts australia

Courtesy of British Airways, I enjoyed a cellophane-wrapped Chocolate Mouse Cake with Mandarin Sauce. Kind-of nice, and most impressive due to its super-sized list of ingredients:

Chocolate Mouse Cake (75%):

Water, vegetable oil (coconut, palm kernel, palm, rape, sun flower), sugar, 9% chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, skimmed cocoa powder, vanillin), egg, wheat flour, cocoa powder, cane sugar, skimmed milk powder, dried glucose syrup, modified maize and potato starch, whey powder, gelifier (pectin), glucose syrup, thickening agent (sodium alginate, carrageenan, guar gum), dextrose, emulsifier (acetic acid esters of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids), wheat starch, milk protein, acid (sodium citrates, citric acid, calcium lactate), whole milk powder, salt, invert sugar syrup, stabilizer (diphosphates, sodium phosphate, calcium sulphate), flavouring, colouring (annatto, riboflavin, beta-carotene), raising agent (sodium carbonates, potassium tartrates).

Mandarin Sauce (25%):

Water, sugar, 10% mandarin, glucose syrup, modified maize starch, dextrose, acid (citric acid), gelifier (pectin), 0.3% orange, flavouring, colouring (beta-carotene, annatto), emulsifier (lecithin), thickening agent (xanthan gum).

No wonder aeroplane food always gives me winds.

Food and Drink, Thoughts australia, food

The authenticity of my Choucroute De Mer recipe has been questioned a few times. I do, of course, deny any wrongdoing, but I am pleased to report that The Saveur now sides with me: In their 11/2009 issue, they report that Maison Kammerzell in Strasbourg serves Choucroute Au Poisson.

I rest my case.

Food and Drink, Thoughts cooking, food, recipe

This week, I’ve been mostly eating Australian meals. I mentioned already that the Australian cuisine appears to be largely governed by Fish and Chips or Steak and Chips, so let me try to recall some of the more noteworthy meals that we had:

A cheap-and-cheerful Singaporean Dumpling Laksa in Adelaide Central Market. Very nice, although nothing is really cheap in Australia, even if the Pound exchange rate wasn’t so depressing.

Fillet of Kangaroo, with various accompliments, in various places – including our own: I cooked my first ever Kangaroo, and managed to judge it right, hurray! Kangaroo meat is a tender, low in fat, dark red that wants to be eaten rare. It’s lovely. I recommend it, when you get a chance. Oh, and if anyone knows of a reasonably priced source here in the UK, please drop me a note.

A cold platter with smoked Kangaroo, Emu pate, South Australian goat cheese, and a lovely fruity “bush tomato” relish.

Food and Drink, Travel australia, cooking, food, recipe

We are used to the occasional sight of a deer in our part of the world, or similar animal. As soon as they notice us, they disappear.

One thing we enjoyed a lot in South Australia is that this isn’t always the case there. Apart from nosy birds begging from food, there were also several cases of very close encounters with Kangaroos and Emus in particular, which weren’t bothered or interested in us at all.

A simple case of peaceful coexistence, how nice. One morning, we had breakfast just outside out tent, and right next to us, a pair of Kangaroos also nibbled away on their breakfast. We met Emus at very close distance, and even shared a track with an Emu dad and his eight chicks once.

Most other animals escaped quickly (or felt safe, such as Koalas 20m up in a tree, or seals sleeping on an inaccessible rock), but the experience of some that were simply there – that was quite some experience. Probably the nicest single aspect of the whole trip.

Out and About, Travel australia

So, we went to Australia for holidays, and back. While the Missus stays on for a little longer for work, I have returned a week ago. What can I say in a few words?

It’s a 30-hour pain in the back to get there, and the same thing back. ‘There’ being Adelaide in the state of South Australia. Nice town, and nice to see our friend there.

As far as towns go, Adelaide is pretty much all that South Australia has to offer. Leave Adelaide, and all you find are comparatively tiny towns, far apart, all sharing the same sense of perpetual dust, dryness and remoteness.

In culinary terms, we’d be in for a disappointment, if we hadn’t known it from our previous visit to Australia: instead of benefitting from the best of the old and the new world, from the Indian sub-continent, Indonesia and south-east Asia, Australia, on a whole, seems to have opted for the least common denominator. Fish and Chips and Steaks and Chips are abundant, and everything else is rare and far between.

Just as well that we came for a nature experience more than for a culinary one. True wildlife spottings (i.e., not in a zoo or sanctuary), include Fur Seals, Sea Lions, Opossums, Wallabies, Kangaroos, tailless lizards, Monitor Lizards, Koalas, Emus, Goats, Rabbits, Dolphins, a snake, and an ever-present, colourful and abundant bird life with Pelicans, Rosallas and a selection of other parakeets (including the beautiful ring-necked green ones depicted here), all kinds of sea birds, Oyster Catchers, … you name it.

Oh, and black swans, too.

You can see all 916 photos right here, but don’t worry. There’s also a tiny 64 image selection for a quick impression.

Out and About, Travel australia