photography | the invisible cookbook

Rob’s chickpea pumpkin and date salad

October 14, 2011 § 8 Comments

As summer is on its way and the days get warmer, lighter fresh meals are entering the kitchen. Yet those vegies we typically associate with summer are not quite here. I love the winter flavours with a summer feel that this salad, served for dinner tonight by my friend Rob, embodies. Memories of winter somehow all the more pleasurable because they can be enjoyed from the warmth of spring.

Rob is not your typical looking cook, red-haired, you will often find him saw on grain woodworking some design at the back of the house in a cloud of fine dust that settles in his beard and hair, or gazing into space with one of his many instruments saddled in his lap. But Rob keeps surprising me with his kitchen skills and kindly agreed when I asked him to post his recipe… admitting he got it from somewhere else but long enough ago to have forgotten where and changed along the way. You can find his music here where he plays with the lovely Jess Ribeiro and the Bone Collectors. And here is his salad, Chickpea, Pumpkin and Date.

How to Make Chickpea Pumpkin and Date Salad

Roughly Chop about 1/2 a pumpkin and sprinkle it with 1 tsp ground cumin and 1 tsp ground coriander, drizzle with olive oil and bake in an oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour.

In the meantime take 2 cups dried chickpeas and cook in boiling water until soft (if your feeling lazy, or you want to, you can just use 2 cans chickpeas)

Combine in a large bowl with the pumpkin, a cup of roughly chopped dried dates, a handful of chives finely chopped, 2 bunches coriander roughly chopped, juice and rind of one lemon and a good dashing of olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste and voilà!

edible inflorescence’

September 23, 2011 § 2 Comments

The smell of orange blossoms at our front gate meet me at the end of our street each evening, the fragrance stronger after a whole days sun, an intense and sweet welcome home.

Further down the garden path, these little friends greet me in the vegie patch… a fine way to end the day.

roast vegies and baby beetroots

September 19, 2011 § 4 Comments

I pulled these little beets from the garden today. So sweet!

A friend recently told me about roasting them stalks and all with a dash of vinegar and salt.

Without enough to make a meal of them, here is what I did. Popped them in a tray with pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, cherry tomatoes, garlic, fresh thyme and rosemary. Sprinkled them with salt, a generous helping of olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar. And into the oven at 200°C/390°F they went.

1 hour and 25 minutes later, our old gas oven taking longer than most, out they come.

I stirred together a handful of chopped coriander, some mint, 2 tablespoons yoghurt, a dash of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste and served it with the vegies.

It made for a fine lunch on a warm windy day.

a few little thoughts from an inspiring reading and memories from Varanasi

September 10, 2011 § Leave a comment

Overtime the city has been compared to an artwork, a machine, a sculpture and a poem.

But it is more than these things on their own. A city is composed of memories, feelings, interactions, desires and passions. It is both a natural, built and thought entity shaped by culture and geography. It is a place where lives are told, where natural forces ebb and flow.

It tells a narrative about the people who live there and how they relate to the world. Together these stories make up a place and connect all who dwell in them.

Spirn, AW 1988, ‘The Poetics of City and Nature: Towards a New Aesthetic in Urban Design’, Landscape Journal, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 108-126.

a frozen morning

August 7, 2011 § 2 Comments

Family visits, the old farm I grew up on, to wake up one morning, a frozen landscape, the bright highland dawn strong with altitude, playing its tones on the frozen webs of the arachnids.

Missing

May 24, 2011 § 3 Comments

It is this time, when my hands get cold and icy riding home through the Melbourne streets, that I think of Hobart, my home for 6 years. Most of all, I miss the mountain view hovering over the town. On cold days like this it might reveal itself bit by bit behind its blanket of mist, undressing and redressing, the clouds washing over from the west. The vertical dolerite organ pipes fronting the town between the wet sclerophyll and sub-alpine Eucalyptus the birthmark of Hobart to me. I miss the horizons lost in Melbourne’s sprawl. The views beyond the houses to the wild rugged and lost landscapes. The easy escape out of town, up a mountain path or to a lost beach. The constant reminder of breathing and living nature, its quiet presence behind all our lives. I miss the empty detail.

Everything Pink: Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes

February 22, 2011 § 3 Comments

Pink is beautiful! I have only just noticed this.

My love affair with pink has crept up and surprised me, slowly taking form, settling into the back-seat of my mind, organising itself, getting comfortable before revealing itself to me.

Perhaps the seed was planted recently when I loved the paper curtain in our laundry.

Floral and patterned and pink.

Or when I started taking photos of pink roses.

Velvety and creamy and pink.

Or perhaps it was some years ago when I bought this dress.

1950’s and vintage and pink.

Or way back when I admired the stain of beetroot on everything it touched.

Bright and earthy and pink.

Either way, I have been told that pink is the colour of universal love and you should bring pink into your life when you want calmness, relaxation, acceptance and contentment.

Well that suits me just fine. Any excuse to make Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes in a pink dress!

Recipe for Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes with Orange Spiced Chocolate Mousse Topping

200 g dark cooking chocolate, I used Green and Blacks Organic 85% Cocoa
80 g butter
200 g dark brown sugar
3 free range organic eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
200 g raw beetroot finely grated
1 Tbsp natural yoghurt
Dash of milk if needed
80 g almond meal
80 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Method

Pre-heat oven to 170°C/340°F

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water.

In a large mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat until fluffy. Mix in the grated beetroot, yoghurt and milk. Add the melted chocolate and combine well. Add the almond meal and sift in the flour cinnamon and baking powder. Stir until just combined.

Place 16 – 18 cupcake cases in a muffin tray. Spoon mixture into the cases until about 3/4 full.

Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Chocolate mousse topping

100 g dark chocolate (85% cocoa)
200 ml sour cream
Zest of 1/4 orange
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Pinch ground cloves
2 Tbsp honey

Method

While the cupcakes are cooling, make the topping by melting the chocolate along with the orange zest in a bowl over a saucepan with boiling water. Remove from heat and gradually stir in the sour cream. Add the cloves, vanilla extract and honey and smooth over the cooled cupcakes. Store in the fridge.

Enjoy!!

Belgian Memories

February 7, 2011 § 6 Comments

Belgium, full of the smells of my Oma; mashed potatoes with nutmeg, that particular washing detergent, that special smell of cold icy weather, cigars, sausages and green shrubs. Not that my Oma smoked cigars but that is the smell of Belgium that is so intertwined with the memory of her in my mind. And it is bitterly cold. I have been sleeping in a jumper, woollen pants, socks three blankets and two quilts.

Here on the outskirts of Brussels in the brown fields mixed with old houses and ever multiplying industries and shopping complexes, I stay with my uncle in the old family home. This is the house that my great grandparents built alongside their fields that they passed on to my grandparents and they to my uncle. The narrow street leads from the canal to their shrub-lined driveway with that very particular smell. The church on the other side rings memories of being a child. The graveyard where they are all buried lies across the field of what was the old rose nursery that is now lying bare and empty.

I have a week here of wandering the streets of Brussels, peering in the shops filled with chocolate and tempting pretty things and watching people in the warm lit old wooden decorated cafes. I have been practicing pretending I know French and am oh so bourgeois. Mainly by not saying anything other than the simplest phrases and guessing what other people are saying when they speak to me. It’s always fun when I get away with it.

Stupidly in my mad rush to leave Australia in five hours which you can read more about here, I decided not to bring my camera which was fine in Salone as I could use D’s but much regretted now that he is not here. I have been taking these photos with the web cam on my laptop. I have been too embarrassed to do it anywhere too public so these are all just taken from around my uncles place. It is impossible to frame a picture without my head getting in the way so they end up being random and wonky most of the time but in their own way they have a certain charm.

Beaches Bikes and Brake Failures

February 3, 2011 § 2 Comments

On reflection, I still feel a little guilty; apart from this little attempt, I have done a completely terrible job at giving you much of an indication of the cuisine in Sierra Leone. To ease my guilt I can say, well, it’s already been done. In case I have left you curious and wanting, look here for a detailed effort on many of Salone’s dishes. But the real truth is there are just so many other more exciting things to write about. You have to trust me on this one; food is definitely not the countries strong point. Although I cannot say the same for my last five days in Sierra Leone spent on the beaches of the peninsular.

Tokeh, River #1

To get to the beaches we take bikes. The going is fast and dusty, the mountains rising from the sea swallowing us up forested and deep. We stay at different places along the way sleeping in little thatched huts on the sand with mattresses made of old rice sacks stitched together and stuffed with grass. The water is bath like warm as we float in its blue and green. We laze in the shade of the palm trees sharing the beaches with the fishermen and their nets, their boats at sea tied to trees on the shore. The colourful wooden vessels are sharp-nosed and slim with names like “Believe in God”, Jesus is in the Boat” and “ Movement of Jah People” painted on their sides in blue and yellow. They have a certain knack for names here, At John O’bay we meet a Mr. Perfect, and at Bureh a Prince William, just to name a few. In this tropical paradise we dine on fish, lobster, crab and oysters plucked straight from the sea.

We spend two nights in York staying with the Whale Foundation an NGO that works in the area. York was built by freed slavers once slavery was abolished (look here for more info). The town escaped the burnings of the civil war and the old buildings charm us, tall, wooden, shuttered and dilapidated. The windows look into shadowy insides, floating with curtains of blue and pink printed roses that are pleasing against the faded and pealing salmon pink and brown of the houses.

York

Each night we can see the lights of the illegal fishing boats out at sea. They pay bribes to the navy and the ministry of fisheries to rape the seas with their trawlers and fishfinder radars. The locals are no competition with their leaky rigs and nets that they scare the fish into by rhythmically drumming the sides of their boats. They tell us how the illegal boats will attack them and cut their nets if they get too close. They have noted the dwindling fish stocks since the illegal boats arrived. Now the locals need to go further and further for their daily catch. We meet a man from the Environmental Justice Foundation an NGO that do research and work in the area trying to stop the illegal fishing and to protect the local people from its effects. The foundation provides very interesting information and videos that you can find here.

Sadly our beautiful time on the beach, warm and relaxed, toes up in the sun, comes to an end. Heading back to Freetown from Tokeh we can only find one bike. So it is D, me, our bags, a big bundle of water under my arms and the driver all atop the Honda. The drivers slow and careful pace pleases me, until, that is, we start going down a hill and discover that the brakes don’t work!!! I look down at the bottom of the hill, an eroded and bumpy corner turning into a narrow concrete bridge with no railings over a rocky river. As we begin to gather speed, I notice that the driver has begun to direct us in the direction of the jungle on the side of the road. D, me, our bags, the big bundle of water under my arms, the driver and the Honda crash into the dense green scrub, sharp thorny branches breaking our fall, the bike falling on our legs. Lucky we’re only left with a few bruises and scratches. Somehow I don’t feel overly fazed. I must be getting used to break failures. This is our second one in less than two weeks. The last one leaving me petrified rolling backwards down a steep hill and a nasty cut on the underside of my big toe. I lose my shoe when I try to launch myself off the bike to what I think is safety. As a result, I get stuck, my foot dragging on the gravel as D desperately tries to pull me back on before my leg goes under the wheel. In hindsight I didn’t react in the most sensible manner. However, at the time it seemed better than continuing backwards down the hill! I had already calculated in my head approximately how fast we would be going when we hit the corner and it was pretty damn fast, especially for reverse. But somehow with me half on and half off the driver put the bike into gear and turned it sideways brining us to a stop.

Back in the jungle lying in the thorns under the bike, we decide to get a lift in a red sports car that comes by in a timely manner. Covered in dust, the axle grinding and bumping along the road we make it to Lakka and from there to Freetown in a taxi.

That night I fly out of Sierra Leone leaving the warm weather and my darling D behind, but not forgetting a bout of gastro to accompany me my 20 hour flights and stopovers to Belgium. One last departing gift.