Give'm Linen

It all started quite innocently while weeding the garlic. I noticed that the white cherry tree, which usually gets stripped by the birds before we can get around to netting them, had quite a bit of ripe fruit on it. While picking them I realised, it was time to not only get them onto the menu here, but to alert those of you in our area that Ken Campbell’s wonderful pick- your-own Morello cherry orchard at Mt Duneed will be ready for picking around Christmas time.


But it was when Diane kindly offered to find the vintage tablecloth with cherries on it for a suitable background for the main photo for this post that I realised her innocent? purchases at op shops and garage sales had turned into
[a]a magnificent collection?
Or
[b] a magnificent obsession?

But of course it’s both. She has gathered together more than 200 and we do have a cedar table that needs clothing, so two? are carefully chosen each week, to feature in the dining room.

This is much more useful [as I have been often told] than the more than 200 pre 1940 cooking booklets that I have collected with similar zeal . My only reply is that they take up much less space than the linen. The tablecloths, breakfast cloths and booklets too, illustrate the development of graphic style, provide historical markers and display a kitsch sensibility that we both love.

After finding the Cherry cloth it was time for her to re-classify them and get a bit of order into the collection. Her classifications go something like this. Oceania, Australian Animals subsets of Koalas, Platypus, Kangaroo. Floral Australian, Floral new Zealand , Floral International, Places, Events, Culinary, Olympics.Breakfast cloths, multiples in different colours. Woven, printed, top 40 and so on.
But my recipe comes not from thevintage pamphlet boxes but from Austin de Croze for a traditional Clafoutis. He writes..
“Cherries covered in a custard of eggs, flour, caster sugar, salt and milk”
Serve hot sprinkled with caster sugar.
He trusts you with the quantities and so shall I.
We sometimes add Kirsch and a touch of vanilla to the custard. There is also a neat trick to serving them elegantly. The hardest part is getting them onto a plate without sticking to the baking dish.
For individual servings or larger shared platters bake on top of a circle of silicon paper [gladbake] and when ready slide onto heated plates.

Back to the garlic....

PS

The title comes from Ludwig Bemelmans' Hotel Splendide highly recomended.

Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to stall today..

It’s not often that you can say that you would like to be stuck in a lift, except of course if it’s with

[XXXXX] fill in your idols of choice.

Elevators often initiate candid conversations.We know it’s a short ride, where we don’t have the responsibility of continuing a conversation as within seconds we are free to simply go our own way.

But today as the plastic burr-walnut and stainless steel industrial sized people mover at Footscray market crawled between floors, I was playing my usual game of fantasising about what everybody was going to do with their shopping?

The Samoan lady with the box of green bananas and box of onions was obviously cooking a whole pig or two for a family feast to welcome some visiting relatives. The pig I surmised was being prepared by the blokes who had also copped the job of digging the hole for the fire pit for what was to be just another version of the great Aussie barbeque weekend. The Indian family with 3 big boxes of mangoes had obviously volunteered for the job of mango lassi makers at the local temple feast. The Slavic looking elderly man with the bag of mixed capsicums was getting in some early preserving action for summer. The Vietnamese are easy, they are all making soup. The lady with far too much dill was clearly from Hanoi and getting organised to make Cha ca the North Vietnamese famous soup, flavoured with heaps of dill and turmeric that you assemble at the table.
The impossibly tall African lady was going home to cook her eggplants with a goat curry.
The young alternative Australian couple with the 3 trolleys of small packages are evidently rostered to do the weeks shopping for their student shared house.


But all too soon the ride is over the doors open and we go our separate ways.....

Me, to make fish stock as soon as I get back.

For a perfectly clear fish stock.

Use only white fish heads and bones.

Remove the gills and any offal left on the fish carcasses

Wash all the fish heads and bones.

Make a mirepoix of carrot, onion, celery, fennel stalks, lemon, parsley stalks and bay leaves.

Lay the mirepoix on the bottom of a large stainless steel pot.

Arrange the fish heads and bones on top.

Add about 3cm of water to the bottom of the pot and cook on a medium heat with the lid on till the fish heads and bones are slightly steamed and any flesh on the bones look white.
[This will set and stabilise the blood and all the bits that might dissolve into your stock and make it cloudy. ]

Cover generously with cold water. Boil for one minute and simmer for 30 minutes on a very low heat.  Let it steep off the stove for a further20 minutes.

Strain and chill. When cold remove any of the fish fats that will be set on the surface. Remove any small globules of fat with a kitchen paper. Reduce by a quater and you will have a perfectly clear fish broth. We serve ours with green garlic, chopped fennel, parsley and drizzled egg with a side dish of sautéed river shrimp dusted with a spice mix of sesame seeds, isot pepper and salt.

VALE BARBIE DOG

BARBIE DOG

1 APRIL 1994  - 6 NOVEMBER 2009