Questioning the convienience of Convienience Foods

I took a deep breath & bravely leafed through the monthly specials catalogue from a National food company that we buy a few odds & sods from.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the stuff they supply is good, reasonably priced & they deliver regularly which is a godsend when you are located in say, Uzbekistan-I mean Cygnet. I’d be nuts not to use them, in fact nearly everyone does. Their clients range from supermarkets, chippies, bakeries, corner stores, cafes & restaurants, any place that serves food actually. This is my point.
Much of the stuff I just don’t buy, I mean we make nearly everything here so I just glaze over when I regard the cascading A4 sheets of their immense product directory. However, once I began to really scrutinize the glossy pages I felt a conflicted sense of repulsion & fascination at the range of convenience foodstuffs that they carry. This stunning insight made me realise that so many businesses MUST be ordering this stuff for them to have pages of the stuff on their inventory-Yikes!
Take for instance the breaded & partially fried ‘Butterfly chicken breast Schnitzel’, the ‘beer battered garfish’, the ‘salt & pepper squid’ or ‘Tempura chicken breast nuggets’. Staples I’m sure, of pub dining rooms around the country but, is it that difficult to make them yourself? Sure it might be cheaper adding into the equation labour costs etc & there’s always those pesky consistency issues that we face when employing humans, but what is actually in these products? It would be fair to say a whole lotta-filla goes into making them as cheap as possible, that’s for sure.
In order to capitalize on the zeitgeist of the times, the list embraces the multicultural theme & traverse’s the globe seeking to represent all the current buzzwords. ‘Traditional French crepe mix’ (how hard is it to make crepes?), ‘Lasagne Toppers’ (for the uninitiated: lasagne coated in flour, egg wash & breadcrumbs, partially fried, Antonio Carluccio would be proud!) vaguely Asian ‘Devil wing dings’ (deftly combining the notion of Yellow Peril with something tasty) , Mini ‘Dagwood dog’( hat tip to America), Spring roll ‘Hong Kong style’ (whatever that means) or my particular favourite for all the wrong reasons ‘Pre cooked chicken or lamb Yiros meat’(now the Greek Pantheon of gods will rest in peace for sure!)
I understand the need for consistency. I understand the need to keep labour cost down.
BUT, some of these products cannot stand up to scrutiny if you intend to stand by what you serve.
To take this argument further how’s about: ‘Pre cooked beef or chicken patties’ (In the words of Austin Powers, “Honestly, who buys in a pre-cooked burger?”) ‘Scrambled egg Mix ( I want to know how much is egg & how much is ‘mix’) or this; ‘Pre poached eggs”, WHAT THE FUCK!
You can probably guess that I am not a ‘heavy user’ of these products. The really scary thing is that SO many places use these products & their ilk that the mind really boggles. Remember the 'pre-cooked lamb shank' revelation a few months back?

Look if you are happy eating this stuff when you go out, then, go ahead, it’s your choice, but please have the decency NOT to chuck all restaurants & cafes into the same basket when you inevitably question price, value & quality.

Some places just don’t use this stuff & surely you can tell the difference? I think this point of difference should be revered, celebrated & encouraged & the only way to do this is by patronising the places that make this effort to make their own food largely from scratch. It might mean paying a bit more initially but the current alternatives on offer will cost us a whole lot more in a whole more ways in the longer term.

Support for Producers is a two way street

A curious conundrum. Some of you might be aware that I tend to frequently beat the drum of praise for Tasmanian produce & more specifically, foodstuff from my ‘hood, the Channel & Huon Valley. I have supported & encouraged many producers over the years & have found it a real privilege to have so many lovely ingredients at my disposal.
Some of these passionate producers & I have forged strong friendships over this period due in part to our mutual love of good food.
A (thanks Silverbeet!) weird thing happened today that shunted an amorphous blob of an idea into my thoughts which tumbled over & over in my head, like a yeasty bread dough being stretched & plied before finally morphing into the defined loaf of a question.
It happened like this:
I was bailed up by a newish person to the town (newer than me that is!) who also runs a business here specialising in a particular food product. He strongly suggested that I start buying his product to support the local producers & keep the money in the town. Curiously a while back, he tried the same move on me but had obviously forgotten? I explained again that I was quite happy buying X’s product & saw no need to change. He then started bagging X’s product & stated that his was of far superior quality. I agreed to sample his product as I had earlier, but knew that compared to X’s, it really isn’t of the same quality, that’s not to say its bad though, just not as good in my opinion. However he strenuously insisted that I give him a go. By this stage it was getting a bit awkward & I felt that I didn’t need to be schooled in supporting local producers as I had demonstrated so before this person lobbed up.
‘Ok I’ll try it out, give it a go, OK?’ & then I twigged & added, ‘It would be nice to see you in here, once in a while’.

Dismissively, he waved that notion away & said, ‘Nah I never go out’.

The words rung in my ears like the clangers that they were & I went over the scenario in my mind as he left.
Right, so that I’m clear with this, I have to buy from & support local producers.
BUT, it wouldn’t occur to some of them of putting money in the till to support this business? Er..ok?
And that is the conundrum. Some producers are so one eyed about restaurants, cafes & consumers supporting their products but fail to make the connection that it’s a two way street by supporting them. This is especially true in rural sectors.
Just to be clear here. I enjoy a great relationship with many suppliers who frequent this establishment & others that they supply so I'm not pointing the bone at anyone in particular but there are a few out there that could be more supportive of the venues that support them.
I’m wondering if any other restaurants or cafes have experienced this kind of ‘one way support’ as well.

Exercising my Fast Food Demons

I’ve been thinking lately about what kind of customer I am when I go out to restaurants & cafes. When it comes to being invited out to a friend’s house for dinner I am often asked if they feel intimidated that I am a chef. No my friends don’t but sometimes people whom I don’t know very well get a bit anxious. It’s all unnecessary really as I am more than happy to get an invite & of course to let someone else do the cooking for a change. The truth is & I’ve said it before on many occasions that I go out for a good time & not to nitpick. For sure if I’m spending big I’ll have an eye for the details but mostly I’m very happy to just go along with the flow. It’s funny though you can usually spot a restaurateur, waiter or chef a mile away. For a start, their eyes are everywhere, observing, digesting. They will often huddle together whispering about something that has caught their attention, be it good or bad. Much of the time they’ll put the staff through the ringer by enquiring about everything from the quality of the stemware to the provenance of the baby capers. Some craftier ones just sit back, let it all unfold & smile knowingly like the Cheshire cat.
But as always, lets get back to me.
I have to confess I usually reserve my professional persona for the times when I cross over to the dark side & eat from one the fast Food Goliaths.
You see I am conflicted by eating at these places. They go against every thing I believe in yet sometimes I find myself there, teleported by the notion of a no-brainer, convenient answer to my question of immediate hunger. This conflict leads me to try & extract some sort of grim pleasure to outweigh the guilt I feel at being there in the first place. So what do I do about this?

I make it hard for them to like me as a customer.

My reasoning is simple. If I can raise my expectations so high as not to be met, then disappointment after disappointment might cure me ever considering going to these places again.

For instance if I am in a drive through, I always insist when I’m placing my order that my fries are served hot as I explain that the last time I came here they were stone cold & as a result I always get hot fries.
I don’t let them off the hook there though. Upon receiving my bag I sweetly ask the person attached to their name tag, ‘Might there be any napkins in here Darren?’
This is usually met with a moment of indecisive, blankness before they recover & say ‘Yes, they’re in the bag’, as they snatch a look at the line of waiting cars.
This is when I start to open the bag to reveal the moment of truth. Meanwhile the traffic has started to bank up behind me more & is now snaking around the corner.
‘Oh Dear, I say ‘No napkins’
Eager to be rid of me, a wad of white napkins is usually jabbed toward my window before I cheerily depart. Variations on this are to ask for salt & pepper sachets after you’ve gotten everything or if you want to really take it up to eleven, do all this but pay in five cent pieces with a shaky hand all the times saying to them you’ve saved up for the occasion.

Other times I am inside the beast, trapped like cattle on a death march to the counter.
I appear to have the normal zombie-like qualities of a typical customer, mouthing the menu items I want whilst looking up at the illuminated light box, searching for something that has remained undiscovered for 30+ years of mutual involvement.
‘Oh, excuse me’, I say. This breaks the spell & the staff member is jolted into an uncomfortable & unfamiliar territory that the company handbook has not prepared them for. Already they are thinking: ‘I don’t get paid enough for this’.
‘Yes, Sir’
‘I notice that you guys often collect the fries first & then the drink before grabbing the burgers. Sometimes though, other staff members grab the burgers that I know were intended for me & my fries usually go cold while I’m waiting’.

A ripple of uneasiness runs through the other waiting customers as my words hang in the air, until they eventually reach the young manager who peeks up over the grill like a headphone wearing Meerkat, his nose twitching anxiously.

A look of complete slack jawed blankness spreads across my servers face & I can almost hear the common sense neurons fizz & pop as he battles to not only comprehend what I have requested but also the fact that I am attempting a discourse outside of the safety zone that is a standard transaction.
I am aware of the shifting of feet & heavy sighs of the queue behind me. The manager sidles over & appears to quietly whisper something in my server’s ears.
It could be something like: Code Red, PPC (Potentially problematic customer) He then smiles broadly asks for my money & tells me that my order will be ready, as requested, in a jiffy.
I was aware that it had become spookily quiet, like being in the eye of what was until then a hurricane of clatter & commotion.
I watched as my server moved through the kitchen like an ambulance with its sirens on, everyone yielding to him as snatched together my order with a precise intensity before handing the bag over the counter to me with a tentative, ’is there anything else?’
‘That’s all’ I say with the voice of sweet sounding menace like Meryl Streep's in the Devil Wears Prada.
I leave, the place bustles back into life & my guilt has once more been exercised.

I've got a heavy heart

I‘m beginning to feel the effects of a heavy heart, the flame of the torch I carry for the produce of this area is flickering perilously in wind of uncertainty. It dimmed considerably when I learned of Paul Storr’s death & continues to threaten with its fickle & enfeebled glow
It seems like there’s been a bit of change in the air with our producers & certain food businesses here in Tasmania. Half of this change has just kind of evolved whilst the other half has been forced by circumstances beyond the control of the operator. Quite a few food businesses are on the market, nothing new there, every spring this cycle occurs but this time it feels a bit different. Something’s changed & I’ve noticed a subtle shift denting the once boundless enthusiasm & optimism of certain producers. It seems that living the dream might be taking its toll & a few people are considering throwing in the towel on businesses they have worked very hard to create.
A few weeks back I wrote about the trouble Tasmanian Dairy farmers were having getting a fair price for their milk. More recently, a well known Cheese maker had to deal with a hygiene related crisis. Coincidentally or perhaps as a result of this incident, a few other artisan cheese makers were told they had to spend considerably more to attain the required levels of hygiene standards. I have heard of two high profile producers who might give up the game because they simply do not have the extra money to upgrade their businesses to the required standard, a standard that until recently had always been met. There are even some suggesting that the interests of Big Milk are at the root of this push to squeeze the littel producers out, their apprent aim to homogenise the dairying landscape.
All this is dire news for those of us who cherish the efforts & products that help to make this part of the world unique. Either way we are heading into challenging times & no doubt there will be some casualties along the journey.
If local produce really matters to you, I suggest that you start supporting it or it might just disappear.

A soundtrack to eating

I’m curious about the very modern trend of supplying an i-phone to dining clients who can then fully immerse themselves into the mood of the chefs (Heston’s) creations on the plate. At first glimpse, it sounds like another bit of chicanery in the arsenal of tricks a chef employs to catch your attention & get you to spend you money. But on further inspection, this practice shares a bit with the ‘deprivation tank’ where the idea is to leave one totally disconnected, floating in darkness & left to your own thoughts & your lurking demons. Whilst I loved the Walkman & am a devotee of the i-pod the notion of insulating myself against everything else with the sound turned up to an eleven( thanks Spinal Tap!) that no one else can hear, disturbs me a tad.
What are we insulating ourselves against? Or are we merely enjoying a private headspace that only earphones can give us? BTW I've blogged before about music in restaurants here if you're interested.
In the spirit of this restaurant trend, I have come up with some everyday foods & their appropriate soundtracks

Food-Tuesday night spaghetti & meatballs
Soundtrack-The kids fighting & screaming over the TV remote

A rushed lunchbreak ham & cheese sanga
Your boss berating you for not meeting that deadline

A late night, drunken dodgy-kebab
An endless loop of someone dry retching

A tray of airline food
The hysterical wailing of a baby 3 rows behind

A bowl of questionably fresh mussels at the local cafe
The sound of a grumbling tummy & staccato bursts of angry farting

A moment of weakness induced Chiko roll
A wall of mewing felines at the cattery

Eating a not thoroughly washed mixed lettuce salad
The crunch of workboots on a gravel pathway

Some end of year office party savouries
The sound of two people shagging in the stationary cupboard

Some gobbled popcorn during movie night
The scratching noise of a finger down a blackboard

Sucking demurely at a medicated cough lozenge
The rasping phlegmy rattle & hawking of a swine flu sufferer

Feel free to add your own

I dream of doughnuts

Every Saturday morning we used to get up before light & head to the Viccy market for the weeks grocery shopping. Invariably I would be hungry & my stomach’s rumblings would reach a decibel level that could only be quelled by a bag of hot jam doughnuts from one of the doughnut vans. If my memory serves me correctly, I seem to recall at least three of them back in those days. They were bright polished metal food vans in the Airstream style of those gaudy American caravans popular in the forties & fifties, now design icons. Sadly I think only one remains.
I would gaze longingly into the curved windows watching the yellow little balls of dough prove on racks. The baker person would be furiously cutting them out on a floured expanse of bench with a nimble flick of the wrist, flick them onto a clear bit of bench.
The smell was intoxicating. A mixture of heavy sweetness & what I reckon might have been tallow laced with the aroma of cinnamon. They were inevitably too hot to handle but being brave I would always persist, running the risk of a burn from the hot cordon of jam that would erupt after a bite. Mostly I would eat half & leave the remainder for afters, in my duffle coat pocket, snug against my kidneys as I trailed my parents through the chilled & noisy corridors of the butchery & fishmonger sections.
Often on a whim, I make doughnuts, usually on days when the most people are coming to the café. Although I tend not to use a recipe, the basic mix of flour, yeast, sugar, milk & butter remains the same. Mostly I prefer the simple coating of cinnamon & sugar but often they have been embellished with such things as: a citrus curd, chocolate ganache, rich custard or peach & vanilla compote. Eating one always takes me back to one of those bustling Saturday mornings.

Big day out down South

A day spent down South today provided the chance to sample food from two very new food businesses. One was the elusive sushi place at Geeveston. It was very good sushi & in such a incongruous setting, which made it all the more appealing. We decamped to the park amongst a flock of bored teenagers, heads bowed as their nimble fingers were busy texting, perhaps the urgent message to their mates like : 'I'm texting you from the park & I'm SO bored'.
We ate two portions of 6 different sushi with salad, pickled ginger & wasabi & 2 filled inari-$16.00, outstanding value. It is a small but cheery place run but a lovely enthusiastic & smiley young couple.

Next it was off to the thermal pool at Hastings caves. We were the only ones there & had the pool to ourselves, that is apart from the swooping menace of the currajongs.We supped tea & dunked biscuits as the kids screamed & hollered & shouted, their noises I'm sure scaring away any one else looking for a warm quite lazy Sunday soak in the pool. I got the fire roaring in the shelter & soon three wet & shivering children stood before it drinking in the warmth until they were all steaming like human dim sims.

We then scooted back to Southport & walked along the beach & looked on enviously at the shacks right on the water & entertained the idea of one day buying one, remembering that one had come up a year or so ago & I had baulked at the asking price Kerrigan Style, 'Tell em they're dreamin'.

Then it was back to Dover & we caught up with some friends, holidaying with their new baby at their shack on the beach. More tea & wistful gazes at the sparkling still expanse of blue water, like an infinity pool from their verandah.

Finally on to The Dover Post Office for dinner. For those of you who might remember the old pizza shop that was once housed in this building, it has been totally re-vamped & overhauled. What remains is a lovely warm dining room & brand spanking new kitchen, the wood burning oven taking centre stage. Let me get straight to it, the pizzas were simply, the best I've had in Tasmania. Big call I know, but that's how brilliant I felt they were, so congratulations to Charmaine & Brent. Lovely base, crisp but chewy, tasty, round in shape but pleasantly uneven around the edge, quality toppings & not piled on either, just enough, restrained, knowing, wise. Very delicious. My conclusion, was that Dover is very lucky to have pizzas of this calibre in the town. They do other foods as well but it was the pizzas that I came to try & I wasn't disappointed. We'll be back.

This one goes out to the Dads

A few things about my dad

Took Chinese cooking lessons in the 70’s.
Was a very keen home cook
Perfected the art of smoking joints of meat in the Webber
Can fix anything
Used to ride a Lambretta in 60’s London
Was a Mod
Travelled the world
Had been to the old Yugoslavia, Ceylon & East Pakistan
Was a printer by trade
Is an excellent drawer
Was a terrific swimmer
Used to drink like a fish
Had two kids
Loves food
Has a great sense of Humour
Was married in London in 65
Married a girl from country NSW
Is excellent at scrabble
Knows a lot of facts
Was a scrapper
Tinkers with cars
Was a trade teacher
Lifelong labour voter
Trade unionist
Shop steward
Golfer
Smelled of petrol, sweat & beer
Loves motor sport
Lifelong reader of books
Has a temper
Is very demonstrable with affection
Lives with his dog, Folly
Is missing mum

Vale Paul Storr

My thoughts & best wishes go out to the surviving family of Paul Storr, who sadly died on Wednesday. Paul the founder of the Welcome Swallow Cyderworks in Petchey's Bay, near Cygnet, made some fantastic, unique & idiosyncratic traditionally brewed English ciders & Perry. Paul, you will be missed & our little community of producers will be a whole lot less colourful with your passing. Your passion for your product was infectious & you were one of the originals who helped to spread the word of the growing awareness & reputation of produce from the Huon

Steve

The unfair advantages of milk on the mainland

Yesterday I was shocked to learn that National Foods pay their NSW dairy farmers .48 cents per litre of milk compared to .20 per litre for Tasmanian milk. This is at least .10 a litre BELOW the cost of production! Not to mention .28 less than the mainland farmers are getting! How can this be possible?
Unless this is addressed, many Tasmanian dairy farming families face bankruptcy. Read more here

The Food Machine at work

Really awful, really shocking