Unsolicited email from a friend

Hello friend,
My name is Cecil St Hubbins. I am a 45 YO white male from a privileged background and I am seeking your donations and assistance to help me reach my goal.
When I reached my mid-forties, I felt that I’ve still got my joie de vivre and needed to find a way to demonstrate this, you know, to show that I have still my Mojo, however I don’t want to simply prove my physical prowess by doing a marathon, trek or a mountain climb. I will take the path less travelled and methodically work my way toward achieving my aspiration.
Initially, as a sort of training run, I intend to eat and drink in all the two to three hatted restaurants in Australia and stay in five-star accommodation along the way. I know it’s ambitious, a little bit whacky and has never been attempted before but I have got this urge to do something that really matters.
‘Cecil you are a NUT! And you are CRAZY to try this’ I hear you say and yes it’s been the story of my life, always challenging the status quo. Like when I was in Primary School, I lobbied our Council to sponsor my family and I on a fact-finding trip to Switzerland to study children’s playgrounds. Or the time in year ten when I received a grant to visit a string of top flight Tennis Acadamy's on America’s East Coast. These experiences forged a conviction in me, a principle that has burned intensely throughout my life and that belief was if I wanted something so badly, someone else would always have to pay for it.
So as you can imagine I’ll need lots of cash. These kinds of undertaking aren’t cheap and I know you have got to dig deep. I know you can do it though, I have faith so here’s some helpful ways to get you started to help you save for me:

Instead of getting those lamb chops for dinner try onions instead
Walk instead of buying petrol
Sell off useless old family jewellery
Take up sewing instead of purchasing new clothes
Cut down on unnecessary personal hygiene products
Trim the kids’ school lunches

You get the picture.
Look there’s no denying it’ll be tough but remember when you’re at a really low ebb, spare a thought for me, attempting my Herculean challenge and it’ll put everything you’ve sacrificed into perspective, You’ll be making one man very, very happy.
Thanks so much
Cecil
BSB 123-456
Acc No-789 456 123

An idle moment on Twitter

Mr Sta-Puft says: Nice list Steve

#foodhorrormovies Groat Busters
#foodhorrormovies The lair of the White Wormwood
#foodhorrormovies Vegeta, Mistress of the Dark
#foodhorrormovies Julia Childs-Play
#foodhorrormovies Jello Grave
#foodhorrormovies Salads Lot
#foodhorrormovies The Off Spring-Lamb
#foodhorrormovies Herbraiser
#foodhorrormovies or Invasion of the Bodum Snatchers?
#foodhorrormovies Whatever happened to Baby jam?
#foodhorrormovies the Floating-Island of Dr Moreau
#foodhorrormovies or Rosemarys babycorn?
#foodhorrormovies Fear no Edam
#foodhorrormovies Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hydrolized vegetable protein
#foodhorrormovies Resident Edam
#foodhorrormovies Dawn of the Dhaal
#foodhorrormovies Motel Gel
#foodhorrormovies Children of the Cornjack
#foodhorrormovies The Hills have Pink-Eyes
#foodhorrormovies Crepe Show
#foodhorrormovies Next of Kimchi
#foodhorrormovies Frittata the 13th
#foodhorrormovies The Edam Dead
#foodhorrormovies Dead and Burritoed
#foodhorrormovies Pomme Night
#foodhorrormovies Munster-House
#foodhorrormovies Nightmare on Elk meat
#foodhorrormovies The Ramen
#foodhorrormovies Little shop of Hors d' oeuvres
#foodhorrormovies The return of the Liverwurst Dead
#foodhorrormovies An American weisswurst in London
@Commonerfitzroy Poultry-geist

What IS authentic anyway?

Hey look, that Asian bloke CAN make pasta!

Hey do you ever peer into the kitchen or the dining room of an ethnic restaurant and wonder if the staff originate from the same country as the cuisine they serve? You often see the signs boasting ‘Authentic Thai’ or ‘Genuine Japanese’ but are likely to encounter some industrious people of Chinese or other Asian ethnicity predominating. I’ve heard first hand that many people are disparagingly dismissive of such eateries, deeming them not worthy because they do not apparently have the Bona fides to cook the food of their namesake cuisine because they are not from that country. Curiously, these same people usually won’t bat an eyelid though when they are not knee deep in Giuseppe’s or Pierres when they visit the posh new Italian or the hip French themed bistro and, but instead are served predominantly by Anglo’s. To me this is an ignorant view and inherently racist at its core.
You see there’s a kind of reverse cultural snobbism at play here. Take a white boy cooking sexy Thai or a Frenchman doing up to the minute Sth American and we all go, yea I geddit, ahead of the curve, they’ve funked it up, cherry picked the best bits and re-imagined the cuisine to make it more contemporary.
Conversely get some hard working Vietnamese people who decide to open a Tapas bar because it’s the food that they love and we collectively screw our faces up, thinking and in my opinion quite patronisingly, ‘What do they know about Tapas? And that they should ‘stick to what they know best’.
Equally how many ‘Modern Australian’ restaurants where black-Ninja clad Anglo chefs toss out Viet rice paper rolls that are as authentically Vietnamese as Wagyu beef is to a Subway roll.
I’ve written before about my theory on the diaspora of ethnic cuisines and their relationship with their adopted nation who were once their conquerors or colonists and the at times superior relationship we have over them. This often manifests in how little or how much we expect to pay for their food.
However this whole notion of Authenticity is really very problematic. Firstly, who or what determines the Real McCoy? Secondly there is no room for the notion that cuisines develop over time to embrace new foods and techniques. Thirdly and this might be the most contentious, is a cuisine stagnant or dead because it has not evolved? Look around the world to see how 1950’s Naples has influenced the notion of Italian eateries and then look how out of touch it is when compared to the modern Italian restaurants today. Of course there are some traditions that cling after all good dishes eventually come to their conclusion having been whittled over generations to arrive at their identifiable terminus.
Immigrants have always made use of what’s around them to try and replicate flavours from the old country and if this goes on long enough, eventually these modifications ‘become’ the cuisine. Just look at Malaysia as a perfect example where a style of cookery has embraced other influences and morphed into its own identity. So what would we consider the truly authentic tastes of say, Penang, Pre-Indian and pre Chinese? I’m not so sure.
Cuisine is always changing, like language and I think it’s becoming more difficult as the world shrinks to find anything really authentic, so anyone should be able to cook it.

Chefs working in the country

I love looking at chefs ads in the various papers. Between, them and sales reps, they’ve always been great source of information to the state of play within the hospitality industry.
It’s interesting to read the hooks used to try and lure people to that place of employ. ‘A surfers paradise’, ‘Sea-tree Change’ and ‘No weekends’ often cited as bait. It makes me giggle as elements of the job and its responsibilities are often way down on the list, it’s as if they’re targeting only the positives aspects of such a position and not examine what they’ll be expecting from the successful applicant. In fact many ads are actually repentant in their tone, making apologies for their trading hours, conditions of employment and location. I don’t understand this tact, I mean primarily the business want a worker not someone who expects to be enjoying life as a tourist in Club Med. There’s no denying the fact that it’s a challenge to lure people to a job but emphasising these facets only leads to both parties not being entirely clear as to what expectations each has of the other.
I read some of these ads and expect that between bouts of surfing, bushwalking, kayaking, diving, hobby farming, playing sport, following ones hobby and generally enjoying a carefree life, one is ‘fitting-in’ the demands of the kitchen and one employment obligations.
Anyone who knows kitchen, the kitchens that make most of their food that is, will attest that there’s very little time for other pursuits and days off are often spend recovering from long bouts of work. In fact, I don’t know of any kitchen staff working in busy environments who have time for that work-life balance that we hear so often recited.
The reality is that in rural locations, if you have a job in a restaurant or café it means that the place is one of the rare businesses that is busy. This remarkable in its own right, that a country business is defying national trends and managing to swim against the tide that many regional areas are suffering. The irony then is that you’ll be working very hard and often harder than your city cousins because the business cannot afford to hire as many staff. This then has a knock-on effect on your time off, meaning you’ll more than likely be doing extra shifts when it gets busier or if someone is sick or on holidays.
So, although working in the country definitely has its benefits (after all its what I have chosen to do so I’m speaking from experience here) it’s not all meandering down country lanes foraging for Death-Caps you know!

Profit-why is it a dirty word in Hospitality?

Interesting post from Rita today prompted me to bring up a matter that many restaurateurs and café owners consider to be a taboo issue, not so much for them but for some members of the general public. This topic is rarely ever acknowledged yet alone talked about and for many people the mere mention of it causes them great distaste and in some cases revulsion. Banished to the darkest corners, its revered and guiding flame reduced to a faint flicker of an ancient candle eternally at risk of being snuffed out by critical exhalations. Tis the Mercantile Love that dare not speak its name and thy name is ‘Profit’.
For reasons unclear to me, some people seem decidedly uncomfortable with hospitality businesses not only aiming to make a profit but also declaring it with verve and gusto. It just isn’t the done thing apparently, well at least for some in this country, perplexing really! It seems that to celebrate one’s raison d’etre is definitely on the nose. Does this have anything to do with the thought of others perhaps perceived to be doing better than ourselves? Is it too simple to suggest the Tall Poppy syndrome at play? Or do we project a false sort of altruism onto all hospitality businesses, deluding ourselves that they are doing it ‘For the Love’ and thus making excess money off us is somehow not in the spirit of generosity? Adding to this is a greater awareness these days of how much food costs so when we see something sold at a much higher price in a restaurant, a familiar item that we can purchase for the home, we rightly question its value but then I think we got a step further and we fall into the old ‘They’re making a killing’ kind of mentality. The next step down on this dreary ladder is the notion that ‘well if they’re busy then they must be only appealing to the masses’. This mind-set never fails to make me giggle. Firstly: if lots of people like something, it does not automatically mean that they are not providing something worthy or of note. Secondly: Isn’t it a moment to celebrate that a business is doing well rather than seeking a reason to fault it on shaky, less than egalitarian grounds?
Augmenting this attitude as we submit ourselves to a ‘service’ of sorts in an eatery or bar, it might be hard to shake off the reality that we are not in fact the Dukes and Duchesses, recipients of this attention but merely paying customers, forfeiting money in exchange to feel so for a moment. The cold reality is that someone is profiting from our inability to find peace, contentment or escape in its ingestible forms and this ruins the intoxicating charade.
Not wanting to end on a sour note nor make myself a large target for the suggestion that profit is all I’m interested in, which those who know me will attest is not my only passion I will just say that it should not be deemed a dirty word.

Vicki Pollard on the ethics of blogging

The straight-talking Vicky Pollard on: the ethics of blogging, crowd-turfing, cash-for-comment, positive restaurant reviewing and credibility. Just substitute the Barristers questions for your own, the answers will magically be the same.