Breakfast of champions

Here in New York there always seems to be something to do or somewhere to be at night, so the only meals I've really been preparing lately are breakfasts. Summer is definitely here, and with it lots of delicious fresh produce - as well as sweltering days that leave you no choice but to skulk around the apartment, from fan to fan, in little more than a bra and jocks. But back to breakfasts. I try to resist the plumpening siren song of bagels and cream cheese every day. One thing that has made that easier is discovering that my obsession with tex-mex food could carry over to the breakfast table. Enter, huevos rancheros.

There are many different ways to make these delicious Mexican breakfast eggs. My version is mostly a rip-off of a recipe from Smitten Kitchen (do follow the link for clearer instructional photos), with a fresh little salsa. Start by chopping up half a red onion, an avocado, a tomato or two and a handful of cilantro (coriander). Squeeze over the juice of a lime, add some cracked pepper and sea salt and mix it all up. It's somewhere between salsa and guacamole and I serve it with pretty much everything I cook.

Heat up a tiny bit of oil in a non-stick pan, lightly fry a tortilla until it's golden. Flip over the tortilla and sprinkle some grated cheese on top. I use fluorescent orange cheddar, but only because that's how Americans seem to like to make their cheese. Once the cheese is melting slightly, crack an egg on top. Season with a little salt and pepper. It's pretty impossible to keep the egg from running off the sides of the tortilla, especially if your stovetop or indeed entire kitchen is on a slant, like mine. Don't stress. Things are only going to get messier and uglier from this point, but I promise the results will be delicious. Once the egg is about half cooked, you need to gently flip the whole thing over again and fry the other side of the egg for a few seconds. If you work out how to do this without egg going everywhere, please let me know how.

Slide your concoction onto a plate, egg-side-up. Top with the avocado mix and lashings of sour cream. Fold it as best you can and eat it with your hands, wearing a shirt you can get food all over and a big grin. You're welcome.

How to eat an orange

Years ago now, I lived in San Francisco for a couple of months while doing an internship. It was a fantastic experience, not least because I lived with an amazing family. The mother was French, the two teenage kids were bilingual, the house was on a steep hill in North Beach with Alcatraz visible from the living room and sea lions' guttural grunts carried on the wind from Pier 39. I learned so much from them (the family, not so much the sea lions) about giving, generosity, and the truly random and surprisingly crude French sense of humour.

But the most tangible lesson I took away was how to peel an orange.

Each night dinner followed a fairly regular routine which I’ve always assumed drew on French influences, but could have just been a personal quirk. There would be a main meal – usually some roasted vegetables, maybe some brown rice, small but perfect steaks or duck-legs or some other meat. Then a huge bowl of green salad leaves appeared and everyone helped themself to a plateful, doused with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and cracked pepper, mopped up with crusty bread. Then Alix would make a pot of herbal tea, and there would be oranges and dark chocolate.

There was only one way to eat your orange.

It took me some time to realise this. Where I come from, orange season is footy season. Oranges are quartered and smashed into the mouth, bright skin wedged into the gums like a hillbilly mouthguard, fibrous pulp collecting between the teeth. On very special occasions an adult might denude a piece of fruit in a single spiral, presenting the serpentine peel with a flourish to an open-mouthed youngster. So I attacked the oranges of California with gusto, is what I’m driving at. I didn’t notice at first the cringes with every blatant bisection I made.

There was only one way to eat your orange.

First you use a sharp knife to slice in a circle around the top and bottom of the orange. You don’t cut into the flesh, just through the skin. Twist and pull out the circle. Make angled cuts vertically around the orange. Again, don’t pierce the flesh, just cut through the hard skin. Make about five of these cuts so you can peel off each segment. Pull off the hairy white bits of pith. Break the fruit into segments and eat with relish while telling dirty jokes.

In theory you shouldn’t get sticky hands because the fruit stays intact and no juice is spilled during the peeling. In reality I still end up a mess. But I still hold out hope of some day being able to disrobe an orange at record speed with no muss, no fuss.

How to get up early

In summer, sleeping in is for mugs. The best thing to do is to roll out of bed straight onto the bike, and be at the pool before you’re even 100% awake. Track the sun’s trajectory as you peer over a kickboard, go to work with slick hair, eat a banana while you clear your inbox. Easy.

But now, even in tropical Brisbane, the seasons are turning. As the autumn mornings get chillier, it takes more coaxing to crawl out of bed's warm cuddle. So here is one method I’ve developed for getting up earlier, even if the sun’s sleeping in. Not to get anything done, necessarily (though you could fit in a load of washing or some writing). Just for a taste of mid-week luxury, or to start your working week gently.

1. Put a cup of rolled oats into a saucepan with 2 cups of hot water and a pinch of salt*. Just to soak. No cooking yet.
2. Have a shower.
3. Hit play on Fleet Foxes' Helplessness Blues
4. Add 1 cup of milk to the oats and turn on the hotplate as low as possible. Forget about it for half an hour.
5. Make coffee.
6. Make your bed or you’ll be tempted to get back in.
7. Read something nourishing in the half light. The latest Lifted Brow. Anything free and lengthy from the New Yorker. Or if you’re not up for words at that hour, prep yourself a good packed lunch.
8. After half an hour turn the heat up slightly on you porridge and stir as it thickens. A few minutes later it’ll be ready to serve – stir through some cinnamon and grated apple or pear, pour on some milk and sprinkle some brown sugar. You should have enough porridge to last you three generous breakfasts (reheat for 2 minutes in the microwave, stirring at the minute-mark).
9. More coffee. Finish your reading.
10. Apply shoes and ipod headphones, ride bike to work, smile serenely and infuriate others doing the Monday morning struggle.


*Recipe for slow-cooked, old-school porridge borrowed wholesale from the deliciously talented girls at Trotski & Ash. Forget packets of instant oats – this recipe can turn 50 cent Home Brand rollers into gooey liquid gold.

Mexican stand off

In so many respects, Australian food is better than American food. Often it's fresher, healthier, more creative and is served in less-insanely sized portions. But aside from cheap pizza by the slice, we lag terribly behind the Yanks when it comes to Mexican food. Specifically, the Californian approach to Mexican food, which features more fresh ingredients like avocado, coriander, lime, fresh salsas and slaws. It's a cuisine perfectly suited to the Aussie taste and climate, so to me it seems like a glaring hole in the market that no one is making it here. Worse still, we're all raised on Old El Paso and no-one seems to realise the supriority of soft over hard shell tacos. They taste better and they don't disintegrate in your hand after the first bite!

There are a handful of canny locals taking advantage of the niche. Melbourne's Taco Truck, from the Beatbox Kitchen guys, gets it. And if you're a Sydney kid you'll no doubt have discovered the amazing soft-shell tacos at the Newport on Cleveland over summer. Side note: how much is Redfern going off these days? But up here in Brisbane, a mate and I set ourselves a mission: to find good Mexican in Brizvegas.

Our first trip was to Tuckeria (421 Brunswick St, the Valley), which is inspired by the style of food served up in The Mission district of San Francisco. That's where this started for me, to be honest - a neon Friday night at Taqueria Cancun two years ago with my SF friend Bobby. Strings of intricately cut-out coloured paper decorations, freshly fried corn chips in a plastic basket, spicy fresh salsa, and a transcendant prawn burrito I've been trying to find the equal of ever since. Haab, back in my Williamsburg hood in NYC, came close. Could Tuckeria? When we finally arrived after plenty of online research, the restaurant itself was slicker than I expected, served up next to a Grill'd in the Brunswick Central shopping complex. But the food delivered on its promise.

Soft shell tacos in twos and threes, dressed with fresh salad, a wedge of lime and your choice of meat - I had the prawn (above). My companion had a chicken quesadilla which prompted her to perform those eye-rolling, grunting spasms of gastronomical delight. It worked out to about $20 each for our meals, beers and home-cooked corn chips with guacamole. Coriander is served complimentary with anything but you have to pay for other extras like guac, sour cream, jalapenos or beans and rice. The servings were generous (though more prawns would have been nice) and it was delicious but still left us feeling healthy. We rated it 4.5 sombreros out of 5.

Our next stop was Guzman Y Gomez, a chain that's nothing new in Sydney but we'd heard raves from a fellow Mex-loving Brizvegan. Tucked away amid the many delicious options at Emporium, G&G was pumping on a Sunday lunch time. Lots of people were coming in for takeaway - you can order ahead online - and we did have to wait a little while for our order. Could have been that I'm-starving-timewarp though. My barramundi burrito ($10.50 + extra for guac) was mild and tasty, with a nice balance of rice and black beans and cheese. My mate had a range of soft-shell tacos (3 for $10.50) which she enthusiastically endorsed, though she regretted getting a vegetarian one when she tasted the spicy chicken and steak chipotle options. Comforting and filling, but still G&G didn't have the zingy freshness of Tuckeria. 3.5 sombreros out of 5.

We always planned for our next stop to be Mad Mex (Brunswick St Mall in the Valley), but the mission has taken on some urgency with rumours that they are currently pimping a one kilogram burrito. Word is, if you can eat the entire, $18 thing you will be rewarded with a T-shirt. "Does the shirt actually say 'I just ate a one kilo burrito',?" asked a friend. "It would be too embarrassing to wear it in public." Au contraire, Sarah. Au contraire. I can think of few life achievements I would more happily broadcast emblazoned across my chest than "I just ate a one kilo burrito". And luckily, a T-shirt is a look that lasts longer than the meat sweats that would doubtless accompany such reckless overconsumption.

Changing tack for a second, did you know that Todd of The Selby has now turned his lens and artistic eye to producers and preparers of food? His photographic essays on the homes of creative folk have long been a must-see, and The Edible Selby is no different; only more likely to make you hungry rather than burn with jealousy over art-stuffed Manhattan apartments and Auckland seaside studios. There are even short films, like this one on Rockaway Taco which I can't wait to check out this American summer...

Rockaway Taco, A Selby Film from the selby on Vimeo.

Monkey business

Hard to believe it's been a whole year since this little guy first joined us. Especially when I think back to the teeny tiny fragile little bundle who arrived so early - compared to one-year-old Louis, who seems fatter each time I see him. His teeth are coming through at the moment, so his smile looks a little different every few days. It's a smile that gets a lot of use. This kid knows how to work a crowd. It was pretty tough trying to squeeze in a birthday cuddle with him today, all his doting grandparents and aunties and uncles did not want to give him up!

If I knew any other babies to buy presents for, I would totally rip off the amazing book Louis' auntie Carol found for him: M is for Metal. It's an alphabet book of Dr Seussian rhymes, with the common theme of hairy hard rock. From Akka Dakka to Zeppelin, via Gene's tongue and groupies, this book is genius. And it's Aussie! Created by music writer Barry Divola and artist Paul McNeil, you can have a sneak peek flip-through here. My favourite was:

S is for Stones
That just keep on rolling
Most of their fans
Have now switched to
Lawn bowling

Anyway, being unemployed I had little money for presents but lots of time on my hands, so I made the birthday cake. Regular readers will know of my obsession with kids' birthday cakes of the old Women's Weekly stable, but believe it or not they've never done a monkey (Louis' spirit animal).

Luckily all my time spent procrastinating on recipe blogs paid off and I remembered Smitten Kitchen's monkey cake. Deb made a delicious two-layer banana cake with chocolate and buttercream frosting. I didn't really tweak the recipe, except to use half a cup less sugar in the cake and to add some gratuitous smarties. As my friend Reboot wisely said, "Smarties are a must for any one-year-old's cake! Just because they might choke on them doesn't mean we can't pick them off and eat them! Also don't be afraid to cover it with 30-something candles - always a good challenge for the blower regardless of age!"

Meanwhile I have a whole book of Party Animals, cakes decorated like various adorable wildlife, and there are at least six I am dying to try. Starting with the ice-cream cake echidna, with TeeVee Snack spines and a coat of Ice-Magic. So if you know of any little kids with birthdays coming up, or even big kids, who might be up for some novelty cake action: holla!

Cabin fever

In a perfect illustration of how much Brisbane feels like it's come alive in the years since I moved away, I fell for a little cafe on the weekend which was a musty old pharmacy the last time I lived in the neighbourhood. My little sister's just moved into that area that's either Ashgrove or Red Hill or Paddington, depending on who you ask. Her new pad's a few streets from the townhouse I called home for most of my uni days, in Bramble Terrace. She and her mates recommended this new-ish hole-in-the-wall on Enoggera Terrace. It's called either Cabin or Cabinessence, depending on how fancy you want to sound.

Cabin itself isn't fancy. If you want anything other than coffee, mind-blowing avocado toast or a pot of tea, you'd best look elsewhere. My sister recounted a telling anecdote about when she took a couple of more conservative country boys out for breakfast. When she asked at the counter for a menu, she was told by the person behind it, "I am the menu". The boys were already out the door.

Granted, our coffees took their sweet time in arriving to our street-side table. But when they did, they were gooood, and served on vintage saucers while each table's sugar bowl sported a different old novelty teaspoon. Little touches like these made it feel like a treat to sit on cushion-topped milk crates and mismatched old chairs, flocks of pot plants adding to the nanna's-sunroom vibe. I've passed the joint a few times since, and it's always pretty packed. And - seriously - that avocado toast is something else.


It was all part of a perfect Brizvegas Saturday: an early start at the West End markets + round two coffee at Cabin + window shopping down Latrobe Terrace into Paddington + accidentally spending the last of my funds on a cheeky lil Karen Walker dress (seriously, Meow Meow's closing down and there are some crazy bargains to be had) + lunch dumplings from the Kelvin Grove markets + an afternoon nap in the air-con + riding Baby Blue over to West End, listening to Yeasayer while my huge old pleated skirt threatened Marilyn Monroe moments + rounding out the night boogying to blues at the Boundary after jugs of Coopers and a delicious cheap dinner.

So yeah - I'm gonna be in Brisbane for a couple months. Wanna hang out? x

TEX MEX

My housemate has recently rediscovered her crockpot (not to be confused with the similarly addictive household appliance, the crackpipe) and I couldn't wait to give it a try. I had a go at recreating a dish we had at Back Forty a couple Sundays ago, called pozole. It's basically a Mexican soup/stew made with pork and white hominy (which is a fun word to say). Hominy, also called pozole/posole, gives the dish its name - it's a kind of puffed white corn, in which the kernels are processed to have the bran and germ removed. The Back Forty pozole was made with pork on the bone, which I wanted to use, but all the recipes I found online called for boneless pork rib, and that was what my butcher recommended, and so it goes.

This is the basic recipe I used, but I'll write it out here with the tweaks I made (metric system, how I miss you):

POZOLE (serves 5/6 people)
3 lbs diced boneless pork
2 brown onions, diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 big teaspoon cumin
1 big teaspoon fresh thyme
a few oregano leaves
1 29 ounce tin of diced tomatoes
1 29 ounce tin of white hominy
1 4 ounce tin of chopped green chilli peppers

Brown the pork and fry the onion until it's translucent, then throw all the ingredients into a crock pot and leave it on low. The recipe said for 5-6 hours, but I think mine cooked for about eight by the time everyone turned up for dinner. By then the pork was flaking apart when poked with a wooden spoon, which is the effect I was hoping for. Now I am the whitest wuss alive when it comes to chilli, but even I felt like this could have used more heat. We threw in a big slug of chipotle sauce, which helped. But my advice would be that if you know and love chillies (I am a novice), go nuts. That said, the pozole still had a lovely flavour and aroma.

The beauty of pozole is it can be a really comforting, warming stew; but you can also change it up with some fresh sides. This is the kind of Mexican food I love, all about colour and sharing and fragrant herbs and sharp citrus lightening the hearty meat dishes. So alongside the red-orange polka dot pozole I served blue corn tortillas; fresh green avocado, lime wedges and chopped cilantro (coriander); and a bright purple slaw.

The slaw was perhaps the big win of the night, one that will definitely be wheeled out again in the future. I ripped it off wholesale from my favourite food blog, Smitten Kitchen. Basically you just finely shred a red cabbage, halve and finely slice a red onion, and toss it all with a green onion dressing. To make the dressing, blend a cup of chopped green onions with some red wine vinegar, a dollop of mayo, a big glug of olive oil and some salt and pepper. The recipe calls for two serrano chillis - I just threw in some jalapenos and it could definitely have handled more heat.

I love this view across the rooftop from my kitchen window to the church down the street...

Tour & taste

The Tour & Taste bikeride started in Cobble Hill at Rolling Orange. The gods of New York smiled on us with a gorgeous sunny Saturday, and we pedalled Brooklyn's well-appointed bike-paths and over the Brooklyn Bridge. We were a motley group - stylish Dutch bikers alongside beat-up mountain bikes and hybrids, young and old; one couple had even come from San Francisco.

Once the Brooklyn Bridge spat us out in Manhattan, we wove west through Chinatown to take the Westside Greenway bikepath up the western edge of the island. If you're looking for a scenic bike-trail in New York this is a great place to start - dedicated cycle path, lots of space and great views out to the Hudson and beyond. Then we were eastward bound once more, headed for the Union Square Farmers Market.

These markets are apparently some of the best in the world, and lots of New York's top chefs source their produce here. And it's not just fruit and veg - there are meats, poultry, game, honey, flowers, cheeses, pastries, breads, wines, seafood... anything delicious you can think of, and then a bunch of things you wouldn't believe exist. Cotton candy spun from maple syrup. Wild ginseng from upstate New York so rare they keep it in a locked box and sell it for $500 a pound.

We got a special tour from Vandaag chef Phillip Kirschen-Clark, who guided us through his favourite producers and the seasonal ingredients he would later be serving up for our three-course lunch. This is a bloke who clearly loves his job, and loves the challenge of interpreting produce into unconventional meals. He hammed up his banter with the various stall-holders, begging one to find him some reindeer meat. "The closest I can get is elk, but I want reindeer!" he enthused, perhaps already planning a macabre Christmas menu.

Did I mention it was a stunning day? God I love this city. The restaurant itself is on 2nd Ave in the Lower East Side. We parked out flotilla of bikes on the footpath outside and luxuriated in the sundrenched interior, designed with clean modern lines by architect Eric Mailaender.

Vandaag is Dutch for "today". The cuisine is an odd marriage of Dutch and Danish influences, both countries which share a similar climate to New York and therefore seasonal produce is in sync. They even had a bike as part of the decor! Loaded up with squash that would later become part of a weirdly delicious hot cider cocktail.

The restauranteur talked us through the menu as we nibbled on a range of breads, dips and sausage. We made our selections from the set menu - a kale salad studded with green strawberries, squash served both pickled and battered; gravlax, duck confit or dandelion smorrebrod for mains.

One of my favourite parts were these pickle pots, which included pickled pears and radishes as well as the standard gherkins. So delicious.

I got so caught up in the food and conversation I forgot to take photos of the starters and mains! But I did capture the amazing dessert; a wafer-thin waffle sandwich filled with a concoction of salted molasses and chickory. There are no words.

It was one of those languid, drawn-out lunches you relish for half the afternoon, but the food was light enough that the bike-ride back to Brooklyn wasn't impossible. I cannot deny, however, that a well-earned post-prandial disco nap was taken once the bikes were returned to Rolling Orange.

Seriously. Best birthday ever.

Turtle burger

Rusty is this mad guy a friend is couch-surfing with here in Williamsburg. He has a rad band called Justice Of The Unicorns, is never seen without a baseball cap and a ginger beard, and tells the funniest stories you've ever heard. His day job is maintaining one of Manhattan's parks. The image of him hooning around in a golf buggy, mowing lawns in criss-cross patterns "to look like Yankee Stadium" and turning the sprinklers onto homeless dudes who won't move, is surely the stuff of a great sitcom. But what he does in this video, this is amazing. It's probably going to blow your mind. It's the turtle burger.



Rusty can't lay claim to inventing the turtle burger (not made from actual turtles, but suprisingly realistic); he stumbled across it on a fishing website discussion board. Like any great urban legend it's almost impossible to trace the turtle burger back to a single individual - the turtle burger's origins are shrouded in mystery.

It's basically a mince patty wrapped in bacon (in a basket weave), with sausages stuck in for legs, tail and head. The loving slow motion of this video makes the whole process seem so deliberate, the clipped detail of the toes and mouth seem like surgery. And best of all is when they get the deli guys to sell it at the end. Rusty keeps sending random friends in to request it, just to freak out the deli guys.

Desperate to try making one....

She's apples

It was a gorgeous autumn Sunday to get out of the city and see some of the New York state (and New Jersey) countryside. Fall is in full swing and the colours of the leaves are just amazing! When my friends organised to go apple-picking, I assumed it would be a quiet little farm and we'd be frolicking in the mud, surrounded by trees loaded with apples. In actual fact the farm (orchard slash winery) was packed with people, a band was playing, all kinds of food were on offer and while you could buy a bag to pick apples into, they had signs up saying there were very few apples on the trees...

And they weren't kidding! It was quite a mission just to spot an apple, and some potentially dangerous (particularly given the sangria on offer) tree-climing ensued. But in the end we harvested enough for an apple pie or two...

Seriously. Look at this countryside. They really do have red barns here.

Dinner for one

Hit up the McCarren Park farmers market again today, and what a haul of goodness I dragged home. After the artery-assault of lunch, dinner called for something vegetable-based. Initially I planned on having steak but decided to just have a salad of fresh greens and paper-thin slices of radish, alongside these gorgeous fingerling potatoes tossed with butter and thyme and chives. Winner.

All the while the apartment warmed up with the scent of caramel from the oven as I baked some pears. Just a bit of butter and brown sugar, and they came out just right. Ate them with a dollop of unsweetened vanilla yoghurt, though it would have been nice to have some nuts on top perhaps.

Fry society

Stopping for sustenance in Park Slope (a rather posh Brooklyn neighbourhood) today, comfort food was high on our weary, vestigially hungover agenda. When we looked across the road and saw Chipshop, it was like a sign from above. Chipshop does British-style food. Read: everything is fried, everything comes with chips. And real chips - the sturdier, stodgier cousin of the usual anorexic french fries you get here. The fish and chips has been voted among New York's best, and you can even round off your meal with a deep-fried chocolate bar of your choice.

Eschewing the various butties and fish-finger creations, my companions went for the pie and chips, drenched in gravy. The pie was phenomenal - melt-in-your-mouth steak and juicy mushrooms. I resisted the siren song of the deep fried dark chocolate Bounty, and decided to be adventurous and taste the fried macaroni cheese. BEHOLD:

And inside its crispy battered suit? Extremely creamy mac n cheese. It was the size of a softball and 50 times more likely to kill. About halfway through I had to stop and just focus on breathing... felt like I was moving in slow motion from all the cholesterol idling through my arteries. As a stultifyingly unhealthy and fabulously naughty snack, fried mac and cheese does everything you'd expect. It's just a bit too much, even for me...

Hot DOG

First thing you see when you alight from the subway at Coney Island - the end of the line, the very bottom of Brooklyn - is a huge greasy food chain called Nathan's. (not pictured - this burger boy is cuter than the actual yellow and green facade). Nathan's apparently invented the hotdog, and this place is the site of an annual 4th of July hotdog eating contest. Naturally, I had to try it. I got a cheese dog and, in case that wasn't bad enough for me, some chilli cheese fries.

Isn't this the most awesomely repulsive thing you've ever seen? The cheese is luke-warm liquid, pumped out of a plastic dispenser. The chili looks radioactive. By the time I got my haul down to the boardwalk so I could sit and eat, the fries had all but disintegrated under this mushy mash. It bore not even a passing resemblance to any actual food group and yet the only way it could have been more delicious is if I were in Kings Cross at about 4am. Oh and PS, I'm pretty sure I could have had bacon added to both the fries and the dog, had I so desired.

First days in BK

So after the thrilling chaos of East Village, on Friday I moved into a sublet in Brooklyn's Williamsburg for the next three weeks. My sweet new roommate is some kind of musical savant - when I first met her and she said she was learning to play the accordion, I was a little concerned. But the reality of hearing her practice in the next room, accompanied on saw (!) by her friend who's also a painter and web-designer (and great cook), has been that life suddenly feels like a slightly more ghetto version of Amelie. Surrounded by such creative people, it feels like a luxury to stay home and write on a Saturday night rather than brave the bars of the city.

Fairy lights are strung around my open window, the sounds of life and traffic filtering up from Graham Avenue three floors below. The subway that connects us here so easily to Manhattan, the L train, is shut down for maintenance all weekend, so that's been a good incentive to spend more time exploring this new hood.


This morning brought an expedition to the farmers market at McCarren Park, about ten minutes' walk away, after a great coffee from hipster hive Variety. It's weird, great espresso is so taken for granted in Australia that it's kinda funny to see people go ape for it here. Anyway, it's sunbright summery this weekend and the market was even better than expected, bountiful with seasonal produce from the area - apples, sugary plums, bright radishes, jars of honey and bouquets of flowers. I heaved home some huge bunches of beets and monster carrots, which I can't wait to roast, along with organic yoghurt, coriander (we call it cilantro here, posh eh?) and a generous handful of my new discovery, concord grapes. They're round and blue-black like muscats but soft and syrupy sweet inside.

In what can only be a great omen for my new neighbourhood, I actually bumped into someone I know (well, who I've met once) at the market, and later we met up for french toast and bloody marys at Harefield Road, which I suspect could become my local. After that we had coffee and delicious delicacies from Fortunato Brothers, a classic Italian-style pasticceria that serves amazing cannoli, a rainbow of gelato flavours, and is home to a lazy fat cat called Rocky.

Williamsburg is this crazy mix of old Italians and young creatives. A shop over the road which I thought sold funeral ornaments also sells brick-oven-baked bread. The community is reportedly still recovering from the death of an old woman who would get up at 3am every day to make fresh mozzarella and sell it from her doorway. The streets aren't as green as the Village but you just know most the homes have gardens hidden out back. Brick facades laced with fire escapes, bikes everywhere. Expect more details - particularly on food and cocktails! - but I reckon I'm on a winner here.

Take a load off...

Fanny is one of the first discoveries I made in my new neighbourhood - I can find a $5 happy hour martini like a heat-seeking missile. The menu doesn't look half bad either, but my favourite part is the quiet little area out the back, perfect for enjoying the last rays of afternoon sun with a second hand copy of Our Man In Havana, listening to the cries of kids' games over the fence and with strings of drying laundry criss-crossing the sky above.


Just have to get over the "but-that's-a-naughty-word!" blush of its name. Reminds me of the impromptu dictionary of swear-words I composed with my pre-school partner in crime, the discovery of which got my mouth washed out with soap by Mum. (Craig and I had had a heated argument when I was adamant the C-word started with a K - one of the few times I've lost a debate about spelling). And then there were all those Enid Blyton books with characters called Dick and Fanny like she was being rude on purpose....

Blondie of Arabia

At the last minute my new friend Allison suggested I join her at the Living Theater for something called Blondie Of Arabia on Friday night. At the mention of theatre/performance art I almost baulked - let's face it, we've all been burnt - but I'm so glad I didn't. It was a one-woman-show written and performed by Monica Hunken, who describes herself as an activist, Amazonian blonde with a superhero fetish. The show tells the story of her quest to bike alone through the Middle East, after she scored a trip to a royal wedding in Qatar working for a high-end catering company.

The theatre was tiny and intimate - read: impossible to escape should things turn weird - and the sassy, political opening monologue made me a little nervous. But when the music struck up and Monica rode a bicycle around the audience in superhero costume, it quickly became clear she wasn't going to take herself too seriously. With impeccable accents and mannerisms she reenacted run-ins with the military and the "po-po", couch-surfing with an eccentric Russian woman and handsy arab guys, and a bit of a romance with a scholarly, devout Egyptian tour-guide. She indignantly remembers him making her don his turtleneck to go swimming so she felt like "a drowned bee-keeper", and unconsciously rubbing salt into the wound he mooned: "You know why I know I could marry you Monica? You're not sexy."

Her observations of the different cultures - from the Disney princess decadence of the royal wedding, to a kohl-eyed desert tour guide deviate she dubbed Johnny Depp - were hilarious and also moving. A tiny example that kinda sums up her approach was when she describes a boat ride in Egypt, hip-hop blasting as she watched a woman in full hijab and wondered what, behind the veil, she thought of "The Thong Song". One of the saddest moments was actually when she had to leave her bike behind when flying out of Turkey!

It was a really great show and Monica even answered questions from the audience afterward. Next she hopes to take the show around Europe and dreams of finishing up with a performance in the Middle East. She's also donating to a fascinating cause called Follow The Women, well worth checking out, who demonstrate for peace by doing bikerides.

The weird thing about the night was that on two seperate occasions people stopped me on the street thinking I was Blondie! I guess one amazonian blonde in red lipstick is interchangeable with the next - but I will definitely take it as a compliment!

We finished the night with a late Indian feast at Spice Cove - $10 price fixe three course meal? Yes please! The urban legend about this stretch of East Village they call Little India is that there's just one kitchen hidden out the back, cooking for all the dozens of different restaurants with moody lighting and cushions and sitar players. Admittedly, all the restaurants are on the same side of the street...

Royale with cheese

No really, I'm not just channelling Samuel L Jackson. This was dinner - the Royale with cheese.. and one other important addition: my old friend bacon.

Courtesy of the Royale... Pi reckons they're the best burgers in New York. It was damn good, but I won't shy away from further market research just to make absolutely sure....

Get Back!

They don't call it the city that never sleeps for nothing, and fittingly everything in New York seems to take place later than a neophyte like me is used to. Brunch before noon is frowned upon; dinner can be consumed any time until the wee hours; and yesterday we ate a memorable lunch at 6pm after a languid, delicious happy hour(s) at Back Forty.


This laidback East Village eatery champions seasonal, local ingredients - simple food done damn good. After a bike ride we perched up at the bar, delighted to discover that all drinks are half price from 4-7pm Sundays. When they're five bucks, why wouldn't you test each of the cocktail options? We started with the new Bite of the Concords, made with muddled concord grapes and lemon-thyme. So fabulous, as was the Back Forty (basically a whiskey sour with maple syrup), a classic gin martini and the gin and prosecco concoction. The friendly bartender swore by the Red & Black though, an unlikely sounding margarita with strawberries and black pepper. My companions agreed that this was their favourite.


By the time the kitchen opened at 6pm, we'd had plenty of time to plan our attack on the menu. And despite how long we had to get our expectations up, the food was fantastically good. We started with the Kale Caesar Salad (with fried chickpeas and white anchovies), and a seasonal special of clams cooked in beer, with bacon and black-eyed peas:

For mains we reveled in a rare and tasty Ancho Pepper Lamb Sausage served with chickpeas, and the amazing Goats Cheese Stuffed Fried Squash Blossoms, with a summer succotash on the side. We didn't leave a scrap on our plates.

Finally a plate of oven-warm cookies - peanut butter and double choc - nestled up to a caramel-pecan slice rounded out the evening sweetly. I'll definitely be hoping to eat (and drink) at Back Forty again!