world dumpling day 26th of September
How exciting is this day? Our family love dumplings, yum cha, dim sum, call those succulent, puffy, luscious little pillows whatever you like, we like to eat them! Full of flavour and fresh vegetables and proteins we have so many favourite dumplings! We often celebrate the arrival of our son in Perth, birthdays and other special days with yum cha. So we were happy to celebrate World Dumpling Day.
Australians have a few unique dishes but we’re very good at adopting the best of every cuisine in the World. For instance, this week we’ve eaten sushi, dumplings, croissants, pizza, chicken schnitzel, a Spanish Tortilla, wraps with salad and butter chicken and Toad in the Hole.
Toad in the Hole. I know, I was surprised by this very English dish, too, but my husband was reading a book in which the author referred to cooking then eating Toad in the Hole. He found a recipe, we shopped for the ingredients and dinner was Toad in the Hole. Apart from the hilarious name, this dish neither looked like toads nor, I imagine, tasted like toads, but it was very good.
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Toad in the Hole straight from the oven.
Cumberland sausages from the British Sausage Company were browned then a delicious batter was poured over. This became a crisp batter with the sausages almost totally embedded in the mix. Served with onion gravy, boiled, drained and then roasted potatoes with rosemary and sea salt plus broccoli. We really enjoyed our dinner and my husband says he’ll make it again. Yes please.
Food products traditionally used by Indigenous Australians are also appearing in our cuisine. In a recent cooking program on TV one team presented a meal based on bush food or bush tucker, products indigenous to different parts of Australia. The menu included kangaroo meat which is very lean. The most popular indigenous food is probably finger limes. They’re shaped like a small cucumber with green citrus skin and inside are pearl like bubbles of citrus flavour. The bubbles pop and explode with a strong citrus taste.
reading
I have just finished Cherie Jones’s How The One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House. Centred on the lives of three generations of women in Barbados it was a difficult book to read but also a well written book.
It begins with a young girl being cautioned by her Grandma about taking risks and being disobedient. The cautionary tale tells about the reckless sister not doing as she was told and as a consequence, losing her arm.
Barbados is promoted as a land of long white beaches with endless cocktails and parties on the beach. This is the paradise of wealthy tourists and ex-pats but underneath the surface is poverty, violence and drug dealing and addiction. The locals plait the tourists’ hair, mind their children, clean their houses and sell them drugs. The young men sell their bodies to young and old women and sometimes, men.
But this book is really the story of intergenerational violence, rape, paedophilia, prostitution, corruption and murder. The sacrifices made by the women in this story, ranging from 1979 -1984, is dictated by what has happened before in this community. Shocking but perpetuated by each generation.
The story is really about Lala, brought up by her Grandmother after her mother is murdered when Lala is a small child and how she perpetuates the same violent relationships, too, despite her grandmother’s attempts to protect and then prevent her going astray. Lala finds herself at 18 married to a violent murderer. She is pregnant. She delivers her baby prematurely while her husband is out robbing then murdering an ex-pat.
Later, during one of his violent attacks the baby is dropped and dies. Lala somehow manages to find enough money to catch a plane to America not knowing her husband has been murdered that morning. I suppose this suggests a happy ending but this was a grueling book and one that has stayed on my mind. Cherie Jones is an attorney in Barbados and an author to watch!
the spring garden
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