Herald Sun "Taste" liftout.

Hmmm.. who is that most excellent looking goddess on the back page of today's Taste section of the Herald Sun? Oh why! It's me!!

Comments Policy

In light of the increasing amount of spam being dumped in my comments sections, Here is the or-ficial AGITK Coments Policy. *queue stirring Hammond organ-like Dah-Daaaaaaah**

My blog is my little nation and I am the government. Currently, there are no rules or regulations, or blog U.N that to tells me how to administer my blog’s nation. I am in charge and I set the rules. And the first rule is making da rules public.

As the blog owner, I have the following rights:

1. Control over content and comments.
2. Ability to edit comments.
3. Ability to censor comments.
4. Ability to delete comments.
5. Ability to prevent comments by specific persons or groups.

This does not mean that I will actually ever act upon any of these rights, but if you're the mother of a 14 y/o boy who you've allowed to view more porn than David Dutchovny, DON'T bother being offended by my description of food being orgasmic. I'll just delete your comments , and post them on Twitter, where all my fellow foodie friends will laugh at you and your lack of basic grammar. BUT, being the benevolent oligarch that I am, (think Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth run by a middle-aged hippie with a penchant for cheese and Nag Champa, but with a ratified Drive-By eugenics policy, ok), I'll pretty much put up with anything. So long as it's not stupid or clearly spam-alicious.

Part of my weird and ever-evolving spiritual belief is that, at birth everyone was issued with one pair of Big Girl/Boy/Gender Neutral Panties upon entry to this world. And you're expected to wear them! Yes, one size fits all - well, almost all. Amazing huh? But if you find they're getting a bit tight, you can swap 'em for a bigger pair.

All the below comments are kinda official looking and sounding, and given that I am often interviewed about this blog and the way I shop, eat and prep food, it's kinda necessary. But if you don't want to read the long version, here's the summation:

IT'S MY BLOG, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, FECK OFF. IF YOU DO LIKE IT, COOL. IF YOU POST A COMMENT AND I DON'T LIKE IT, I'LL DELETE IT. AND I DON'T HAVE TO JUSTIFY THAT TO ANYONE. AND YES, I WILL DELETE COMMENTS THAT ARE GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT OR OVERTLY USE MSN SPEAK.

**Please note, that I can backtrack every visit here. The Interwebs have made the world a VERY small place.. and I can check and follow back every single hit on this blog..

• Comment Form Guidelines: The comment form must be filled in with a proper or legitimate sounding name and URL. Comments using keywords, spam or splog-like URLs, or suspicious information in the comment form will be edited or deleted.
• Email Privacy: Email addresses are required for commenting, and they are not published on the blog, nor shared. They may be used by the blog owner to privately contact the commenter.
• Commenter Privacy and Protection: All email, snail mail, phone numbers, and any private and personal information posted in any comment will be deleted as soon as possible to protect the privacy of the commenter. To prevent such editing, never share this private information within the blog comment.
• Language and Manners: This blog is “family friendly” and comments which include offensive or inappropriate language, or considered by the blog owner and administrator to be rude and offensive, will be edited or deleted. Play nice.
• A Comment is Conversation: A comment which does not add to the conversation, runs of on an inappropriate tangent, or kills the conversation may be edited, moved, or deleted.
• Limit Links: This blog is setup to automatically hold any blog comment with more than two links in moderation, which may delay your comment from appearing on this blog. Any blog comment with more than four links could be marked as comment spam.
• How The Blogger Will Respond: Comments on this blog will only be responded to in direct response to the blog comment. The blogger will not respond privately via email or other communication method to a blog comment.
• What To Do If Your Comment Does Not Appear: If you leave a comment on this blog and it does not appear in a reasonable time period, and you know that it does not violate these Comment Policies, contact the blogger.
  
• No Personal Attach Comments Permitted: In the interest of fair play, no personal attacks are permitted in this blog’s comments. You may question or argue the content, but not attack the blogger, nor any other commenters. Failure to respect fellow participants on this blog could result in removal and blocked access.
• Comment Spam: Any comment assumed to be possible comment spam will be deleted and marked as comment spam.
• Commenters Blocked: Anyone who violates this Comments Policy may be blocked from future access and/or commenting on this blog.
• All Rights Reserved: The blog owner, administrator, contributor, editor, and/or author reserve the right to edit, delete, move, or mark as spam any and all comments. They also have the right to block access to any one or group from commenting or from the entire blog.
• Hold Harmless: All comments within this blog are the responsibility of the commenter, not the blog owner, administrator, contributor, editor, or author. By submitting a comment on our blog, you agree that the comment content is your own, and to hold this site, and all subsidiaries and representatives harmless from any and all repercussions, damages, or liability.
• Trackbacks Are Comments: All trackbacks will be treated inline with our Comments Policy.

Because I am the Queen of All I Survey here in AGITK Land, these rules are subject to change without notice, so if I delete your comment, you might like to check back here.


Now, have Johnny Depp washed and oiled and sent to my tent, immediately!

Breakfast of Champions!

Breakfast of champions... Welsh rarebit with hand-milked salmon caviar

Breakfast cooked at home, caviar from:

Alpine Trout & Fish Farm

Mt Baw Baw Rd, Noojee, VIC, 3833

Phone number: (03) 56289584

Mangosteens

The mangosteen is a round, purple fruit slightly smaller than a tennis ball. To eat it, you can peel away the brittle, moist rind with your palms to reveal the pure-white delicacy inside. The bitter rind is inedible, and the fruit comes in the form of variously sized wedged segments, the largest of which may hold a solitary seed. The number of segments usually varies from 4 to 8 which is matched by the number of points on the protrusion from the underside of the fruit; therefore, you can discover how many segments you are in for before you open the mangosteen. Mangosteen trees will only grow (and more importantly, fruit) in ultra-tropical zones with consistent temps above 38C. The fruit can take up to 100 days to form and ripen


The seeds of the mangosteen are considered "recalcitrant." This means that they are very short-lived and must be kept moist or they die almost as soon as they dry out.

Mangosteen trees are dioecious, meaning that there are male trees and female trees. The only problem with this is that to date, no one has been able to find a male tree anywhere in the world so if they exist, they are quite rare. Globally, it is possible that there have never been any male mangosteen trees. This places the entire burden on the female tree to perpetuate the species. No males means no pollen, even though the female flower contains rudimentary sterile anthers where pollen would normally be found. Without pollen, there is no way to fertilize the female flower and create true seeds with variable genetic traits. Instead, the female mangosteen trees succeed in perpetuating the species by a process known as agamospermy. The wall lining the ovary of the female flower, the nucellus, supplies the material that will then develop within the fruit segments and becomes what is effectively an asexually produced seed. As a result of this, it produces a clone of the mother tree.

Wiki says:

There is a legend about Queen Victoria offering a reward of 100 pounds to anyone who could deliver to her the fresh fruit. Although this legend can be traced to a 1930 publication by fruit explorer, David Fairchild, it is not substantiated by any known historical document. In his publication, "Hortus Veitchii", James Herbert Veitch says that he visited Java in 1892, "to eat the Mangosteen. It is necessary to eat the Mangosteen grown within three or four degrees of latitude of the equator to realize at all the attractive and curious properties of this fruit.

organic mangosteens from Cape Trib now available at Heng's Organic Fruit and Veg, in Kerrie Road, Glen Waverley. Stop whatever you're doing and go there now. I guarantee it will be worth it.

Called "The Queen of Fruit", Mangosteens are still quite rare. And expensive. If you can get your hands on then, they are worth the $$$. Spectacular looking, with a taste that is quite indescribable. The edible arils have the consistency of a lychee, the taste of something like a peach crossed with a grape, and the perfume is sweet, almost strawberry-ish.

Apparently you can brew a tea from the rind, but I will content myself with the luscious fruit.

A trip to Rosedale.

There is a chapter in that most ubiquitous of "self-help" books, "Men are from a, Women are from Venus" entitled "Women Talk and Men Go To Their Caves"

Now I freely admit to never having read the book, but for some reason the fact that this chapter exists sticks in my memory.

And it is, I believe, a universal truth.

When men are working through "Stuff" they get all quiet and insular and like bears, they hibernate until they're ready to come out.

Women?

We talk.

We head off with our nearest and dearest besties and talk. And rave. And plot. And scheme. And talk. And bitch.

Rinse.

Repeat.

And the girls would never dream of offering solutions. They just sit and listen, and refill your glass, and pass you the tissues and tell you "it's not because you're fat" and refill your glass and hold you while tears trickle down your face.

And if your friends are really all they are meant to be, all they should be after 30 or so years of supporting each other through marriages (good and bad), births (good and bad), cheap tawdry one-nighters (good and bad), they know what you'll need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, hoik up your Big Girl's Boggers and SUCK IT UP, TIGER.

For some women it's chocolate. For some it's wine. For some it's a new man, for some it's a day spa.

For me, well, you can probably guess.

It's food.


Herbs still fresh and warm from Tee's garden. Her idea of being one of my oldest friends?

"I bought them so you could cook for us"

Oh Goddess, does that girl know me!!





Chicken in Pajamas at the Rosedale Pub, courtesy of Sue. Good, hearty country pub fare. No pretentious twattage, no bullshit. Just food and non-judgemental company.

Her idea of being one of my oldest friends?

"come to my house and just be."

It's not Chicken Soup that nurtures a Soul, it's chicken parma and a pot, and the deep, abiding laughter of someone you've known more than 30 years.



And then to come home to Widdie, who doesn't bother to bring anything but the main ingredient because "I know you'd have everything else I need", and smoked salmon roulades, to talk about being mad old cat ladies together.

Her idea of being one of my oldest friends?

Nodding in ALL the right places.

In 2010, make sure you forget the crap chain emails, and the bullshit forwarded Face Crack status update, and remeber to tell your 'festy besties" that Women Talk, and that is what nourishes our souls.

Left over lurve.

Recently I wrote about my version of pulled pork. Having no idea how or what it was, I kinda made it up as I went along. And it was pretty delicious. But then again, what is not to love about pork, slow cooked in vinegar, onions, tomatoes and spices.

But we had a lots.. and AWFUL lot left over.

Tammi suggested that we use the leftovers for pulled pork nachos.

So we did.


HOLY MOTHER OF PORK PRODUCTS, BATMAN!!

It was so gooooood. A few days in the fridge had allowed the pork to achieve a deep sweetness, which went perfectly with the tomatoes and creaminess of the avocado. The textural melange of the pulled pork, the cruch of the corn chips and lettuce and again, the creamy silkiness of the avocado pretty much provided the perfect mouth feel.

Nachos are one of those things that I pretty much avoid unless I am stumped for a vegetarian option for guests. I had truly never thought to use left overs in them, relying (on the odd occasion that I gave in to the pleadings of the Step-Beasts and "made" them) on mince, tomato paste, red kidney beans and something made by El Paso,





Now, they are possibly going to become my staple "turn leftovers into something other than "risotto" dish".

At the risk of bring up the whole "authentic" debate, I am thinking left over chicken Mahkani, garlic corn chips and raita "nachos". Maybe souvlaki lamb, tzatziki and lemon/oregano "nachos".

pulled pork

Australians like to think that they are the BBQ kings and queens of the Universe. And we are. But just as we accuse Americans of being arrogant and insular, so are we about BBQ. The BBQ we know, whether it me dodgy spewpermarket snags over Heat Beads, or gohr-may seafood skewers in a Webber, the truth is BBQ is much MUCH more than that.

Pulled pork is a typical BBQ dish from Southern US, called "pulled" because it is slow cooked to the point that all the connective tissue breaks down and you can pull the pork apart by hand. It is then served in sandwiches and over rice.

In the United States, pulled pork is commonly slow-cooked by a smoking method (known as BBQ'ing), though a non-barbecue method might also be employed.

The preparation of pulled pork differs from region to region. In areas such as Tennessee, pulled pork is typically made from a mixture of the blade shoulder and arm shoulder meat and served with a tomato-based barbecue sauce. In areas such as Noth Carolina, both mixed cuts of the belly and shoulder alone are commonly used, and the pork is served with a vinegar-based sauce or with no sauce.

My pulled pork was slow cooked on the stove top for almost 7 hours. I used a 1kg chunk of pork belly roast and left the skin on.





I slow cooked it with a can of tomatoes, some capers, a fresh sliced jalapeno chilli, some sweet pickled onions (with the vinegar) and plenty of chicken stock. I used my trusty old cast iron camp oven, and had it in low heat for 6.75 hours. I then removed the skin and finely sliced it (the rubbery skin bits made a wonderful textural counterpoint to the meat and the onions) and "pulled" the roast apart with 2 forks. I actually cooked it in 2 sittings, on for 3 hours on Sunday night and then again on Monday. When I got home from work on Monday night, the hours was positively fragrant!

We ate half of it over rice with fresh cracked black pepper, and are saving the other half to use on Thursday, for a nacho topping, a la Tammi Jonas 's suggestion.