When you’re renovating, a trip to Ikea is one of those many things that you do quite often. So one afternoon while browsing light fittings there, we went downstairs to the Swedish food section after paying. We always stop and get a 50c ice cream cone which tastes like milk powder, something that I love the smell of as it reminds me of my late grandmother who would always mix up a drink each morning with powdered milk eschewing the fresh milk in the fridge. But I digress, what should I happen upon amongst the herrings, Daim bars and meatballs? Yellow string that looked like spaghetti! I grabbed it straight away and took it home, knowing that it’s future lay wound around the top of a cupcake.
A few days later, we were meant to do work on our new place but that morning, a bizarre thing happened to Sydney. It had turned red overnight. Thankfully I wasn’t awake at 6am when it was at its worst or I would have completely freaked out. My husband managed to take a couple of shots around 7.30am. Apparently the wind from Broken Hill (a mining area) had carried through to Sydney and blanketed us with this absolutely vivid red haze. We were warned to stay inside if we could so of course we gladly put off cleaning the new house in favour of staying home and baking.
The view when Mr NQN woke
Due to this happy state of house arrest, I managed to tick off three things that day as I took over the kitchen and this was one of them. There are several parts to make to this but it’s not impossible . I really liked the taste of the cupcakes-the cupcake is light and fluffy due to the carbonation from the creaming soda and the strawberry jam and buttercream give it an old world butterfly cupcake sort of taste. As for the spaghetti and meatballs, I ate those separately and they were both good.
By the end of the day the haze had died down and all returned to “normal” and I was left to ponder what a fantastic setting for a horror movie it would have been. And for my next trick Pizza cupcakes?
So tell me Dear Reader, were you or would you be scared to be woken up in a red haze?
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I was a virgin and it was the first day of SIFF (the Sydney International Food Festival). OK let me clarify that rather preposterous statement. I was a Let’s Do Lunch virgin. This year, I finally was going to take part in a Let’s do Lunch where for $35 you get a main meal along with a glass of wine with tea or coffee. However at Bilson’s we learn, the let’s do lunch deal is slightly different from the rest. For $25 you get a main meal and a glass of wine but it does not include tea or coffee. I am lunching with Reem this sunny, warm Spring afternoon at “One”, Tony Bilson’s new restaurant at Number 1 Alfred Street Circular Quay. I’m a little lost (yes I get lost easily) and I need to ring Reem to find out where she is (it turns out she is only metres away from me under the stairs, in a shaded area).
Reem, are you tweeting?
We take a quick look at the menu. There is of course the Let’s Do Lunch deal which is the Swordfish Nicoise salad which is normally priced at $33 so to get this for $25 plus a glass of wine is a steal. I opt to try something else (for the sake of research of course) so I choose the most interesting sounding thing on the menu, the pig’s trotters. The food is mainly French which Bilson is known for but with bits of Italian and Spanish and a tempura dish thrown in to please everyone.
Bread $7
We were hungry so we answered yes when we were asked if we’d like bread. It’s not bad and the butter is unsalted but I prefer some of the more sour sourdoughs on offer at other restaurants. The appearance of $7 for the bread on the bill is a bit of a surprise to me too.
Truffled Crepinette Pigs Trotters with celeriac puree $32
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***THE WINNERS ARE:
Jackie B.
Sarah B.
Congratulations and enjoy your shopping! 
***
The lovely people at Pink Frosting have been readers of NQN for a while and when they contacted me recently to ask me whether I’d like to hold a competition for readers where they could win a gift voucher to spend at their store I jumped at the chance. It’s Australia’s #1 party store and has loads of cute little items that I’ve coveted for various occasions.
You can choose Halloween decorations should you want to inject a bit of spooky into your October 31st (and if you need any recipes be sure to check out last year’s Halloween party, Blood and Brain Cupcakes, Pumpkin cheesecake, Eyeball Cupcakes, Buried Alive Cupcakes or Goblin Pies)
Or if you want to host an October BCA event there’s all things pink (with a name like Pink Frosting you’d expect that!) and if you happen to need wedding bombonierre or Christening decorations they have lots of those too!
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It was Father’s Day and I needed to take my Hong Kong born father somewhere good for dinner. His favourite restaurant was one we all despaired of but he steadfastly requested it every year. It had a 3 course set menu for $15 and sometimes we’d get a case of food poisoning after it. Despite this, he asked for it every year and we all breathed a sigh of relief when it closed down (we couldn’t even feign surprise). My father has always mourned the loss of his favourite place silently and I always kept an eye out for Hong Kong eateries. When Eve Loves wrote a story on Ching Yip Coffee Lounge and mentioned that it was a Hong Kong style of place, our dinner plans were suddenly derailed and we pointed ourselves in the direction of Ching Yip, two floors up on busy Sussex Street. And a place you wouldn’t know about unless someone told you it was there.
The centre piece is the glass cake display case that now holds a variety of fruit-an eye-catching display yes but one that I’m sure for which the fridge was not intended. Inside, it’s all muted pink decorations from the 80′s – I believe the term is salmon pink but as it’s a bit grungy it has a grey tinge. Carpets are worn and disturbingly darker in patches near the kitchen. A woman in gumboots hauls wet boxes of food across the carpet and the obvious drips ensue. Ahh the grey patches…
We have a look at the menu. Eve mentioned the afternoon special where for $5,$6 or $7 you can get a special afternoon meal with a tea or coffee. The set menu doesn’t look quite as thrilling as Eve’s option (it’s chicken wings today) so we don’t go for that. Instead we choose the pork knuckle for $7 with a coffee. They ask us whether we want it with noodles so we ask for egg noodles. We choose a few other things, mainly based on the food my father used to eat in Hong Kong and the pink laminated menu is a curious mix of Western style dishes like omelettes and spaghetti as well as grilled items and an endless list of drinks.
Warm Horlicks $3.20
I’m a bit of a Nanna in training as far as Horlicks goes and I love it. When I taste it, I’m reminded of when I used to drink this as a child to help me sleep and go into nostalgic mode.
Fresh honeydew milkshake $4.50
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There are often all sorts of problems encountered when baking in someone else’s kitchen. Now I don’t mean to sound ungrateful because I’m just glad I can borrow my mum’s kitchen but as she’s not a baker I find that she doesn’t have many of the tools that I have and love. It’s been fine making savoury items for the most part (and I did bring my Kitchenaid with me, I’m not crazy to think I’d be able to do without it) but baking is another matter. This cake was one that was relatively easy to do but I was lacking one of my favourite items, my Microplane coarse grater and this cake has a lot of grating involved so there was a fair bit of cursing and elbow work involved.
I loved the idea of a Kitchen Garden cake as I am aiming to grow my own kitchen garden (albeit an apartment living version and I am rather handicapped with a Black Thumb) . Please don’t let the idea of parsnip or potato in a cake put you off. Imagine how hard the person that invented carrot cake would have had to have sold the idea and look at how popular it is now. With the heady fragrance of orange zest and cinnamon, you don’t even taste the parsnip although the coarse grating allows for little moist bursts of flavours. It also smells heavenly coming out of the oven and is amazingly as light as a feather. Sure it’s not the prettiest cake, it doesn’t even have any icing to speak of so a light dusting of sifted icing sugar was what it needed so that it didn’t look so “naked”.
This recipe is one of those fantastic Historical recipes from the National Trust in the U.K. and hails from the West Midlands and is based on archive menus adapted to the present day and palate. The best thing about it is that it keeps beautifully moist for days without losing any moistness at all. Call it the new generation Carrot Cake…from an older Generation of course.
So tell me Dear Reader, which generation are you from? Generation X, Y or Baby Boomer? And are you typical of your generation?
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