The species Foodus Bloggerus is a peculiar creature. I know, because I feel distinctly peculiar most times.  We march to the beat of our own drum (or more accurately the sound of food sizzling). When most people are enjoying their food, we’re taking close ups of it. So to understand this misunderstood creature, allow me to reveal 10 things you should know about this unusual creature, should you ever encounter us in the wild.

1. Be prepared to eat early. Like a reverse Vampire, we love the light as more light means better photos. Eating dinner at 4pm? Sure, no problem, the light will be good then. Similarly, you’ll also find us seated near the window more often than not as the light is better there and we only use Flash in extreme circumstances or in closed blogger-friendly company.

2. We’re shy and hate to be stared at, especially while we are taking photos. However if it’s something exciting, we retreat into a haze and snap away uncaring. That’s called the “Paparazzi Brangelina moment”, when we descend into a frenzy of snapping.

3. Most people react to romantic lighting positively. Not the food blogger. We will utter things such as “crap, not this moody, romantic lighting again. What about my photos!”. Because as you know, it’s all about the photos

4. We love to share food. The equation is straightforward: the more food shared, the more food sampled and the more we can write about.

Hmm, how do I get the piece back in without them noticing?

5. If invited somewhere, we’ll usually bring something as it gives us an excuse to make something for our blog. However this is not catch free. A cake might have a slice taken out of it for photographic reasons although it may be put back into place. Try not to stare and pretend the piece wasn’t cut. Please. We feel weird enough as it is.

6. We love to choose where to eat out. Please let us choose – food is our life and we will painstakingly research places. We may also send through copious links and print out menus. It’s a compulsion. Just take them smiling and back away if you need to. Oh and trust us, the place may look weird/seedy but the food will be good.

Food-the ultimate gift

7. If you ever want to give a gift, give food. Something unusual, hard to get or exotic is wonderful. Or something fresh from your garden. We are easy to please. I swear I thought I wanted Choos until I got a roast rib of pork as a gift.

8. Dinner out with us in a restaurant is an experience. It can either go well and can be an interesting experience or it can go badly. Embarrassing sometimes if you aren’t used to the excessive photo taking. But it’s never boring. Badly is when a chef comes out to yell at us for taking photos or something similar. Good is when you get an extra dessert or when the chef comes out to say hello or explain how they’ve made something.

Yes we took pictures of the bread and butter…

9. If you dine with us, you’ll learn the art of patience. Yes we even want to photograph the bread and butter. Food is better a bit colder right? Or so we’d like to convince you.

10. It’s hard once you get into the habit, for us to not take photos of the food that we eat. I’ve only eaten out once and not taken a photo. And it hurt. Similarly, when I was watching an episode of Mad Men the other week, I was so engrossed in watching Peggy having dinner with her date and their drinks arrived and I wondered why she didn’t whip out a camera before drinking it and so my hand reached out to get my camera. Yes, it really did.

Tell me Dear Reader, do you have any other keen observations, either as a food blogger or an observer of one?

Over the past week or two samples have been arriving of some very yummy goodies. Somehow, unwittingly they all coincided with my birthday which happened to be yesterday so I just took it to mean that they were birthday presents. Do you like my logic?

I just want to say a huge thankyou to my friend Angela from Creating A Stir who sent me a most amazing package all the way from Japan. She knows I have a love for Pocky and Japanese Kit Kats as well as all other things quirky and Japanese so she sent me a mind blowing selection of food including: Kits Kats (in blueberry cheesecake, cherry and strawberry as well as an intriguing little packet of little kit kat balls); Pocky (in kiwifruit, coco banana, double dessert chocolate, and peach milk), adorable cake boxes, delicious sesame crackers, bento art toothpicks (I can definitely see myself getting into bento art); ginger peanuts; a moreish almond and fish snack; mushroom chocolate biscuits; Collon cookies in milky green tea; cupcake wrappers, chewing gum (including a dragonfruit and blood orange flavour! ), gorgeous origami paper, pretty chopsticks and  chopstick covers and green tea jelly snacks.

Angela’s card-cute!

The first to get eaten were the Blueberry Cheesecake Kit Kats which are amazing-with an eerily accurate blueberry cheesecake flavour. Next were the rest of it including the Kiwifruit Pocky (fabulous). In fact everything in there was an absolute delight. She has great taste that Angela-thankyou again

I also received some packs from the Lilydale Free range chicken range with Luke Mangan (of Glass restaurant fame). I was given a African Spice Breast Escalopes and Tarragon and Mint Thigh Cutlets. Flipping the packs over I saw that the African Spice Breast Escalopes only had a cooking time of 20 minutes for the entire meal so I saved it for when I was time poor and needed a quick dinner-the ultimate test. Escalopes are part of the breast of the chicken, pounded until thin and therefore quick to cook. I quite like chicken breast but my husband and parents don’t, always saying that it is too dry but I was willing to give this a go. Besides which there were 8 escalopes here so for the two of us there was quite a bit of meat and the calorie count per serve was pleasantly low at 585kj per 2 escalopes (yay!).

I made the requisite tomato salsa (substituting coriander for mint as that was all I had-it’s meant to be easy remember) and couscous and pan fried the escalopes after sprinkling them with the flavour sachet and oil. All up it took me about 30 minutes to cook with all of the chopping and preparation-you might be able to do it in 20 minutes but it would be a furious and fraught 20 minutes and you may lose a finger with the whole chopping part.

I took a bite of the chicken and they were juicy and tender and totally scoffable – I almost thought that it was a juicy thigh fillet. I greedily ate it happy in the knowledge that it was low in calories. For those that don’t like any additives, the dry marinade sachet for the escalopes reads a little like a cup a soup label so just keep that in mind but the other pack is just herbs. You can always buy the escalopes and make your own although the zero marinating time was good for me and I can definitely see myself buying these again. A pack of the escalopes is $11.40 per tray and the thigh fillets are $9 per tray from Coles. We did try the Tarragon and Mint thigh fillets but definitely preferred the African spice escalopes instead.

As for the rest of the escalopes? Apart from having them for dinner tonight, I’ll use these in a salad for lunch or in a sandwich (these are best and juiciest straight off the pan rather than reheated). And share them grudgingly.

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After our delicious journey back in time at the Oceanic Cafe where we emerged to the sights and sounds of 2009, Queen Viv could sense my excitement and suggested that we follow up our meal at Oceanic with a visit to New York restaurant in Kings Cross at a later date. A similar concept to the Oceanic Cafe, New York restaurant is a restaurant serving traditional Australian/English meals at very reasonable prices to a loyal community. I was more than happy to, the only problem was that they were closed over Christmas until January 19th (I only found out the opening date as the owner happened to answer the phone while he was there). I rang up on the 19th to book a table for 4 the Saturday after only to be told by the friendly owner Paul “Oh darling, we  don’t take reservations” and then he asked my name and I answered “Lorraine” and he said “OK Lorraine, I look forward to meeting you!”. Wow, friendly folk indeed!

We’re supposed to meet Queen Viv and Miss America at 7pm this Saturday night but we are late-by half an hour (arrgh since when did Kings Cross become a 1hour parking only zone?). Queen Viv calls us to ask where we are-the maitre’d is enquiring about our lateness. Of course we don’t realise why. It’s because the New York restaurant closes at 8pm! On Kellet Street in Kings Cross, it’s located between two brothels.

Rushing in, we order quickly. I go straight to the Chef’s specialties where I order the crumbed lamb cutlets, my husband orders the chicken schnitzel and Queen Viv and Miss America both order the beef sausages. There is a note which makes us grin: “Minimum order $3.50″. For good measure we also get a glass of orange cordial for 70c and an entree bowl of soup for 80c. Items are divided into old fashioned sections such as “Cold Collations” and there’s even an oyster section with the cheapest item being Light Gold Toast for 40c.

We look around. There are groups of mostly men, of various ages although mostly senior citizens. One is so enamoured of his chop that he picks up the whole thing (about the size of a plate) and eats it with his hands. There’s also younger men, including two fashionable young men and one dashingly handsome guy. A real mix that has us intrigued. As it’s busy some of the men share a table and exchange greetings.

We scarcely have time to observe our fellow diners as everything arrives quickly. We ask Jeff the maitre’d if it is ok to take photos-he is intimidating looking with his tattoos but he smiles broadly and spreads his hands out and says “Of course, no problems at all” and tells us that we are free to take any photos we like and that fellow diners won’t mind at all. In fact it’s most hospitable reaction we’ve had. He tells us that the New York restaurant has been around for about 50 years, and at this location for 17 years.

Orange Cordial 70c

Vegetable soup 80c

Crumbed Lamb cutlets $10

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