Prick With A Fork

According to Mumbrella, the RSPCA has got duck shooting in its crosshairs, aiming to make a big deal about kids being taught to hunt. No doubt this will get a big thumbs-up from the two or three remaining readers of The Age, the paper in which the RSPCA’s ad ran this weekend, but the Prick wonders if this has really been thought through.

After all, aren’t we all supposed to teach kids where their food comes from? To say nothing of feeding them, where possible, free-range food? Taking one’s children out for a hunt would seem to tick both these boxes, giving the next generation an appreciation not just of nature but the fact that something died to give you dinner so you’d better damn well respect your produce. A duck shot on the wing has probably had a hell of a nicer life than some poor industrially-raised chicken, even one raised in an RSPCA-approved facility. The campaign’s tagline, which asks, “What’s wrong with this picture?” as a towheaded youth stands in a marsh with a shotgun, is hard to answer with anything but, “Nothing at all, so long as the young man is properly trained and supervised.”

It should also be noted that hunters, in the Prick’s limited experience, are among the most responsible gun owners around and they tend to be pretty serious conservationists as well. Only they never get any credit for this because radical green-left politics have pushed this sort of, for lack of a better term, muscular Teddy Roosevelt-style environmentalism beyond the pale, right out there with molesting collies or building nuclear power plants in the Tarkine Rainforest.

UPDATE: What’s wrong with this picture? Tons, according to readers.

“For one, those dickheads at the RSPCA have told the kid to put his finger on the trigger – a terrible safety breach. The finger should always be outside the trigger guard until you are ready to take the shot. Shows how little they know about firearms safety”, writes one commenter.

Adds Kelley Merkel, “Where do I start… The pump-action shotgun should be pointing towards the sky, never horizontally. Ummm, the ducks are behind him! Pump-action shotguns have been banned in Australia for 17 years. He’s holding the gun completely wrong. Finger is on the trigger. Gun is too small for him. He is not shouldering it correctly. His head should be down on the stock and he has no ear or eye protection.”

Great points.

New York Nanny-in-Chief Mike Bloomberg gets shot down by the courts:

A state judge ruled Monday that the ban on sales of 16-ounce sugary drinks is “arbitrary and capricious.”

New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tinglin issued the ruling one day before the ban was slated to go into effect.

Now if the judiciary could go about reversing the rest of Bloomberg’s petty fascism. This might be a good place to start.

UPDATE: This fellow nails it…

“Serious problems like obesity cannot be addressed by the imposition of an arbitrary and porous Mayoral fiat,” wrote Matthew Greller, a spokesman for the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State. “This issue was never about obesity, nor about soda. This was all about power.”

Via the clever chaps at The Poke, the Prick has just run across this mildly diversionary gem:

What’s your name?

Expect to hear all about the opening of the Mr and Mrs Prick’s Mac ‘n’ Cheese Pisco Sour shop soon. It will be just the place to grab a bite to eat on Sydney’s newest “New Orleans-style” live-music strip, Parramatta Road. (And non-Sydney readers should feel free to skip down to the next paragraph, but really, isn’t this wholly daft idea – in which the government shows its supposed remorse for hounding out of business a single band-friendly pub by proposing the government all but mandate, with no sense of whether there’s a market for them or what anyone else may think about the matter, a mile’s worth of band-friendly pubs – utterly typical of this town? As Bart Simpson once put it in a different context, “No offense, Homer, but your half-assed underparenting was a lot more fun than your half-assed overparenting.”)

But while we’re on the subject of hipsters and eating, last Friday night the Pricks had a chance to drop in on BRGRS, the new Publife pop-up over the Flinders Hotel in Surry Hills (slogan: We don’t waste money on fancy vowels and pass the savings on to you!)

Like an urban Grounds of Alexandria, the room is a little bit of Brooklyn told by way of Sydney. Call it Brookney Style: Just as New Yorkers twenty years ago embraced the Paris bistro concept and today do it better than the Parisians, lately Sydney has taken on, cleaned up, and made a motza out of an aesthetic that grew up in New York’s outer boroughs by mixing one part ghetto and graffiti with two parts trailer park and marinating the lot with a whole heap of irony. BRGRS epitomises this Brookney vibe, from the Elvis iconography to the gangsta rap to the drinks served in plastic cups, frat house style. Mrs Prick may have been the only lady in the place not wearing glasses chunky enough to lead to back and neck problems. It really is amazing that no enterprising chap has thought to import Pabst Blue Ribbon to Australia and sell it to trilby-wearing Sydneysiders for $8 a can.

Tell me, are you goofing on Elvis?

So what of the burgers, or rather BRGRs? There were four on the menu when we visited: A couple of variations on the cheeseburger, a Doritos-flavoured fried chicken number, and something for the vegetarians. Which essentially meant we had two, two-and-a-half options. Which were good so far as they went: Fundamentally, they delivered what they promised. The Doritos-coated “bird” burger is an interesting concept, the chicken was nicely fried, and that promised powdered orange tang was right there on the finish. Perhaps if we’d opened the batting with jazz cigarettes rather than gin-and-tonics this would have seemed like a better idea. The cheeseburger was good too, but in a sort of McDonald’s-ey sort of way, like what a quarter-pounder might have tasted like in 1955, fast but not mass-produced nor loaded with God-knows-what chemicals.

But on another level, what was on offer wasn’t a lot to write home about. Perhaps our expectations had been set too high with our knowledge of what this team is actually capable of. We had expected burgers that weren’t really burgers per se as really clever cheffy creations. Knowing that this same operation can, among other delights, turn out (in the words of another reviewer) “a hot dog of sorts featuring sticky beef cheeks, pickle and radish mayo, truffle butter, sautéed radish leaves, french mustard and hiefwiesen [sic] beer air, wasabi cress, finished with flowers from the garden”, we were left a little disappointed when all that was on offer last Friday was this kitschy nod towards white-trash Americana. Why isn’t this on the menu? Or this?

The head of Publife is said to be a big fan of Americana, but the  US is a big place, as big as Europe and just as diverse with as many unique cuisines. There’s a lot more to it than velvet Elvis paintings and Honey Boo-Boo. Just as no cultured person would say that spaghetti is the apotheosis of European food, neither should “sketti” (or fried chicken or cheeseburgers, as wonderful as they are) be taken as the first and last word on America. And when it comes to burgers, the Pricks still say it’s worth the trip out to Leichhardt for Bonarchè, the current reigning champion in our very unscientific survey.

So for some time now we Pricks had been meaning to get down to 4Fourteen, the latest venture of Paddo’s Four in Hand’s Colin Fassnidge. But on the two or three previous occasions we’d tried to go, it had been booked out (or if not booked out, full to the point of “We can take half your party at the bar at 9:30 but the rest of you will have to cadge sandwiches off the Salvos down by Central Station”). Which of course led us to the question, if the place is so popular, can it be any good?

Because for all the guff about the multiply-sourced wisdom of the masses, the crowds often get things very wrong indeed. Think Oprah. Or Hitler (and yes, this very well be the first time in history a restaurant blog ever fell afoul of Godwin’s Law).

In Sydney, going for a weekend breakfast at the mindlessly popular Grounds of Alexandria has replaced jumping off the Harbour Bridge as the new justification for parental injunctions: If all your friends wanted to wait two hours for a plate of eggs, would you want to do that too!?

Reuben, bisected.

But, hey, it turns out 4Fourteen is a very good place to go indeed and is, once you get there, all friendly bonhomie and open kitchen and a stereo system playlist that for once reflects the sort of stuff on the Pricks’ own hi-fi. Perfect for a Saturday afternoon’s construction of a little mini-degustation off the back of the share-friendly DIY menu and accompanying wine list. (I don’t see it listed but there was a great Languedoc white they had by the half-carafe, and there’s a lot of other nice stuff by the glass including the ’08 Bannockburn “Douglas”).

Sliders, the food trend that never seems to die, were executed well on soft brioche buns: A “Reuben” was soft and smoky; confit pork belly was given a nice hit of umami by some house-made ketchup and finished with a pleasing little crunch of skin; the crab roll would probably have been delicious had we not killed our taste buds eating in what was probably the wrong order.

There’s a lovely piece of salmon hiding behind that radish.

The kitchen showed off its refinement with a miso-smoked salmon which was prettified by shavings of cucumber, baby cauliflower, and little discs of radish. Like surgeon’s cuffs on a suit jacket, these flourishes weren’t really necessary except to act as a little signalling device to the subconscious: settle down, have a sip of wine to clear the tastebuds, there’s some fine stuff on its way. This was a lovely, clean, refined dish, and unless the Prick is very wrong, this was not made with your usual farmed supermarket salmon but something denser and wilder and all together.

This is the fundamental but by no means fatal contradiction of 4Fourteen: On the one hand it does and does well the sort of high-end “dude food” that sends broadsheet restaurant critics slavering over their MacBook keyboards. On the other, the kitchen shows that it can easily go farther, higher, with refined plates, well-executed modern classic techniques, and artful presentation.

Bone-ing!

It would be going too far, perhaps, to suggest this tension is a manifestation of Fitzgerald’s definition of genius (“the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function”). More probably, it reflects the fact that even “simple” food is that much better when it is made by people who know what they’re doing, and that despite the general “vibe” that says we’re supposed to be “over” fine dining we still like a bit of the old razzle dazzle.

“Beef and bone” was a carnivore’s carnival though could have done with more marrow (it also paired nicely with the aforementioned Bannockburn, but would it have killed them to pour it into a glass bigger than one of those poxy Saturday afternoon wine-shop tasters?)

A plate of fish fingers, simply deep-fried sticks of barramundi, were almost Proustian with their tartare sauce and mushy peas. One bite and I declared to Mrs Prick, “These are like really awful fish fingers that are really, really good!”

This Bounty almost caused a mutiny.

Sadly the “Bounty” – a dessert tribute to the candy bar of the same name – didn’t work out quite as well. A more-cute-than-clever concept that felt ripped from a quarterfinal episode of UK MasterChef, the dish was less than the sum of its parts and, frankly, the chocolate base looked a bit too “dog poo after a rainstorm” for the Pricks’ liking. Not that we didn’t scarf every bit, especially the burnt caramel shards, but buyer’s remorse set in when we saw a neighbouring table’s simpler roast peach and lemon thyme ice cream. Still, Four14’s food is fun, has a great sense of humour, and the whole operation is just made for camping out for two or three hours (or more). Sometimes, though, a joke can be carried too far.

To hear Le Canard Enchante tell it, Julia Gillard shouldn’t have sent First Fella and finger aficionado Tim Mathieson to the naughty corner for his recent glandular gaffe.

He should have been sent to Le Cordon Bleu instead.

Were he to sign up, he’d not only learn the value of dainty fingers, but his jokes would go down a lot better. And given current polling, an extra marketable skill probably wouldn’t go astray in that household. Wonder if a lot of deboned quail will be seen around the Lodge over the next few months?

Regular readers of this site – both of you – would probably assume that the mere idea of a “web comic” would be exactly the sort of thing to set a Prick off on a rant about the dumbing down of society, how “adults have no business reading the funny papers”, why nothing beats reading the Russians to explain the human condition, and while we’re at it, GET OFF MY LAWN!

And normally you’d be right. Except, that is, when we’re talking about Chris Onstad’s Achewood, which for about ten solid years there from 2001 provided a  glimpse into an alternate universe populated largely by cats (I know what you’re thinking, and no) of various stripes: rich, depressive, alcoholic, angry and gay, and their range of friends (naïve otters, Russian robots, dirtball squirrels). Get started reading this sequence about a party in a toilet. Or this great story arc concerning a fight between Subway franchisees – which leads to one of the darkest ad storyboards of all time. Or learn the legend of the Great Outdoor Fight: Three days, three acres … three thousand men.

(I own a Great Outdoor Fight t-shirt and once, while paying for some prawns down at the fish markets, the young man at the till got all excited: “Dude, is that a real fight!?”. I almost didn’t have the heart to tell him. Sadly, the Achewood shop never sold this promised, promising watch.)

Beneath its bizarre premise, Achewood is genius, hilarious, deep, culturally literate, subtly observed, and about as addictive as Oxycontin-flavoured bacon.

For a variety of reasons, all good and legitimate and to which this site is personally exceedingly sympathetic, Onstad and Achewood ran out of gas a couple of years ago and we thought the good times were gone. But no.

Achewood is coming back.

The intersection of Victoria and Sydenham Roads in Marrickville has always been more of a “through” place than a “to” place.  Or at least it was, until the arrival of NOM Pizza in the little space on the south-west corner. Normally we would avoid any place named after a LOL-cat meme just on general principle, but the promise of proper wood-fired pizza got the better of us.

Burning down the house!

So forget the name, what of the pizza? Well, it’s good. Damn good. And made by people who not only know what the hell they’re doing but are doing it with the right kit. Forget those awful pizza “ovens” that are really just glorified conveyer belt toasters of the sort you use to crisp up your raisin bread at some four-star “resort’s” breakfast buffet: NOM has what they claim to be the only commercial wood-fired pizza oven in Marrickville, a proper Italian job brought over from the Boot and stoked every night to five hundred degrees. The result is thin, crispy crusts, lightly dressed, very much in the Neapolitan-New York style the Prick grew up with.

The menu offers all the classics, and wisely they don’t try and do anything else but make good pizza. No one’s dough-spinning rhythms are going to get thrown off having to heap a desultory pile of soggy pasta boscaiola into an aluminium foil container. But purists though they may be, they’re not so precious about their pies that they turn their nose up at doing a ham and pineapple: Yes, the concept is appalling, but they’re the Littlest Prick’s favourite and he’s only six and we’re just hoping he grows out of this phase before he starts shaving. If his reaction to the prosciutto and rocket pizza (everyone’s hands-down favourite) was anything to go by, we may not have to worry much longer. The other big winner of the night was the potato pizza, a brutally simple number that starts with spuds roasted off in that aforementioned oven then sliced thinly and put on a pie. The result is an unctuous, more-ish racket of sensations: crispy, oily, salty, herby, chewy goodness.

“Like-a big-a pizza pie …”

The only thing missing is someplace to sit. We had hoped we could eat in, but save for some makeshift seating outside it’s pretty much a take-away kind of deal. Would it be being too much of a prick if the Prick hoped the shop next door went under, allowing NOM to knock through and put in some proper tables and chairs? Probably, but what the hell.

NOM is part of the bigger foodie renaissance that has captured Marrickville, a suburb that’s still edgy in a way that the once-sketch Alexandria – now a hipster theme park – abandoned long ago. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing: Marrickville girls have dirt under their fingernails and they’re proud of it, and the local ethic seems to be more artisanal, less showing off. Me? I’ve just got a little tomato sauce on the corner of my mouth. Nom.

Trouble at the old cheese show! The Germans are coming, and they’re scooping up all the awards:

AUSTRALIA’S artisan cheese and dairy producers are up in arms after a global supermarket chain wiped the floor with them at the annual Sydney Royal dairy awards.

Aldi, based in Germany but with stores across Europe, the United States, Britain and Australia, picked up 49 medals, including eight gold, and was named the most successful dairy produce exhibitor at the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW 2013 Cheese and Dairy Produce Show awards.

The results have prompted local crafters of fine cheese, butter and yoghurt to call for an overhaul of the judging system that would pit generic brands against one another only, while boutique producers would compete in separate categories.

Well, that’s one approach. But for the small cheesemakers – who are undoubtedly the good guys in this fight – it is also the wrong one.

From the outside looking in, special pleading for special categories needlessly gives the game away, suggesting that the little guy can’t compete, and worse, that the supermarkets are in fact making a superior product. When a representative of the Australian Specialist Cheesemakers’ Association complains about the show ”taking … big, industrial products and putting them in the same category as hand-made, artisan products” and then going on to win, it sounds like the same sort of sour grapes French winemakers indulged in after they got the culottes beat off them by the Californians in the famous 1976 Judgement of Paris.

But Aldi’s supermarket sawdust is not Stag’s Leap. And the Sydney Royal is not a boutique event: have a look at some of the categories and awards. “Shredded or grated cheese. Retail or Food Service Pack. Exhibitor to specify cheese type on the Application for Entry” is one. “Cheddar Cheese, matured, Retail pack, Minimum Exhibit of 1kg” is another. As a Facebook commenter was seen to note, “There’s a category you can win with class. To be eligible your entry must be in a bag and weigh more than a large cat.”

Small cheesemakers should not complain about the ruling body. They should become the ruling body, go on the attack, and state the obvious, which is that any judge who thinks Bega makes the best cheddar cheese in Australia has his tastebuds in his ass. Then, they should get together and hold their own awards, complete with a tasting event and gala dinner (invites can be sent care of this site), publicising the hell out of it every step of the way while leveraging off the broader fight between big supermarket chains and hard-pressed small dairy operations.

Some dairy producers, including the legendary Pepe Saya, are already going down this road by boycotting the whole affair. Next year it would be great to see Coles, Woolies, and Aldi left alone at the show to fight for the spoils of their Pyrrhic victory and the right to slap little shiny stickers on their plastic packages of plastic cheese.