Prick With A Fork

There’s an old foodie rule that runs roughly as follows: If you’re looking for good Italian food, don’t go to any suburb that bills itself as “Little Italy”. Living just over the road from Norton Street, Leichhardt, in Sydney’s inner-west these past two years has for the most part proven this right. Not to say that there aren’t exceptions: The Pricks used to be fans of a place called Carpaccio, which later re-birthed itself as La Fontana. The food was never fantastic, but they knew how to take care of their regulars. Once, after taking a call from the back of a taxi that  was blasting across the ANZAC Bridge around 10pm after a corporate Christmas party that featured of all things an all-you-can-drink artisanal vodka bar, the kitchen got two massive bowls of duck ravioli to hit the table just as we, well, hit the table – saving the evening and, very likely, the following day. Sadly they folded several months ago, and since then, we’ve been bereft. We tried Elio, and had a passable meal, but it was nothing to write home about. We gave Grappa a shot and had a truly execrable night, from the too-loud music to the utterly confused wait staff to the duck breast that required a Dremel to cut through.

Antipasto: Make mine meat!

So it was with some trepidation that we wandered into Aperitivo on Norton Street. Still, the menu, listing a raft of stuzzichini as well as wood-fired pizza, looked promising. The space, nothing flash with little to draw the eye beyond big reproduction cut-outs from old Campari and Aperol ads, is divided into a wine bar up the front, dining room up the back. The welcome and service, friendly and all-in, was pitched right.

Aperitivo actually has the potential to up-end the Little Italy doctrine. The dishes that hewed closest to the mother country were the best, by far, while those flourishes that went in the other direction took the meal in the direction of “meh”.

Stuffed calamari, with perhaps too many trimmings…

A twice-cooked pork cheek nestled in a dish of runny truffled polenta (to Aperitivo’s great credit, this ain’t no jumped-up chicken parmigiana joint) had the boys all but stabbing each other with forks as they fought for the last morsel. The antipasto platter was heaped high with smallgoods. Chorizo-stuffed calamari was a hit as well, though the filling felt more Espanol than Italiano, and the chef could have lost the mash of green beans and lurid drizzle of sriracha to make for a purer dish. There are many, many other stuzzichini we want to try next time, from zucchini flowers to pot-roasted rabbit to cannellini bean soup with mussels and, again, chorizo (que?).

Feeling cheeky: I almost got pricked with a fork fighting for the last bite of this guanciale…

The nice thing is that many dishes were – are – classics, and never feel dated. Other areas of the menu could use a bit of a contemporising. Mrs Prick liked her little round of molded salmon and avocado with a soy-mirin dressing was refreshing, but there was nothing Italian about this dish which felt plucked from a dinner party or wedding hall menu ten years ago. And truffle oil is great, but with locals growing the real thing it’s not the synonym for luxury it once was.

Dont be fooled, all that lettuce is just a cover for lots of meat and cheese

Pizzas, again, were classic wood-fired Neapolitan numbers. While not quite up to the standards of, say, Lucio in Darlinghurst, they were very good indeed, and we fought over a pie covered with slabs of prosciutto and another dotted with truffled sausages and taleggio with an (over)generous shake of sliced, raw radicchio, most of which wound up on our plates. Sorry guys, but everybody knows you don’t win friends with salad. Still, there’s a lot to like about Aperitivo, and it wouldn’t be hard for there to be a good deal to love. A few more pastas (even a duck ravioli, perhaps?), a gentle edit of the menu, and the Pricks might just have their new neighbourhood Italian.

Weddings, weight-loss, and now workplace changes: Fairfax’s Jessica Irvine, who writes like the up-talking offspring of a tawdry one-nighter involving Thomas Friedman and Ezra Klein, has never shied away from the first person in her writing. Thus her latest column begins with the words, “I’ve been thinking a lot about jobs lately.”

No doubt she has: Although she hasn’t announced it in print (though she must be like totally bursting to tell her dear readers, pinky-swear!) the self-proclaimed “Econo-Girl”  has reportedly been poached by News Ltd  – to  be “national economics editor” no less. The move is a curious one to say the least: Is this part of a broader Holt Street raid on Fairfax’s shrinking talent pool, designed to make the Love Media collapse under its own weight, hopefully before Irvine and other new hires work out their probation and can be put out on the street?

In any case, the Irvine hire should be interesting. The Prick is informed as well that she has been whispering around town that she’ll actually be working at The Australian. One would love to be a fly on the wall when she tries to give writing advice to Paul Kelly.

The Prick is a big fan of Virgin Australia, finding their friendly service and new airplane fitouts far preferable to the tired and haggard planes and crew one all too often gets on Qantas. Which is why it’s a shame to see the carrier falling into the all-men-are-pedos trap:

Sydney fireman Johnny McGirr, 33, said he was flying home from Brisbane in April when he took his seat next to two boys he estimated to be between 8 and 10 years old.

He was assigned the window seat but sat in the aisle seat so the two boys could look out the window.

However, a flight attendant approached him just as passengers were asked to put on their seatbelts, asking him to move.

Mr McGirr said when he asked why, he was told, “Well you can’t sit next to two unaccompanied minors.”

“She said it was the policy and I said, ‘Well, that’s pretty sexist and discriminatory. You can’t just say because I’m a man I can’t sit there,’ and she just apologised and said that was the policy.

“By this stage everyone around me had started looking.”

Mr McGirr said the attendant then asked a fellow female passenger, “Can you please sit in this seat because he is not allowed to sit next to minors.”

I don’t blame McGirr for being annoyed, and I wonder if under Australia’s defamation laws he may have a case: the flight attendant pretty much called him a pederast in front of an entire plane load of people, yet he looks nothing like Harry Reid.

Virgin Australia ought to reconsider, apologise, and fling a few business class tickets Mr McGirr’s way. It’s surprising to see an airline this mistake after BA got such a public a black eye for making London Mayor Boris Johnson move seats under a similar policy – when he was seated next to his own kids.

Getting ripped off is a daily part of the Australian experience: the price for living in the one remaining OECD nation that’s not a complete economic basket case is that we pay well over the odds for the same products as our friends in other countries. Sometimes it is graspy, tax-hungry governments jacking up the price of something for our own individual or collective good: The family auto cost us a good deal more than it would have elsewhere in the world, thanks to import duties and a “luxury car tax” implemented to teach us to buy Australian and  stop being such a bunch of show-offy Pricks. A bottle of gin costs twice as much in Sydney as it does in New York, presumably to discourage Australians from becoming a bunch of soaks. And let’s not even get started on iTunes.

Books, too, are ridiculously expensive, and much of the blame for that falls on Australia’s restrictive parallel importation laws. But what of books produced here?

Fossicking around Kinokuniya the other day I had a look at Peter Gilmore’s Quay cookbook, wondering if it was something I should add to my library despite that ridiculous snow egg dessert’s appearance on the equally-ridiculous Australian MasterChef. (All one needs to know on the subject is that friends of the Prick, celebrating one of their 40^th birthdays at Quay recently, witnessed an NRL star and his WAG asking a waiter to photograph them with the dish.) Still, the book looked worthwhile, until I saw the pricetag: $95!

Which seems like kind of a spicy meatball, especially when one considers it is published by a local Australian imprint, Murdoch Books, which set this ridiculously high RRP.

What makes it worse is that if you go over to Amazon, the book can be yours for a little over $50 plus shipping – quite a difference.

To put it another way, it is cheaper to buy a book that has been shipped to the States and back than it is to buy a copy that has only been driven, essentially, down the road.

As it’s a local product, parallel importation can’t be the whole story. Is it just an opportunistic publisher trying to stuff its boots with whatever the market will bear? I’ve put the question to Murdoch Books but have not yet had a reply, though I’ll post anything that comes back to me on this.

In the meantime, anyone with thoughts or experience with the issue care to weigh in?

Real work intrudes for another day or two, but in the meantime, whet your appetite with these tasty morsels.

Over in the invaluable City Journal, Troy Senik takes on “Gastronomical Prohibitionists” and California’s flawed foie gras ban. After pointing out California’s myriad fiscal problems (which one might think would keep the legislature otherwise occupied), Senik notes that as a result of the law,

On July 1, the state with the nation’s largest economy ushered in a new era of prohibition, banning the sale of foie gras, a French delicacy made out of the intentionally fattened liver of a duck or goose. As anyone who has ever patronized a Sacramento tavern while the legislature is in session knows, this is perhaps the first time in recorded history that state lawmakers regarded hepatic dysfunction as cause for alarm.

Read on – including those who think foie gras production is necessarily cruel and barbaric. As the man said, not so much.

Meanwhile over in the Wall Street Journal, a charming review of new books on one of the Prick’s heroes, Julia Child. At least one title has been added to the next Amazon shipment, but I loved this detail:

Years ago, a colleague of mine at Saveur magazine was on the phone with Child, going over her recipe for poulet à la crème (chicken in cream sauce) and innocently asked if the dish could be made lighter by using milk instead of cream. “Well, I suppose it could,” Child replied, “but then it wouldn’t be poulet à la crème, would it?” Then she added, with a note of disdain: “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s only a little bit of cream.”

Finally, just because it is amusing, Elton John (having previously come out as a supporter of Israel) has now taken out after Madonna, likening her to a “fairground stripper”.

The Prick has previously observed that there are few greater conservatising forces than marriage and parenthood, and this would seem to underline the point. Centre-right parties around the world looking for those vital few extra points that decide most elections should confound their opponents, push to legalise gay marriage, and reap the rewards.

Fairfax looks forward to the good old days, when the government chose what we ate…

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Melissa Davey really doesn’t like salt, writing in Tuesday’s paper:

DIET and exercise campaigns are so ineffective at preventing heart disease that they should be abandoned and replaced with strict regulation of salt levels in food combined with wider medication use, a study has found.

She’s not much of a fan of individual freedom either, letting this clanger go without bothering to quote a single voice on the opposing side:

Continue reading →

Sadly, I left my phone in the car when we wound up at The Cove at Drummoyne for lunch today, because I wouldn’t believe it either: The joint has a lovely view, and is run by some lovely Italians, but I’m pretty sure their interpretation of some of the standards are not exactly D.O.C., if you know what I mean.

When was the last time you ordered a chicken parmigiana and got a schnitzel with no cheese or tomato sauce but a great whack of mayonnaise, avocado, cold caramelised onions, and a salad on top?

Are oysters a powerful aphrosiac, or just damn delicious? Let’s find out with a trip to Sydney’s new and much-needed oyster bar, the Morrison Bar and Oyster Room!

A great album … and a great oyster bar

The Morrison, just opened in Sydney at the site of the old Brooklyn Hotel with a bevy of former head chefs in the kitchen, is marketed as a tribute to the great oyster bars of New York and London. But anyone with eyes to see will also note that it is also a subtle tribute to Jim Morrison and The Doors: there aren’t great Mao posters of the man at every turn like there are of Bruce Lee at Grasshopper, but the signs are everywhere. There are doors – the doors – all over, not just to get in to the place, but also to move between the dining room and the cocktail bar, down half a flight of stairs. Morrison wrote some of his best stuff on acid, and the cups of delightfully sharp mignonette that accompany the oysters are a tribute to the power of acidity to concentrate the mind. Upstairs in the gents, men quietly face the wall and take out their oldfella in silent tribute to the sultry 1969 night Morrison was arrested for indecent exposure. Or maybe they’re just having a piss.

The Finkelstein Review better not shut down this tabloid!

In any case, the Morrison is not a place that takes itself too seriously. It’s a big space, but still crowded as hell on a Friday night with a great energy. It’s a good thing we booked, the urgent need for a date night having made itself felt after a week’s skiing with the children. The maître d’ who seats us looks up our reservation and hands us over to another staffer, telling her, “Table 69”, then to me, sotto voce with a wink and a smirk: “Great table…”. As one who spends his working weeks waiting for HR to tap him on the shoulder for just this sort of sidelong inappropriateness, the Prick appreciates a baudy brasserie.

So, seated, it’s cocktails and menus time: An espresso martini (or “yuppie speedball”, as we call them) for Mrs Prick, while I try the signature Morrison cocktail (really just apple juice and vodka, refreshing but nothing special). The menu comes in two parts. An elegant food menu is supplemented by the tabloid “Le Journal de Wine”, which is one part wine list, one part oyster menu, and one part editorial: boozy quips and aphorisms from Churchill, Dorothy Parker, and Lilly Bollinger; short articles about wine and travel. Again, they’re serious about their food, but they don’t take themselves too seriously.

We start the feast with a mixed dozen oysters, which quickly becomes two dozen, all washed down with a Joseph Cattin Pinot Blanc from Alsace. Perhaps a bit more residual sugar than necessary for the task, but I love the varietal. Here I should note that the Morrison’s team is not only clever and engaged but really knows their stuff. Our guy, and indeed everyone we encounter, is that rare breed in Sydney dining, namely, a professional, talking us through the options but never talking down. Not since the old Bayswater closed down in Kings Cross have I seen such a good selection of freshly-shucked oysters. When they’re available, the Morrison even serves those rare beasts, the native Angassi. The winners of the night are from Tuross Lake, plump and steely, though the James Magnussens of the night would have to be the Lake Wapengo rock oysters, which lost gold in our books by only a fraction but were rich, creamy and herbaceous in a way I’d never before known a straight, raw oyster to be.

Mrs Prick loves her oysters!

The Morrison takes a bit of a risk in offering a full menu along with their slate of oysters (which changes daily, about a half-dozen varieties at any given time): by the time the big dishes come, many diners will have already had what they consider to be the main event, and those bivalves are a tough act to follow. This kitchen pulls it off, though: we build a little degustation of crab “tacos” (very more-ish, if a bit salty, these would be great at a cocktail party) and deep-fried chicken “lollipops”, though there were a number of other nibbly plates I’d like to get stuck into next time.

Steak on a plate!

We finish off by sharing the 350g sirloin on the bone, a great cut only enhanced by its being cooked over a charcoal fire, and some thrice-cut duck fat chips, and though the place is hopping no one is pushing us to finish as we linger over the last glasses of a savoury but austere shiraz-viognier from Bendigo. I’m told, though I don’t recall seeing it on the menu, that they also offer a 1kg t-bone for sharing, and that is surely a must-have dish for our return.

In the meantime, the Morrison is a great addition to the city’s dining scene, and along with dinner I could see it doing a strong lunch trade among those who still have the sorts of jobs where one can afford to camp out a table at 1pm and stay for closing. The Pricks will be back for sure.

Oh, and as for the opening question? Visit the Morrison and find out for yourself!

So Instapundit notes that a New York supermarket has just put together a “Man Aisle”, to cater to the gentleman shopper, stocking “male items like beer, cereal, soda, beef jerky, hot sauces, barbecue sauces, condoms, and oh, Chock Full o’Nuts coffee” all in one convenient place.

The supermarket’s heart is in the right place, but this feels very wrong to me.

For one thing, you can only imagine the (confected) outrage if a supermarket ghettoised women in this way, putting the tampons, Ben & Jerry’s, and DVDs of Beaches all in one convenient location.

But for another, the move suggests that all male grocery shoppers are a bunch overgrown children looking for crap to graze on in between bong hits and X-Box sessions. Along with a generation of “kidults”, this is what happens when people take all their cultural cues from Hollywood movies like Ted:  an image of adult men as feckless couch-dwelling Dorito-scarfers, rather than productive, cultured individuals. It’s anecdotal, but I’ve done the family grocery shopping for over a decade now, and a lot of married/partnered male friends do the same – if for no other reason than they do all the cooking as well, and want to make sure they’ve got the right stuff.

Even for the single male market, it seems rude to sell condoms without also selling the ingredients for a nice romantic dinner. Or at least a decent omelet the next day.

Conventional wisdom is nearly always wrong. Remember when Kevin Rudd was supposed to save the Australian Labor Party? Or people believed Barack Obama would usher in a new era of prosperity at home and peace around the world? Likewise, take that horrible hipster breakup song everyone claims to love: conventional wisdom says it’s the greatest piece of music penned since Mozart put quill to paper, but deep down we all know it sucks. Just three examples, chosen at random, demonstrating that when the media starts fanning the flames of an enthusiasm, the best move is to run – fast – in the other direction. Like Ozymandias, conventional wisdom has a habit of becoming embarrassingly wrong and out of date, and the lone and level sands of fad and opinion stretch far away.

The duck burbles …

So when I read yet another piece on The Punch today (yes, I know, I was slumming) claiming that ours is a nation of “stressed out, time poor, lonely worker bees” who don’t have time even to keep the house clean or cook a decent meal I dismissed it as just the conventional wisdom-heavy work of a left-leaning union pollster whose livelihood depends on convincing readers that if only every workplace was more heavily regulated  (except of course the one he himself runs), Australians would all have time to keep the house tidy and still prepare a home-cooked meal, washed down with a government-approved number of standard drinks (no more than two standards, thank you very much).

This woe-is-us work-life balance routine is so commonplace as to be comical. Hell, half the time I’m doing the school run for the Three Little Pricks, Mrs Prick and myself hold some pretty time-consuming day jobs, yet it’s almost never too much trouble (to say nothing of nearly always less expensive) to  turn out a decent plate of food. The problem is not that most people are too stressed or busy to cook, it is that they just don’t plan ahead.

Take the other night, when Mrs Prick and I had what may be the ultimate fast food: Duck confit.

Confit duck, ready for searing — put this fat back in the tub!

Honestly, every reader should make a tub of this stuff to keep in their larder over winter. While it takes a few days to organise, the time one needs to spend actually doing things is minimal: again, the conventional wisdom that duck is fiddly and hard to prepare is just plain wrong. The ingredient list is simple, just duck Marylands (or legs), salt, aromatics, and some fat. And it’s both scalable (in fact it is almost easier to make more than less) and – as I found when we took a huge lot down to the snow last week to feed an army of hungry skiiers, it’s a dish that travels very well indeed.

Your first step should be to rinse, pat dry, and cure by mixing salt with herbs and spices. Some recipes are very precise on this, and many chefs (such as Thomas Keller, to whom I normally defer in all things) like just a bit of thyme, bay leaf, pepper added in for flavour. After much experimentation, I prefer a bolder approach: along with those traditional “green salt” adds, I also crush a few star anise, coriander seeds, and juniper berries. Spread this stuff all over the dried duck pieces, cover with Glad Wrap, and refrigerate for at least 12 but no more than 24 hours. See how easy this is?

Next step: Confit. Pre-heat your oven to about 85 degrees C (that’s about 185 F). Rinse off the seasoning, and immerse in a baking dish or other vessel such that you can immerse the legs completely in your fat medium. Traditionally duck fat is used, but if you’re not raising ducks yourself this can be ruinously expensive.  Instead, I use olive oil, a tip picked up from the great Michael Ruhlman. Stick ‘em in the oven for about 12 hours, and you’re almost done. Again, simplicity itself.

Finally, when the meat has pulled back from the bone and the meat is buttery when pierced with a knife, take out the pan and leave to cool. Put the duck legs, with enough fat to cover, in a container and refrigerate. My friend, you now have duck confit, and it’ll last for months in the fridge, preserved in fat (and both duck fat and olive oil are, all things considered, reasonably healthy) and ready to cure your work-life balance blues.

Fast food, Prick-style

After that, things are simple. Sear off the legs as need be (as we did earlier this week): crisp up the skin, warm them through, and serve with a simple salad. Rich and delicious. Pair with a few slices of seared duck breast and perhaps some  pureed potatoes, as I did at the snow. Or shred the meat and make rillettes, an easy and quick spread when people come by the house. A scoop of rillette is also a great treat in the bottom of a bowl of chestnut soup. Whatever you do, it’s easy, elegant, and a great thumb in the eye to those who promote the idea that we’re all too feckless to organise our lives. Living well, after all, is the best revenge.