I'm ashamed to admit this but... the great thing about a Quarter Pounder, some fries and a Coke is that all can be consumed one-handed while watching Doctor Who.

Because two-hearted, time-travelling aliens in blue boxes are more interesting than my dinner.

I'll walk myself to the gallows, thanks.

Part of the reason I'm so happy that Khristianne Uy won 'The Taste' is because she and her partner remind me of Hazel and Foxglove from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.  

Hazel (also a chef) was a slightly more minor character than Foxglove and the thought of her groovy flesh-and-blood doppleganger winning a cooking show on the teevee makes my dorky heart melt.

The Best Meal In The Year Of The Dragon

The title of this post sounds premature, I know.  In this vast city of restaurants, cafes and yes, even food trucks, the 'best meal' is always something to be chased, hunted and consumed.

But this 'best meal' wasn't about the food.  It was about seeing my Dad again for the first time in many, many years. 

We had a huge, terrifying falling out around 2006.  I'll skip over the details - messy and complicated, the past isn't worth picking over.  Let's just say that he was the most traditional of Chinese fathers and I was the most un-filial of Chinese daughters.  When Mum passed away in 1992, there was no middlewoman to deal with the unruliness and mess that comes with having with kids, no filter between him and the rebellious, confusing child. 

So to be sitting down at lunch and sharing a meal with him and my brother last Saturday was mind-blowing.  It was the most awkward, confusing, amazing, mysterious and unexpected thing I could comprehend.

I received my lunch invitation via my brother Andy - he said that he and my father were thinking of going to lunch to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and would I like to come? 
Stunned, I asked, "Is that okay with Dad?"
Andy replied, "It was his idea."

And so it went.

I have a theory, but no actual evidence as to why my father wanted to resume contact.  He didn't tell me why this most astounding of meals came to be.  He is Not A Talker.  He came from an age when Men Did Not Have Feelings.  One of the first international students to study in Australia under the Colombo Plan, he was terrifyingly ambitious and determined in a steely, set-jawed, Gordon Gecko kind of way.  He owned an engineering firm.  He bought not one, but two Porches.  He paid for overseas holidays, built his own computers and ordered his shoes from Bally.  He was (still is) a Doer, not a Talker. 
He is, after all, a Metal Dragon.

Maybe he thought it would be nice to have the family together again, in this year, his celestial animal year.  Maybe.

I'll never know - but that's okay.  That's more than okay.  It was just wonderful to be sharing a meal with Dad again.

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone!  May 2012 bring you a few extra dollars and whole lotta love.

This Is The Part Where You Roll Your Eyes

As I write, the effects of 25mg of codeine are taking hold.  I've done nothing of note for the last 10 days, due to chronic pain caused by fibroid related issues.  Basically, my guts have been kicking me in the guts.

So what's this got to do with a food blog?  Why am I telling you about the workings of my internal organs?  Is this blog written my someone cruel, nasty and self obsessed?

The short answer is yes.  All bloggers blog for themselves, methinks.  Therefore, self-obsession is a prerequisite for any blogger, or anyone who wishes to maintain an identity in the online world.

If you don't find yourself fascinating, or your relationship to your chosen topic (wellness, marathon running, pizza eating, Provence-exploring, mouse-desexing, package-critiqueing) utterly absorbing, you're hardly going to put the time and effort into writing about it, are you?

As for the cruel and nasty part - 'yes' to that too.  Just ask the other blogs I've started and abandoned. 

As for talking about how my insides work, well, there will be plenty of that.  Diabetes, depression and lots of 'lady problems' i.e. fibroids and endometriosis are the drawn straws in my genetic lottery.  If I'm not battling one, I'm trying to stave off others. 

"Where's the food part then, you plainly self-absorbed and rather unpleasant creature?"

The food part is everywhere.  Think - why do people blog about food?  Because food is life. 
It's society, context, art, health, geography, history, politics, etiquette, everything. 
Every subject you were taught in school has some relationship to food.  From dodgy spice racks made in shop class to memorising the periodical table, all of what we know and are taught has a relationship to what we eat.

We are fascinated with food because we are fascinated with life.

Anyway, back to the present - due to the enormous amount of painkillers ingested and general uselessness of my current condition, I've missed out on going to the Duchess of Spotswood for breakfast, and doing Korean barbecue at home.  These events were to occur last Sunday, when I awoke with sharp, stabbing pain.  But bugger that.

The worst part was Missing Out On Food.  The petulant, childlike manner of my internal temper tantrum expressed a veritable sea of disappointment.

"But I really, really wanted to try the Duchess' mango and coconut yoghurt tapioca thingy!", "What, no grand feast of meat, meat and more meat?  No sizzle of porky bits?  No kimchee?!"

Like a child at Easter diagnosed with lactose intolerance, I sulked and sulked hard. 

In pyjamas, with greasy hair, clutching a hot water bottle to my abdomen I could only mourn for what was lost. 

The last time I ate at Duchess, the salmon was so juicy and the asparagus so tender, the peeled stalks coated unctuously (I used the word 'unctuous'.  See, it's a real food blog after all!) with the creamy-drippy bantam egg yolk.  And they have brown sugar with their coffee there, giving it an almost-burnt caramel background.

I had hoped to recover in time to cook up bite-sized bits of cow and pig on our Korean barbecue grill, but that wasn't to be either.  After the morning sulk and a nap, I awoke to wooziness and the sort of pain that makes you go cross-eyed.  By then my senses were too dull and the pain too great to really get upset.

However, it must be said that in our household we love Korean barbecue so much that we've taken apart the smoke alarm in order to cook it regularly, courting death and defying good sense. 
Life and limb at risk for pieces of nashi-marinated beef smeared with ssamjang wrapped in lettuce with garlic slivers.    

I love food.  I may be flawed, perverse and more than a little mad, but at least my love is pure.