Serendipity and Raw Fish

The other day a lovely surprise was delivered to me through the front door:


From Kristine, whom I have actually known since university and noticed from my cookbook rants on this blog that I love to cook and so generously gave me this signed copy of Tetsuya Wakuda's cookbook. Thank you so much.

Tetsuya runs the eponymous restaurant in Sydney which is on one list of things to do before death takes me. It is one of the best restaurants in Australia and the world.

My husband read it and was inspired, and wrote me a list full of provisions to pick up at the market.

As an aside, my husband, who is an excellent cook, in fact cooks very very rarely. The reasons for this range from: he works hard to I like to cook myself to all kinds of plausible excuses in between. Hence I really value those evenings when I am cooked for.

His shopping list was a bit strange, it contained no quantities and consisted of five 'groups' of ingredients. Buy any 2 or 3 groups, the list said.

(Read no further if you don't like raw fish).

I ignored the unreasonable injunction to just buy some ingredients, and bought all 5 groupings.

That evening we realised we had the makings of a five course meal, one duck and the other four seafood. And it was just the two of us.



He decided to cook the four seafood. It was then we realised that each seafood dish was raw. Okay, challenging, but good for you, right?

So, this is what we ate. Apologies for the deteriorating quality of the photos. It was rather a long night!

Raw snapper with cucumber and sherry vinegar dressing

Tuna and Hamachi with orange oil and ginger juice

Sea scallops with lemonade fruit and yuzu. I have never seen lemonade fruit here - he used lemon. The scallops are 'cooked' by immersing in hot water then refreshed in ice and sliced.

Cuttlefish noodles with mirin, soy and capers with broccoli florets and (raw) quail egg.

What an interesting evening of food......

As an aside we had lots of quail eggs left over so the next night I deep fried them for one minute then rolled them in a mixture of rice flour, chilli powder and sea salt. Really divine (and filling) with drinks!

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Victorian front doors on my afternoon walk

On those days I pick my daughter up from school we (very infrequently) walk the 8 minute walk to collect her. Yes you read correctly. It is an 8 minute walk and I am often Too Busy to walk it. Talk about not stopping to smell the roses.

A street around the corner from our house has a row of 6 Victorian double fronted two storey houses, all with elevated and lovely entrances. It is rare to see such an unspoilt row in my part of Melbourne. Or really anywhere for that matter.

I have a bit of a thing about front entrances.... Equally I have a thing about other people's houses. Don't we all? Ever since I was a little girl I have loved to imagine what is behind those front doors. And I think the way a house presents itself to the world says so much about the inhabitants. How clean is the verandah or front terrace? Is it stacked up (as mine was recently) with packing boxes too large to throw out? Does it have prams and other paraphenalia parked outside? What colour is the front door? How much personality of the owners can you see in the closed off face a house presents to the world?

So here are the houses of my journey.

This house is a lovely pale pistachio colour.

This house has a bluestone front terrace, planted with camellias.

This is my favourite - topiary, bluestone and a quirky Mexican glass star light hanging over the entrance.

Tesselated tiles are not my thing but there is a lovely consistency in the tones of this entrance.

Look at the lovely urns in triplicate.

I was too embarrassed to stick my camera throught the gates of this house.

I am aware that this is a slightly weird, nosy parkerish thing to do, so thank you to the owners....

Oh, and here is my front door, on a relatively neat day.

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Not another boring home entrance

McBride Charles Ryan are an architectural firm based in Melbourne practising primarily in residential projects.

They have won a number of awards for their shapely and angular, courageous designs, often located in leafy suburbs where the residents are often not that thrilled about looming modern shapes next door.

In Camberwell, a suburb or two to the east of my house, is the amazing Petrucelli House dating from 2008, which was designed for two photographers who said they wanted the sort of clean lines and precision they derive from their photographic studio.

Rob McBride says the design process began in 1996. Assuming this is not a typo that is one lengthy design process. But one person's picky client is another person's dream client, who lets the architect grow and develop his or her ideas, and create something truly fantastical.

The whole house is stunning but this in particular I love - a 20 metre swimming pool greets you as you enter the inside foyer of the house:

Yes this is a real swimming pool real people can swim in, although probably skinny dipping is not an option.

Thanks to the lovely RAIA for these images. Copyright in the design to McBride Charles Ryan of course. And the photos were taken by the owner, Louis Petruccelli.

I love it. But then this type of clean white architecture is my style. It gives a kind of cinematic quality to the act of swimming. What a pity people (even Michael Phelps and Ian Thorpe) always look a bit flubbery underwater.

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