Plum Cake for Mother's Day

Some plums picked just a day ago (so the man who sold them to me said).

Perfect for a plum cake, a German recipe from Stephanie Alexander's Cook's Companion.  

It has a batter on the bottom, a topping of halved plums and ground almonds (and pine nuts as I improvised) and a sugary buttery streusel topping which puffs up and crunches as the cake cooks.

My mother is a great cook, and being from the country it is perhaps surprising she doesn't bake more.  It is also surprising she didn't actively teach me to cook, it was something I learned in my late 20s.   She had to work, very hard, from when I was 11 years old, and if I asked her I am certain she would say that she just didn't have the time.   Perhaps she was too tired, a complaint I am guilty of making way too often these days. 

As much as it is tempting to be rosey eyed about mother - daughter relationships, the truth is that they are tricky, and that really hits home once you have a child of your own.  I can every day see myself behaving in ways, both good and perhaps not so good, which are so similar to the ways in which my mother behaved when I was a little girl.   

It is scary because there is something worse than behaving badly - it's knowing you are behaving badly.
 

(eat warm with cream)

Genes are very powerful and they come through in all kinds of odd ways.  I know I get my obsession with putting food, jewelry, makeup, button, hair clips, socks and all other manner of things in separate and copious containers from her, and I also get the need to have everything spick and span before I can relax from her.  

Having said all that, I am lucky to have her as a mother.  She is a charming, warm, interested in other people person, who sets a table beautifully, is perfect at making people feel welcome and wants everyone to be kind to each other all the time.

And I can say all this knowing she doesn't text, has no computer or email and certainly doesn't read this blog.  

Happy Mother's Day to you, I will love you always. 

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Burn baby burn

Today is a beautiful clear crisp day, with a forecast for a chilly evening.  A perfect day for the first fire of winter.   I love our fireplaces with a passion.   Part of the joy of living in a city with reasonably coldish winters is sitting in front of a fire with the rain pouring down outside. 

I don't much like empty fireplaces.  I try to keep mine filled with wood during summer so it doesn't look like such a gaping hole in the wall.    And I love the way stacked wood looks.   A bit like these: 

Our house had a couple of fireplaces when we bought it, and when we renovated we included one in the back part of the house.   The funny thing is, our architect tried to talk us out of a fireplace (too messy) and into one of those thin line of flame things, which were big in the late 1990s.  I am so pleased we said no!

Images (1) (2) (6) Remodelista  (3) Elle Decor (4) House and Home (5) living etc, (7) Paul Massey (8)  Trendir.com

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Pomegranates and Parrots

My mother has a pomegranate tree which fruits prolifically.  And each year, as the pomegranates blush pink, a horde of King parrots flies down from the north and spends a few days denuding the tree of its bounty.

This year to deceive the parrots my mother has picked the fruit before it ripens. 

But who has tricked who?   I couldn't eat them when she gave them to me as they were not yet fully ready.  So they have sat in this bowl for two weeks, slowly ripening.

(pomegranates from Benalla in a 17th century oak bowl)

But maybe that doesn't matter as I suspect pomegranates may officially be the most pointless fruit there is. 

Many many years ago, Aussie New Yorker hosted a dinner party down at the beach on the eve of an important Federal election.  It was a bacchanalian long table dinner, to which we were required to atttend in character as a Greek or Roman god or goddess.   I was Persephone, the goddess of Underworld who was dragged down there by Hades after bursting through a cleft in the earth where Persephone was picking flowers with some nymphs (Hades made an appearance at the dinner - he was my boyfriend at the time - very apt as it happened).  

Daughter of Demeter and Zeus, Proserpina in Roman mythology, Persephone was eventually saved by Hermes, but as Hades had tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds, she was bound to return to the underworld for at least a season each year.

One of these pomegranates would have done rather well at the dinner.  At the time, pomegranates were not in season. In fact, as a 24 year old, I barely even knew what they looked like. 

I have found it hard to find many useful pomegranate recipes.  Of course you can sprinkle the seeds and make juice but these seemed a bit simple.  In the end I made this, a roasted beetroot, goat's cheese and pomegranate salad.

Looks a bit like a massacre, I know. But it tasted piquant and lovely.

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Radicchio Rosso

Just think for a minute of all those things you wouldn't eat as a child or even a 20 year old.... my list includes:

• coffee (which I didn't drink until I was backpacking in Europe at 25 and was pretty desperate for sustenance)
• mushrooms (it's a texture thing)
• olives (texture again)
• ham (don't ask) 
• celery (urrggh - still can't eat it.  I don't even like typing the word.  I am pretty certain also that I am not alone in my loathing for this pointless, stringy, takes up too much space in my fridge vegetable). 

and most critically, any bitter leaf at all - endive, rocket and radicchio.

Who would have thought that now, radicchio is one of my favourite things to eat.  

So when I saw this Taitu bowl at the wonderful shop Emporium Botanica I had to buy it.

And why did I have to buy it?  So I could put a bitter leaf salad in it.   And the kitschness of putting a radicchio salad in a radicchio bowl doesn't even upset me.  That is age for you.  I will eat it torn up with some goat's cheese and ripe figs and a honey and dijon mustard dressing.

There are two ways I love to cook this leaf.  

The first is a pasta sauce: the radicchio is shredded and cooked down slowly in butter and bacon until it becomes brown and almost creamy. Then add about 100 ml of thickened cream and cook until it reaches a saucy consistency (yet another brilliant Marcella Hazan recipe) . 

The second is much more simple: cut the radicchio into evenly sized wedges and cook slowly in olive oil and splash of balsamic vinegar until caramelised (this may take 20 minutes or more).  Toss through some pine nuts and sultanas plumped up in water and serve with pan fried chicken breast and some aioli (thanks Neil Perry).

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