sage somethymes

The Cunning Peasant Never Reveals His Sources

Posted on May 6, 2014 by sagesomethymes

I’ve done a lot of food foraging in my time but it’s usually of the domestic variety. You know, my mothers’ freezer or pantry. So I was a little surprised to recently find myself bent over double, holding a knife in one hand, and a gigantic green weed in the other. It was Saturday morning and my mother and I were in a local park.

“You are always asking. Now you know,” said my mother. “This is chicory.”

Now I’m a sucker for the romantic notion of living off the land, preferably on a hill top villa in Tuscany. I’ve read the good life abroad memoirs. I know that every afternoon is one long feast of seasonal food, freshly gathered, drizzled in the local olive oil and enjoyed with a bottle of home made wine. So it is true that I’ve often asked my mother what it was like to live in Sicily, after the war, gathering wild greens and dancing in the fields. But I wasn’t expecting to find the good life so close to home, not in a park in south west Sydney anyway. And not on a Saturday morning, when anyone walking past could see us. And anyway, these weren’t wild greens, they’re common ‘wet the beds’. Everyone, including your average hound, knows these things grow on the side of the road all over the place. This certainly wasn’t turning out to be A Year in Provence.

“With your hand you hold the plant,” my mother instructed. “With the knife you cut under the root.”

Nonetheless the anarchist hippie in me began to stir at the smell of free food. So I got over the potential for embarrassment, and dog poo, and began to dig, wielding my knife in such a way as to make my peasant ancestors proud. Armed with my own plastic bag I began to feel quite chuffed as between us we harvested a whole sidewalk.

As I dug I mused about the urban foraging / eat local / self sufficiency craze that has swept Sydney recently. People are regularly popping off the grid to live more sustainably. Men and women nowhere near pension age are preserving plums left, right and centre; and there are fancy chefs all over town harvesting wild greens to serve with their smoked pork belly. Or so the newspapers tell me.

Just as I was beginning to enjoy this authentic experience, made particularly so by the fact that my back was aching, I heard a voice asking if these weeds were edible. I straightened up. A man was standing next to us watching curiously.

I was about to say, “Yes! It’s wild chicory! My mother used to eat it all the time when she was a child in Sicily.” But my mother’s murderous glance silenced the words before they could joyfully bubble out.

“This is for my rabbits. Very good food for rabbits. No good for you,” she said, in that thick Italian accent she reserves for this blog.

The cunning peasant never reveals his sources.

So, loaded down with plastic bags we made our way back to my mother’s kitchen where the chicory was triple washed in vinegar to remove any pesticides and then wilted in a pot of boiling water. A few minutes later, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, we ate a hearty lunch of these edible wild greens with some Italian bread to mop up the juices and a glass of my mother’s homemade wine. Well my mother ate the greens; I polished off a fair bit of the bread and wine. The greens themselves were incredibly bitter and knowing exactly where my food had come from brought a whole new perspective to the idea of eating local.

Posted in Experiments with Food, My Mother and Me | Tagged A Year in Provence, anarchist hippie, budget emergency, chicory, dog poo, eat local, free food, good life abroad, harvest, hippie, homemade wine, Italy, living sustainably, local produce, olive oil, parks, peasant food, preserves, psychogeography, rabbit food, rabbits, seasonal food, sel sufficiency, Sicily, sustainability, urban foraging, wet the beds, wild food, wild greens, wild weeds | 1 Comment

The Service Station Vintage

Posted on April 26, 2014 by sagesomethymes

Me: Where do the grapes come from?

Mum: The service station.

My parents were wine-making Italians but not the squish it between your toes in a concrete bathtub types. We left that level of authenticity to our inner city cousins. We had a machine to do the squishing. A wooden contraption ringed with iron bands that looked like a medieval instrument of torture. When I was a teenage girl of Italian heritage, Sunday mornings in late summer were spent under the carport squashing grapes. Actually I was never allowed anywhere near the grapes or the torture machine. My job was to wash the empty beer bottles that had been collected over the year from friends, family, and anywhere else that you can imagine empty beer bottles might be found. My family were early pioneers of recycling.

And so, a few years later, on a late summer weekend visit to my parents house, I find them in the middle of the wine-making that’s prompted my question. Although the bottles had already been washed they gave me the job of filling them with the juice coming out of the torture machine. I used a length of plastic hose, a funnel, and my mouth. As each bottle fills, you have to stop the flow of wine coming out of the hose with your thumb and sometimes if the wine recedes, to restart the flow you have to suck it back out.

Me: This doesn’t taste too bad.

Dad: That is just the juice. But these are very good grapes. Shiraz. They are the best grapes. It will be a good wine this year.

Me: Where do the grapes come from?

Mum: The service station.

Me: I meant. You know. Where? South Australia? Riverina? Hunter Valley?

Mum: They come from the service station. Why do you need to know more than that? They are good grapes.

So what was with the mystery? Why the secrecy? Was this service station, as well as selling petrol, growing grapes between the car wash and the ice fridge? Or where they contracting truckloads of contraband fruit from criminal elements across dangerous borders? Whitlam legalised home brew but was making wine at home still illegal? I imagined my parents, and every other Italian in Sydney, clandestinely making their way to this service station in the pre-dawn light to collect their 50 or so Styrofoam boxes filled with Shiraz grapes. I had no trouble envisaging this. If you’ve ever actually tasted home made wine you’ll know that it tastes like it’s come from a service station.

So imagine my surprise when I opened the newspaper recently, and there on page two, was a story about backyard winemakers. Apparently, at this time of year, they flock to Flemington Markets to buy boxes of grapes with which to make their wine. Although the article talked about the 500 tonnes of wine grapes that were sold last year, the equivalent of about half a million bottles of wine, there was no mention of the mysterious service station. But as I read on, one of the grape sellers let an important piece of information slip. For the last 30 years he’s been making the trip in his semi-trailer from his vineyard in South Australia to sell his Shiraz grapes at Flemington Markets in Sydney.

Could this be my answer? It was the Shiraz grapes that gave it away.

A semi trailer coming to the end of a sixteen hour trip from the Barossa Valley is making its way up the Hume Highway. The sun has just risen over the Cumberland Plain, the driver is weary from the long drive and the semi needs its tanks filled. On the outskirts of Liverpool he pulls into a service station. In the time that it takes to fill up one of these road beasts the word is out and all the wine-making Italians in the area arrive, they no doubt drive a hard bargain, and the semi trailer leaves the service station several tonnes lighter. The Italians arrive home, haul their teenage daughters out of bed, and begin squishing their Shiraz grapes before their inner city cousins have even had a chance to blow the froth off their cappuccinos.

Posted in My Mother and Me, Time | Tagged Flemington Markets, grapes, home made wine, Hume Highway, Italians, psychogeography, semi-trailer, service station, Shiraz, Shiraz grapes, South Australia, vintage, wine, wine makers, wine making | 4 Comments

Deconstructing the Ants’ Nest

Posted on April 3, 2014 by sagesomethymes

Recently we decided to move house.

Was it the ants’ nest being constructed in the bathroom cabinet, under the eight watchful eyes of a rather large and furry huntsman spider, that led us to this decision?

Was it the waves of mould colonising the shower recess, the bathtub and even the bedroom wall?

Was it the leaf blower man who dutifully appeared every morning to ensure that none of the surrounding properties were harassed by leaves?

No. It was the letter from the real estate agency informing us of the latest rent increase.

Right, we said. That’s it. We’ve had enough.

But I decided to hold off looking for a new place until I’d gotten rid of a whole lot of stuff, so that I’d know exactly how big the new place should be. So I culled and cleaned, boxed and bagged, and made numerous trips on the 326 bus to my local Salvos Store. The bus drivers were mainly sympathetic. But one particularly cold hearted fellow took to flying right by the bus stop rather than stopping to pick up the bag lady.

But I persisted. I was like an ant. Except that I was deconstructing my nest. It felt good. It was actually addictive to shed stuff; stuff that had accumulated for the last six years. There were clothes that I didn’t know I had. There were props from plays I couldn’t even remember producing – hundreds of toy plastic soldiers, wooden daggers, a beaded 1920’s drop waist evening gown, a Burmese dictator’s uniform, feathers, crockery and candelabras. Out it all went! But not all of it went on the bus ride to the op shop. There were objects that wouldn’t fit through the bus doors. Like the couch.

So I decided that this would be a good opportunity to use Freecycle – an online forum where people post the goods they want to give away and other people, who want those goods, simply email and organise to pick them up. I logged on to the website. Filled in my details. Took handsome photos of my objects. Wrote a careful, but brief, description of each object:

Vintage evening gown. c1920’s. Style: beaded. Good condition.

Vintage wooden dagger. c1430’s. Style: stabbing. Good condition.

Vintage couch. c.1995. Style: comfortable. Good condition.

Vintage peppermint rock candy. c. 2010. Style: home made. Good condition.

Etc.

And then I posted. While I waited for responses I decided to make a cup of tea, and pour some peppermint oil into the ants nest. Apparently ants hate peppermint oil, and I had plenty left over from my attempt at making rock candy. I was optimistic, despite the attempt at rock candy, but I wasn’t expecting the avalanche of emails that sent my Inbox into melt down. There was even an email from my service provider warning me that my Inbox was going into melt down. In the three minutes that it had taken to boil the kettle, and annoy a few ants, I had received almost one hundred emails. All of them wanting to take one of my objects. Some of them wanting to take all of my objects. Who were these people? Was it just a computer generated automatic response? And the emails kept coming! I didn’t know what to do!

In a panic I replied to the first few emails. YES! TAKE IT!

Then I posted – STOP IMMEDIATELY _ OBJECTS TAKEN _ STOP IMMEDIATELY_ SURRENDER. I hoped that hostilities would cease.

In the meantime I kept myself busy negotiating who would pick up which object when. After several weeks it was all organised. 5 people would arrive at various times over the next 5 months to pick up my 5 objects. Perhaps it would have been easier, and quicker, to just pop a few items out onto the sidewalk after all. Never mind. I did learn a lot. Mainly that only an idiot begins the moving process before they have somewhere to move to. Because of course we decided that we really didn’t want to move. Never mind. At least my unwanted objects weren’t sitting in landfill. They were safe and sound in a loving new home.

Yes. We decided not to move after all. We liked where we were. Despite the ants. And it was, as they say, rather silly to cut off your nose to spite your (landlord’s) face.

So I went online to pay the new rent. And while I was there I browsed the Freecycle website. And found links to a whole lot of other similar sites: Oddswop, Tushare, Yours2Take, Givit, Reuse Moose and my favourite, Ziilch. Now that we aren’t moving perhaps I can get my stuff back. Or at the very least I can bombard someone else’s Inbox and get a whole lot of their stuff!

Free Stuff Websites

Posted in Habitat, Uncategorized | Tagged ant nest, Freecycle, Huntsman, landfill, moving house, peppermint, peppermint oil, recycling, Reuse, Rock Candy, sidewalk, stuff, Ziilch | 2 Comments

The Spirit of Place 2

Posted on February 2, 2014 by sagesomethymes

Here are five more places that make my city spirit soar. Some of them beautifully juxtapose time and place, others blood and survival; reminding us of the price of civilisation. In all of them, our souls connect to water, trees, sky and space. They are places that tell stories; inspiring us to remember, to think, to dream and act.

The Wharf Theatre, Walsh Bay In 1978, one of the heritage listed, restored timber wharves at Walsh Bay, became the home of the Sydney Theatre Company. This is one of my favourite theatre spaces, floating above the harbour on pylons that reach 30 meters down to the sea rock, complete with its very own rat-proof seawall! The two theatres are reached by walking the long internal length of the wharf, while watching yachts and ferries sail by, and hearing the sea swelling below. And once you reach the end of the wharf there is The Bar At The End of the Wharf; a lovely spot for a pre-show drink, or any time at all drink! http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/your-visit/the-wharf-theatres.aspx

Newport Beach, Northern Beaches On a beautiful afternoon in January, I sat under the Norfolk Island Pines with my toes in the sand, looking at the glorious blue surf while eating one of the yummiest hamburgers I’ve had in a while. Summer in Sydney! Newport is situated along the peninsula on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Having grown up in Western Sydney and spent most of my adult life in the Inner West and the Eastern Suburbs the north side is still a mystery and Newport Beach, with its art deco bathing shed, is the perfect excuse for a day trip. Particularly as there are some lovely seaside boutiques and food places in nearby Newport village, and a whole lot of other beaches to stop and swim at on the way home. http://www.sydney.com/destinations/sydney/sydney-north/northern-beaches/attractions/newport-beach

McKell Park, Darling Point In these beautifully manicured gardens, set amongst the ruins of Canonbury Cottage, you can wander through perfect little amphitheatres, just right for staging a play, a pantomime or a wedding ceremony. (See what I did there?) Walk along the terraces and take the steps down to the harbour foreshore. Explore Lily’s Pond, where stone frogs, lizards, snails and platypus frolic, whilst a stone dragon sleeps. Sit on one of the stonework benches by the jetty and watch the water lap in the old sea baths as the sail boats drift by on the harbour. A lovely place for adventure and discovery! http://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/recreation/parks,_reserves_and_playgrounds/list_of_parks_and_playgrounds/parks_and_playgrounds/mckell_park

Museum of Sydney As you walk across the forecourt of this wonderful little museum, you can see, cleverly preserved beneath your feet, and conveniently located near the museum café, the remains of the first NSW Government House. Standing at the other end of the forecourt, neatly juxtaposed against the row of Victorian terraces that still line one end of this city street, is a virtual forest of tall sandstone, wood and steel pillars. The Edge of the Trees sculptural installation by Fiona Foley and Janet Laurence, is the creation of indigenous and non-indigenous artists working together to represent that first point of contact between Indigenous and European people in our landscape. The pillars symbolise Koori clans and as you weave through them, a soundscape of Koori voices echoes the Aboriginal names of Sydney places. http://www.hht.net.au/museums/mos

Speaker’s Corner, The Domain You might have noticed a little red ladder set amongst the Moreton Bay figs in the Domain. It is part of the ‘Viva Voce ‘ Soap Box Sculptures, created by Debra Phillips, to commemorate Speaker’s Corner. This whole area was originally land reserved by the Governor as his private domain. Gradually it became a public space used for cricket matches, military parades, demonstrations and concerts. The Domain deserves a whole post to itself (and will probably get one!) But this little spot, on the Art Gallery side, was one of the most entertaining places to hang about in the first half of the twentieth century. This was a time when shops were closed on a Sunday, and so people gathered to listen to philosophers and free thinkers, pastors and politicians, and the hecklers they attracted. Anarchism, Darwinism, socialism and communism, suffrage rights, religion, temperance, war and peace were just some of the causes pleaded by orators, philosophers, idealists, theorists and poets. They stood on milk crates, ladders and soap boxes, or just on the ground. They talked passionately, while people listened, laughed, heckled or simply lounged on the grass on their day off. Today however, although there is still a lot of lounging around on the grass, you’re more likely to hear the popping of a cork, as people settle in to listen to an outdoor opera or chillax at a summer music festival. http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/welcome/royal_botanic_garden

Posted in Spirit of Place, Time | Tagged amphitheatre, Koori, Mckell Park, Moreton Bay figs, Museum of Sydney, Newport Beach, Northern Beaches, NSW Government House, oratory, philosophy, politics, psychogeography, red ladder, religion music festival, sculpture, soapbox, Sydney Harbour, The Domain, The Wharf Theatre | Leave a comment

The Spirit of Place

Posted on December 15, 2013 by sagesomethymes

I love the experience of being in a wild place: the sight of a vast ocean, the smell of a eucalyptus forest, or the feel of lichen under my hand as I sit on a warm boulder at the edge of an escarpment. But most of my days are spent in the built spaces of the city. Here too there are places that can be equally transcendent, where the spirit soars.

Most of the places I love in the city are civic spaces, places of communal gathering that often feature gardens, water, history and inspiring architecture. In each of them, the first time I entered I felt that I had come home, that I knew the place intimately, even though I’d never been there before. I felt an affinity with its purpose. I felt I could stay there forever. Whenever I visit these places I leave refreshed and inspired.

The word inspired is a word of the late Middle Ages, a gothic time of arches and sky reaching spires; a time unafraid to acknowledge the metaphysical. So these are for me enchanted places, where magic is possible: a spell is cast, time stops, we are entranced. These are places that can feed the soul. They create memories to sip slowly when our reserves are low. They are cards to pull out and play with when we are bored. They are a door into the spiritual realm, places where our imagination and our senses are engaged, powerful places where we are linked to the earth, the sky and all of humanity.

Here are five of these enchanted places. I could list many more as I’m sure could you.

1) The Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales An Edwardian reading room with an amazing collection. http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/

2) The Quadrangle, University of Sydney An arched walkway surrounds the grassed courtyard at the centre of this tudor gothic sandstone building. http://sydney.edu.au/arts/about/quadrangle.shtml

3) Red Leaf Harbour Pool and Gardens Now the Murray Rose Pool, it is the enclosed half of Seven Shillings Beach, a stunning summer swimming spot and lovely place for a meditative walk at other times. http://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/

4) The Herb Garden, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney If you haven’t got your own herb garden visit this one. You can’t pick but you can smell: lavender, sage, rosemary, mint and hundreds of other herbs. https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/

And if you happen to be in Canberra, a planned city, so different to Sydney, this is one of my favourite places in the capital.

5) The Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House. The graceful 1920’s architecture houses the ghosts of Australia’s recent political past. http://moadoph.gov.au/

(Photo courtesy of Brian Jenkins, kindly licensed under the Wikipedia Commons)

Posted in Spirit of Place | Tagged Canberra, enchanted places, Harbour swimming, Murray Rose Pool, Old Parliament House, psychogeography, Red Leaf Gardens, Red Leaf pool, Royal Botanic Gardens, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney University, The Herb Garden, The Mitchell Library, The Musem of Australian Democracy, The Quadrangle | 1 Comment

Wild Avocados

Posted on November 27, 2013 by sagesomethymes

Foraging has come back into fashion. People used to do it in wartime, in famine and in the 1980’s.

When I was an easily embarrassed teenager, my parents used to forage for rocket in public places. They would keep plastic bags in the car boot and visit the local football oval to scour every inch of it for those bitter greens. Their excuse: “You can’t buy this at the shops.” “It’s what we used to eat in the old country.”

But this post isn’t about rocket. Or teenage embarrassment. It’s about avocados. Wild avocados. And my very own little foraging adventure. Perhaps we all become our parents eventually.

Across the road from where I live stands a very tall avocado tree. I know it’s an avocado tree because an avocado fell out of it as I was walking past. It didn’t hit me on the head, which was lucky because I wasn’t wearing a hard hat. But it did hit the footpath, with quite a thud, and then it rolled down a very steep slope into a concrete gutter far below. I watched as the avocado settle itself nicely next to three others.

With some excitement I did my sums. They were $2.99 each at the supermarket. There was $12 worth of avocados down there. I looked up. Above me the tree hung heavy with another twenty or thirty ripe avocado. All waiting to fall and roll down that steep slope. I calculated there was about $100 worth of avocados in that tree. I started to hyperventilate. This must be how my parents had felt when they spotted rocket. It was obvious that foraging was in my blood. It was time to reconnect with my peasant ancestry, reclaim my migrant roots. It was time to avail myself of free avocados.

But how?

Should I wait for each of them to fall? But how would I know exactly where to stand to catch them before they rolled down that infernal slope? I wondered if I could commandeer a local cherry picker from emergency services; perhaps I could report a light pole down, and when they arrived, admit the truth and split the bounty with them. Alas I decided that might not work. After all, if they had the cherry picker, why would they share? No. I would have to get my own cherry picker. Or take my chances down that sharp slippery slope and be happy with the smaller prize of four perfectly ripe avocados.

I decided to take the smaller prize. After all an avocado, or four, in the hand is better than twenty, or thirty on a tree.

And not only was I of peasant stock but I had been a rugged tom boy as a child, constantly scrambling around chasing mystery and adventure. How hard could it be a mere thirty five years and two herniated discs later to pick up a few avocados from under a tree?

Dear reader, it was hard.

I did manage the dangerous slope, on the seat of my pants. I did reach the concrete gutter but not without grazing long stretches of bare skin. But most of all I cursed profusely at my lack of foresight. I had reached the avocados, but how was I to get them and myself back up the slope. But fear and desperation have always been great motivators. After all my parents dared the high seas, admittedly on a cruise liner, to come to this country and start a new life. One small slope and some rough grass weren’t going to hold me back. And so I balanced two avocados under each armpit and finally clutched and clawed my way back to the footpath.

Once safely home with my bounty I cut them open and admired the ripe golden green flesh. There was enough avocado here to make a lovely pasta with mushroom and parmesan and a side of delicious guacamole. Perhaps I could invite friends over to share in this foraged feast. Just as I was picking up the phone, I noticed the bruises. Not on me, although there were plenty of those. On the avocados. Small semi circles of brown rot marring the golden green flesh. Was that from where they had fallen out of the tree? Or where they had been squashed under an armpit?

Like a surgeon battling against time to save a life I deftly cut away at the rot. But it had spread and I had to cut deep. By the time I put down the knife there was barely enough avocado for a sandwich. At $2.99 per avocado, that was $12 worth of sandwich. And if I included labour, this might just be the most expensive sandwich I’d ever eaten. So I ate it slowly. And it was good.

Posted in Experiments with Food | Tagged avocados, foraging, rocket, wild food | 3 Comments

Cakeless Cake

Posted on October 13, 2013 by sagesomethymes

As the old saying goes, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.” Luckily I didn’t want to make an omelette, not because I don’t like breaking eggs but because I didn’t have any. What I did have was a whole lot of apples. Something had to be done with them. I thought baking them, in a cake, would be just the thing.

The question was how to bake a cake without eggs. I turned to google. My instinct was correct. Recipes for eggless cake filled several pages. After a little reading I distilled that using oil, baking powder and water would do the trick. I happened to have all of those things. So I set about peeling and chopping the apples. After eating several of them I had a lovely pile of peeled chopped apples.

The next step was to ‘combine all the dry ingredients’ with the apples. Apparently as long as you have self raising flour you can do anything. I reached into the pantry for the self raising flour. There was dessicated coconut, powdered ginger, grated nutmeg, slivered almonds and rolled oats. More than enough ‘dry ingredients’. But nothing labelled flour. However I wasn’t going to let a small hitch like this stop me baking an apple cake. Admittedly I did feel a little silly. As Lady Bracknell might say, “To bake a cake without eggs may be regarded as a misfortune but to bake a cake without flour and eggs looks like carelessness.”

Before we proceed any further I must post several warnings. This is not a recipe for vegans, vegetarians or those with a lactose or gluten intolerance. This is not a recipe for flourless, eggless cake. This is a recipe for disaster.

However, at the time the question was, how to bake an apple cake without eggs, and without flour. I have been in tough situations before. Usually when faced with what seems an impossible task, I give up.

But not this time. I was determined to succeed, to use all of my experience, my strength, my determination. I would even use my brain if I had to. That being a last resort I googled again. Surely someone had successfully attempted a flourless, eggless, cake. Nothing. But I am nothing if not optimistic. I had spotted a can of cannellini beans in the cupboard. I decided they would be the perfect substitute for flour. After all, they are the same colour. If nothing else it would be an interesting way to clean out the cupboard.

So I got out my mini stick blender and whipped the beans into a lovely creamy paste. Then I ‘folded’ in all the dry ingredients. My spirits lifted. Perhaps we would eat cake after all. All I needed now was an oven. And that I had.

But after about an hour and a half I still didn’t have cake. If I baked any longer I would have hot coals. I took the ‘cake’ out of the oven. Scooping it out onto a rack to cool I stole a taste. I was pleasantly surprised. It reminded me of apple crumble. But there was something missing. What it really needed was some fresh whipped cream. And some eggs. And flour.

Posted in Experiments with Food | Tagged apple cake, apples, cannellini beans, dry ingredients, eggless cake, flour, flourless eggless cake, self raising flour, vegan, vegetarian | 1 Comment

The Seagull

Posted on September 25, 2013 by sagesomethymes

Recently, a man twice my age and half my height, stopped to look at my feet.

“You have beautiful feet.”

That’s what he said.

“I don’t usually walk around without shoes,” I said. “I lost them trying to save a seagull.”

“You couldn’t save the shoes?” he asked.

And then he walked off, loaded down by his groceries and about eighty five years of life. It made me wonder what strange events he’d witnessed in that life, and how many other bare foot women he had stopped to flirt with.

I don’t usually walk around bare foot. I’m scared of hypodermic needles and dog poo. According to urbananimal.net, over 40% of the 7.5 million households in Australia own a dog. That’s a lot of dogs. And not all of their owners carry around those little disposable plastic poo bags. Admittedly some of the dogs carry their own, in those cute bone shaped containers hanging from their collar. But I have no evidence that any of them have been taught how to open the container, take out the little plastic bag and pick up their poo. There are also no accurate statistics on how many hyper dermic needles there are lying around but I’m not taking any chances. I really don’t understand why any one would walk around barefoot. Unless they’ve lost their shoes. Maybe everyone I’ve ever seen walking around barefoot has actually lost their shoes.

Before I lost my shoes I was walking along the esplanade at Rose Bay. The tide was very low and so instead of pretty blue waves lapping at the edges of the sand, there was about 50 meters of dank smelling mud flats. A fisherman had staked out four fishing rods in an even line parallel to the path. He was nowhere in sight but there was a whole colony of seagulls diving, swooping and squawking around the lines. As seagulls do.

What is it about seagulls? They have these beautiful little faces with bright orange beaks that elegantly offset the grey and white nautical theme. They can balance on one, long, orange leg while the other one completely disappears into the feathers under their belly. But then all this natural grace is completely lost at the smallest prospect of a chip. They shriek and squawk, viciously flapping their wings and arching their necks until they seem twice their original size. And that’s how they eventually force their rivals to flat foot it away. Aggression is their major mode of communication. And yet they keep coming back together. You see them late at night on the sand, clumped close, each perfectly formed seagull head twisted strangely back into itself, quietly asleep. How does each fierce little individual instinctively know that its chances of survival are far better when clustered close to identical others; particularly if it’s managed to elbow its way to the very middle, and pushed the weaker ones out to the edge?

On the mudflats, the seagulls were flapping their wings aggressively at each other. I couldn’t tell what it was about. Then I noticed that one of them was behaving a little differently, thrashing about like it was having an epileptic fit. And then I realised that it was caught in one of the fishing lines, and in its struggle to free itself, was winding itself up ever more tightly.

It flashed through my mind that I should just walk away. What did this seagull’s life have to do with me? It would free itself. Or the fisherman would come back and undo the line. Or the poor writhing thing would slowly drown in the mud.

So, I climbed over the rocks and started to walk out across the mudflats. Except that you don’t actually walk across mudflats. Each step that you take sinks you closer and closer towards the molten core of the earth. Suddenly, it was as if I was in a drunken dream wearing lead boots; the more I tried to pull my feet out, the further I sank into the mud. I wondered if anybody would ever walk down the esplanade again, and if they did would they notice, next to the dead bird, the human hand sticking strangely out of the mud.

When I finally got to the bird, it was in a mad panic, trussed up tightly in the fishing line. I grabbed the line with one hand, and tried to grab the bird with the other. It squawked and snapped. Its red rimmed eyes were wild with fear, and something else. Was that loathing? I was knee deep in mud, trying to save its life, while its dumb friends dive bombed me and I was the enemy?

I read somewhere that the basic training for paramedics involves ensuring their own safety before they rescue others. Obviously I haven’t had that basic training. I should have put my hands in my pockets and counted to ten before setting out on this rescue mission. I decided to step back and give us both a moment to think. The bird declined the opportunity and continued to squawk and bite as I tried to move away. I decided to take off my shoes. Perhaps that would slow the sinking. As I was struggling with this usually simple task I realised I was no longer alone. A woman now stood next to me in the mud. She was barefoot and holding a pair of scissors. She had thought about the obvious before recklessly jumping in to save a seagull’s life.

She nodded and handed me the scissors, then took hold of the feathered torso with one hand and let the orange beak clamp onto the index finger of her other hand. She spoke gently to the writhing, squawking creature.

“I know you want to bite me, go ahead, bite away, but it won’t do you any good.”

She instructed me to carefully lift one of the seagull’s wings and cut away the line. I was very nervous. The last time I’d got this intimate with a bird was to tear the drumstick off a roast chicken. When I was done the woman released the bird. It glared at us sharply before flopping awkwardly away through the mud. When it reached the water’s edge, it took its time washing itself clean, gave us one more dirty look and then flew off.

I don’t think that seagull was aware that it had just been rescued. Is it sitting on a beach now telling its mates about the attack? It might go something like this: “The other day I got caught in this fishing line. I was almost free when these humans came along and grabbed me and tried to stab me with this huge knife thing. But I fought them. I beat them with my wings. I swiped them with my beak. I even got one of their fingers right down my throat. Drew blood! That scared them. And I was squawking pretty loudly. They backed right off. Then I flew up really high, circled a couple of times before dive bombing. I showed them…. Hey! Hey! That’s my chip! Hey! Hey! I saw it first! Back off! Rahhh! Rahhh! Rahhh! Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!

You can imagine the rest of the scene.

And so that’s how I came to be barefoot and covered in mud and to have my feet complimented by an old man. I was nearly home by the time I passed him. The journey was mostly behind me. It had been rough going in parts, with shattered glass and sharp stones to contend with. But on the whole it had been surprisingly easy. My senses were heightened. My adventure with a muddy seagull had left me strangely elated. And then, as I turned the last corner, just before my driveway, I saw the police cars and the ambulance. A four wheel drive had leapt the kerb and crumpled against my neighbour’s stone fence. I thought I’d been out saving a seagull, but perhaps it was the seagull that had saved me.

Posted in The Animal Kingdom | Tagged bare feet, dogs, fishing, mud flats, seagulls, The Esplanade | 5 Comments

The Horses of Excess

Posted on September 19, 2013 by sagesomethymes

As a child I loathed broad beans. They were squat, flatulent vegetable matter. Bowls of these slimy skinned pods filled our fridge every spring. We would spend Saturday afternoons shelling them, and then their particularly earthy odour would colonise the house as they boiled. And even more than I hated what they looked like and smelled like, I hated their taste. A rubbery, musty, grey-green yuk.

Then, about two weeks ago, I ordered a pasta in a pub, and there in a beautiful formation, atop a coil of spaghetti, sat a handful of broad beans. And they weren’t encased in the wrinkled vegetable sausage skin that I remembered. They were smooth and small and a deep mossy green. Still, I loath broad beans, so I was about to send them back to the kitchen when the inner adult cajoled, “Taste them. You never know.”

So I did. They were delicious. Surely these were not broad beans. I couldn’t believe it. Had my taste buds really changed so much since I was seven?

And then just a few days ago, a friend revealed the secret. Double Shelling. Take off the first layer of furry green skin. Boil for two minutes. Run under cold water to cool. Then shell them again. Pop them out of their slimy second skin. Broad beans need to be double shelled. How had my parents not known this? Or had I simply refused to stay around for the second shelling. When I followed these instructions exactly, out popped these little emeralds; soft and nutty, a bowlful of succulent heaven. I wanted to eat them all, there and then. A feast of broad beans. I should have eaten them all there and then, but that would have been excessive. Instead I decided to make a Pasta Primavera. It would be just like the pasta I had had in the pub, but better. It would be the perfect spring meal.

So I peeled and chopped and fried. I had, of course, not been able to resist buying leek and asparagus and zucchini, as well as broad beans, at the grocer’s. And there were the green beans, the cherry tomatoes, and the Spanish onion, that were hiding in the bottom of the fridge. I threw them into the pan along with the jar of anchovies that I keep in the pantry for moments just like this. All that was needed was the addition of a whole packet of brown pasta. And wallah! Dinner! Well maybe. I never thought I’d say this, but you can have too many vegetables. Especially in a pasta.

It was a disaster. It was inedible. It was disgusting. There were far too many pieces chasing each other around the bowl. Nothing bound them together. Each of these ingredients separately would have been divine, a taste plate of spring in all its green newness. But combined. Yuk. It lacked balance. As did the fact that because I’d made so much of it, we had to eat it for two nights in a row. Yuk.

The horses of excess lead to the palace of wisdom. Or so they say. I can only hope it’s true. I don’t like that I got so excited about a vegetable. I don’t like that I had to put every vegetable I could find into the pasta pot all at once. I don’t like that because I don’t like to throw away food, I had to eat it all. What was wrong with me? Why did everything have to be done on such a large scale? What ever happened to less is more? I needed to calm down, regain balance, find my equilibrium. I went straight to the library and dragged home a stack of self-help books and started to read them.

The next day I went to yoga. I was lying on my mat, breathing deeply, when my lovely yoga teacher mentioned the Spring Equinox. On Monday morning at 6:45am, day and night will fall equal. I drew in a long, slow breath. I let out a long, slow breath. Just the thought of the Spring Equinox calmed me down, made me feel balanced again. I felt my equilibrium return. Maybe I wouldn’t need to read all those self help books after all. Maybe on Monday I could buy a few broad beans, boil and double shell them, and eat them very simply, just by themselves. No other vegetables. No pasta. Maybe with just a little olive oil. Perhaps some salt and pepper. Oh, and a piece of freshly baked sourdough bread. With a glass of wine, or two….

Posted in Experiments with Food, Time | Tagged Asparagus, Broad beans, dinner, food, Pasta Primavera, saturday afternoons, Self Help Books, spanish onion, Spring Equinox, vegetarian, Yoga | 1 Comment

Spring Cleaning!

Posted on September 5, 2013 by sagesomethymes

There is something enormously satisfying yet terribly sad about this year’s spring cleaning.

I’ve just put out my third load of washing; tidied my underwear drawer; dusted the book shelves; wiped down the wooden floor boards with eucalyptus oil and water; and scrubbed the bathroom with Borax and vinegar.

Why? Because it is spring! And it is warm! And there is such a sense of satisfaction in polishing the old and making it new. A pleasure in auditing life, which asserts itself now that the days grow longer. A joy in accounting for what is and what is not; righting past wrongs, planning the future. And spring cleaning is a great excuse to do an enormous amount of laundry, so that over and over you find yourself stepping outside and lifting your face to the sun.

I have just walked down to the hills hoists in our yard. Yes we have two, but that doesn’t alleviate the anxiety that there may be no room on the line. There are twelve apartments in our block after all, and it is such a stunning spring day. A perfect drying day; the kind of day where the heat seeps into your bones. But when I got there the lines were empty. Do people really prefer to put their clothes in a dryer on a day like this? But it is a week day, probably everyone is at work. Do people really prefer to be at work on a day like this?

So I happily filled the lines, watched only by the black cat with green eyes that squeezes itself on the window ledge, between curtain and glass, in the ground floor apartment. Its lovely little head rotates with the lines as they move; its eyes follow closely the antics of this great mechanical bird in the yard.

There is such a sense of satisfaction and achievement in performing the rituals of spring cleaning but this year there is also a great sense of sadness. This spring there is another ritual to perform. We are having an election.

The sadness blights the excitement I usually feel at election time. I suppose the excitement is really a manic gratitude that we are blessed with something we can so take for granted. A system where choosing our representatives is just a three yearly ritual, not a life threatening act. One that some people even think is a bore. But even they would admit that it’s not as boring as taking an unpaid day off work to line up for hours on a cold Tuesday in November; or defying threats in order to walk hundreds of kilometers, risking violence and bullets, to participate in this right; this responsibility.

For Australians, Election Day is always a Saturday. Usually with sunshine. Never with bullets. Our greatest danger are the sausage sizzle and the cake stall, which as good citizens we will of course support. After all it is a fundraiser for the school that the polling booth so often finds itself in. I love the rituals that have been created around our Saturday polling day. It has become one of our festival days. As you walk in through the school gates you are accosted by the party supporters enticing you with their How-to-Vote cards. Then as you wait in line you smell the barbecue and watch harried parents delivering tray after tray of baked goods, trying not to trample on small children with their dogs and balloons. And finally you get to recite your name and address and confirm that you have not already participated in this ritual today; and then you make your mark secretly and in pencil, on a ballot paper paper or two.

But this Election Day I am sad.

I am sad because I think we are about to combine this festival with another much loved activity – spring cleaning.

I am sad that the urge for tidiness and simplicity, the satisfaction of throwing out something that has disappointed, that hasn’t been perfect, or is no longer fashionable, will win out at this election. I’m hoping that’s not the case but I suspect that that hope will disappear as I indulge in another favourite Election Day ritual, watching the results come in live from the tally room on Saturday night, over a (very) good bottle of red.

Posted in Habitat, The Animal Kingdom, Time | Tagged Federal Election, politics, Spring Cleaning | 3 Comments