Dream: A forest trail to the tarmac

This is an extremely hyper vivid dream featuring my friend B.

The dream starts in a dense forest. It’s hard to tell where we are exactly, and perhaps in the dream I am very aware of the difference between types of forests in the world. We are not in Australian forest, for there are no gum trees and no characteristic eucalyptus scent. We are not in tropical Asian rainforest, there’s none of that sticky sickly sweet smell. The air is cool and not warm or humid… so we must be in Europe??

We are climbing slowly, picking our way up a gentle incline. The path is ragged, the soil packed into shape by footsteps only and at many points we almost lose our way. We ascend into a darker section of the forest and there is no one around at all. It is completely still and we cannot hear any birds or animals, not even the rustling of wind.

Suddenly we come to a concrete set of steps. Standing where we are, the trail we had been following seems to go off to the left, around a few rocks and then disappear from view into the undergrowth. The steps we see are completely straight and very well formed, ascending into the distance beyond where our eyes can stretch. We inspect the steps closely as they look so out of touch with the reality of where we are, deep in the dark forest. The concrete is poured such that each perfectly formed step is connected to the next with the vertical aspect between two steps also filled in. It is as if someone has laid down a long concrete ribbon and pressed it into the earth to form a staircase.

We stand at this crossroads, wondering if we should take the formed path (is it a shortcut of some sort?) or continue on the raggedy little trail. We don’t discuss it very much and B starts off on the trail on the left.

The scene cuts abruptly to a small airport. I intuitively know that B is in jail and I am there to get her out of jail. I pause to take in my surroundings, standing at the entrance to the airport. The large room has just one single unlabelled gate, with a cluster of seats surrounding the sliding door which goes straight out to the tarmac. On the tarmac is a group of people, perhaps 30 or so, standing within a roped off section. They are calling out and waving their arms, but we cannot hear them from inside the terminal. There are a handful of security guards around, and a few visitors.

The only sound we hear is that of fighter jets. Impossibly small planes (I guess all fighter jets are kind of small) zoom very close to the airport but none of them are near the runway or the people. The noise is quite loud and they disappear from view so quickly that I wonder if they are flying faster than the sound of speed.

The security guards escort the visitors towards the gate and one man unceremoniously presses a button to open the glass sliding doors. The group outside on the tarmac are not able to rush forward, though they move excitedly, bristling at the edges. Stepping out onto the tarmac, the noise of the jets becomes unbearable and I quickly scan the group to find B. She is wearing an oversized white T shirt and a dark blue beanie, looking impossibly small as if she somehow had become a child.

I rush towards her and she is crying.  

Let’s get out of here now, I say. Somehow the rope gives way easily and she is outside the group. We start to run towards the gate going into the terminal and just as we are almost there, she says Wait, I must say goodbye to my inside family.

The fighter jets are still zooming around as we run back to the roped off group and approach a few men. At that moment one of the guards approaches us and I freeze with fear. Cold runs through my veins and I am afraid we will both be put into the roped off group. She hugs one of the men while another man looks on with a blank expression. The guard ignores both of us and turns around to a third man.

Come on guys, you gotta get some while you can. He says and my feet feel glued to the ground while I am tugging frantically on B’s sleeve to get going.

Then I turn around and see what the “get some while you can” was referring to. He is holding an impossibly huge box of Ferrero Rochers, the box being so comically large that it obscures his entire body. There are a few chocolates missing and a few more upturned. We all stand there gaping at this impossible sight, and then I wake up.

Cooking with Amma (2)

The ultimate rice & curry feast

This was an absolutely incredible meal. It looks like a lot of work but with a few helpers for prep, really quite easy and straight forward.  

The helpful prep - 

Chop a huge pile of onions finely as they will be used in many things

Gather fresh curry & pandan leaves

Chop garlic, ginger and pound till a paste forms 

WADE

Soak some lentils (either red lentils or yellow split peas)

Using a grinder, process the lentils to a very coarse paste along with

-        Chopped red onions

-        Chilli flakes (green chillies add extra texture and spice)

-        Maldive fish flakes (or dried shrimp also works)

-        Curry leaves

Season to taste  

Shape into balls with a spoon and fry at low heat with a neutral oil (we used rice bran) 

POTATOES

Boil the potatoes till 80% cooked, basically done – drain all the water

Fry curry leaves till fragrant, then add potatoes and stir to coat

Add 

Salt

Chilli flakes 

Maldive fish powder (ground Maldive fish flakes)

Toss to coat and warm through

Add a small amount of finely chopped onion and cook with lid on for a few minutes 

BEANS in claypot

(We made these with snake beans, but I guess any similar vegetable could be cooked this way)

Chop the beans into small bite sized pieces and place inside the empty claypot

Toss together with

-        Curry powder

-        Turmeric

-        Salt

-        Chilli powder

-        Coconut powder (in lieu of coconut cream)

Once well coated, add water and bring to a boil. Add some pandan / curry leaves if using

Simmer gently till all the coconut clumps have dissolved and the sauce is slightly thickened

DAL

Soak red lentils for an hour or so, and wash thoroughly (eg. 3 times)

Add to the claypot along with onion, garlic & curry leaves

Season with

-        Curry powder

-        Chilli

-        Turmeric

Add enough water for approx 2x the volume of lentils

Bring to boil and simmer till a thick gloopy delicious mess forms  

CHICKEN CURRY

Fry in a generous amount of oil the 3 Cs (cardamom, clove & cinnamon)  till fragrant

Add the ingredients to form the base of the curry

-        Onions

-        Pounded garlic & ginger paste

-        Curry leaves shredded

Add chicken pieces (thigh is best, or any type except breast will do)

Add a generous spoon of curry powder and some natural yoghurt

(Don’t add any water as water may escape from the chicken)

Once coated and cooked, add some fine chilli powder and tamarind

Cook for 10 - 15 min till the sauce is thickened, stirring occasionally

(Optional: can marinate the chicken in yoghurt & spices)

RICE

The centrepiece of this whole feast!

Wash basmati rice and drain well

Use the same flavour profile of the chicken curry – cook in oil onions and the 3Cs (cinnamon & clove & cardamom)

Add rice and toss to coat all the grains with the delicious aromatic oil

Prepare some cold water in which you dissolve some turmeric to make the ideal amount of yellow

Take the rice from the stove and tip into the rice cooker along with the turmeric water

While the rice is cooking in the rice cooker, fry some cashews

Once cooked tip the rice onto a generous platter and scatter with cashews & raisins 

(Words cannot describe how fragrant and delicious this dish is)

Cheat’s version – fry in oil the leftover gravy from the chicken curry with raw rice and proceed with the rest of the steps

ALL TOGETHER...

We also had freshly fried pappadums 

And this refreshing salad of finely chopped carrot (could be grated) and parsley with a generous squeeze of lemon. 

The feast altogether looked like this

My plate... I mean my first plate before I went back for more! 

Finally a little sweet watalappan (spiced coconut custard pudding)... will have to learn how to make this next time!

Cooking with Amma (1)

I went to Melbourne this weekend to catch up with friends and was generously hosted by my wonderful friend Papaya and her family. They are a real interesting and eclectic lot, having lived in Japan (her oldest sister could only speak Japanese when they left!), the US, Samoa and New Zealand before finally settling in Australia.

In my own words I shamelessly invited myself to their place to stuff myself with Lankan home cooking, but I really didn't anticipate how much I would learn about how to cook these dishes! A few simple ingredients put together well can be incredibly tasty. Amma uses no measurements and everything is done to taste (you like this a little more? add more!) I took a few notes on scrap paper and really want to capture how to make this delicious food.

HOPPERS

Hoppers are way easier to make than I imagined. The essential piece of equipment is the hopper pan, a deep concave pan with two handles for optimal swirling

The batter is made of

Rice flour

Coconut cream

(Water if too thick)

Yeast and a little sugar

Mix till it is a thick batter. Leave to ferment till loose and puffy (5hrs or overnight is good)

At the end add some salt, as the fermentation will be affected if salt is added too early

Once it is a thick liquid (a little thinner than pancake batter) with many bubbles, it is ready to be used.

Grease the hopper pan with a little paper towel dipped in butter or excess

Add a generous blob to the bottom of the pan and swirl to coat the sides

(The right amount of batter to add leaves a small residual amount to bubble up at the bottom )

Add the lid and wait patiently. Once it becomes crispy & golden around the edges, it will lift away easily

Serve warm with sambal or any other curries 

Tips from Amma:

Freshly ground rice is delicious, especially red rice but any rice flour can be used

Wait for the batter to be ready… it will depend on the activity of the yeast but don’t start before it is bubbly

Excess batter can be stored in the fridge for instant hopper making

If using a non stick hopper pan cool the pan down by taking it off the stove or dip it in cold water, as the dough will not stick to the sides if it is too hot

If making an egg hopper crack an egg in the pan as soon as the swirling action is done

Amma gave me a hopper pan to take home (talk about the Sri Lankan hospitality!).. I really can’t wait to try this with sourdough!

SAMBAL

This is one of the most popular Lankan side dishes that is absolutely refreshing, uplifting and delicious.

Add to a mortar & pestle

-        Very finely chopped red onion (or any onion)

-        Chilli flakes

-        Maldive fish flakes (apparently a Lankan staple)

-        Freshly grated coconut for coconut sambal (can be bought frozen and defrosted before use)

Pound until a coarse paste forms

Remove from the mortar & pestle. Add salt & lemon juice to taste.

(Apparently this can also be done in a food processor but the pounding action really integrates the flavours well)

STRING HOPPERS

These were quite easy to make too… but sadly I don't think I will ever have the right string hopper paraphernalia 

Mix “string hopper flour” with water until a firm dough forms

(You want the dough to be firm but not too firm or it will be too hard to press through)

Take the hopper maker (looks like a giant garlic press) and load some dough into it

Press the trigger (extremely stress relieving) and do two big circles of the noodles covering the steamer

Steam for 3 minutes or so till cooked and easily dislodged from the steamer

KIRI HODI

This is a very simple yellow coconut cream gravy that goes with string hoppers

Heat coconut cream in a small pot along with pandan leaves, turmeric and ground fenugreek

MILK RICE

Cook rice and coconut cream together till well cooked and bordering on mushy

Tip out into a roasting dish and use the rice scraper to smooth the top pressing the rice down

Leave to cool for a few minutes then slice into squares

You can top each square with a raisin or eat it as is with sambal & curry 

In my kitchen: August 2019

In the depths of winter, it is almost impossible to recall the lightheartedness of summer. Once in a while, there will be a day where the lunchtime sun is warm enough to soothe our weary souls. On other days there are heartwarming foods…

It is just perfect weather now for soup. This one I made with silverbeet stalks, chickpeas and lovely tightly curled pasta from a market in Budapest. With a generous base of paprika and chilli, this was so rich and warming topped with some cheese. The rustic handpainted bowl is from a roadside stall in Romania.

 This sourdough scroll worked out so well for a lazy afternoon tea. I stuffed it with fig jam and butter cookie crumbs. Pulling apart those warm buttery strands was heavenly...  the 3 of us demolished the whole thing. 

I tried Not QuiteNigella’s Biang Biang noodle recipe – they worked out a treat! I didn’t eat them with the recipe sauce, instead opting for a light smattering of vegetables and a spoonful of chilli oil. The next day I ate them in soup, also delicious!

Nothing like hot steaming dumplings in winter! I love how the dough relaxes and becomes supple during resting, and become so much easier to roll after an hour or so. These were stuffed with pork, chinese cabbage, green capsicum and flavoured with ginger and coriander. Another time I also made some with kim chi, my favourite filling. 

I'm also in love with sprinkles I bought from Japan, here served simply on top of cold tofu. 

Onto my Food and Music series...

I made these sourdough fruit buns for the Merewether ensemble. They are basically the hot cross bun recipe without the crosses. I ran out of time to glaze them so the crust set a bit hard, but they still served up nicely with a bit of butter.  We played Mozart’s Clarinet quintet in A major, a few Handel arrangements for wind & strings and also Mozart’s Kegelstatt trio. 

 

My string quartet had a French themed dinner where we ate the most delicious boeuf bourgignon, fluffy Parisian mashed potatoes and veggies along with Barney sourdough baguettes. 

There was also an incredible cherry clafoutis which served as my impromptu birthday cake. We enjoyed this absolute feast along with some French favourites, the Faure piano quartet in C minor and the rich and wonderful Debussy string quartet Op. 11.

Last week it was my turn to make dinner for the quartet and we decided on pasta. Of course it was impossible to incorporate sourdough into pasta, so I made fresh egg pasta. I had no idea fresh pasta was so “easy” to make! It certainly is simple in recipe, I used the 100g flour to 1 egg ratio. There were a few blunders, like when the egg refused to stay inside the flour well and threatened to escape to the floor. 

Then we covered the cellist’s entire kitchen with flour whilst rolling out the pasta, heaps of fun! 

The strands that got stuck to each other got accidentally rerolled into Australia. We are a patriotic quartet.

These turned out so well, springy with just the right amount of bite. We ate this with a simple mushroom lentil tomato & red wine based sauce. On this night we played all our favourites, because sadly we won’t be meeting for the next few weeks while a few of us are busy with travels. There was Dvorak’s American quartet, Schubert’s Death and the Maiden and finally our favourite Beethoven, Op 18 no. 4 in C minor. I adore C minor! For dessert we played a little of Mendelssohn’s Piano trio no. 2 in C minor.

I took this lovely loaf to a piano meetup where a dozen people came together to share their love of the piano. The music was so diverse ranging from the Beatles to serious heavy Chopin works. I performed the Brahms’ Op. 118 Intermezzo in A major and Chopin’s Nocturne Op 9 no. 2.

It has been very slow in the garden because of the chill, with the exception of these baby bok choy that grow year around. We also have lots of coriander that is battling on.

My father is away at the moment but he left me a pumpkin, which I've enjoyed as an ornament on my dining table along with some lovely flowers from his garden.

That's it for this month, thanks for sharing in the food and extra thanks to Sherry for hosting the In My Kitchen series.

The arrival of colour

I’m going to start with this realisation / analogy, inspired by a story that Anita told me about swimming.

One must learn to go from a state of not being able to swim to a state of being able to swim.

First one can stand forlornly by the pool, seeing everyone else glide through the water, seemingly with zero effort.

Then one learns the arm motions and leg motions. One practises them religiously but they seem to make no sense.

One splashes out clumsily into the water, arms and legs flailing, hopelessly not able to replicate what they could do independent of each other.

Perseverance follows for an indeterminate period of time.

Then one day, the arms and legs are moving together, and one is swimming.

The glory of that moment is quickly coupled by a realisation of the lack of grace and control.

Slowly, one acquires the ability to swim quickly or slowly, in different styles.

Finally, one completely unspecial day, without any announcements, one stands by the pool and realises that one can swim.

It is only then that one realises it is impossible to replicate that state of non co-ordinated awkwardness.

It is as if you passed through a gate, and it is a one way gate.

This is perhaps the best analogy I can think of what happened two weeks ago.

On July 16, 2019 when I woke up, I realised I had passed through the gate. I must have felt this once in my life before when I was learning to play the piano, but I have no recollection of that profound moment (if it happened).

Let me try to capture this moment now.

It was the day after an on call shift that had not been particularly busy. The sunlight streamed through the north facing window in my living room, where I sit most mornings and read while drinking coffee. After a bowl of chunky oats and my usual coffee, I thought it would be a good time to play the violin.

These winter mornings have been cold, and I often play standing in the sun trying to warm myself up. That seemingly unspecial day, I was immediately struck by the sound that came forth. I stopped and asked myself if something was amiss – was I particularly sleep deprived? No. Happy or sad? No. My mind felt even and "normal", there was no perturbation that was evident.

Yet somehow as I played, I realised that something had changed inside me. It is as if the connection between my soul and the music had been strengthened. If life were a video game, I had won a “power up” special power. I always feel music in such vivid colour and depth in my soul, and yet I was frustratingly unable to replicate it on the violin for the last near-decade. 

As solid as that obstruction had been, it was gone in a moment, and I was on the “other side”. Absolutely nothing magical happened to my fingers or the technical side of playing – I am as clumsy as ever playing double stops and in higher positions. 

But the colour had arrived, and with it a different world.

The last two weeks have passed in a blur. I had to work most of the days but each day after work when I pick up the violin, the colour is still there.

I tried playing in total darkness and realised I can play with absolutely no visual feedback – the music just arrives. I tried playing piano pieces I had played before on the violin, and the shapes form effortlessly. I tried playing with others and heard my violin sing with beauty that I have never known. More than ever, I am aware of my technical deficiencies and what I exactly must do to strengthen the colour. 

There are no words that can describe the ecstasy that this change brings. I simply feel drunk with the realisation of the connection. I feel mildly afraid that it will leave me somehow, but with each passing day (and it’s still there!), I feel imbued with this sense of hope about the future. 

 

Dream: crab gratin vs soba

This is quite a hyper vivid and very interesting dream, though the symbolism is not apparent.

(We stayed in an old Japanese house in suburban Osaka recently, where there was a piano belonging to the airbnb host's sister. The room in this dream is directly taken from the sitting room of that house)

In this dream the sitting room has turned into a small noodle bar, with a set of Japanese style two fold curtains at one end. It looks like the kitchen is on the other side of the curtains, but one cannot be sure.

There is a U-shaped bar table inside and I am the only customer sitting directly facing the curtains. There is a middle aged Japanese hostess with rather non-descript features. She serves me a dish with a heavy blue coloured ceramic lid. When she lifts the lid of the dish off, I am brought to another place - the crab restaurant where we had our recent crab degustation in Kobe. The aroma is exactly as it is in my memory, and I immediately know this is my favourite dish from that degustation - the crab gratin.

In this dish, the ever slightly savoury crab is set against the creaminess of the sauce and the softness of the pasta. It has a slightly bronzed crust, as if the cheese there had decidedly taken on a more delicious character. I savour the aroma of this dish, and I can barely wait to eat it again.

The hostess bows to me and I take a single bite. As my tastebuds process the bite, the intense flavours rush into my soul and I feel a wave of immense pleasure. I come to realise that M is sitting at a bar stool on my left, with nothing in front of him, watching me eat. I put my chopsticks and stare at him as if he were an apparition, but he says nothing.

Suddenly a young man enters the noodle bar, though we did not hear the rustle of any door or curtain. He is perhaps 20, a university student? He asks the hostess for the menu and peruses it with much enthusiasm. He starts asking about the dishes, but with each and every dish M deflects the attention with rejections like the spinach is not in season right now, and we have run out of this type of fish. The boy does not give up and keeps asking after various items. After a while, M says look, the restaurant is pretty much closed, come back another day.

The student looks crestfallen and leaves. M also disappears behind the blue curtains into the kitchen and it is just me and the hostess left in the restaurant. She stares at me sullenly, as if she was wishing I would go as well.

I take another bite of the gratin, and it is just as delicious as the very first bite. I am totally absorbed into the crab gratin and wish it would never end.

The curtains open and at that moment I strain to see inside, but I cannot see anything. M comes out with a large bowl of noodles, and I feel myself think in the dream - he doesn't eat noodles! It is distinctly soba, there is no other noodle it could be. The bowl is pretty much bare, with just a few green leaves floating in the clear broth.

He sits down on my left, in the position where he was. He starts to eat the noodles wordlessly and I continue to eat my gratin but it no longer tastes the same. I am looking at my dish when suddenly, he deposits a single strand of soba onto my plate. It is coiled up perfectly as if someone has drawn it. The soba is so hot that there is an impossible amount of steam pouring off the single noodle, as if it was being boiled from below.

You should eat this. he says to me.

I contemplate the soba, the contrast between my dish and his dish so apparent. Mine is so decadent, rich and succulent. His is so clean and pared back, devoid of any excess. I poke the single noodle with my chopstick and it lets off a little jet of steam.

You know, I say to him very slowly and intently, we are not so good at changing direction once we have gone somewhere.

Then I wake up.

3 dreams in Japan

The first dream: Unresponsive ghosts 

In this dream Emily and I are the violinists in a quartet with a middle aged violist called Miriam and an older cellist whose name I cannot remember. We are staying in an old majestic house with creaky floors and tall ceilings.

The cellist says she must leave early to help with making dinner before the performance but the rest of us go to the front of the house to do some impromptu playing before the performance. We discuss what we could play with 2 violins and a viola, and in the end we decide on the Mozart Kegelstatt.

I sit down at the piano which is next to a large bay window with light streaming through it. The sunshine is bright and illuminates the room with much warmth. As I get ready to play the very first chord, I see something reflected in the window. I ask the others to look too but they see nothing. I see several people but they are going about their own business not paying any attention to us. I go up to the ghosts but they seem to be transparent.

I sit back down at the piano and we try the opening again, but we are disjointed and not together. Then Emily has this idea to take a selfie. We get together in front of the window, with the light illuminating our faces perfectly. I see in the screen of her phone that the ghosts are visible. Both Emily and Miriam see them this time and they are impressed the ghosts are there.

Emily adjusts the angle of the phone to get a good picture of them and as she presses the capture button, I wake up.


The second dream: Inside a stocking 

In this dream I'm staying in a big old house run by a cranky housekeeper. There are a lot of people milling around the different parts of the house, with lots of living corners. I am wearing a long black dress with lacey sleeves, something I would not usually wear in real life.

Then two of my high school friends come in and the housekeeper tells them that the house is full. I plead with her to try and help them. I notice that my dress seems to be longer than it had been. She takes them up some side stairs to a different part of the house, one she says has only been done up recently.

I go into the kitchen and notice that my dress is a lot longer now, maybe ankle length now. Emily is in the fridge and she is very angry at a fridge magnet. I go closer and see that the fridge magnet is a cartoon scene of a few people sitting around a table. She says the person wearing a red shirt in the cartoon is her and that my friend drew her into the cartoon without her permission. I cannot see any similarity between her and the magnet at all, but nevertheless she is very upset.

My dress is longer yet again. I go into a room next to the kitchen and as the door closes, total darkness descends. It is so black that it feels like the world has stopped. I am really scared and my heart pounds. Slowly the darkness lifts a little and I can make out some light. The light seems to follow some pattern and I wonder if I am hallucinating it.

As the light arranges itself into rows, the answer is apparent. I am inside a stocking.
Then I wake up.


The third dream: Beaveroos on Darby St

In this dream I am driving down a street towards the sea. I have a distinct feeling I'm in Cooks Hill but it does not look very familiar.

The sky is blue and the sea is an incredible shade of deep dark blue. A perfect crescent of sand awaits me at the end of the street, fringed by some neat greenery. As I get closer, I see some kangaroos hopping around.

What an idyllic scene. I think to myself.

Then I see the kangaroos have beaver heads. They look really strange with round blobby heads and big buck teeth, but their bodies are sleek and muscular like kangaroos. They seem bigger than the usual kangaroo as well, their bounce comically high.

I take a video of them thinking I would send it to my friends, then turn left onto Darby St. Soon I come to a pedestrian section which does not exist in real life. The road gets narrower and narrower till I am stuck in front of a Greek Taverna. Where I am stuck is so close to the end of the pedestrian zone that I can see my building, but I cannot get to it.

I try to turn around but after many direction changes I am still stuck. In my rear view mirror I see a green bin and I wonder if I could get out if I knock it over. I contemplate this for a while but I don't want to ruin the dinners of those eating on the footpath nearby. But I am stuck.. what to do? Before I reach any resolution, I wake up.