Chole palak and Badehose ...

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I hadn’t blogged for an eon and look at me! Thrice in three days ... but important things are happening to me. My Australian adventure is clearly going to be one big success!

To carry on where I left off. With a table full of fresh cooking ingredients. The huge prawns, the sweet cut of silverside and (nearly) all the ingredients with which to attempt my biggest culinary challenge in decades: could I approximate Asman’s wondrous chole palak?

The prawns didn’t require any skill. They’d be easiest. And the silverside I do know how to cook, but I’d forgotten peppercorns and treacle for my nascent larder. The chole palak. Perhaps too tricky for a novice?  Ummm. Take a large glass of Redlands Emily. And what the hell, go for broke.

 Not the rightest way, with all sorts of spices and herbs like you see on Indian cooking programmes. A simplified version (thank you, Paulie!). Olive oil, onion, garlic, tomato, curry paste … zizzle … in pot. Add spinach. Or such spinach as you can get in Australia. (National disaster! Real spinach doesn’t grow here!) Some veggie stock. Reduce the baby spinach. Hope it doesn’t stick. Perhaps more stock. Oooops. Most of the packet went in. (Note: buy a kitchen jug). Wait till the spinach semi-disappears then add one tin of drained chick-peas and half a packet of cumin. Wish I’d remembered the ginger. Oh well, next time. It smells good, but it looks more like soup than chole palak!

Result: taste 8/10, technique 4/10, maybe 5. I will do better. Less stock, more spinach, more spices. But hey! I’ve started! First time I’ve done anything more complex than fry a black sausage in decades! And it was really tasty. Well, done Kurt!

To bed, after finishing the bottle, in a proud frame of mind, at 8pm. To awaken at 5am with the first intimations of dawn sneaking through my bedroom patio doors … may as well get up and see how the Monte Carlo tennis has gone while I’ve been asleep …

I didn’t really intend to pass another milestone before breakfast, but, well …  Last night, at the cocktail hour, as I strolled through the delightful shrubbery at my door, glass in hand, I passed the complex’s swimming pool. Now, I am not a pool lad. I am the man who scotched the plan to build a pool at my apartment building (of which I owned 3/9ths, so my votes made a difference) in France. But I paused to look at young Joe from Armidale enjoying himself in the water, and to chat to his dad …

And this morning I thought … I’ve got a pair of badehose. And my shower is not satisfying yet. Could I … Shall I …

Well, the badehose (hintful Xmas gift from Paulie!) haven't been in the water since my sauna and massage days at Holmes Place, Berlin. But see, they’re wet! And out drying. I did it!

It was a shock. I mean, absolutely nothing is cold round here. I expected the water, even in the pre-sun hours, to be luke-warm. No way. As I wobbled carefully down the step I gradually froze: from toes to testicles to tummy to tits … and then I held my breath and went under. Arrrgh! If I had any, my eyebrows would have glaciated.

I did a brief version of my Holmes Place water exercises, then scurried into the slightly warm spa-pool and set the waves going full-blast as small Joe arrived for an early morning dip. I warned him about the brass-monkey water, but in he went …

Well, the morning is passing gently – I can hear Mr Whippy’s ‘Greensleeves’ (why?) tinkling under my balcony, in the soft sunshine  -- and it’s time to face another challenge. A microwave machine. Wendy does the microwaving (and, of course, the cooking!) at Gerolstein. The second half of my chole palak is brimming the plate, does it overflow? Oh well, only one way to find out, I imagine … here goes!

Yambanese ... and growing!

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I’ve just had a little midday nap. Well, one does on an extra warm, seaside, autumn day. But I … do you know, I’ve had more exercise, in the outside air and the sun, in the last forty-eight hours than I usually get in a month…! And without a walking stick! It must be the air here, and of course the excitement of a new home.

Night number one, I couldn’t resist walking up the hill to my favourite Yamba restaurant, Fusion on the Hill, to see Sunny and Rams, whose place it is, and have just one teensy Gold Fashioned (simplified Aussie version) and a couple of plates of Rams’s perfect parmesan scallops and the best, softest infintesimally battered calamari (sorry, Sydney) ever … Then I tumbled DOWN the hill again (it’s all hills between home and .. anywhere!) to home and yayyy! a brilliantly comfy big bed …

I woke with the kookaburra and bounded from bed, penned yesterday’s little blog of delight, had my chamomile and marmite soldiers on the dawning terrasse, unpacked my last bits (where did I leave my hat!?) and then headed DOWN the hill (much steeper, this one) to the town centre (one and two bits streets). First stop, the lovely and powerful Amanda at Yamba Remedial Massage. By the time she was done, all my Kiwi aches and pains and things-a gentleman never-mentions were back in teenage (forgive the slight exaggeration!) order, and I rebooked, and headed next-door to the celebrated Beachwood café for lunch. It became a ritual last year: I and Professor Robert Lee met each Friday at Beachwood for lunch, drinks and gossip. Alas, he doesn’t arrive here for two weeks, so I lunched alone. Alone? No way. The wondrous Sevtap Yuce (buy her dazzling Turkish cookbooks) was there, to serve me up her peppered chicken-livers with sesame oil and Italian pasta …

By this time I was feeling on top of the clouds, so I went shopping. Normally, I hate shopping, but today it was such fun. The flat is set up – extremely well – as what it was, a swish holiday let. But for someone to actually live in, for months and months, a few things were missing. First stop, Kitchen and Table. Yesterday, ‘niece’ Renee and I had popped in there for a five-star sandwich, I was taken by the place, the people and the delicious kitchenware on show … so … My flat had no bowls. I mean proper bowls for Indian food and cashews. It had no teapot (it’s too hot here for coffee, and I yearn to graduate from bags). And … well, I like to eat off a wooden trencher rather than a china plate ..

Scott at Kitchen and Table answered my every need. Bowls and teapot …

Popped in to the Yamba Fisho for a dozen of the hugest prawns I have ever seen ($26) and then … end of shopping! Because home is UP the hill. And sure enough, when I got back to base I had ‘clopidogrel shoulder’ from the weight of the bag .. big bloody bruises where the bag had pinched.

Bruce and Helen, who manage this place and its 26 holiday lets (plus me) are going to be my parents while I’m here (I could be theirs!). Bruce came round and we had a grand chat about how the place works, and what I can have or not ($$) in the way of extras ... I opted for the linen service once a fortnight at $20, yayy no sheet-washing!  I don’t use the phone, but I can reach them in emergency with one touch. And, well, we’ll do something about the TV. I watch different station(s) to your average holidaymaker! Get rid of the films and frightful news programmes, get rid of the game-shows and all fiction: bring on the racing and all sport except the various Aussie variations of kick-the-ball-and-crunch-him.

A nice bottle of chardonnay, half of those huge prawns (when they are so huge they become a bit tough for plastic teeth), a little lovely-music session with youtube … my computer says I went to bed at 8.26pm. So I guess I did.

And I slepppppppt. Doors wide open (forgot about the mosqitoi, but they left me alone). There were folks with a wee baby in the adjacent flat … didn’t hear a thing! But at 6am there was that birdie, squawking outside my window (no sycamore tree!) ‘get up, get up’. At six I usually groan and turn over, but you can’t here, somehow … I got up and abluted lengthily, and went to the kitchen for my chamomile and marmite (this could become a habit) and then thought .. now! Time for a walk to the beach before it gets hot.

Well, I now know that the beach ’20 paces away’ has three approaches. The first, not far from my flat, is for the young. I went without my stick, which is sometimes more hindrance than help. Yikes! Climbing over rocky mountains! Slippery rocks … I felt like Chelsea Friedlander in The Pirates of Penzance…  But I made it without a fall ... and on to the sand … when did I last loiter on a sandy beach? And, while I loitered, a beautiful, big blue and gold halcyon came to see me, and fluttered round my head! But he didn’t want to be photographed.

There was another steep exit, but I opted for the far end of the beach and a concrete path. Wait a moment! I have been here before! This is where Paul and I met the sleepy serpent last year…  Anyway, it’s the elderly-gentlemanly best way to the beach, and within sight of home!

 Home for a second breakfast, and then the shopping list. Difficult for me, who cannot handwrite. Bank, accountant, meat ordered from the butcher … and DOWN the hill. Saturday, what do you mean it’s Saturday? What difference does that make? People don’t WORK on Saturdays in Australia. Or in Yamba, anyway. Probably why there are too many empty shops with sad signs of fallen businesses over them. Including my favourite computer shop. Guys, I was coming to you with a $2000 order …

But the butcher was waiting for me with a very superior bit of silverside ($9!), the Family Store was open, and they had a delightful Indian shopman who shepherded me to all the ingredients of a chole palak (I’m supposed to try to make one for the first time tonight), and … well, I didn’t have a proper pot in which to cook tomorrow’s silverside so I just HAD to go back to Kitchen and Table …

Result. Two shoulder bags. Two bloodied shoulders …

And now I’ve sworn to try to cook. Helllllp!  It’s 3.10pm. Not yet. Can I do this?  And why are my calves aching …? Pass the Banrock Station …

I don’t HAVE to cook. But I said I would …

More Banrock …

And on to the future!

Is it silly to feel so stupidly excited at a new adventure at seventy years of age?

Yambanese!!

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Yambanese

That’s me. As from 14 April 2016, I belong to Yamba. For the whole autumn and winter. Yesterday, I (and my kitty) arrived in town, took possession of my new wee flat, and started to settle in. I can’t quite believe it has actually happened. That this adorable little dwelling in this delightful town is mine, all mine …

Those folk who say ‘buy a home sight unseen? Never!’ are wrong. Until yesterday, when Rod and Veronica drove me up from Grafton to the smart modern building yclept The Cove, in Queen Street, Yamba, I had never seen inside the place. Just photographs. Sunnytime ones, not dusk ones, like these. I suppose it could have all gone horribly wrong: but it didn’t. It hasn’t.

The situation is glorious. Sheltered from the strong sea breezes by palms and a few homes. And the flat itself was everywhere significantly BETTER than the photos, which had made it look rather skinny and tight. It is, of course, what most people would call ‘small’ – about 70 sq m –with a 30 sq m terrasse – but that’s precisely what I wanted. It has all nearly new mod cons, minimal upkeep (no carpets, no vaccum cleaner!), it’s a place where I can live with minimal stress and maximum comfort and have all the help I need. Twenty steps from the beach, a few hundred metres from some delicious restaurants and the shops … and quiet, sunny, breezy, peaceful …

The only thing I shall have to fix inside is the shower. No handrail and no hand-held thingy. And, of course, I have to work out how to use the TVs, the oven, the dishwasher, the microwave, the washing machine and dryer … but, no hurry. It’s 9am and I’m just relaxing with a cup of chamomile and some Marmite soldiers on the terrasse, before heading off to get revivified by Amanda the masseuse and then have lunch at the wonderful Beachwood Café … perhaps a little visit to the kitchen shop … then back home to, maybe, rearrange the furniture again, and sit in the sun and maybe, just very maybe, finish my article on Ilma di Murska … or even (so soon) a wee walk on the beach?

Sigh. It won’t be difficult getting used to this …

A History of Horse, or Sales and Soft-boiled egg silks

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 A few quiet days in Sydney, he said. With my friends Barry and Rosie. Doing very little. Except eating, watching the races and the golf, writing and gossiping …  We have plenty of food-for-gossip up our sleeves, as our close friendship goes back to 1973, when we performed together on the dear old SS Northern Star, and the much less attractive Queen Elizabeth II. Rosie was a delightful Merry Widow to my basso Danilo.

But we have more in common than the theatre. There are the horses. Some years on, Barry and I got into racing. Starting with a little mare named Gwen, we were partners in several New Zealandish trotters and then an Australian galloper by name Rosmarino.

Rosmarino turned out very nicely and won five metropolitan races before retiring to stud. But it was all getting a bit big and expensive, and eventually I backtracked to my trotters and Barry to his gallopers. I did well enough. Much fun and nearly 50 wins. But Barry did better. Rosmarino mothered a colt christened Va Pensiero who won the San Domenico Stakes and the Group 3 Run to the Rose, breaking the Rosehill track record …

Alas, he subsequently broke down, so while he went off to be a stallion, Barry dove into the 2016 Inglis sales catalogue. Two days before the sales, I arrived in Lane Cove. And, of course, the sales being broadcast integrally on telly, we watched. I shouldn’t. I’m far too susceptible to a pretty filly.

Well, to cut a long story very short, I now own a wee share in a beautiful yearling Stratum filly. After several years of stoutly declaring my exit from the racing game, after disposing of nearly all my horses … I’m still here.

One of the two racehorses who still race in my soft-boiled egg silks is little Montmorensy. ‘Monty’ is the second-last son of the now deceased Gwen, a brother to my best ever trotter, Seppl, and he is named for that brilliant man of music (see youtube) who has become one of my dearest friends. The wee chap started racing with a bang, winning at just his third start, aged three, at Marlborough, last year, but when he came back to Canterbury, racing against the best one-win trotters in the country, he couldn’t quite cut it. So Murray-his trainer sent him to his associate, Darryn Simpson, in Dunedin. Dunedin proved more to Monty’s liking, and after a few fair warm-up runs, he surprised by running second, behind a classic filly, a couple of weeks ago.

His run obviously didn’t impress the pundits though. When he lined up, last night, at Forbury Park he was poorly supported (sixth favourite) and rarely tipped. Except by his trainer on Harnesslink. Oh, well, I don’t bet. But I was keen that he should run in the money so that he would have a future. Barry was more positive. He put a few dollars on him.

http://www.harnesslink.com/News/Horses-to-look-out-for-at-Forbury-Park

As always, Monty began safely. Sam (Ottley) even got him out fastest before tucking into the trail behind the rails horse, the favourite, driven by Dex Dunn, the universe’s champion driver. Ideal pozzie, Sam! They rolled along at a fair rate and, of course, no one but a crazed, bolting 66-1 shot tried to knock King Dex off his front spot. Coming into the home straight, his Grace Lightning and, behind him, wee Monty seemed to have the rest of the field breathing extremely hard. The two pulled away, and then Sam took Monty to the outside. Monty doesn’t go ‘whoosh’, but neither does he give up, and with Sam working overtime he edged up … at the post it was close, very close, but he got there!

I was thrilled, gobsmacked …

And, once again, I wasn’t there for the victory photograph … well, I guess those days are past. But apparently my racing, and even winning, days aren’t quite. I suppose when you are bit, you are bit for life.

PS My career as a breeder, with Gwen as ‘foundation mare’ has been respectable if not notable. She had 6 foals, three to race, one to breed, two midgets who qualified but didn’t race. Of the three racehorses, Seppl won seven, Monty has won two and D’Arcy, alas, died on the racetrack. All geldings. But the line of Gwen is continued. Her demon daughter, La Grande-Duchesse, has had seven babes. Three have raced and all won, and four more (three by Love You, one by Monkey Bones) are on the way … so the next year will tell! And begin the next generation: her third child, Duchesse de l’amour is in foal to Pegasus Spur …