Breakfast with Merrick Watts

Sunday Beakfast with... 

Merrick Watts

-Breakfast memories with a foodie comedian. 

By Jane de Graaff

Check out www.breakfastout.com.au for more breakfast interviews and reviews of the best places to start your day.

Cabbages and Kings!

So. We have joined the ranks of home gardeners everywhere.

On Sunday past, in the glorious Autumnal sunshine of the Melbourne suburbs, we finally did it. Grabbed a hoe and hit the ground running. That's right. We planted a vegie patch. 

Now I can hear what's going through your mind- 'way-to-go... Autumn, such a great time to get planting- doofus you just missed the

 Summer ripeness of tomato's'. 

And I have to say I hear you. I was sadly disappointed to have to scratch a long litany or very pretty looking tomato's from my nursery list, but what can I say, when the mood strikes and your better half is up for some clod turning, you gotta get while the goings good. 

All this means is a little tweak to what you propose to plant and a certain amount of seedling-love in a sunny box before you plant the rows of happy little vegetables.

So, we chose the sunny patch of yard (where every drought stricken shrub of summer was D.E.A.D), ripped it all up, measured it all out and made the pilgrimage to Bunnings- purely for the 'technical bits'n'pieces' like edging, you understand. The seed purchases were reserved for a beautiful drive to Heronswood House, the home of the seed-savers Diggers Club of 

Australia. Ain't no way that my home grown organic vegies are gonna be from GM Monsanto 'engineered to die' seeds. 

You see, I have a bee in my bonnet (appropriate for the gardening, I know) about the seeds that are engineered to need replanting from new seeds the following season, and not the seeds that you collect from your own hard won crop. That's right, they are bred so that if you try to grow seeds collected from your own crop, if they grow at all, they produce a sad shadow of your original crop. They are designed to fail in a second sowing. It makes me sad. These seeds that are engineered to die, making us dependent on the seed companies.  

So there we were, now members of the Diggers Club, with packets of heirloom seeds (rescued seeds from crops that have fallen out of production- if you want to know why, then check out the post from February 10). Oh the excitement, the joy, the potential to propagate! 

Home again, home again and back to the soil prep.

But long story short, here we are. Boxes of seeds sprouting on the window ledge in the sun. Direct sow seeds happily in the ground. I am now officially in a countdown to being able to eat my own vegetables and I plan to detail the adventure to see how easy it really is to cut down on my impact on the environment with my food production. For our Winter harvest we have; purple Dutch peas (I'll earn me clogs yet!), broad beans, carrots, radish, broccoli, red cabbage, kohlrabi, rainbow silver-beet, corriander, parsley and basil.

Oh what a joy to see what happens. I am so excited that I have been dreaming of multicoloured soups of silver-beet! Perhaps this is a sign that I need to get out more.

But it's bigger than just switching to the garden rather than the supermarkets- we already get our vegies from the local growers markets and we will continue to do so. The next step in our 'footprint reduction' journey is now a matter of water. Our little vegie patch is thirsty- and I actually mean that. The poor, abused and drought besieged soil soaked up every last drop (once we got it going in at all, rolled right off the top it did) -and that hardly even cracked the surface. It's going to take a lot of buckets from the shower and the sink to make sure that we are doing our best to 1.) keep our vegies alive, 2.) meet the watering restrictions in place in our 'hood' and 3.) manage to get a crop at all.

It's a bigger commitment than we anticipated (see my muscles rippling from the chain-gang of bathroom water saving- my shower this morning saw me surrounded by buckets). 

But when all is said and done, and my new little haven of vegetable bliss looks so promising, I think we might be up to the challenge. 

Location Cuisine

I have a little problem and it seems to be becoming more apparent. 

I have harboured for a while a sad feeling of disappointment in cafes and eating establishments that have everything going for them in the way of location (particularly in reference to stunning views) and then -depressingly- fail to deliver in quality of food. 

Let's call it great-expectations-not-met, or 'location cuisine'.

There seems to be a deeply entrenched trend for places to be happy to rope customers in with the promise of a beautiful view or lavishly appointed refurbishment, and simply to feel that this is enough for the ravening hoards. It's a sad fact, but also fairly self-evident, that views don't feed us. 

And when you have every reason to enjoy yourself, when an establishment has everything going for it, the last thing you want to be let down by is the food.

I guess that's why so many people are impressed and excited by the discovery of a dingy little not-much-of-a-place that looks like nothing special, but delivers a fabulous gastronomic treat- a feast fit for a king, served in a hovel. Like a secret gem discovered amongst the rubble. Perhaps that is why the backstreets of Melbourne became so cool in the first place. 

With not much to go on except the food, places just had to get it right, or risk being nothing at all- after all, why would you venture down a rabbit hole, unless it was to find a wonderland? 

Places that spring to mind are Melbourne's Von Haus, Gills Diner, and now Cumulus Inc to name a few conversions and out of the way great feeds- but Sydney is seeing an increase as well. Try finding tiny little Epi d'Or in Kirribilli, or converted garage, Oven in Cremorne. Sure they're not in the CBD, but you get the drift. It's a simple equation, 'No view = MUST get food right'. I just wish the next one was 'Great View = Greater food'.

  

Breakfast Out

Ok, I admit it- I've been eating breakfast out. A lot. But in my defence, someone has to do it- otherwise how would we find the best places in town? 

What makes it worse is that I am a whore for breakfast, I'll eat it at any time of day, in any city.  Really.

How can you turn it down? It really is the best meal of the day to eat out... arguably. 

Some of my reviews are starting to pop up at the wonderful (and very informative) website BreakfastOut - you really should add it to your favourites... it might help you out next time you're in a bind trying to find that perfect way to start the weekend.

The Melbourne page is really pretty comprehensive and the Sydney stuff is on its way- I've been reviewing both cities... Like I said, I'm a whore for breakky.

City sings to my tastebuds...

So as I flew into Sydney early yesterday morning for a brief visit to my birth city, I had only one thing on my mind... it was not (I am sorry to say) how beautifully blue the sky was, the way the Bridge dominates the image of the city spread out below, or the glory of the sunlight as it glints off that sexy and seductive Harbour. It was also not the friendly faces of family and loved ones that would be beaming a happy welcome at the gates as I made my flying visit. Nor was it the question of wether the airline had managed to deliver both me and my bags to the specified terminal.  

In addition to this, it was also not how balmy the temperatures were after weeks of dry, dusty and smoke-haze filled days in my ravaged-yet-still-beautiful-adoptive-home-town-Melbourne.

It was however, something that is of as much personal importance to me as all of the above. Breakfast. The one simple thing that was on my mind was where in all the loveliness of this tart of a city was I going to go for breakfast after months of being away?

Where was the one place that I could relax into this short trip, enjoy good food, good service and a comforting view? The answer was... quite personal... and it was everything I wanted it to be. 

But my question now is, how is it that after years of living in another city and state, when I have people and places to catch up on and only a short amount of time to do it, when the weather is playing to my every whim and tempting me to make the most of the sunshine- how is it that in all of this, the first question on my mind is 'what new places are there that have popped up to eat since I was last here...?'

If my waiting family knew what was really on my mind- oh the shame... the shame... and then the suggestions of where they should take me first for breakfast.

Cheap Eats Melbourne '09 - arrives!

It has finally arrived! The Age- Cheap Eats Guide to Melbourne 2009.

Not a minute too soon (thanks to the global economic crisis) and with most of us glad for a surprise $10 dish that could make a 3 hat anywhere quiver in its boots.

I was lucky enough to be a reviewer for the '09 edition, so I'm as excited as anyone to see the book hit the stands... with my name in tiny little letters inside the front cover- I'll rub shoulders with AA Gill yet.

Epicure Article: The Age Cheap Eats 2009

Cheers, happy eating- and let's be grateful that, in Melbourne at least, we can still eat well without hocking the family heirlooms...

Cheap Eats 2009- Penguin books

Dancing the Oliebollen

Continuing on my quest to make all the Dutch treats that I remember from my childhood, I thought it might not yet be too late in the year to make another NY Netherlands specialty- oliebollen. 

It's a bit like a doughnut- only without the hole and filled with dried fruit- I can still remember the excitement that raced through my little veins when dad started dropping the doughy nuggets into the sizzling pan of oil and the yeasty bready smell that filled the kitchen as they drained and cooled on paper towel. I can even remember repeatedly burning my little pink tongue as I impatiently bit into hot oliebollen that had not quite rested long enough... and still I would go back for more. Even before we coated them in a dusting of sugar I would try and sneak them away, determined that I should pilfer the one that looked best from the stack!

I have been through several different recipes, but after finding something inherently wrong with all of them, I called my mum for the recipe we used when I was a child. I asked why I could not see mixed peel on any of the ingredients lists, and my mum laughed and happily advised me that the mixed peel was in fact our own family addition to this recipe. Our special little touch- mum even occasionally added red and green cherries which would stain the surrounding dough with their glace glory!

So this afternoon, my other half and I embarked on the the oliebollen dance, reflecting as best we could memories of my mum rolling the balls of dough and dad next to her at the stove, dunking and turning the frying balls of happiness with a waiting plate in hand.  

Oliebollen: Dutch doughnuts

Ingredients:

* I sachet dried yeast 

(about 7 grams or 1 teaspoon- granulated yeast is best as you do not need to activate it and just mix it in with the dry ingredients as per below)

* 1 cup of room temperature milk

* 2 1/4 cups of plain flour

* 2 teaspoons salt

* 1 egg (lightly beaten)

* 1 1/2 cups of mixed currents & raisins 

(this is where we add the mixed peel)

* 1 cooking apple (peeled, cored and finely chopped)

* oil for deep frying 

* caster sugar to coat

Method:

In a large bowl combine the flour, salt and yeast and mix thoroughly. 

Add the egg and milk and mix through. Then add the remaining ingredients of dried fruits and apple and thoroughly combine.

Leave in a warm place for around an hour or until doubled in size.  

Heat enough oil in a saucepan to deep-fry small balls of the dough. Break off portions of dough about the size of a golf ball. Then drop the portions of dough into the pan of boiling oil and fry until golden brown- remove using a slotted spoon and leave to drain on paper towel. 

Once they are dry and crispy, pile them all into a dish and rain sugar down onto them. Cover them liberally with sugar and serve. 

Just a warning- Dutch or not, I am up to my fifth one tonight! Happy New Year- even in February.

(Note: if you are not using instant granulated yeast you will need to activate it. To do this, simply sprinkle the yeast over 1/4 cup of the lukewarm milk and leave to activate, then just add it in when you would add the milk as above)