My Tiny Little Empire

A life full of cakes could well be my idea of heaven, it's achievable, which is hopeful, so in the past few months, I have sown the seeds for a tiny little empire of the cake variety.  My training ground in the nuances of saleability popularity and yummy~ness have been played out from the cake displays and front counter of the Vancouver Cafe ~ and It's been fun! Collecting the appropriate batterie de cuisine has been a frivolous spinoff to the actual business of baking. But oh how I love the baking ~ those warm aromas that make a home smell as a home should, expectant faces (of all ages!) at my kitchen bench waiting for mixture splattered bowls/spoons/spatulas. There's something honest and true about all that.   So now we'll see if the Albany World At Large (ie: demographic north south east and west of Vancouver Street) will welcome my creations into their cafes, businesses, families and ultimately tummies!
I thought it wise to create a cake hall of fame for anyone who might be considering inviting one of my babies into their lives!  Here is the link
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=1808715151807&id=1657815849&aid=96577&l=4a53d0498b

If you want to place an order or ask any questions, my e mail is: penship@bigpond.com

Cooking Collage ~ A visit to my photo album

My Mother was a great cook, and I thank her for my love of culinary exploration.  She was endlessly patient when 10 year old me would attempt recipes with the caveat that I could alter and change at will.  It wasn't always a good idea.  Perfectly good recipes would be deconstructed and rebuilt to incorporate chocolate, more sugar, strange fillings, and so it went on.......  if ever my family were a little dubious about the results, I was quite happy to chomp my way through ~ the sweeter the better!  But now I think how nice my Mother was to let me have a go, and with unlimited access to her pantry, she issued only one instruction.... 'Just clear the mess up afterwards!'
In my teen and young adulthood I loved baking for family and friends, savoury was fun enough, but for me, the main meal was just a way of getting to the sweet stuff ! At weekends I would happily potter in the kitchen preparing cakes for afternoon teas, or desserts for dinner parties.  If an occasion called for lavish ~ I was a happy girl ~ I did lavish very well!
Since I became an Albany local, I have been lucky enough to indulge my love for creating pretty food ~ both privately and for the lovely people who reside here.  I hope you enjoy this peek into my album......

Community at its best.

A grey clouded sky this morn did nothing to dampen the vibe within the Vancouver Cafe, in fact as we emerged from our front door, we could hear the music and laughter drifting down the street. Luxury 8 year old picked up the happiness trail (as they do) and did a jolly jig on the way!
The event was a breakfast  hosted by Amnesty for the Human Rights movement.  How lovely to see a good slice of the community backing such a worthwhile cause.  When we arrived, the mechanics of the cafe were in top gear, staff dashing between tables, plates piled high with gorgeous breakfasts, the sound of the coffee machine hissing and the merry clatter of china on china.  The jazz duo were in full swing ~ nothing like a sassy saxophone to get your foot tapping in the morning and just shake any darn blues away! Not that we had any ~ good timing ~ a local author, Richard Davy was just about to read excerpts from his poetry book. I love hearing original authors read their own work: you can get a better feel of how they want their words portrayed, and Richard peppered his time in the spotlight with interesting facts and insights, which led to particular inspirations.
Oh how I have to settle myself when jazz is being sung! That frustrated actress and singer in me is all too ready to sweep all aside and bask in the adoration of my fans..... except that's not what I do, I write without anyone to applaud when I finish a story....... still, the Ella Fitzgerald within me may one day take to the stage,we shall see!
Anyway, a bit of a sing along helped, and looking around, as people began to drift towards the door and towards work, home et al, I thought it was a very special thing that had just happened here in Albany ~ for this coming together of all types and all talents ~ all that energy and goodness, and a common goal in mind ~ thousands of miles away in Nepal, children who face troubles more than we can even imagine, will benefit from the money raised today, and a few more people will have become aware.....

Lunching Ladies

Coronation Chicken with Taglietelle

A good dish to share with friends.
Easy to make Easy to eat.

New Beginnings

When mornings start early (sometimes way too early)  uniforms, bags, school notes and the whole busy shebang ~ breakfast for Him and me has always been a precious time to catch up, plan, laugh and just be us.  Without really realising it, over the years we've become breakfast buffs! Good really because it's led us to the best breakfast spots wherever we happen to be.
When we lived atop one of the Mounts, we discovered The Vancouver Cafe just below, hugging a corner of a pretty heritage house lined street.

Sublime Food! My personal quest for The Best Fruit Toast ended here ~ crammed with sweet dried fruit, nuts and tasty seeds, here was a party of a slice, sitting before me, and served with discs of spiced butter just to add to the fun!  Visions of this toast would start invading my mind space just around the time the children would be exiting the car at the school gates!
Before long this was our regular haunt, and we were always rather charmed  that the owner would often stop at our table for a little chat  ~ making us feel very welcome.
It was during one of those exchanges that she asked what I did for a living, and on finding out that I was a writer, offered me a ticket to an upcoming event that was being held at the cafe, and asked me to write about it.
When I gave her that first piece I will never forget the genuine delight she expressed after reading it ~ This industry is choc a block with competitive talent, so it's unusual to find someone openly admire your work.
This woman was my friend now, she didn't know it yet, but she was!
Our mutual passion for all things culinary soon became apparent, after some weeks of creative, mainly food inspired chats, we agreed that the world needed a cookbook written by us!  It's something we're still travelling towards.....
Meanwhile Alison thought that some kind of publication chronicling the community life that surrounds and is linked to the cafe, would be a unique way for her customers to be entertained and informed.
So it was that the Vancouver View was born.

THE CHOCOLATE PAGE

I couldn't leave it too long before I paid homage to the love of my life ~ sorry family ~ but some things are just undeniable!
So, here is the piece that appeared in Flourish.  Part of the 'In Praise Of ' series of food articles...........

In Praise of the Sun Bean

If it weren’t for the sun bean, our world would be a duller place for sure. For like the sun itself, a daily dose can bring light into your life and happiness into your heart.
Rebecca Commons takes a journey back to the time of the ancient Toltecs and discovers why this little bean was revered as much then as it is now.
________________________________________________________________________
It‘s wonderful how man discovers certain things by chance, and then works and improves it until it is firmly established within a society. The Toltecs, who lived in Mexico several thousand years ago, were familiar with the broad crown like trees that grew in their forests, producing blossom, leaf and fruit simultaneously. When the pods were ripe, they would burst open to reveal attractive bright pebble shaped beans. A local inhabitant out on a foraging trip might have bent down to look at them wondering if they could be eaten ~ they would have been hard but aromatic ~ he might have tried crushing them to make them easier to digest, and because of their high fat content, the paste he was left with would have been bitter but delicious. It seems to be a quirk of mankind that if something tastes good, it attracts attention and then effort is devoted to it. The Toltecs named their discovery ‘sun beans’, and their diet and presumably their happiness were now all the richer This was the original Cacao, which has grown since time immemorial in the tropical forests of the Americas.
Our word for chocolate comes from the Aztecs, who conquered the Toltecs in 1325. They discovered that ‘cacahuatl’, which was the name they gave to the sun beans, tasted mellower if left to ferment in the steamy heat of the forest floor. Rinsed and ground into a paste, here was the first ever step in the processing of cocoa as a popular food.
At various times throughout history, cocoa beans have been used as currency by the Mayans and Mexicans, but always the enduring attraction has been as a luxury food and later in the court of Montezuma, as a drink. This he supped surrounded by great pomp and ceremony and from weighty solid gold goblets ~ naturally!
Chocolate’s constant appearance, reinvention and adoration through the ages is as diverse and exuberant as the product itself. Several of the world’s supercentenarians have been passionately fond of chocolate. Jeanne Calment died in 1997 having habitually eaten around four kilos of dark chocolate a week, she was 122! It’s been used as important bribes between rival countries to promote peace. It’s been used as a focus for political resolutions, and as a status symbol to categorize and differentiate people. The innocent sun bean has even been included in royal dowries to win the most discerning husband! In fact, in 1660, when Maria Theresa of Spain came to marry Louis X1V, the Sun King, of France, she arrived with a servant whose sole function was to prepare her favourite chocolate drink. What luxury!
When you open a box of cocoa, close your eyes and recognise that unmistakable aroma ~ a gift from the New World to the Old World. Nothing was or is as mild and smooth as cocoa or chocolate, and yet its slight hint of bitterness is a superb finishing flourish.
‘Brown Gold’ is the name given to the product processed from those sun beans. Just as it takes painstaking effort to mine gold from the depths of the earth, for us to admire and enjoy, so it takes great industriousness to extract the brown essence from each bean. The prize, of course, is chocolate of the highest quality.
Chocolate is a confection to exult in! In recent years much has been made of its beneficial properties, firmly establishing it as an invitation to celebrate life. Food writer Donna Hay, sums it up with alacrity: " While chocolate may not exactly be able to solve all the world’s problems, I firmly believe that quantities of the almost mythological substance could have a profound impact on many a dicey international situation……,
so please indulge,  and do your bit for world peace!’

Foodie Friends and their Recipes

Simple Sweet Salty Salad

Fresh baby spinach. A ripe mango, and a block of Feta.

Friends and Simple Suppers

It's always great to run into Vanessa, she's always ready for a giggle, and loves food as much as I do.  I was pacing the supermarket wondering what to feed the brood, when she appeared from the bread section!  'Nachos' she advised, 'That's what I'm doing tonight'  
Sometimes It's just nice not to have to think, so I gathered up the ingredients and back in my kitchen got busy.  
I made a rich tomato, chilli and red wine sauce, added  minced beef and a variety of legumes and let it bubble away whilst I laid out the corn chips, grated some vintage cheddar and scooped the advocados.
In less than half an hour, everyone was tucking into a hearty plate of nachos, topped with sour cream, advos and melted cheese: Delectable. Thanks V!

We had a quick dance on our hats, and life was good

Alison's cooking skills are a bit of a legend, and when I tried her Chicken and pistachio terrine at the Melbourne Cup lunch at her Cafe, I was keen to replicate it (well actually, just somewhere close would do!)  She's one of those clever instinctive cooks, so it was no use getting exact amounts out of her ~ but she did give me the general idea on how to put it all together.
I went for turkey, with a layer of chicken, pistachios throughout and wrapped in pancetta.
For my first attempt I was quite pleased, it looked good ~ I bathed it in a cranberry and white wine sauce and we had it warm with buttered asparagus. Lots of compliments from The Man of The House. The next day we had it with a mango salad, ~ it was a better looking terrine cold because you could see those pretty layers. Then who should come a knocking on my door, but Alison herself! I presented the doyenne of terrine with my effort, and although little was said: not a scrap was left........  I think I'll chose to interpret that in favourable way!   ps:  (Orange and blueberry friands for dessert ~ naturally!)

The Flourish Connection

Years ago, before we reached these sunny shores, a very clever psychic told me I would be living in Australia and working for a  glossy magazine. (she told me lots of other things as well, but that's a different chapter!) When we settled in Perth I bombarded all the glossies with my articles, but to no avail ~ no one took freelancers. I wrote travel articles for The West Australian, and whilst that satisfied my writing gene, there was a distinct lack of gloss!  At that time I did a lot of work with the Variety Club of WA, and one of the ladies there ran her own PR business: we became friends, and did a few joint projects.  One of them was to report on, and experience the new Dolphin Discovery Centre in Bunbury. As providence would have it, a new women's magazine was just being launched in Perth, and the article I wrote about swimming with the dolphins was accepted by Jane, their lovely editor.
Here was my glossy.  Flourish was a little different to most in that it didn't peddle on celebrities and gossip, but threw a more thoughtful slant on women's issues and interests.  Flourish went from strength to strength, and I was pleased to become a regular contributor; somehow slipping into the role of food writer ~ no surprises there really!  
Nowadays, Flourish has gone global, which is great news for women around the world:  it is a vibrant online magazine, always packed with beauty and interest.
This week my newest article will be there.  It's a look at one of my favourite foods ~ ice cream ~ in all it's frozen glory!
You can find Flourish on Facebook and Twitter, and their web link is http://www.flourishmagazine.com.au/    Subscribe and join the Flourish community!