I may work fifty-hour weeks . . .

But I still have two days off.

The big park near our apartment where people play soccer and do group work-outs. I walked across.

Climb up into the Glebe area, and you know you're there. All cute and fancy, these houses. This patio caught my eye.

And these windows.

And this tree.

I read in the sunshine, by the harbour at Glebe Point.

There's a boat that has pulled out across the water toward the bridge. A small boy, watches, and says, "Dad, let's get on that boat!"

things are different alright

One difference in language I've noticed in Australia: instances where I would tend to say "woman" or "female", it's normal here to say "lady".

I took this picture in the bathroom stall at the opera house just before we saw Scott McCloud give an awesome talk about comics and the importance of visual communication. Justin is trying hard make me love comics just a little. One graphic novel (Persepolis) and one volume of something closer to what I think of as comics (Sandman) in, I'm happy to keep reading.

When the talk ended around 4, it was drizzling out. We bought coffees and stayed 'til we got annoyed at the conversations around us.

I can't stop taking pictures of the Sydney sky. After years and years of blah-skies-Sichuan, even something as "ordinary" as this takes my breath away.

good day to be friends with the savory chef

Paul is our one savory chef, and so far my closest friend at Patisse. He's in his early thirties and has been a chef since he was twenty. It's hard being the only savory chef in a kitchen full of pastry chefs. Paul makes his job look easy. His soups are tasty, his plates always look beautiful going out, and he's teaching me his side dish-by-dish, so I can help out once in awhile when things get hairy.

Paul's wife is Australian. He is from England. She lived there for seven years, then decided it was time to move home. They spent a year traveling the world before buying a house on the beach outside of Sydney. And now they're pregnant. Yay! I can only hope the new baby situation doesn't prevent me from finagling an invitation to their house (and the beach) in the next few months . . .

Paul likes to talk. Not a lot of talking happens when the Big Chef is around, and a lot of the time, the rest of us are too busy to talk anyway. But I try to listen when I can. Sometimes it can feel like Paul and I (and just a few others) are afloat on the English island in a river of French. The head chef, the two cheeky chefs I answer to, and a number of the front people are often resorting to French for the all the good stuff (the jokes, gossip from the weekend, the nitty gritty of how to pipe a nice eclair).

Sometimes he needs to let off some steam or out bit of grumbling when we meet in the cool room. I listen. In return, he grabs the square tins off the top of the shelves for me. I help him chop vegetables when I can. He shows me the fastest way to break down the box when my only instructions from the other chefs are, "put away the eggs." I laugh at his jokes (most of the time) and he has often taken my side when I was blamed for something. I try to be on good terms with everyone in the kitchen. With Paul it feels more like an ally. If he's looking for an extra hand I'm the first to volunteer. And I know I can count on him for help when I really need him.

But this post is supposed to be about my lunch. Which on days when I am lucky enough to get a break, is usually a wrap, a sandwich, or some days just a big salad with lemon dressing and pine nuts. There are meat pies if I want them (as there seem to be all over Sydney) but I don't get excited about meat pies . . . or quiche pies really anymore (that I bake them every day may have something to do with it).

But this Moussaka, which Paul whipped up for a Saturday special, had me all lusty-eyed from the moment he started cooking the beef Friday afternoon. This morning I was only half-listening to his out-loud thinking about the specials for this week, when I suddenly heard, "I've still got some in there. You can have a piece for lunch if you want."

I did not forget. And oh it was good. Layers of grilled eggplant and bechamel sauce on top of that meat that had wooed me as it cooked. And oh, I ate it in the sunshine. A lunch very much worthy of the sunshine. Thank you, Paul.

all day, all day, amazing food

I had to work at 11 this Sunday, so Justin and I tried to squeeze a bit of lazy Sunday in the few hours between waking and then. At the awesome Bourke Street Bakery. The coffee was the kind that makes you sit up and take notice. And my chocolate croissant (and, apparently, Justin's raspberry-chocolate muffin, too) was everything I'd hoped it'd be.

Patisse (like a lot of places in Sydney) is closed on Sunday, but there are sometimes events. "High Tea" on the last Sunday of each month. And yesterday, a special "French Safari Cooking Class" with Maeve of the Food Safari show on Australia's Special Broadcasting Services. So I had to work on Sunday. It was very different, however, from the daily work of display, display, mis en place, run, run, tired, tired. There were only four dishes in the "safari" demonstration - chocolate fondant, lemon madeleines, creme brulee, and raspberry souffle. Simple, yes, and I knew in theory all about these dishes (I've even watched online videos) but had never made any of them myself. So I was a bit nervous about my role in the kitchen, which was basically to do the last minute prep on the food that the participants would try after watching a demonstration.

The chef was nervous too, and couldn't quite figure out how to time things so that the souffle (which was meant to be the wham-bang piece) would come out right at the end (since I wasn't much help). The idea was to have as little down-time as possible between recipes. So he's out there demonstrating, demonstrating, cute french accent, laugh, laugh, done, and ooooo, aaaaaa, wow, here come the fondants for everyone to try. They were beautifully presented with an orange slice, raspberries and a blueberry on each small white plate next to the dark chocolate. Unfortunately, however, I overcooked the fondant (by about a minute-and-a-half, Chef guesses). So they were more like brownies than the exploding pockets of chocolate river that they're supposed to be. Sigh. I didn't have to do much with the madeleines, the creme brulee was caramelized to Chef's standards on the second go-round, and fortunately, the souffles (which I had to pipe and then smooth into the beautiful little copper pots) rose beautifully, and I only managed to puncture one of them with the handle of another pot. Here's what they look like when he makes them. (Picture from: http://www.gourmetsafaris.com.au/)

Then I met Justin at Central and we took the train to Lisa and Lee's apartment out in West Ryde. Lisa cooked an amazing dinner of 干锅鸡 and 红烧肉 for us.

why to stay

On the way home from work last Saturday I tore off contact info for an apartment ad that was pasted on the light post. Even though I knew that Justin signed a six-month lease when he moved into our room in May. Because that's how tend to operate - always on the lookout for something better. We tolerate the blah-bland color and high rent for the great location (he's a ten-minute walk to work, and we're central to wonderful neighborhoods, a couple harbours, Chinatown, and downtown) . . . and, I'm beginning to realize, for our wonderful housemates.

Late that Sunday morning we went to look at the apartment, which was one of hundreds in a renovated, 100-year-old wool storage building, and apart from the modest oven in the kitchen, and the pool I guess, less attractive than our current place. And in the back of my mind I felt a sadness that surprised me at the thought of leaving Carola and Javier.

The others are nice as well. But it's Carola and Javier who've we gotten closest to so far. On my second day in Sydney I woke up to her singing over breakfast, and knew we should be friends. I told her I liked her singing. She said she thinks singing makes her happy, and why not be happy?

Carola and Javier are a couple, and both here on Chilean government scholarships. She's studying social work, he - engineering. They've had to do English supplementing first, and that was a half-year of hell. They grumble about the English hurdle, and we can feel too that they are amazing people. She's sweet and caring and friendly, and passionate about the land and the politics of her home. She has spent hours showing us pictures from Patagonia, and groaning with real pain over the tragedy of the hydroelectric dams soon to be built there.

She comes from the southern part of Chile, and her family is in Argentina, which feels as much like hers as Chile does sometimes, because it's so close geographically. Still, people from skinny Chile envy fat Brazil and Argentina. Envy their economies and their futbol, and maybe their culture too. They and their friends party all the time, but they don't compare to Brazilians, she tells us.

One Friday night we all find ourselves drinking vodka in the kitchen with Carola, Javier, Luciano (another Chilean), and a couple of their classmates (Korean Jessie and Chinese Sharianne). We laugh and laugh, because Javier is clever and witty, but soon I start making rumblings about bed. Then the Chileans teach us a party song that involves thumping on the closest surface (it was cabinets and countertops for us) and singing "don't go, Holly, don't go." Very persuasive when a whole room of your friends is beating a please-stay rhythm with their hands and voices. Unfortunately I work at 6:00 on Saturday mornings, and that's the morning you don't want to show up late or slow . . . so it only pulled an extra half-an-hour or so from me.