Beaut Commute

One Noodle Friendship

Okay so I started out with this blog being about recommended ‘things’ to entertain people commuting on public transport. It’s a lame disguise for the fact that when I love something I want to rant on and on about it quite possibly boring myself and anyone in a five metre radius. I thought if I put it in a blog under the guise of something that might be, you know, useful then that might stop my 'out-loud' blathering on about how I loved Freedom and isn’t Alice Munro the bestest and gosh that new Belle and Sebastian album was great. And you know, I think it's working for me. 

But I also have a terrible habit of going on about my favourite Melbourne things to do and my favourite cheap dinners out. Hence, the repertoire of beautcommute is extending to cheap food places. I guess I’ll tie in the Public Transport aspect by noting what tram, train and bus lines will get you there.

Food Rant Number One.

One Noodle Friendship.

If there is only going to be one noodle in your friendship I suggest you make it this one.

All I can say about their vegetarian dumplings is that when my teeth cut through the soft green dumpling skin and the rush of lemongrassy flavour hits my tongue I find the universe just that much more aligned.

One Noodle is run by a man with a truly superb moustache who makes all his own organic noodles. The vegetarian dumplings are an essential but noodle soups, spring onion pancakes and the pork & prawn dumplings are killer as well. Steer clear of the ‘Wine Chicken’ though. It’s just odd.

One Noodle Friendship is cheap as chips (probably cheaper than some chips) and is frequented by locals Chinese and bobos (‘bobo’ is the French word for hipster, it’s short for ‘bohemian bourgeois’. Now slap me if that is not the best thing you have learnt today).

Catch a train on the Epping Line to Preston Station and walk through the market or get the 86 up to Murray Road and walk down to 417-419 High St. Closed Sundays.

 

Let England Shake

 

There is a bit of OCD that runs in our family - it focuses more on the obsessive than the compulsive resulting in lots of deep thinking but not so much dishwashing. For me, I find it manifests when listening to music. Even as a teenager I wouldn’t just play the same song time and time and time and time again. I would repeat my favourite section of the same song time and time and… you get the picture. There was a certain bit at 1:53 in when it switches to instrumental in Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl that I would rewind on the cassette until it was all scratchy sounding.

 Over the years there have been other bits of music I listen to over and over: 2:51 into Bloc Party’s Pioneers when the drums really kick in… a spine tingling moment a mere four seconds into the London Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op 92 … that bit 4:43 into ‘Who drove the red sports car’ when Van (again) wails ‘Come on in out the rain!’ which is just so blimmin… sexy.

 My latest fixation is 17 seconds into PJ Harvey’s love and grief lament called England from her Feb 2011 album - ‘Let England Shake’. When Harvey’s voice hits the same key as the wailing in the background it makes my whole body respond. ‘Let England Shake’ is a big and bloody album. It deals with big themes taking on history and psyche of her country. As I listen to Harvey’s extraordinary voice I see a montage of faces – traumatised by war, reddened from beer and an open fire at the pub, weathered by the moors, oppressed by royalty and religion and hysterical from the most recent riots. These are heartsick and homesick laments and tributes to her homeland. Good stuff.

No replacement for the human voice

 

 

I haven’t been gracing Melbourne’s public transport options with such frequency of late. This is because I am trying to get fitter. It's possible some people will argue with me but I find getting fitter is not as much fun as eating whatever you want, drinking whatever you want and lolling on the couch or by the fire at a bar. However, getting fitter is what I am doing and that involves more walking.

To ease the pain of getting fitter I have been listening to lots of things like the radio, some new albums and some old favourite podcasts like TAL. However, last week I got terribly excited and downloaded an audio book. Treasure Island I chose, having not read it and liking the idea of being transported by a swashbuckling island based adventure as I reluctantly tramped my way over the glum winter footpaths of Melbourne.

TI cost me around $14 and I had to download all the chapters in parts – which took some time. But that was okay cos this was going to be great.

It was not great. To my utmost disappointment (I believe I let out a howl as I walked across the Eastern Freeway footbridge) I had not selected my version carefully enough and it was voiced by a synthesiser. Unlistenable, it sounded like that song "Fitter Happier" from Radiohead’s OK Computer or track 10 on the first Phoenix Foundation album that everyone fast forwards. Robert Louis Stevenson would be pirouetting in his grave if he heard this travesty. And I wasted a hard earned $14 which feels like a lot in iTunes world.

The only moral of this cautionary tale, dear reader, is to ensure your audio book download is VOICED BY A REAL HUMAN BEING. Preferably someone like Martin Shaw, Stephen Fry or Helen Mirren. But anyone human is better.

The Harrow & The Harvest

 
 

I have heard it said the only thing wrong with Gillian Welch’s albums is that she doesn’t make enough of them. They are always worth waiting for and The Harrow & The Harvest is no exception.

Welch’s music kind of reminds me of a pair of hairclips I used to own. They looked like cute little red and white polka dot bows but when you got up close you saw they had a skull and crossbones in the middle. The music is pleasant to listen to but there also a pleasingly haunting tang to the lyrics.

The Harrow & The Harvest is another collaboration David Rawlings, her long time musical partner. Rawlings is no chump himself, having collaborated with bands like Bright Eyes and the Old Crow Medicine Show. Having seen the two of them perform I find it a little strange that they are not marketed more as a double act – being as he contributes as much as she. Ginger Rogers syndrome maybe?

Anyway, this album is terrific to listen to and I also like the fact that you can see how the album cover was made in a video on Welch’s website.

Imelda May - Mayhem

So we went to Womadelaide.. which was totally great. Lots of good music, no drunks and hardly any patchouli oil. Here is my poem:

WomadelODE

Have you got sunscreen on?

No turn around, I'm waving. No the other way. I'm by the red flag. Yes waving - you are walking towards me.

I think I'll try and see the harpist at 6 and make it over to Stage 2 for the Turkish percussion dude at 6.30pm.

Do you think you will be interested in Fire Pois when we get back home?

 

Anyway, now we are back and no longer are we surrounded by international musicians, colourful flags and people in Thai Fisherman pants. But Womad lives on in my heart and my ears. My favourite act was Imelda May - the gorgeous Irish 50s style swing/rockabilly songstress who had the crowd beside themselves with excitement (reaching a crescendo when she did her cover of 'Tainted Love').

 

She's a good allrounder I reckon - pretty well everyone will tap their feet to Imelda from your three-year-old to your Mum to your Kelpie.

 

If you don't download all of her latest album, 'Mayhem', at least download 'Inside Out', 'Pyscho' and 'Johnny got a boom-boom'.

 

Relic Radio

 

Alan Brough has come a long way since he was an actor on the ill-fated TV3 comedy, Melody Rules. These days, the NZ born comedian is one of the hosts of ABC television's great music show Spicks and Specks. But where he really hits his strides is on his excellent show on 774 ABC Melbourne on Sunday mornings. Alan is a bloody delight to listen to. He gets great guests, he is intelligent and well read and his enthusiasm and affection for his guests and their topics is infectious.

So it was all nearly too much for me last Sunday when he interviewed Simon Brown, who looks after the content for ABC online about podcast recommendations! There were some that I was already familiar with such as The Moth and Radiolab but he also got me onto this gem - Relic Radio. 

I like radio and podcasts because I like to do things (shell walnuts, string beans, commute etc) while listening. But I also like the 'sound' of radio and podcasts. My grandparents always had National Radio on, as did my parents. Those sweet, low accents of public radio announcers from Commonwealth countries are something I find enormously comforting. For example, if I wake up with the 4am demons and I turn on BBC World, the announcer might be talking about the most heinous of international crimes but their dulcet tones will comfort me back to sleep. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't even have to be listening to the content to enjoy radio. The sound of cricket commentators is a therapeutic summer background noise. The sound of Garrison Keillor's voice reading the news from Lake Woebegone will send me smiling into an afternoon nap. So even just the sound of a sci-fi download from Relic Radio - the music, the sense of drama in the narrator's voice, the old-fashioned Foley sounds - had me aquiver with excitement.

Relic Radio is, quite simply, vintage radio shows delivered online so a whole new audience can appreciate them. The categories cover horror, Sci-fi, thriller, strange tales and more. Highly recommended and probably good to have some in stock for summer car trips.

Keel's Simple Diary

These days, to receive a gift in the mail, with a hand written note, is something particularly special. 

Last week I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of 'Keel's Simple Diary' in the mail from a good friend. It's a small red book - a diary for you to write how you have spent your days. It helps you out with questions and it is also pretty abstract. (My dear, literal boyfriend, flicked through it and asked if it was French. I can understand why - it probes your inner abstract and hence reads like something foreign, as though translated from another language.)

Diary writing is equally in parts an indulgent, embarrassing, therapeutic, inspiring and solitary practice. We can now tweet our inner most thoughts or put them on our Facebook status. So what do we keep for ourselves? Where do we document our most personal secrets? Despite being an open person, I cherish my conversations with myself. I think that part of my identity is made up by the things not shared with anyone else. That, if nothing else is what makes me feel unique.

I like sitting on a train writing things with verve into a book. I like watching people do this. I wonder what they are writing and it reminds me that every person has their own story that deserves writing down. 

The literal boyfriend told me of a funky looking Japanese man he saw on a train. The man was writing furiously in a sketch book - page after page after page of text. The boyf was curious - was he drawing a 'Manga' comic? Was he writing a new nanotechnology formula? He had to see so he positioned himself so he could casually see the content. Then man was writing, page after page, 'I love Jane, I love Jane, I love Jane'. Beautiful. I hope Jane loves him right up to the moon and back.

  

The Little Stranger

What a wonderful book this is! A compelling, satisfying, gripping, intelligent and complete read. It, once again, proved to me that despite the distractions offered by technology there is little that can beat a good story to help pass the time. And while I love all forms of storytelling be they told by television, radio, film, music and occasionally through social media – there is the greatest sense of involvement in a story read by you in a book. The characters are interpreted by you, you put the intonation into the characters’  words, you imagine their glances and the meaning behind their sighs. you work harder at the story but for that, you are so rewarded.

This was my first encounter with the writing of Sarah Waters, she was recommended to me by Rachael King (whose excellent second novel, Magpie Hall, evokes similar sorts of imaginings in the reader as this one).  What is this - a historical, a literary or a ghost story? All and none - like all good books it defies genres. 

Like Wuthering Heights and Magpie Hall the house where most of the action happens (where supposedly the little stranger resides), is a major character in the book. Also like Wuthering Heights our narrator is a plain fellow who’s observational powers the reader doesn’t necessarily trust. But how clever is that! To trust your reader not to trust your narrator!  A certain mastery of narrative and language is required to pull that off which Waters does brilliantly.

Oh it was so good I’m off to have a good glass of red wine and a big think about it.  And hopefully when I come back I’ll have calmed down enough to talk more about the plot and use fewer italics to express myself.

 

A very sad and slightly damp story about an iPhone 3GS

 

So. It’s been a while. I have been… distracted. I have an iPhone. I do understand I could have waited until July when the iPhone4 came out but I just don’t think I can cope with the pressure of people thinking I am an early adopter.  

Instead, I gets myself an iPhone 3GS and it is lovely and shiny and white and like a little LED friend in my handbag. I have it a good four days before I manage to hiff it into my skinny flat white.  All that desk space and just one little cup of coffee on it.  The iPhone moved in a perfect arc and with some force hit slap bang in the middle of the full cup. I couldn’t have got it in if I aimed. I pulled it out and quickly wiped off what I could but you didn’t have to be a gadget loving early adopter to see that it had been damaged.

So. I googled ‘I threw my iphone in coffee’ and started scrolling through various helpful solutions.  Dunk it in turpentine. Um. No. Put it in the freezer. Ummmmm. No. Store it in rice for a couple of days. Oh alright then. That sounds fairly safe. So off I trotted to the work café and asked for a container of raw rice. I kept the phone in the rice for about a day but did check whether it would turn on every now and again (which you really are not supposed to do). And it did. Sort of. But it kept getting crankier and eventually it just stopped.

It was after I found a grain of basmati had wedged itself into the headphone jack that I finally admitted defeat. The nice young man at the Apple shop said, with just the faintest hint of derision, “this phone is f*#cked”.  Long story short I was able to purchase a ‘refurbished’ phone for $300.

So. That was the most expensive cup of coffee I have had recently – how bout you?

(Once over the trauma I shall be back with my favourite commute crushing apps.)

 

Tender

The Aubergine seduces. No other vegetable can offer flesh so soft, silken and tender. You don't so much chew an aubergine as let it dissolve on your tongue.I fell in love at first taste: baked till its flesh had almost melted, heavy with olive oil, musky with cinnamon and allspice, cumin and ginger, sweet with golden sultanas. 

The introduction to Nigel Slater's chapter on aubergines in Tender, page 39.

Nigel has been a friend and saviour to me for some time now. In times of sorrow, when others may turn to god, wine, self-help books or chocolate, I turn to Nigel. I have many of his books including Real Food, Appetite, Kitchen Diaries and now Tender. I don't even need to read them, I can just sit on the couch flicking through the images of dusky apples, fresh asparagus shoots, nutty roasted pumpkin, or plump raspberries. 

I turn to him for seasonal guidance and inspiration. I don't always follow the recipe but garner inspiration on how to put together ingredients. So a roast leg of lamb may be served with a cumin and chickpea mash rather than beans and spuds (which also have their place). 

My one, minor, gripe to date is the amount of meat and cream that he uses. But with Tender it would seem, Mr Slater has turned a corner. My favourite sentence so far is;

 "While still enjoying my crackling pork roasts and chargrilled lamb, my baked mackerel and crab salad, I have become more interested than ever in the effect of a diet higher in 'greens' than it is in meat - both in terms of my own wellbeing and, more recently, those implications that go beyond me and those for whom I cook."

After nearly two years spent with my Vegan love, vegetables have a new place in my heart. I consider meals around a vegetable rather than a piece of meat. A glossy purple aubergine will be seasoned with coriander seeds, cumin and baked in a fresh tomato sauce, kidney beans will go in with onion and garlic and some chilli for heat and be served with fresh coriander, an entrée may just be steamed asparagus shoots served with lemon and salt. My kitchen cupboards are never without tins of beans or chickpeas and packets of almonds or cashews.

Cookbooks hold escapism as well as a sense of hope and opportunity. Nigel Slater is on the money with understanding the whole sensory experience of cooking - handling the vegetables, the fragrant scent of cooking and the pleasure in seeing your loved ones eat. I think the reason why I turn to him when my life feels troubled is that I am reminded of the simplest joy in my life.

The lovely thing about taking a cookbook with you on the bus, train or tram is that you can plan the evening meal as you travel. What a nice way to transition out of your work day and into your evening.