Life with Bees

We were in Sydney this weekend for a concert - and you can't go to Sydney without eating out. Sunday afternoon we spent at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe, having deep dark hot chocolate and opulent cakes at a table looking out over Darling Harbour. TK had a Lindt waffle, a perfect little creature with a scoop of rich vanilla and a pot of melted chocolate on the side. If you look closely you can see him in the glossy reflection of the chocolate. Luckily we'd managed to miss the lurid red dust storm or this photo might have been less appetising.

We also went to our favourite Brazilian churrasco, Braza, and ate some of the most tender, caramelised barbeque you'll get at a restaurant. They bring it round on swords and carve it for you at the table and there's no limit on how much you can have. We had four guys in the party - so lunch took a leisurely three hours. One of our friends, who hadn't eaten red meat for months beforehand due to a blood condition, established his manly credentials by relentlessly eating everything in sight for the entire meal.

I survived the three hours by cannily eating only one piece of everything and avoiding the various cuts of lamb and beef altogether. But it was an endless caravan of meat and it was all good. Highlights included pork ribs that were caramelised and pleasingly charred all round but slid tenderly off the bone; crisp bright orange prawns; and firm chicken hearts cooked over an open flame. Worth the drive to Sydney alone.

I'm trying to read books for pleasure again. Lately I've realised that I've been reading books so I can interview their authors, or get up to speed with politics, and it's feeling a little too much like work. But in the last few weeks I've set aside time to read a couple of slim volumes on food. To make sure it's all about pleasure, the books suit different moods. Alan Davidson's The Pleasures of English Food is a mini Penguin paperback, part of a new series of reissued classic extracts and essays. (I've also bought Vita Sackville-West's musings on gardens for a dear friend.) A former diplomat, Davidson writes lucidly, cleanly about Bramley apples and teacakes and toad in the hole. Mrs Beeton and Stilton and stargazey puddings. Exploring the ancestry of each familiar, unexciting dish and the ways we consume it, Davidson conjures up nursery comforts and the cool landscapes of country England. It's all very colonial and quietly authoritative.

In a completely different tone is Michelle Maisto's The Gastronomy of Marriage, which chronicles the effects of food on Maisto's relationship with her fiancee in modern day Brooklyn. The scenery is deeply American – makeshift kitchens in college dorm rooms, trips to the markets of Chinatown on the subway, Maisto and her fiancee arguing over soba noodles in their tiny New York apartment. Davidson slips easily into my work bag and is perfect for dipping into for five minutes as I scarf down leftovers in the lunch room (it's been barbecued baby octopus and stir fried vegetables all week). He's like a pack of good cigarettes, quickly consumed but deeply savoured. Maisto is a little more work, takes a little more concentration – I find some of the writing just a tiny bit twee. But some of her dilemmas ring true: what to do when you and your partner have different tastes but both love food? What power structures do you have to negotiate when one person does the cooking and the other the washing? (A seemingly trivial division which can rapidly turn into the emotional faultline of a relationship, cutting deep to the bubbling lava of resentment - oh believe me!) Each book suits a certain frame of mind, a certain landscape. Reading them in tandem as I am, dipping into one and taking up with the other as the mood strikes, they make for an unorthodox and satisfying combination - like buttermilk chicken and waffles. Or cucumber sandwiches with a dot of Louisiana hot sauce.

Simex has friends coming to Canberra. I haven't posted to the blog in a while. So here's a list of suggestions for places to eat as you take a visiting friend around the capital. Most of the places are picturesque, slightly glam (by Canberra standards) or in lovely surroundings such as the national institutions. Those that aren't have been chosen for passably pleasant food. Making the list is good practice for when friends come to visit from interstate or abroad. Yes, there are too many places to eat than most people will have time for. But hopefully there are enough options to work with any Canberra itinerary, so no matter what you do you'll find a nice place to eat alongside it.


In the Parliamentary Triangle
- Friday night drinks at the meat market (OPH courtyard)
- Brunch and shopping at Old Bus Depot Markets and then Kingston Glassworks
- Coffee on the outdoor terrace at Bookplate Cafe in National Library
- Sculpture Garden and Regard cafe or restaurant at the NGA
- Parly and Manuka – cafes on the Lawns, Verve, Pangaea or Ginseng
- Drinks at the Belgian Beer Cafe, Realm or Press Club (the Chair Sniffer cocktail)
- Lennox Gardens and long elegant high tea at the Hyatt
- The Oaks Brasserie at Yarralumla nursery if you like trees
- Views from Onred, Red Hill
- Feel smug at Silo Bakery, Kingston
- The Brodburger van at Bowen Park, on the lakeside


City
- Floriade, including High Tea at the Lotus Lounge and don't forget NightFest
- Ice cream martinis and desserts at Koko Black
- Tapas and drinks at Parlour Wine Room, New Acton and more drinks at Wig and Pen
- National Museum and coffee on the terrace at Axis
- Lunch at Alto, Black Mountain Tower, or cheaper view and food at Mt Ainslie cafe


The Poachers Way
- Smokehouse Cafe at Poachers Pantry and Germanic goodness at Country Guesthouse Schonegg, Murrumbateman
- All the wineries: Clonakilla, Shaw, Lambert, Wily Trout (at Poachers Pantry), Helm, Dionysus
- And the randomness of Gold Creek on the way out to Hall/Murrumbateman
- Murrumbateman Moving Feast in October long weekend.


Outside Canberra: Bungendore and Goulburn
- Beer at the Carrington Inn, Bungendore
- French food at Le Tres Bon, Bungendore
- Lark Hill, Bungendore's biodynamic winery
- Cute at the Roses Cafe or greasy spoon at the Paragon Diner, Goulburn
- Mulled wine and coffee at Lerida Estate, Lake George


The Southern Highlands
- Lunch at the faux colonial Elephant Boy Cafe, Bowral
- High tea and wine tasting at Centennial Vineyards, Bowral
- Super posh dinner at Horderns, Milton Park Hotel, Bowral
- Or more posh dinner at Katers, Peppers Manor House, Sutton Forest
- The giant barn at Berkelouw Books, Berrima
- Walk: Fitzroy, Carrington, Belmore Falls