Originally published The Clifton Courier, May 26, 2021

I recently read a column from a TV chef called Adam Liaw about how annoying it was that those “nostalgic comfort foods” we see popping up at restaurants and on cooking shows are very, very American – think mac and cheese. 

His argument was that, while these dishes were undoubtedly delicious, they weren’t the actual food of our dinky di Australian childhoods. I typically agree with most things this guy comes out with, making him my second favourite person to follow on Twitter – behind the official Twitter account for Paddington Bear. And aside from the point he made a while back that you absolutely can bake with salted butter, this is the point I perhaps agree with the most vehemently. 

Because while whether or not you can miss something you never had in the first place is an argument best had over a bottle of wine instead of in this column, I’m going to go ahead and say that you can’t long for the food of your childhood if you didn’t actually eat that food as a child. 

When I think of the ultimate comfort food of my childhood, there’s really only one dish that cuts the mustard (I mean, there’s also the Maggi Two Minute Chicken Noodle sandwich on white bread with lots of butter, but that’s not really a recipe, that’s a lifestyle choice).  

It’s Tiger Toast.  

Tiger Toast sounds very simple – Vegemite on toast with strips of Bega cheese grilled into it – and that’s the beauty of it.  

It’s something I remember Mum making for us when she didn’t have the time or the energy to cook. And that was pretty rare, actually. So if Mum wasn’t cooking us dinner, it was because something was either wrong or very out of the ordinary.  

I’m not sure how accurately my memory serves me, but I recall it being something we’d eat while Dad was working away. But we’d only really ever have Tiger Toast for tea – we didn’t call the evening meal “dinner” back then – when someone was sick or we’d arrived home late.  

When it was just us girls, there was a distinct Little Women (I’m talking the 1994 version with Winona Rider and Susan Sarandon, not that newfangled one with the open ending and all those colours) vibe in the house. I mean, we were discussing the plot of Home and Away instead the ideas of German philosophers and Father wasn’t out fighting in the Civil War, he was laying powerlines, but the vibe was there. We were more cooperative and kinder to each other and there was this overwhelming feeling of cosiness. 

It felt like it was us against the world, but with some white bread, Bega cheese and yeast spread, Mum made us feel like everything was going to be OK. And there was a novelty to having something like Tiger Toast for tea, like it was a little treat for our special little club.  

So when I’m in need, Tiger Toast gives me that wearing-pyjamas-warmed-by-the-fireplace kind of feeling. It’s also a great food for when it’s cold outside, you’ve got no one to impress and you’re feeling lazy.  

I… I’ve made it more than a few times lately.  

Here’s how I did it the other night: 

Step one: You have to pre-toast the toast, which I suppose means you could also call this thrice-cooked bread. I mean, you could just toast it once, but you want a bit of crunch here to offset the sogginess of melted cheese. If I was going for complete accuracy, I’d go with white bread. But because I’m a fancy grown up, I’m going with a slightly more gourmet brown bread. I feel like something crusty and sourdough-y would be good too, but I’m not fancy enough to have that just laying around the house. 

Step two: While I wait for the bread to toast – it’s currently just bread; it doesn’t become toast until it’s toasted – I open a 380 gram jar of Vegemite*. It’s brand new. There’s a smooth top, which I obviously pat gently with the pad of my finger because I’m only human.  

* It will probably be with me for life, because it’s quite a large jar and I’m sorry for sounding unAustralian, but in circumstances that don’t call for Tiger Toast, I’m actually more of a Promite person. It’s sweeter and often easier to spread. The good thing about either spread is that they don’t age. I mean, sure, there’s probably an expiry date, but that’s just arbitrary. A jar of Vegemite will outlast me and the children of the children I’m worried that I might never have. It’s got staying power.

Step three: Now the bread has transformed into toast, I smear some butter on it. Now, I suppose you don’t really need butter as there’s going to be plenty of cheese later, however, I will also remind you that this is a comfort food. Butter is essential.  

Step four: Time for the Vegemite. This is one of those times when it’s actually appropriate to entirely cover the bread in Vegemite. However, we’re not animals, so keep it to a thin coating. I mean, don’t go smearing on it like it’s Nutella.  

Step five: I’d planned to use Bega cheese for this, but the hunk I’d left in the fridge thinking “you know what, you’re probably going to need a little comfort Bega, better hang on to that” had gone completely mouldy so I had to chuck that out. Luckily, have multiple other types of cheese in the fridge as any resourceful woman in the dying months of her 20s would. I grab some Red Leicester cheese I’d bought a while back but never ended up opening. However, the use by date suggests it’s still very, very safe, so it’s going on. And this is a little oranger than the Bega stuff, so it’s more tiger-like, aesthetically speaking. I slice it into thin strips and lay them on the bread.  

Step six: I’m still pretty unfamiliar with my oven, so I crank it up to the hottest temperature and put it on the grill function. Then I leave the bread underneath the glowing red element for about five minutes, checking to hear that sweet, sweet sound of melted cheese bubbling.  

Step seven: I pull it out of the oven and see the stripes of Red Leicester have completely lost their form and decide this Tiger Toast should be called Lion Toast instead while I sit on my couch and watch reruns of a show I’ve seen many, many times before. Comfort food at its finest. 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, April 28, 2021

I recently had to relocate my kitchen bin and it’s really not working for me. 

My bin or, as Mum refers to it, kitchen tidy, used to live in the gap between the wall and the fridge, but due to life being the unpredictable, shifty bastard that it is, that all changed last week. 

The fridge that previously chilled my milk, kept my frozen mango chunks frozen and hosted my many novelty tourist magnets (which not only serve the very practical purpose of sticking important papers to my fridge, they also inform visitors to my home that I’m worldly enough to have been to a bunch of different places, but still trashy enough to buy tacky fridge magnets) had to go. 

But thanks to the guttural-sob-inducing kindness of a friend, her parents and her grandmother who no longer needed three fridges, a replacement appliance was soon shunted into the void. 

And void is the right word. Because I’m living in a townhouse, space is a little… strategic. The kitchen shares a wall with the stairs and rather than just turning the space under the stairs into a cupboard for an orphaned wizard to live in, the designers of this townhome decided to use the gap as a dedicated fridge space. The old fridge was narrow enough to leave a space between the wall which was big enough for the bin. 

But this new fridge is a wide set old girl and there’s just not enough room for the bin. 

Again, the kitchen’s dimensions are… strategic, which means there’s no floorspace for the bin. 

And not that I want to pass judgement on anyone’s lifestyle, but I just can’t get around the whole bin-in-the-cupboard thing. There’s nothing legally wrong with keeping a bin in a cupboard; that’s a choice everyone has the freedom to make for themselves. It’s just the wrong choice for me, as I’m not a monster. 

So, with a lack of bin-appropriate real estate, I’ve moved said kitchen tidy/crud keeper/trash taker into the laundry for now. The laundry is just off the kitchen and, given the specific dimensions of my place, it’s quite a short commute from A to B. As the crow flies, it’s probably four steps from the kitchen to the laundry. But, again with those specific dimensions, there’s an angular kitchen bench that gets in the way, adding probably three steps to the journey.

Of course, seven isn’t a lot of steps. And it’s not like I have to go outside, step over puddles, dodge cane toads or brave icy temperatures and pouring rain to get to where I’m needing to go. I’m not trekking through Middle-earth to dump my garbage. 

It’s literally right there. 

But within the first few hours of the bin’s relocation I became a weary traveller. The journey seemed more and more arduous each time I embarked on it. Like, I had to stop what I was doing in the kitchen, turn my body towards the laundry, take a few steps, successfully navigate around the spit that is my kitchen bench, open the laundry door, put the rubbish in the bin and then retrace my steps. 

It’s kind of like when I’m doing something on the computer and I use a keyboard shortcut in a bid to avoid going to all the extra effort of lifting one of my hands a few centimetres until it reaches the mouse, manoeuvring the cursor and then returning the same travel-worn hand to the keyboard. 

I know that’s lazy. In fact, that’s the laziest thing I’ve ever heard. And I’m disgusted at myself. But I still go to extreme lengths to use only the keyboard, even when it takes more mental effort or uses up more time than using the mouse. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I can be a real piece of poo.

And I’m beginning to worry what the bin equivalent of a keyboard shortcut would look like: a plastic bin bag hanging on one of the kitchen cabinet door handles? A pile of rubbish in the sink? A bin in the cupboard?

Clearly I need to work on myself. 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, April 21, 2021

I think I need to get a dying dog. 

I have always been someone who liked the idea of living alone. I like having my own space. I like being the authority on what is mess and what is an artful arrangement of items that portrays a homely, lived-in vibe. I like getting to decide what the appropriate volume is for each specific moment of a TV show (sometimes you need to crank it up when there’s a whispering scene and sometimes there’s an explosion that’s very, very loud – the volume setting needs to be adjusted accordingly).

I mean, I like knowing exactly how much milk is going to be left in the fridge at any given time. But I also like not being lonely. 

It’s nice having someone around when you get home. It’s nice having someone to talk to. It’s also very nice to know that if there’s a noise, it can be explained away on another living creature you’re on good terms with rather than the vengeful spirit of a young girl who died in a well in the 1800s but for some reason is directing her unholy anger towards you. 

It took me a while to learn this, but it turns people aren’t supposed to be alone and I, for one, would prefer not to be. 

Mum suggested getting a puppy the other day. 

It’s not a terrible idea. I do like dogs. You can give them long cuddles without it being weird. You can take them for walks. They love you for no reason, even when your undeserving soul is a bitter, withered prune. 

But there’s a few flaws in the puppy plan.

I work pretty unpredictable hours and puppies seem to need structure so they don’t turn into jerk dogs. I don’t think I have the discipline to train a puppy. And I’m not really a fan of all night barking, which is something I anticipate I would deal with as a careless puppy educator. 

Plus, I’m a strict outdoor dog kind of person. I get a little allergy-y when I’m around dogs and I don’t want their fur in my carpet, on my couch or blowing around in the hallways of my lungs. I also don’t want my house to smell of dog. And my backyard isn’t an ideal space for an energetic puppy with its whole life in front of it. 

I also don’t think I can commit to a decade with a dog. I’m not sure where I’ll be in 10 years’ time. I don’t know if I’ll have to move cities or go interstate or have to live on an abandoned oilrig in the middle of the stormy ocean.  

And another thing: I don’t want a needy dog, you know? Like, puppies tend to love people too hard. They cry when you leave for the day and follow you around all the time. It’s a too bit clingy for me. I don’t want a dog who’s so obsessed with me that it has to come with me to everything. I also don’t want to become too dependent on it in return and drag it to every brunch, brewery visit or beach trip I go on. Like, I don’t want having a dog to become my entire personality – I already have a fully-formed/mutated personality, thank you very much. 

What I need is a dog who’s cool with spending most of their time lazing around in my tiny yard, but is also happy to go out for a stroll on a golden afternoon. I need a dog who is too lazy to bark at possums. And, most importantly, I need a dog who loves me deep down, but has its own thing going on and gives me sassy side-eye when I’m being ridiculous. 

What I need is an old dog, preferably in the last year or two of its life. These are the kind of shelter dogs no one wants so they’ll be cheaper, and I’ll seem like a nicer person because I’m “selflessly” giving an unwanted dog a loving home. It’s a win-win. 

Of course, there is the issue of the dog eventually actually dying and the certainty of the hole that I tried to fill with an elderly canine widening even further when the inevitable occurs. 

But let’s just cross that bridge when we get to it.  

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, April 14, 2021

I had some friends stopping by the other week. They were doing that classic interstate weekender thing: squeezing in as many visits with as many people as possible in the space of 48 hours. I’d managed to snag a morning tea slot while they were getting the car they’d borrowed from a friend detail cleaned as a thankyou for the loan.

I had planned on taking them to a nearby café, but that morning it was announced that Brisbane was going into another snap lockdown, so I thought I’d offer them sanctuary in the COVID-free confines of my townhouse. 

And because all I had on hand to offer guests was a bowl of sultana and bran-based cereal, I thought I’d best whip up a batch of scones.

Here’s how that went down:

Now, while I’d like to one day be able to freewheel scones like some kind of master host (this fantasy also involves an impossibly expensive linen apron, tasteful mid-century furniture and a kitchen with triple glazed glass walls that overlook a stunning wilderness view), I’m still at the stage of needing to look up free recipes online. 

The one I saw on Taste.com called for three cups of self-raising flour. Now, number one, after what I’d witnessed in lockdowns past, flour became a hot commodity so I wanted to preserve what I had. I also knew that two men and I would never eat three cups-of-self-raising-flour worth of scones that morning and I didn’t want to be in the house alone with that many scones for three days. 

So I divvied it up by three. 

I took one cup of self-raising flour and sifted it into a bowl. The recipe said 80 grams of butter, but I was dividing it by thirds, so naturally I added 50 grams of butter, which I had chopped into cubes (which is perhaps the most calming, therapeutic sound one can hear).

Then I added a pinch of sea salt flakes and realised the only jam I had in the house was apricot jam. And, look, I’m not knocking apricot jam – in fact, I’m going to endeavour to do apricot jam on a scone – but we all know that scones are the stages upon which strawberry jam shines. I also didn’t have the time to whip any cream. 

But what I did have was fancy salted butter. 

So I decided to go off road – just a bit – to come up with a scone that only needed butter. I had come into a surplus of lemons and had recently bought a whizbang zester, so I grabbed a lemon* and grated the rind into the flour. I also had two bunches of thyme in the fridge – one that was freshly bought for roast-related purposes, the other was from a few weeks back and had started to dry out. I guess you could say I had… too much thyme on my hands. So I pulled the leaves off about eight springs of dry thyme and dumped them hastily into the bowl. I also added three tablespoons of raw sugar, because I felt like this needed a bit of sweetening and the molasses-y dark brown sugar I use for pretty much everything else things inappropriate on this rare occasion. Then I used my fingers to rub the mix into the butter and then added about a third of a cup of milk to the mix and tried to convince a dough to form.  

* This is far from an original thought, but do want to really emphasise how much lemons make almost everything. I feel like lemon should be on the table with the salt and pepper shakers. It’s the third seasoning and deserves to be revered like a holy entity.

It was a little too runny still, so I added a few extra tablespoons of self-raising flour and managed get it into something that could clump together somewhat cohesively. 

Time became increasingly of the essence, so I didn’t roll the dough out – I just kinda smooshed it so it was vaguely flat. Then I used a champagne flute to cut the dough into small circles and put them in a moderate oven for five minutes, with the intention of checking them and then adding a few extra minutes to the clock.  

It was right about the time the alarm went off when I realised I was supposed to pick my friends up. So I turned off the oven as I rushed out and hoped the residual heat would be enough to finish off the scones without burning their little bottoms. 

When I returned home, the smell of lemony calm wafted throughout the house and the scones had cooked through. They were slightly crumbly, but because they were served on a chunky wooden chopping board, it looked homely and rustic. 

If you’re going to make this at home, serve them still warm with amble salted butter.