Things You Cannot Say in Australia: Homage à George Carlin

Things You Cannot Say in Australia: Homage à George Carlin

We can so easily get into trouble assuming we have language in common — Australians and Americans.  It’s really the slang we sling with such wild abandon that leads us down the path of cross-cultural misunderstanding.   

Here’s a case in point:  

The evening was warm and the doors were thrown open to the night.  The Southern Hemisphere’s stars were close at hand — pinholes in dark velvet.  Candles marked small pools of warm light and the glow of the large TV gave the lounge a slightly milky coolness.  

An interesting and diverse crowd had gathered to watch the season’s finals in Aussie Rules Football, a bruising sport played without pads and no substitutions except for the odd bleeding gash or serious concussion. Conversation was a low murmur, punctuated by shouts of joy or groans of agony, echoed across the cul-de-sacs and escarpments by neighbors watching the same game. 

Guests drifted through the living room from time to time to check on their team’s progress and back again to the bar to pick up conversations abandoned for the instant replay.  Sausages sizzled on the barbecue, the aroma teasing on the breeze, and a salad glistened green on the black granite counter.

We were new in town that year, and included in the guest-list with that wonderful Australian generosity.  In an attempt to get to know other guests, I leaned over and casually asked, “What team do you root for?”  

Now, in the US, this is a completely benign question.  Mundane, even.  A common conversation-starter.  The answer can let you know if a person has moved and still follows the old home team.  Or has become a sports fanatic in his/her new digs.  Or doesn’t follow sports at all.  Any and all answers are perfect conversation openers.  

Rooting for a team is even immortalized in the song played in every professional ball park across America — Take Me Out to the Ball Game.  We all learn it in elementary school and at camps.  It’s part of American culture.  

Of course, put in another context, root has cruder connotations, but in a sports context, I  felt I was on pretty safe ground, conversation-wise.  

Unless the context is Australian.

I knew I’d transgressed when the thick feral fog of silence fell, and the guy I’d spoken to looked at me in horror.  Heads turned.  How can there have been such a lovely comforting burble of conversation and the clink of glasses just seconds before?  I was the deer.  They held the headlights.  What had I done?

One of my friends leaned over, soto voce, and said, “That’s a rude question here, darling.”  She’d lived in the US and knew what sort of trouble I’d gotten myself into.

It appeared I’d asked this guy what team he (a) whored for or (b) with.  Either way, not quite the conversation opener I’d hoped for!

So, here’s what I learned that night.  One barracks in Australia, it was explained to me.  One does not root, unless one is a groupie used to sharing favors, a camp follower with a tattered reputation, as it were.  There will be no “root, root, rooting for the home team” here, my dear, and of course, no 7^th inning stretch.  You barrack for your team, and you may hoot as you watch the game, but be warned — root not.

And one more yellow caution sign for the road ahead:

That pack you wear around your waist to protect your valuables or in lieu of a shoulder bag?  That is a HIP-pack or a WAIST-pack, NOT a fanny-pack.  It would not be a good idea to stroll into a store in Oz and ask where the fanny-packs are.  Eyes would roll and stomachs clench.  Conversations would cease. 

In Australia, fanny does not refer to the glutes as it does in the States, but to female genitalia.  Ah-ha!  Good to know.  I wish I’d known.  

And on the other side of the coin:

My friend A.D., a self-styled Oz-merican who has lived in the States for decades, will tell you on her first trip to the US, she inquired what time the group of friends was meeting in the morning: “What time shall I knock you up?” she asked.  The American response was complete shock — not only because she was a beautiful young woman, but no attempt at a romantic relationship had been made, and foreplay didn’t seem to be in the cards.  Those Aussies!

Yes, it goes both ways. So many ways to get into trouble, so little time.

***

For complete lyrics and history of the song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Me_Out_to_the_Ball_Game

***

Thanks, Ann. 

***

Note:  Cross-cultural misunderstandings are as fascinating as they are legion, and seem to occur because of assumptions we make based on our own culture.  The incidents above are just the beginning of a long list.

Tea in Tassie

Tea in Tassie

I’m not a navigator.  I have a hard time reading maps.  The graphic designer in me is looking at the colors and the fonts, ignoring the purpose of a map altogether.  Family members carefully remove maps from my white-knuckled grip and take over.  This usually puts me behind the wheel when navigation is called for, a solution that pleases me.  I like to drive.  

Not this trip, however.  JJ drove.  She didn’t know what she’d unleashed.  

As we left Launceston, me with map in hand in the navigator’s seat, I carefully directed us right back to where we started.  It’s a bad sign with the navigator gets the giggles and a worse one when the driver does too.  We pulled over, took several snorting deep breaths, righted ourselves and sped south to Hobart to catch our plane. 

We’d planned to stop at Barilla Bay once more to pick up some oysters to take back for a Tassie feast at our home base in Byron Bay.  

We made a morning tea stop at Ross, an historic village about half-way between Launceston and Hobarton the M-1 highway.  Aside from its luxurious parks and four-square European

Ross, TAS

architecture, the best part of Ross was the Ross Village Bakery.  

Their  carefully modulated wood-fired oven produces the most amazingly delicate and flaky rolls and buns.  And an incredible variety of mysterious and aromatic shapes and forms.  The glass case gleamed and the aroma of coffee slithered among the baked bouquet.  Each lit shelf held three of four different choices.  The kid in me wanted one of everything.  

I took my time and purchased a Banbury tart, an English tradition I hadn’t seen before.  What a heavenly combination of flaky crust, chopped raisons and currents, with a crossed dough top.  The Ross Bakery’s version was more fruit than dough — just the right amount of sugar, crunch and chew.  

Three more Banbury tarts went home with me, and I ate them sparingly over 3 days — a testament to self-control.  I really wanted to inhale all 3 at once in a flurry of flaky delight.

The charming owners, who dress in the character of the historic village, let us look at the wood-fired oven and the carefully nurtured coals that keep the oven warm and the next batch baking.  And patiently answered all our questions.

While there are many charming places in Tasmania worthy of a stop, this one’s at the top of my list for tea in Tassie.  You navigate, I’ll drive.  

***

Note:  Special thanks to my friend JJ for her generous sharing of the Tasmania she knows so well.  And to my friend AD for translation of all things Aussie.  

For more information:

Ross Village Bakery, Ross, TAS, 03-6381-5246. http://www.rossbakery.com.au/

The bakery and tea room are at street level in an historic building with hotel rooms upstairs.  

Summer Migration

Summer Migration

It’s July 2.  The stores are having their summer sales, although summer hasn’t really come to the Northwestern United States.  We all have our turtlenecks on, and while the humming birds, the robins, and the ospreys are here in their summer territory, and the solstice is more than a week gone, it’s not full-on summer yet.  Not here.

I watch the winter weather in Sydney.  It echos the early summer weather here, just three hours’ drive below the Canadian border.  As soon as the temperature tops 65F, I drag out my shorts, hoping against hope for a warm day.  True, I pair shorts with turtlenecks, but a girl can dream, can’t she?  Sandals too.  I’m determined to create a small illusion of the possibility of summer – even a tiny whiff.  

The weather dips and weaves, hanging out a few tantalizing hours of sun after the foghorn stills and the mist burns off.  I long for the sun, to be warm, for a few sweaty hot days.  Not too hot at night, mind you, so sleeping is easy, and not too muggy either, but enough that you know it’s summer. 

I have a couple of days to wait.  The first day of summer in the Northwest is July 5.  Summer skips along tentatively until mid-August and then sputters out in fits and starts until mid October.  

I fly south to Australia on the first day of August so I can feel the sun on my face and smell the salt air — and wrap my arms around my family and friends, too.  As soon as I step on my local beach, I relax completely.  My to-do tick-list becomes far less important, and it matters less that Telstra has disconnected my phone again.  I’m home in a different way than I am in the States.  Not better, just different.  But home, nonetheless.  Ah, Oz.

Photos: Entrance 8B, Tallow Beach.  Pt. Byron.  Credit:  C. E. Wilkins

Oz Travel Tip: School Holidays

Oz Travel Tip:  School Holidays

It’s taken me years to get a grip on when to fly in Australia.  Flights and prices seemed to vary with even more weirdness than the usual airline shift and feint.  One week, the trip from Sydney to my home in Northern New South Wales is $89 AUD and the next, that same flight is $425 AUD.  I’d waited too long to book the flight?  Big tours booked?  I just wasn’t sure.  I figured it was one of those gaps in knowing I’d so often run into as I’d become more embedded in my sometimes-life in Oz.

I’d gotten caught many times in the confusing changing tides of airline rules and regulations, mostly at my cost.  In fact, always at my cost. You’d think after a decade of flying south to paradise, I’d have more of a clue.  And that’s the thing about clues — you don’t always know when you have one in your back pocket, until it is joined by its mates, and they start talking.

My travel time is somewhat flexible with windows of opportunity, so there is no excuse for getting caught in a high-travel week, but good timing seemed to elude me.  Where I saved for miles on the over-Pacific leg of the trip, I over-paid for the in-country part with some regularity.  

Since I try to get to Oz twice a year, I figured there must be some arcane alchemy I just did not comprehend. I’m pretty much convinced that there are some spectacled old men in back rooms with alcohol burners mixing odd powders who come up with airline fares, but no matter.  There had to be a password, a key for figuring out why fares peaked and waned.  A tide-table, as it were, for traveling in Oz.

In one of those parallel-universe coincidences, I bought a calendar with gorgeous scenes of Australia, and in examining the photographs on the last page, noticed the school calendar published with its vacation times noted.  Each of Australia’s 7 states and territories (and ACT — Canbarra, the Australian Capitol Territory) has a slightly different calendar, off-set during the school year by a week or so.  

Blinking light, K-Mart shoppers!  When I wanted to travel, so did at least of 1/3 of Australia’s school kids and their families.  

Now, I try to book in-between schoolies’ holidays and footie contests, banking holidays and torrential downpours (see below).  It still requires some magic-wand work, but I’ve begun to save a few more Aussie dollars that I can put toward interesting Australian wines and pricey litres of petrol. 

My calendar revealed that the school year begins in late January or early February and goes through mid-December.  All schools close during the 6 week summer vacation over Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day.  

The entire nation is on the move to someplace cooler — the beach, the reef, the mountains, south to Tassie — somewhere, anywhere cool, anywhere with a breeze.  Book your travel early and still expect to pay a premium for whatever travel you do during this period.  And pack your sunscreen.  It will be hot.  Very hot.  But then, it’s summer.  What do you expect?

In most of Australia, the school year has four terms with a two-week break between the terms — except for the extended year-end summer holiday.  States have the right to set their own school calendars, and like the gauges in railroads and daylight savings time, each takes great pride in their own particular preferences. In that same spirit of independent thinking, Tasmania has chosen to have three school terms, rather than four (see below). 

Like so many small discoveries in Australia, this one made a huge difference in my travel plans. An outsider doesn’t know s/he needs to know, if you see what I mean?  Unless you are extremely savvy.  Which excludes me.  So, to help you be a savvy traveller in Australia, for your exploration of paradise, here are some clues, some travel tips for your big travel picture:

School calendar 2008:

State      Term 1                Term 2              Term 3                 Term 4

NSW      29 Jan – 11 Ap      28 Ap – 4 Jul        21 Jul – 26 Sept        13 Oct – 19 Dec

VIC        29 Jan – 20 Mar     7 Ap – 27 Jun      14 Jul – 19 Sept        6 Oct – 19 Dec

QLD      29 Jan – 4 Ap        14 Ap – 27 Jun     14 Jul – 19 Sept        6 Oct – 12 Dec

NT         30 Jan – 4 Ap        14 Ap – 20 Jun     21 Jul – 26 Sept        6 Oct – 12 Dec

WA        4 Feb – 11 Ap       29 Ap – 4 Jul         22 Jul – 26 Sept        14 Oct – 18 Dec

ACT       1 Feb – 11 Ap       27 Ap – 4 Jul         21 Jul – 26 Sept        13 Oct – 19 Dec

SA          29 Jan – 11 Ap     28 Ap – 4 Jul          21 Jul – 26 Sept        13 Oct  12 Dec

TAS        14 Feb – 30 May  16 Jun – 5 Sept      22 Sept – 18 Dec. (3 terms only)

Check dates and any changes at:

http://www.dest.gov.au/portfolio_department/calendar_dates/school_term_dates_2008.htm

For extended planning through 2009, and for some states, 2010, go to:  http://www.australia.gov.au/School_Term_Dates

For expanded planning, use this site for planning around national, state, and banking holidays: http://www.atn.com.au/info/holidays.html

And have a fabulous tour of Australia!

Photos above: Top, right: Rushcutters Bay, Sydney, NSW.  Middle, left:  Byron Bay NSW hinterland, Northern Rivers Area.  Bottom right:  Gum canopy at sunset, near Strahan, TAS.

Thank you, Donna Hay

Thank you, Donna Hay

I made pecan pie for Thanksgiving dinner this year.  I made one last year, too, when I was in Australia for Thanksgiving. My neighbors made a special Thanksgiving dinner for me with a turkey that looked like what real turkeys once looked like.  And I made pecan pie the year before and the one before that.  My husband loves pecan pie and I love him, so I make it on Thanksgiving, at Christmas and for his birthday.  

I think of my great-grandmother as I measure the corn syrup, sugar, eggs, vanilla, a dollop of molasses and a pinch or two of ground coriander into her dimpled brown and ochre earthenware bowl. She didn’t cook. She supervised, but she knew recipes and the bowl belonged to her.  She loved the southern food of her youth, and pecan pie is definitely sweet sensuous southern food — crunchy pecans as counterpoint to the sweet gelatinous swirl of sugar and eggs.   

I often make my own crust and did this year too.  I pulled down the flour from the cupboard, measured it carefully, cut in the shortening, sprinkled on the water, and cut and recut the dough until it was bonded and layered.  It was a bit more elastic than usual, but I hardly noticed in the delight of having a grown daughter home for a holiday, and the flurry of family conversation.  

I determinedly overcame the dough’s tendency to retract, firmly rolling it out from the center mound until I had a large enough circle to fit into my porcelain quiche dish – it’s an eclectic kitchen in my home, bits of this relative’s kitchen and bits of that one.  The quiche dish works fine for pecan pie, since the pie tin has become a dog food dish.  

I crimped the edges and filled in the rips in the bottom and thought about how flaky my pie crusts are, and how I was looking forward to the smile on my husband’s face when he bit into the pecan pie.  I sprayed the bottom of the crust with Pam which seems to inhibit soggy crust.  I added the pecans to the filling, poured the ingredients from the earthenware bowl into the pie shell and put it in the oven to bake.

When I bake a berry pie, I often put a pan underneath to catch any escaping juices, but I don’t need one for a pecan pie because the filling always stays put and domes to tell me when the pie is finished baking.  

After an hour, I checked to see how the pie was coming along.  To my surprise, this pecan pie filling had overflowed.  I was sure I had measured the ingredients properly as I know those Karo syrup folks have a good recipe on the side of their corn syrup bottle.  The pie was not domed, so I left it to bake another 20 minutes or so until I could tell the pecans were well toasted.  I wiped out the oven so the roast potatoes could bake next and set the pie aside to cool.  

As the mother of grown children, I’ve learned to put tidbits of information together into a whole story — a look here, a dropped detail there, and pretty soon you have a whole picture.  Not necessarily entirely accurate, but the drift, nonetheless.  

I’d unknowingly gathered the first kernel of information that would develop into the big pecan-pie picture –stored in the “ephemera, etc.” file in my overloaded brain.

The family accoutrements gleamed on a table more formally dressed than we were.  Our sweats had been upgraded to slacks.  Guests arrived, wine opened, and eventually the turkey my husband bakes in the kettle barbecue emerged smelling fabulous and looking succulent.  The drippings were carefully carried to the stove, ready to flavor the gravy.  I pulled the flour from the cupboard and made a roux as my mother had taught me decades ago.  I added broth from the boiled giblets and whisked the gravy smooth, ready to place in the wok-pan I use to make gravy.  Eclectic kitchen, as I mentioned.  

I just happened to notice that the flour in my hand was self-rising flour and not my usual flour at all.  I pushed aside the cornmeal and granola, looking for plain flour.  My stomach dropped.  The plain flour sack was almost empty – no more than two tablespoons left, far short of what I needed for the base for gravy.  

Now, normally I wouldn’t have self-rising flour in my cupboard in the US at all.  Americans like to add baking powder, salt and soda to their flour to aid rising, but Australians consider self-rising flour, with the rising agent already added, a staple for baking.  

I’ve become a fan of the well-designed cookbooks of Australian food stylist Donna Hay and the interesting dishes she and her team offer.  I had made a Peach and Raspberry Tart from her cookbook Off the Shelf that required the self-rising flour just a couple of weeks before.  Friends served us this aromatic tart at dinner, and I’ve followed their example several times.  Guests ask for seconds.   

With no recourse left for gravy-making, I used the self-rising flour to make my base roux.  I didn’t want the gravy to start raising in the gravy boat – a culinary adventure I was hoping to avoid — so I boiled the gravy thoroughly, adding the flavorful pan drippings and stock from the giblets, whisking the mixture all the while.  Oh, that gravy was divine on the roasted potatoes and cauliflower, and well-behaved in its serving boat, too.  

At last the pecan pie made its entrance, along side a superb 4-inch tall pumpkin cheesecake with pecan crust and sour cream icing baked by a guest and unwrapped from its metal collar just before serving.  I cut the pie, liberating it with some difficulty from the crusted sides of the pan and served small slices to each guest along with the perfect cheesecake.  I slid into my chair, and as hostess invited everyone to enjoy the desserts.  

My slice of pecan pie had an odd crust.  It was arched in the middle of the slice rather than flat on the bottom, floating, as it were, in the middle of the pie – a perfect back-bend where none was called for.  It wasn’t until that first bite that I put together the second kernel of information in the big pecan-pie picture:  that the self-rising flour I’d discovered in my hand during gravy making must have been the same flour I’d used to make the piecrust.  

Alarm bells went off in my head as I examined not a tasty flaky crust, but an odd pita-bread crust, even pizza-like in its consistency.  Not a crust in the bottom of the pan holding gelatinous sweetness, but something in the middle distance, pecans crusted to the top, slightly over-baked. And underneath the bottom crust where none should be, the filling — a strange sticky substance that had congealed into rubberized glue. 

Like a fledgling osprey pushing siblings from the nest, this self-rising pie crust had somehow not only risen like dough, but floated into the pie itself, pushing the contents from the pie plate onto the oven floor and leaving the rest of the filling to ooze underneath the so-called crust to over-bake into taffy.  

I didn’t even have the nerve to glance at my husband to see the disappointment in his eyes. He’d have to wait to Christmas to sample his favorite pecan pie.  I relieved my guests of any obligation to sample even the smallest bite and was grateful for the delicious perfection of the pumpkin cheesecake.  

I lay my disastrous pecan pie this Thanksgiving directly at Donna Hay’s feet.  I wouldn’t have had self-rising flour in my cupboard in the States except for her delicious recipe which I had NOT made that day.  Thank you, Donna Hay.    

***

From Off the Shelf by Donna Hay (p.155)  with author’s notes

Peach and Raspberry Tart

Ingredients:

125 g (4 oz. butter =1 stick)), softened

1 cup caster (superfine or baker’s) sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs, room temperature

1 ½ cups self-raising (self-rising) flour, sifted

2 peaches, halved, cut into thin wedges (nectarines are good, frozen OK too)

150 g (5 oz) raspberries (any berries or combination of berries in season work, frozen OK too.) See notes below.

2 TBS icing (confectioner’s/powdered) sugar

*1 tsp ground coriander mixed into filling (author’s option)

Directions:

 1.  Preheat oven to 160º C, 325º F. (I’ve kicked mine up to 350º F with success.  See Note below.)  

 2.  Line a 22 cm (9 inch) round cake tin with a removable base with baking paper.  

 3.  Place the butter, sugar, coriander, and vanilla in a bowl and beat until light and creamy.  

 4.  Add the eggs and beat well.  

 5.  Fold in the flour and spoon the mixture into the lined tin.  

 6.  Top with peaches and raspberries (or other fruit mix — see below).  

 7.  Sprinkle with icing (confectioner’s/powdered) sugar.  

 8.  Bake for 1 hour or until the tart is cooked when tested with a skewer.  (I’ve found this can be up to 1.5 hours at 350º. See Note below.)  

  9. Remove from tin to cool.  Remove baking paper to serve.  

*Can serve warm with ice cream or at room temperature with whipped cream, or crème fraîche (as in photo), or even by itself warm or cool.  Serves 8-10.  

Note:  I’ve found the cooking times for some of Donna Hay’s baked recipes perfect when I’m in Australia with my fan-assisted oven, but short for my conventional American oven.  Test with a skewer in the center to make sure the tart is done.  The skewer will emerge clean if the tart is done, with dough clinging to it if it is underdone.

And:  I’ve used more fruit with my tarts, including 1.5 cups rhubarb set aside before I start the batter with 2 Tbs sugar to start the juices flowing.  I mixed in blueberries and frozen raspberries to make about 2 cups fruit.  The juice drips deep into the tart, changing the focus from cake to fruit.  You can also use a mix of fresh and frozen fruit.  

***

For more information:

Donna Hay’s website:  www.donnahay.com.au

For access to her cookbooks and magazine in the States:  http://www.amazon.com

For access to her cookbooks and magazine in Australia:  http://www.dymocks.com.au

For the classic PECAN PIE recipe from Karo Syrup (note for Aussie cooks — substitute brown syrup.  Works perfectly):  http://www.karosyrup.com/pecanPie.asp.  Remember, use regular flour, not self-rising, if you make your own crust!

Thrivers and Survivors

Thrivers and Survivors

Plant natives was the mandate from our local shire council.  I may have snuck in the odd day-lily and olive tree into the mix, but at least outside the fence I’ve tried to stick with native Australian species.  I have fun learning what’s what, and I’ve come to relish the drought-tolerant natives.  

Gardening has been a trial-and-error exercise for me in Australia, even though Eden at Byron, the local nursery has clear signs and helpful staff.  When I ask for help, we always start a conversation with “What kind of soil do you have?”  And there’s the rub, right from the get-go.  

The soil at our place includes sand with construction debris in some places and hard clay in others – none of which seem conducive to nurturing plants.  And then there are the tropical downpours alternating with heat and drought.  It’s a mixed bag, any way you look at it. 

Of course, I use moisture beads to help keep in some of the moisture.  However used with too free a hand, the moisture beads expand and expand and finally ooze out of pots in an alarming fashion that always makes me think of the movie “Ghostbusters.”  And here’s the final hint from Eden:  mulch, mulch, mulch – at least twice a year with sugar cane mulch or tea tree mulch – both sold in bales, they’re useful bi-products of other industries.

The best survivor so far, in fact, the thriver, is the grevellia.  Its flower is a hat-seller of jester’s hats, one piled up on the other, stacked 8 to 10 high.  The bleeding-heart shaped center floweret narrows to a curved beak of concentrated color – coral, orange, yellow, pink, and culminates in a curled end of yellow as if it was a jester’s bell. 

As the grevellias start to bloom, they show cream and sage, and then slowly, the flowerets develop and deepen and mature, expanding in form, transforming in color, in richness, and in attraction to a variety of nectar seekers.  The blooms droop with the birds’ weight as they perform the partnership necessary in the procreative process.  As I walk by, I only pick up a slight honey-scented musk from the grevellia, but clearly the curved-billed, long-tongued nectar-eaters can smell the developing richness as soon as the flowerets open.

The grevellia can grow almost 15 feet tall relatively quickly, and has an open, even gangly habit.  I trim mine a bit so we can walk the path to the front door. They can’t be planted too close to the house since any stems can provide a pathway for voracious white ants and termites. Native plants need their space to be rangy, too.

I’ve planted more now, with different colored blooms, and the slender stalks of new plants have matured to the characteristic grey-brown rough bark and delicate, lacy sage-colored leaves.  They’ll allow us some privacy on the front patio and bring a fascinating variety of birds in to sip.  

Each season, I marvel at the blossoms, so delicate and complex, at the contrast of the delicate blossoms and the tough bark and rangy habit, and at the persistence of the grevellia that thrives in such poor sandy soil. To me, the many forms of grevellia are perfect metaphors for those who not only survive, but thrive, in the magnificent land down under.

For more information:

Gardening with Australian natives:  

http://www.lonker.net/gardening_australian_1.htm

Eden at Byron, 140 Bangalow Road, Byron Bay, NSW 2481.  02-6685-6874, www.edenatbyron.com.au (website under construction at publication)

 

Harvest at Meadowbank

Harvest at Meadowbank

The breeze off the inlet puts a crisp edge on the warmth of the Fall sun.  I pull my jacket closer, turn my face to the sun, and breathe in the stunning view.  A crew of harvesters move with economy, obscured under the nets at Meadowbank Winery in the Coal River Valley Wine Region of southwestern Tasmania.  Gentle hills fall away to the pristine blue of Pitt Water, on the protected northern reaches of Frederick Henry Bay just west of Hobart, the capital of Tasmania.  

They can’t be tall, these pickers, as the nets that deter fruit bats loop and sag between row-end posts and the occasional mid-row upright.  There is a murmur of industriousness from beneath the nets as the harvesting crew races the sugar content to pick at just the right time.  As one step in the complex dance of winemaking has been completed, the rhythm of the season shifts and another twirl begins.

Tasmanian winemakers, the southern-most vintners in Australia, are well-known for their use of cool-weather grapes — the pinots, chardonnay, and rieslings, among others.  While their cabernets are not as famous as their northern neighbors across the Bass Strait, and the fruit not as forward in their wines, the bubblies, made in the “methode champenoise,” are not to be missed.  

Meadowbank’s stunning setting, lodge-like tasting room and comfortable restaurant make it a pleasant place to visit and relax, to take time to enjoy the recently released wines, wander the art exhibitions, and participate in the special events.  Because of its proximity to Hobart, it’s an easy drive to combine with a visit to historic Richmond Village and a stop at the Barilla Bay Oyster farm near the Hobart airport.  

Tasmania prides itself on the pristine quality of its water and air, and indeed the oysters at Barilla Bay have benefitted spectacularly from the lack of pollution.  The shop at Barilla Bay packs their oysters in “eskies” — little styrofoam coolers — complete with a cool-pack so you can enjoy the exquisitely delicate taste on a picnic in Tasmania or back home on the Australian mainland.  We opted for both — one at the start of our Tasmanian exploration and one to take home to share with friends, accompanied by a crisp bite of a Tassie bubbly. 

Partner the winemaker’s art with a half-dozen Barilla Bay oysters for a glorious Tasmanian pas de deux.

*** 

WINEMAKING NOTES, WINERIES, AND OYSTERS:

To Brix or Baumé:

Specific gravity measures the density of the juice relative to pure water.  The density is a result of the sugars present in the grape juice.  About 55% of the sugar converts to alcohol, so from the density and thus the sugars, one can calculate what the alcohol content of the wine will be.  

In Australia and much of Europe, the measurement system for specific gravity is called Baumé, after its inventor in the mid-18th century, pharmacist Antoine Baumé.  The Baumé scale yields a roughly one to one relationship between sugar and alcohol content, so 1º Baumé equals 1% alcohol, and winemakers aim for between 10% and 14.5% alcohol and the corresponding sugar content in the grape juice from the crush.    

In the States, the measurement is done in Brix, named for a German inventor, AEJ Brix.  Each degree on the Brix scale equals 1 gram of sugar in 100 grams of grape juice.  Thus 20º Brix multiplied by .55 equals 11% alcohol.  

Wines typically contain between 10% and 14.5% alcohol, so depending on what the winemaker has in mind, s/he can specify when the grape is to be picked — variables such as hail, rain, and other issues such as labor shortages and early freezes — all taken into account.  Pressure is high to get it just right. 

Near Hobart: (At http://maps.google.com, insert address for map and directions.)

• Meadowbank Winery:  699 Richmond Road, Cambridge, TAS 7170. www.meadowbankwines.com.au 

• Barilla Bay Oysters:  1388 Tasman Highway, Cambridge, TAS (see url for google maps above) (1.5 km past the Hobart Airport roundabout).  We found the oysters themselves far more remarkable than the handy upscale restaurant.  http://www.barillabay.com.au/index2.html

Other Wine Areas to visit in Tasmania (see url for google maps above) — a non-inclusive list:

• Piper’s River Area on the Tamar Valley Wine Route (see below), northwest Tasmania, is an easy drive from the northern Tasmanian port of Launceston.  Visit Jansz Wine Company to taste exceptional sparkling wines, including their very reasonable non-vintage Cuvée (http://www.jansztas.com). Check out the Pipers Brook Vineyard and Winery, after you cross the Tamar River on the beautifully designed Batman Bridge, north and west of Launceston.  Enjoy lunch at their the Pipers Brook Winery Cafe and explore their wines (and sister-company Kreglinger’s sparkling wines) with food. (http://kreglingerwineestates.com).  The third winery in the Kreglinger family is Ninth Island Winery, just east of Launceston.  Their pinot noir is well-distributed and while I did not visit the winery, I have enjoyed their pinot noir many times (letting it breathe is key).

• For a map and an inclusive list of the wineries (some 24+) on the Tamar Valley Wine Route around the charming and historic Launceston area in northern Tasmania, go to:  http://www.tasmanianwineroute.com.au/tamar/tamar.htm.  

Note:  In the summer months, Aussies cool their pinot noir, so it presents a crispness not available when warmer.  Ask at bottle shops (liquor stores) for a cooled pinot noir in the summer.  Bottle shops often have a few bottles chilled in the cooler.  And while I’m on this subject — chilled — (not necessarily strictly Tassie, but worth a shout), try Aussie red sparkling wines too, if you have a chance.  Yummo!

With gratitude:  Special thanks to my friend JJ for her generosity in sharing with me the Tasmania she knows so well.  

Cultural Keepers: Saving the Stories

Cultural Keepers:  Saving the Stories

Once, my ancestors painted themselves for war and ceremony, carved images on bone and rock, carried amulets and charms, told stories, recited histories and created myths.  They must have.  Even my family name means “traveling minstrel”– story-teller, performer, and myth-maker — but the English, Irish, Dutch, French and Swiss blood that joins the Welsh in my veins creates a new pulse without any real heritage markers.  The rich, palpable cultural framework for mark-making and myth-telling has been lost in me over generations.  Now we make marks and tell family stories without cultural guides.  But those stories are ours, the only ones we have.

I am the elder of my clan.  My husband is the last of his.  We link our ancestors to our children.  Family stories are still held in mirrors and inkwells, plates and platters, but cultural markings and imagery, ceremonies and rituals — all have disappeared or been subsumed into a larger amorphous amalgam.  This is exactly what Aboriginal elders in desert Australia fear, too.  Native American communities in North America share the same issue –the loss of specific cultural identity. 

***

In a “portrait” of aboriginal artist Rusty Peters (Gija – Juwurru), Nicolas Rothwell, author of the book Another Country, discusses the impetus for mark-making among indigenous people, and one of Peters’ themes — “the role of memory in man’s progress”: “…But this reinterpreting, this painting at the boundaries, is not some arbitrary, vaguely modern quest for theme: it is an artist’s response to changed conditions.  Peters aims not just to analyse those changes and understand the mind’s course in their midst, but to show through art — to teach.  Of course the art is intended for the mainstream connoisseurs and the gallery-goers who admire it, but he has another target as well — the young Gija girls and boys of Turkey Creek and the outlying East Kimberley communities, whose path in life is hard.

“The old people put their stories on the rocks,” says Peters, “and we know them still.  Some of the old law used to take three or four months in the bush, in the early days.  I’m trying to pass that knowledge on — but the young people don’t listen.  A lot of young people know a little of the culture but not the language.  I have deep worry for the young people: they smoke ganja, drink, hang themselves.  In my day, we didn’t do those things.  I’m painting for them too — to try to give them their traditions.”  (p. 165)

***

I can recite a few stories many generations old, but the relationship to a larger specific culture is gone.  There are no Welsh songs or iconography, no sudden need to eschew vowels for strings of consonants. My French is rudimentary, Dutch non-existent, Gallic an unsolved mystery.  I feel closer to those with a similar life-philosophy than to those with a cultural set of marks.  

I still seek to preserve the few stories I have, though, and wish I’d listened closer when my mother recited her stories time and again.  Now that she’s gone, I have lots of questions.  And just like I was, my daughters aren’t particularly interested in family stories.  “Take pictures, Mom and write it down.  They’re your stories, not ours.”  But someday, the stories I know will be their stories, and when I’m gone, they’ll have lots of questions, too, no matter how much I write down and how many pictures I take.  

There are no cultural morality-tales in my family except in religious contexts that grow distant and dilute. And because of unpreserved heritage, because the dominant culture subsumes the minority, my descendents will never be able to point to a stylized and patterned image and say, “This image is Raven.  Now, one day Raven …”  

***

The annotation of artist Susan Point’s (Coast Salish – Musqueam) show at the Seattle Art Museum (URL below) makes a similar case:  ”In the late 19th century anthropologists encouraged some artists to draw images of clan crests and body painting designs to add to their research data.  By the late 1920’s Native artists were using drawings and watercolors, both as teaching tools for younger artists and as a means of income.  Forty years later, a new generation of Northwest Coast artists turned to serigraphs, thus launching what has become a major form of artistic expression for artists from Puget Sound to Southeast Alaska.”  

***

Is each of us a “living bridge”?  Columnist and radio host Amy Goodman so designated folk singer and song archivist Utah Philips (URL below) for his attempts to keep the songs of the labor movement alive.  Phillips said: “The long memory is the most radical idea in America….No, our people’s history is like one long river.  It flows down from way over there.  And everything that those people did and everything they lived flows down to me, and I can reach down and take out what I need, if I have the courage to go out and ask questions. “

***

It’s clear that preserving culture in some form is a human imperative.  We need to know where we come from, and we need to pass this on to others.  It’s cross-cultural and timeless.  It’s human.  How do we, the elders of today, preserve what’s come before, so it can be applied to what comes after?  What morality tales must be performed before attention is paid? What myths must be sung?  What marks must be made to preserve the “long memory”?

***

Photos:  Top right:  Burnet sisters, including Elizabeth Burnet Parker (standing), 3rd in 8 generations of girls with the name Elizabeth in our family, about 1870.  Middle left:  A family tintype, c. 1880, Hewes relatives.  Lower right:  Betty Bell Baker, my mother, in the striped sweater, mid-1920’s, Beverly Hills, CA.  Source:  family archives.

To explore further:

• To see Rusty Peters‘ powerful paintings: http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=C27BC53CFFF0A054818EC504BA18E3D1 or http://www.moragalleries.com.au/rpeters/

• To see Susan Stone’s exceptional serigraphs and collections of other indigenous work, including aboriginal work from Australia, visit the Alcheringa Gallery online:  http://www.alcheringa-gallery.com/artists.html?do=view&artist=67

• To read Amy Goodman’s complete article on Utah Phillips, go to http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/365106_amy30.html

• To find out more about Nicolas Rothwell’s book Another Country, go to Glee Books (www.gleebooks.com.au) or Dymocks (www.dymocks,com.au) or ABC Books (www.abcbooks.com.au).  Or follow his column in The Australian (www.theaustralian.com.au)

 

To read and then to dream

So much to read, so little time…

In a lecture in Seattle, Washington in April 2008, travel writer and cultural essayist Pico Iyer, said that travel “forces me to reconsider my assumptions and the things I took for granted,” and that travel, for him, is “the search for the invisible pulsing beneath the surface.”  

In search of the “invisible pulsing beneath the surface,” I’ve enjoyed a bit of reading about Australia to expand my understanding of the country where I live part of the year.  Here are some recent favorites:  

Nicholas Rothwell’s Another Country, Black, Inc., 2008. ISBN 9781863951272.  (www.blackincbooks.com or www.dymocks.com.au) 

Nicholas Rothwell, a correspondent for The Australian, one of Australia’s major newspapers, writes about the northern part of Australia, the top end.  He includes profiles of people, of towns long gone, of the thriving aboriginal art scene, and health issues of marginalized communities.  He has a gentle hand but a sharp eye in dealing with his subjects and the articles are beautifully written.  

Here’s a sampling:  

“Around Wingellina, spinifex and scrub stretch in wind-swept folds.  Even in the hot, wet summer months, this desert community is a hard place, with acute health problems and faintly forbidding atmospherics.  All the stranger, then, that one of the most concentrated indigenous artistic renaissances yet seen in Australia should have flowered, and almost as abruptly collapsed, right here.” (p. 213)

 Australia (Travelers’ Tales series) with stories by Bruce Chatwin, Jan Morris, Tim Cahill, Paul Theroux, among many others. Edited by Larry Habegger.  Travelers’ Tales, Inc. ISBN 1932361138.  www.amazon.com.  

This is a series of essays of well-known and little-known writers over 25 years of travel writing about Oz.  It’s a lovely smattering of writing about Australia, most from the last two decades of the 20th century and early 2000’s.  

Here’s one:

“I have never uncovered anywhere the same bonds of friendship as I found in certain small sections of Australian society.  It has something to do with the old code of mateship and something to do with the fact that people have time to care for one another, and something to do with the fact that dissidents have had to stick together, and something to do with the fact that competition and achievement are not very important aspects of the culture, and something to do with a generosity of spirit that can afford to grow within that unique sense of traditionless space and potential.  Whatever it is, it is extraordinarily valuable.” – Robyn Davidson, Tracks

In a Sunburned County by Bill Bryson.  Broadway Books, NY 2000.  ISBN 0767903862 (www.amazon.com)  

Bill Bryson’s books are well-researched and well-written, immediately engaging and often very funny.  The caveat with Bryson’s books is that you may be overcome with a ribald moment in an airport, garnering strange looks from security personnel, not to mention your fellow travelers.  Or shake with laughter reading in bed, making yourself the target of dirty looks and grumpy comments from other occupants.  Even when asked “What’s so funny?”, it’s hard to respond as the passage makes you weep with laughter, and thus makes your recounting of the passage entirely undecipherable.  So, choose the place you read Bryson, and the company with whom you read Bryson, carefully, and then enjoy this very funny man.  

Here’s a small sample:

“…Australia is really the most amazingly fecund country.  It is thought to contain something on the order of 25,000 species of plants (Britain, for purposes of comparison, has 1,600 species) but that’s really only a guess.  At least a third of what is out there has never been named or studied, and new stuff is turning up all the time, often in the most unlikely places…  in 1994 in the Blue Mountains, some botanist out for a walk happened on another of those unexpected relic species long presumed to be extinct.  Called wollemi pines, these were not modest shrubs hidden among tall grasses, but stout and imposing trees up to 130 feet tall and 10 feet around…Nobody can guess, of course, what else might be out there awaiting discovery.  This is, of course, what makes Australia such a fundamentally exciting place to engage in the natural sciences…take a stroll through the bush and you can find half a dozen unnamed wildflowers, a grove of Jurassic angiosperms, and probably a ten-kilo lump of gold.  I know where I’d be working if I were in science.” p. 277-78

 

The Brisbane Maze

The Brisbane Maze

Here’s a hint about driving in downtown Brisbane – especially at night.  Don’t.  Just don’t drive there.  The current city planners have created a maze of one-way streets and alley-ways that conspire to shoot you across bridges to the other side of the meandering Brisbane River, to not-at-all-where-you-want-to-go, a destination of sweaty, harrowing, fast-paced, narrow-lane dreams.  And here’s another time not to drive in Brisbane – rush hour.  Pair rush hour with evening driving and you might as well be driving in Paris in a newly rented car, a bad map, no clue about the language and signs, trapped in a four-lane round-about with a full-on labor demonstration ahead.  Paris might be better, in fact. 

My friend Sue and I were in Brisbane to see the extensive and wonderful Arts Complex at South Park that borders one of the deep loops of the Brisbane River and includes the Gallery of Modern Art, the Queensland Art Gallery, the Queensland Museum (natural history) (see urls below), several theaters and restaurants, not to mention the kilometers-long riverside park built for a Worlds’ Fair.  I’d confidently told Sue I’d been to Brisbane many times and knew my way around.  (You can tell that I’d already spend my wad, karmically, can’t you?)  We’d decided to explore the Philip Johnson’s well-known restaurant E’cco Bistro while we were in town and planned an extra 20 minutes to drive there from Hamilton on the western outskirts of Brisbane where we were staying.  We planned to eat early – about 7:00 – and to drive there ourselves.  

Dusk was falling and the roads were still buzzing with people going home from work, frayed, frazzled and in a hurry, atypical of the pace of life in tropical Queensland.  We called E’cco Bistro for directions and with the Brisbane map Sue’s capable hand, we set out with only minor trepidations.  

There is a tricky turn to the restaurant just before you shoot across the river on the Bradfield Highway going to southeastern suburbs.  We looked for the turn carefully, slowing my little red car in traffic, but missed the turn and shot, as we’d dreaded, across the river into freeway limbo.

Chastened, we pulled off as soon as possible to try to return to the Central Business District, and in our confusion, apparently cut off a tired, irritable driver in a Mini Cooper.  She took exception to my poor driving and glued herself to my bumper, screaming and gesticulating, giving us a clear indication of just how truly deranged a tired Brisbane-ite can be.  I was sorry for her rage and our dislocation, but it was not easy to be appropriately apologetic at 60 mph in unfamiliar traffic.  Now, we were getting a little rattled, since it was rare that Australian drivers got overly aggressive and mostly settled for a honk and a single-finger salute.  

We zigged through a small river-side neighborhood with our vocal shadow a close second, and entered traffic returning to the city.  She turned left to our right, and we were relieved that she took her irritation off into the night.  Back over the bridge we rocketed and again entered the single-directional maze that is downtown Brisbane.  While carefully consulting the map, we zipped past our turn once more and circled around the CBD again.  

We called E’cco, asking that our reservation be saved, assuring them and ourselves that we were just minutes away.  We were just minutes away — three streets, two dead-ends, and one one-way street away – right next door as the crow flies. Heartened, following directions given us by the restaurant owner, we tried to make our way to our destination, but the one-way streets and unmarked lanes proved our undoing yet again, taking us further and further afield.  We longed for a GPS direction-finder and The Voice to tell us which turn to take next.

As we passed Mickey D’s Golden Arches for the third time, we saw a taxi stand beyond it outside a big hotel.  I do love driving in cities and I don’t mind getting lost, really, because you can see new and wonderful, if scary, places.  By this time, though, visions of a thigh-deep martini won out over another circuit around downtown Brisbane.  Call me greedy, but we’d had three laps already and weren’t sure another would prove more fruitful.  We called E’cco. Again.

I eased up behind the taxi stand and urged Sue to pop into a cab to take her, and lead me in the little red car, to the restaurant.  The taxi driver’s English was patchy and the music too loud for him to understand to go slowly so I could follow.  Sue yelled directions at him over the din of Hindu-rock and watched out the back window as my headlights grew more distant.  He plummeted through downtown Brisbane, exploring far more of the city than was strictly necessary.  I followed his fading tail lights through the dark one-way streets, and finally down an alley which spit us out, at last, in front of the restaurant.  Even with the extended drive and acrid smoke-filled cab, he got a huge tip — relief opens the purse-strings almost as much as excellence does.

Was it worth it?  Absolutely.  E’cco Bistro has exquisite food, especially their inventive subtle soups, and terrific wines.  And the service is exceptional.  

But when you go to E’cco Bistro on a gastronomic adventure of your own, take the CityCat.  This public catamaran ferry system runs on the Brisbane River from early in the morning to late at night.  From the Riverside Dock, it’s a short 3 block walk to E’cco Bistro.  On your way home, bundle up and stand in the bow of the CityCat.  Enjoy the river defining a city.  If you’re in luck, you’ll see natural phosphorescence in the wake, the stars in the warm tropical sky, and the romance of the lights of an incredible riverine city.  

Just don’t drive in Brisbane at night.  

************

Here are some of our favorites in Brisbane:

• Take the CityCat along the Brisbane River.  It’s reasonable to purchase an all-day family pass.  www.translink.com.au/…/ReferenceLookup/ 070702_network_CityCat.pdf/$file/070702_network_CityCat.pdf.  You can get off and on at various stops all day.

• Explore the Arts Complex at South Bank (plenty of restaurants and bars there to quench your thirst — there’s a nice one at the Queensland Library and at both the galleries).  Exit the CityCat at South Bank.  Check out the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) (www.qag.qld.gov.au/), the Gallery of Modern Art – GoMA (www.qag.qld.gov.au/goma) and the natural history museum, Queensland Museum (www.qmuseum.qld.gov.au/)

• Shop the Queen Street Mall (a closed off street with a changing array of nifty stores and places to stop for refreshment).  Take the Queen Street dock off the CityCat, climb the stairs and cross the street. Queen Street Mall is a great place to dine for families with childen.  There are many choices of cuisine and room for kids to race around outside.

• Save your pennies to eat at Philip Johnson’s award-winning E’cco Bistro (www.eccobistro.com) as you’ll pay top dollar (it will be worth it) and book in advance. Be sure to taste the exquisite soups.  Located at 100 Boundary Street (corner of Adelaide Street), phone: 07-3831-8344.  You can book online, and the website has a good map of their tricky location.  Closed Sunday and Monday. Get off the CityCat at the Riverside dock and walk to the corner of Adelaide and Boundary Streets for lunch or dinner at this very interesting restaurant.  

• Photo above:  Storm front approaching Brisbane.