Hieronymous the Anonymous

Why I don't like Masterchef

Masterchef is back on the teev again. I know because people are posting updates about o Facebook, and the conversation if you're not careful veers into familiar discussions about the latest contestants. It's not a conversation I'm part of as I'm one of the few who have not got into the show. In a way that's strange since I am such a keen foodie, but I've generally explained that I'm too busy to commit to the exhaustive programming of the show. True enough, but there are other reasons also.

I have caught the odd show here and there, so know what it's all about. And the show's popularity and influence has been so pervasove that I have been aware if only distantly of the lastest permutations and controversies as if by osmosis. Though I've not been part of the conversation I have on occasion been able to throw in the odd copnversational tidbit.

I watched it again last night, almost by accident. Searching for something to occupy me I came across it and find myself caught up in the trials and tribulations the show puts its contestants through.

I was not surprised to find it compelling TV. That's the rap after all, and on the few occasions I've watched previously it's not boredom that kept mefrom coming back. You put a bunch of ambitious, desperate people in a theatrical environment, pit one against the other while the chefs judging, like gods on Olympus, contrive challenges for their supplicants. There's drama aplenty, as well as lots of food - what's not to like?

Well, something. I switched off at the end of it thinking I won't be watching again. It was like I had eagerly tucked into a delicious meal only to find something was a little off with it. That's what I think about the show - it's a little off. Clearly I'm very much in the minority view.

What I dislike about Masterchef is what I dislike about all reality shows. I hate the voyeuristic impulse that draws society to watch the dramas and frequent humiliations of those brave enough to enter the fray. I hate the contrivance of it, how clearly it is manufactured to create those moments of controversy or high drama that brings in the big ratings points. Ultimately I hate how the individual is subverted to commercial pragmatism - and hate what it says about our society that we flock to this our nose pressed to the glass eager for the latest manufactured triumph or tragedy.

Masterchef is probably more benign than most reality shows, but there still feels something Big Brother-ish about it (and I mean that in the sense of Orwell's book, as well as the tiresome program). It's like we the people are being fed this pap to entertain us, a modern take on Lions versus Christians. It's a plaything, a diversion, mental mush.

Strange also that for a innately competitive person I find the ten little Indians approach tacky. I know that many of these contestants will become household names, will be lauded, and are generally treated well within the confines of the show. Still, they are pawns in the drama, and the drama comes first. They are individuals, people who have screwed up their courage and ambition to take the punt, they deserve to be respected for that regardless of their cooking talent, rather than elements to be exploited for dramatic effect.

This was brought home to me powerfully last night in the last minute or so of the program. It was an elimination, 24 were being whittled down to 12. Three were asked to step forward in the last batch of six. The chef told them they were out of luck and they visibly deflated, before going on to add they would have to put their lives on hold because they had made the cut.

Here is the program in miniature. One moment hopes and dreams are dashed, the next realised, at least for now. Well, that's good for them, but what of the three standing behind them? Their experience was the opposite - one moment they dared to believe, the next made to realise their belief was foolish. This is cruelty in the service of TV ratings - and we lap it up.

Which brings me to the chefs and food critics judging on Masterchef. I love my food. I love eating out. I love reading about it. It's a big part of my life - and yet I wonder when chefs become celebrities. They are placed on a pedestal by virtue of their ability to whip up a top meal. Well, that's impressive and much valued, but it is another job. The Greek gods allusion is apt I think. Their word is gospel, their mien often imperious, they give, they take, and generally become more self-important by the minute.

I'm not going to be able to avoid Masterchef, and I have no real intention to. In the end it's no big deal one way or another - if people choose to submit to this, and others to watch it then fine. It's not for me though. I like my TV more honest.

Dumpling heaven

Image via Wikipedia

Was out last night. Met up with the speed-dater at Hu Tong Dumpling Bar. Had a wonderful meal. Chinese dumplings are a wonder of God, though with the seed of something deliciously decadent in them. I can't eat a dumpling without thinking of sex in some way. It's the slippery, sticky dumpling slicked with sauce that explodes with tasty sensation in your mouth. More, more you think, yes, yes, as your chopsticks slip and slide trying to grip the moist parcel of pure delight.

So, the dumplings were good - especially the chicken dumplings in chilli sauce. Then we had beef with chilli sauce, which arrived in a large bowl full to the brim much too much for two people. Chilli seeds floated in the oily residue in which chunks of beef were visible, stained a deep red by the chilli. The SD later claimed it was the hottest dish she had ever eaten. I wouldn't say the same, but it was warm. My mistake was to not drain the oli off before transferring to my bowl. The oil was fiery. It was enjoyable though.

We had a couple of glasses of wine before deciding a Tsing Tao was a good option to accompany the beef - as well as some water. We talked throughout, haltingly sometimes - she is a little shy - but more fluent as the evening went on.

I suggested a night-cap afterwards and so off we toddled to the Gin Palace for a gin sitting in one of the comfortably upholstered chairs. The conversation opened up here. The alcohol had loosened the SD up and relaxed her inhibitions. The conversation took off in pleasantly unpredictable directions, just as it should when two people become comfortable and familiar with each other.

Getting to know someone there is almost always a starchy formality to begin with as each advances along predictable and socially accepted avenues. There is question and answer and the conversation runs in a linear direction. It is only when you feel more relaxed that the conversation opens up.

So sitting in the Gin Palace the conversation opened up. It was fun. It was good to see her like that. As always I remained unffected by what I had drunk - it takes a lot more than that to get me tiddly - but it was fun to sit back and let the conversation flow and to watch her settle into her role.

We parted a little after 11. I got home with the familiar preference of staying up. I flicked the TV on and sat on the couch. Rigby, glad to have me home again, climbed up to take his regular position beside me, his head in my lap. I watched the end of the cricket and then flicked over to watch the tail end of Henry and June.

This was the right movie for the moment. The earthiness of their desires was refreshing and stimulating. I understood the need to express the keen edge of feeling in the sensual act, whether it be teasing restraint or out and out dirty rooting. This was the stuff of life, the stuff that Henry Miller lived by, wrote about, the stuff he scandalised the world with in his time by writing about the act and the undying desire that led to it as if no-one ever had before. Few had actually, though pretty well everyone with any life in them knows what it feels like. It just wasn't written about - until Henry.

I read his books in my early twenties. There's a whole bunch of literature that almst cliche for the young man 'finding himself' as I was, and many do, in the years not long out of school. Sartre and Camus are classics of that young man genre, but so to is Henry Miller. Between the lot of them they encompass the mind and soul, they explore the existential pangs of anyone looking to find their feet and provoke reaction and thought. And of course the body is not forgottten, nor the slow ache of sensual longing, nor indeed the more raucous demands of sexual desire -  all familiar, like it or not, to a man in his first quarter century. Not much has change really, except the fire has diminished from a roaring blaze that consumed everything in its path to a warm and everpresent glow of red hot embers in the bed of the expired fire.

Watching I felt myself stir at the sight of the petite and demure actress who played Anais Nin, she with a fire burning inside of her. Well, I wanted a piece of that. That's a good part of life - why would you deny it? I felt that and watched and found myself looking at Paris in the thirties as if it were a place I could never know - which is true. Paris I love, and much of what was depicted on screen was familiar in some way; but likewise there was such particularity of moments that equally it seemed a place I could only peer in at as if my TV was a window to another time and place. The cloudy pernod, the rain tumbling down, the thick French coffee poured into a bowl, the heavy woollen suits and beat-up hats. If only I could travel back and be part of it I thought. Not to be, and so I went to bed.

Savoury, but sweet

I had a few people over for a new years barbecue last Sunday. It was the perfect day for it, sunny without being too hot, everyone in good spirits and the food - if I do say so myself - top notch.

As usual I made a variety of dishes, most of them for the first time. I made Moroccan style kebabs, chicken infused with garlic and thyme, an Italian panzanella (tomato and bread) salad, a salad of beetroot with feta cheese and red onion, as well as the usual staples like steak (marinated) and snags.

Amongst all this abundance two dishes stood out for me.

The first isn't a dish actually, but the walk in the door cocktail I prepared. It was pretty scrummy: atrawberries muddled with cucumber, basil and ginger, mixed with Pimms, sweet vermouth and pomegranate molasses. Poor into a glass with ice and top up with dry ginger ale. Man, it was fabuloso.

The other was dessert, which was simplicity itself: strawberries again, mixed with sugar, shredded basil and balsamic vinegar. The trick is for the vinegar to be nicely aged and syrupy. Serve with ice-cream and you have the perfect summer dessert.

Fun nights

Image via Wikipedia

Last night hopefully was the last hurrah for Christmas drinks, though allegedly there's more on later today. I'm hoping I can slip out of work early and maybe do some Christmas shopping for myself.

Last night was good though, no complaints. I caught up with JV at the rooftop bar at Campari for a couple of beers amongst the press of handy looking people celebrating the last few days before Christmas. It was cool. We wandered down then and found ourselves tucking into a Thai meal with a bottle of white while crowds in reindeer antlers wandered by and an electronic busker did his thing just down from us.

Next was Charlie's Bar, once a regular destination of mine, but now infrequently visited. The bartenders are cool and know their stuff - they're serious about the work. We had a couple of delectable cocktails there and I chatted to the bartenders about one of my favourite topics - booze. About where to find violette liquor for the aviation cocktail, and enquiring about Liquor 43 and how it should be served. We drank and talked and The Temper Trap played loudly in the background while interesting looking blondes drank with affably effeminate looking guys and the conversation went on, next year...

We got out of there a little before 11 and I was keen to go on to the Golden Monkey, but JV had had enough. He was definitely a little worse for wear while I felt pretty well untouched by the alcohol. It may be a small thing, but I don't know anyone who holds booze as well as I do. It's one of the things I truly excel at, but it's not something I can take too much credit for - it's in the genes.

JV staggered to the station to be collected by his (soon to be) betrothed, generous and kind as she is (don't lose her JV!), while I flagged down a taxi to return home to the equally enthusiastic Rigby.

It was a fun night.

Making my own bresaola

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday I got started on making my own bresaola. Bresaola is kind of a beef equivalent of prosciutto. It's a spiced, cured hunk of beef left to air dry, much like the great hams and other Italian charcuterie. I might have tried my hand at Pork - maybe capocollo (pork shoulder/neck) - but pork is not really my medium.

As it's going to be a while before I can slice  a sliver of the red/purple flesh to sample it is a slow process. Yesterday I bought a bg knot of beef - in this case just over 4 kilos of knuckle. misnamed in a way because it's the cut at the front of the rear leg. It's generally lean and of top quality - the best you'll get in the leg. I trimmed it, removing sinew and fat and in so doing divided into several smaller nuts of beef.

I had previously prepared the marinade - a bottle of red, a bottle of white, a heap of peppercorns, some cloves, dried garlic, bay leaves, rosemary, garlic and so on - to some degree you can use your imagination. I like it spicy so I probably put more in than most. The key ingredient is salt, which is what effectively cures and preserves the meat. I put in a whole 750ml container of salt.

The meat is now sitting in the marinade, covered in the back of my fridge, where it'll sit for about a fortnight. After that I'll pat dry the meat, wrap in muslin and hang in a cool, dry place for a month at least. Then...well, we'll see what it's like.

Fellow travellers

Image via Wikipedia

I get a lot of love from bartenders. I'm a good customer, and not just because I like to drink. I'm more than a mere consumer of alcohol. I don't drink to get pissed, I drink to enjoy social occasions with friends, and I drink in appreciation of the product. I'm discerning, inquisitive and eager, all of which warms the cockles of most bartenders hearts. Amid the drunks and the indiscriminate I validate their choice of profession by my genuine interest in what they do - and it excites a lot of them.

Over the years I've had hundreds of cliched conversations with a variety of bartenders at bars low and high, elegant and grungy, all over the world. We talk about women and footy, the sorry state of the political lanscape, the latest controversy/gossip, the meaning of life. Many times I've spoken to bartenders about booze, comparing the merits of this against that, sharing drinking stories and memories of fine tipples. This regularly results in an impromptu tasting session as the bartender takes bottles from his private stash on the top shelf well out of reach of the undiscerning riff raff. Here, have a go at that they might say as they pour me a measure of some exotic spirit or fine wine, their face a picture of happy anticipation as they await my response.

Something like that happened again last night. I was early to meet yet another woman and so popped into a nearby bar. The bar was Match, where I sat at the bar and upon being quizzed by the bartender pulled a face trying to understand what I wanted. Beer? Nah. Wine? No. After a moment I settled on Scotch, a rare tipple for me. The house scotch was Chivas, but I declined that. Something different then. As I have multiple times before I put the choice in the hands of the bartender. Surprise me.

That's an invitation few bartenders can resist. With a skip in his step he turned to the array of bottles lined up behind the bar. Something smoky, peaty? Sure, that'll do fine. He poured me a measure of pale whisky from Tasmania. I took a sip of it. It was smooth and easy. He added a small finger of water to it at my request and I settled back to enjoy it.

We got to talking about different whiskies. I've an adventurous palate and had tried a good few of them, including another Tasmanian whisky nearly 60 proof. In a moment he had pulled a bottle from near the top of the shelves and poured a small measure into a wine tasting glass. This was much darker, near the colour of a sweet sherry. I took a sip and felt it burn, and the hairs of my nostril curl. It was strong but easy to drink. He showed me the bottle - this was Scottish, 60 proof. Good stuff.

For the next 10 minutes we shared a companionable conversation about whisky and other spirits, fellow travellers who have discovered a common interest. Then my phone chirped. "I've been summoned" I told him, and with that took my reluctant leave.

More than enough after all

I have some vague idea that Sunday's have something to do with redemption. Maybe it's the thought of all those pious souls cosying up to their local church to sing hymns and praise the much praised lord. I'm not doing that, and perhaps consequently feel little redemptive on this Sunday morning, nor most.

I can't comment on the state of my spirit. I can definitely lay claim to feeling physically bereft. God himself rested on Sunday, so the story goes, and while I'm beyond expecting it I certainly hope to find some physical solace by this day of the week. Generally I find myself winding down as the week progresses, like a toy with a non-duracell battery. On Saturday, amid the household chores, the grocery shopping, and the social engagements I hope to find time for myself, to read, to contemplate, to sleep-in. I aim for replenishment.

Come Sunday, so the theory goes, I should be feeling some of the benefits of that. My eyes should be brighter, my muscles less weary. Sunday, generally, is the quietist day of the week for me, and come Monday I should be feeling sufficiently refreashed to tackle another week. That's the theory.

This morning I crawled out of bed feeling like a broken, jaded man, feeling every bit of my age, and more.

It's my fault. For one reason or another I've had an unhealthy week. I seem to have a lot of those. Waiting for someone in a bar last night I reflected on that. With time to spare I twittered, very accurately:

Too much seems to be my theme. More than enough is more fun than sufficient after all.

True enough, but there's a price to pay.

Amid the expeditions last week the most notable was dinner with Fong at Supermaxi in St Georges road. It was a wintry, rainy, blizzardy sort of night, much better spent snuggled up in front of the tv rather than braving the elements. Still, it was something that had to be done: Fong is departing us. She's jaunting off to the States to have some fun with some San Fran boys, then India, before hitting China, where she hopes to settle for a while and teach English to the unenlightened natives. As an abc (Australian Born Chinese) she should fit in, though she's much more Aussie than Chink.

Yesterday I rocked up to this years Taste of Melbourne event at the Exhibition Buildings. I met up with a mate of mine, Tim, a true food geek. I had secured VIP passes so had a whale of a time wandering the building checking out this stall and that, sampling different wares and buying selections of fine restaurant food which we would take back with us to our enclosure to eat with a nice drop of wine.

I ate plenty, and most of it good - especially the wagyu beef cigars with artichoke and horseradish from the Stokehouse. And the beer and cheese session was much fun also. Had a cocktail, a few glasses of wine, various beers, and by the end of it I was feeling pretty cosy as I headed home, a complimentary bag of goodies in my hand.

Normally that might have been it, except that I had agreed to catch up with the publisher for dinner. I roused myself out of my post-event stupor, changed my clothes and hopped on a tram heading towards the city.

We ate at Mezzo, a restaurant that had featured earlier in the day. I'd met the chef and discussed the little beef and corn pasties he'd made for us, a Sicilian favourite he told us. The cuisine at the restaurant was all Sicilian, different to the usual, standard Italian, and very good. In fact I'd suggest by the end of the night the meal ranked high in my favourites for the year: citrusy chicken skewers, a flavoursome beef braciole, followed by really indulgent and delicious apple doughnuts.

It was a good night, good food, but man did I feel full afterwards. I went with a full stomach and topped it up further. I told the publisher I always hve a reserve, a little like a cow has two stomachs, but even the reserve was chockas.

Home again I watched the footy I'd taped for the usual result, then Mark Webber qualify in pole for the Spa GP. I went to bed some time after 1, over-indulged in general. Which is how I feel today.

And today it's fast food. Mum is out of hospital and I'm visiting her at home. Myt step-sister is down from Queensland and I rashly suggested that I'd pick up some KFC or somesuch, grab a bottle of wine and we'd have a quick lunch together. Later in the day is the soccer at AAMI stadium. And tomorrow is work.

Man I'm tired, and I've got enough stored to last a week without eating. I really need to settle down, be sensible and start acting my age. Maybe tomorrow.

The sausage machine

Over a period of about 18 months I’ve observed in myself a growing disquiet at being a meat-eater. At first when I consciously made this connection I was astounded. While the sense at first was very small it seemed totally out of character with who I thought myself to be. I used to be a hunter after all. If you want to get technical about it I murdered animals, and not entirely for food. I had the belief – and still do – that for all our culture and alleged sophistication that we live in a natural world. In the natural world big animals ate smaller animals, and we just happened to be one of the bigger and smarter animals going around. In the natural world they were there for our sustenance.

More than that I love my meat. There are few meals that are complete without it. As a sensualist I’ve always taken great delight in concocting delicious meals and consuming them. Out and about as I often am there are few greater delights than to indulge in a good meal with nice wine and fine company. To eliminate meat from that equation seemed somehow equivalent of donning a moral hair shirt, and worse. Like putting a frame around the known world, constraining one-self to limited parts of it in contradiction of the rambling, curious and free-spirited nature I presume of people who enjoy their food as an expression of self. To deny that pleasure seemed not only prudish verging on the fanatical, but a severe personality defect. 

As you can imagine I looked down my well fed nose at those who consciously denied meat. I knew many vegetarians and at one time had a perverse run of girlfriends who wouldn’t eat meat. It was never something I could properly comprehend. Why don’t you eat meat? Tell me again? There seemed to me some self-denying aspect to their personality given the choice to compromise, to eliminate, an entire food group. As for vegans! They seemed to me the supercilious killjoys of the culinary world, as if merely to exist was enough. 

Yet the wheel turns. I am not vegetarian and not about to become one. The thought of a well cooked steak from Hopkins River is enough for me to salivate, and many of the activities I look forward to most pertain to this restaurant or that I intend to visit. Meat is much more than a food source to me, it is the object of pleasure. That pleasure would be unalloyed if it remained merely ‘meat’, the indefinite article, the abstraction that makes chewing on a well cooked fillet easier by forgetting that it once came from a braying steer. 

My particular distaste is common to many who refuse to eat meat. The abstraction has failed me these last 18 months. Often as I slice my steak I recall that not only that it was once part of a living organism, but that it likely felt some terror in those moments leading to its death as it sensed what was to come. I dine for my pleasure on a beast sacrificed for my enjoyment, but ultimately it’s the sheer industrialisation of the process that horrifies me. That beast sacrificed for me is just one of millions in a virtual and perpetual animal genocide: literally a sausage machine.  

The thought that all around the world there are literally millions of animals bred specifically to be butchered and consumed by us one day makes me very uneasy. A dumb but living animal is slaughtered, and as it progresses down the production line is quartered, divided and packaged until it is unrecognisable from what it was just a little time before – and without a scrap wasted. 

That we have reduced to them to the packaged commodity we pick up in the supermarket as meat seems oddly disrespectful. I dare say the cow or the pig could live without the respect if only he could live full stop, but I think it is necessary that we acknowledge where the food on our plate comes from. We have become too removed from the source, our world too sanitised, and, in a sense, our superiority falsely averred by the commoditfication of these farm animals. They have ceased to be animals, and have instead become food – or more accurately, meat. 

Perhaps I am more sensitive to this after all these years because I have been hunting. I’ve watched animals in their habitat and gained some understanding of how the animal in the wild lives (something denied our farm animals). I’ve seen the animal dead and bloody, the eyes becoming opaque in death. I’ve watched the bodies turned into carcasses as they are expertly skinned and the choice cuts butchered. It’s a fascinating experience, and it gives you some sense in the earthy essence of what we do.  

I’m not about to change, I’ll still eat my meat and enjoy it, but I feel that all is not right. I think like an omnivore still, but increasingly I am feeling like a vegetarian. Or at least feel a sympathetic urge to it, even if my palate rejects it. I would be happier knowing that the meat on the prongs of my fork lived free and wild, if it were hunted rather than harvested, as it was once always the case. That’s a romantic and impractical notion however, and not something that’s ever going to happen. There is room, however, for a more humane treatment of the beasts we rely so much upon, and the proper recognition of what they are. The American Indians had the right idea I think, giving thanks for the bounty of their hunt and honouring the spirit of that which they fed upon. That too will never happen, but it’s a nice idea.

PS Some years ago I wrote a piece about the difference between being a happy meat-eater and a committed vegetarian. All that I wrote then remains true for me, but the perspective has changed just a little.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sexy Vegetarians Get Naked (cbsnews.com)
• From hoof to plate: Jay Rayner visits a slaughterhouse (guardian.co.uk)
• Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn: Meat Or No Meat: Tell Us What You Think And Why (huffingtonpost.com)
• Is a Flexitarian Diet Right For You? (gogreenstreet.com)

A different vibe

Ichanged my routine today. I left for work 15 minutes earlier than usual and after checking into the office strolled down the road to have breakfast at Liar, Liar. Liar, Liar is one of the hip caffeineophile (to coin a new word) cafes like you only really have in Melbourne. I guess there about a dozen that are generally acclaimed for the quality of the coffee they produce, which is seen as a very serious business. Liar, Liar is a brother to St Ali, another high in the charts, and the barista’s are typically hip dudes with attitude, facial hair and beanies, laid back and cool but at the same time intent on their trade – or is it a calling? 

Whatever it is I’m grateful to it – the coffee is excellent, and distinctly different even from the good stuff you can commonly get. I sat there with a latte and ordered some eggs feeling a little separate to it all in my suit. I felt like a businessman mixing out of my milieu – which is incorrect as while I am corporate in some way shape or form my heart is elsewhere, and if I could get away with growing a raggedy beard and sloping around in jeans and beanie then I’d be in like Flynn. I’m there in spirit bro. 

It’s a different vibe having a cooked brekky midweek. It’s part of the established pattern for lazy weekends, but outside of the occasional breakfast meeting rare during the week. It’s nice though, which is why I chose to do it. I was in the city the other day on some personal business and with 30 minutes to kill sat at a cafe in one of the laneways of Melbourne. I had a coffee and a serving of toasted banana bread and watched the world go by. It was a simple thing really. For about 30 minutes I felt like the still point in a world that continued to bustle around me. 

It was not quite like that this morning. There was too much activity in the cafe as the door revolved with people coming and going to collect their first coffee of the day. I was aware to that I had to return to the office soon enough. I’ll do it again though, and might try somewhere different just for the variety. Right now of course I feel that post-big brekky sleepiness. The downside of this is that I can’t curl up and have a nap. As I know too well, you can’t have everything.

Being a good boy

Just at the minute I'm going through an ascetic phase of my life. There have been times in my life when I've felt most comfortable reigning in my excesses and living simply, sensibly, but this is not one of those times. I feel often the desire to let myself slip, but refrain. This may not what I want entirely, but nor is it an accident. Pain in the arse as it is, I've chosen this to become something else.

Bottom line I want to get back to where I was 18 months ago, which is to say fit and healthy. It's been a while since I've been that and I'm not going to regain it without some sacrifice and a lot of discipline - which explains my good behaviour.

I feel I don't have a big say in it. It may be shallow, but a good part of my self esteem is dependent upon maintaining a physical standard. I guess that's true for most people, what varies is the standard and how much you're willing to work to maintain it. For me it becomes a no-brainer. I hate the thought of decline in any sense, no matter how inevitable it might be, and so I'll fight it all the way. And there is a practical element to it. I hate the feeling of being unfit, it's uncomfortable, and I want to know that I remain physically effective: capable of humping a pack or climbing a hill or just walking all day. I need that.

It's been a while I could claim that, but there have been reasons for that. Slowly, finally, those reasons are ebbing away. That means that I have been able to push myself further and harder, which combined with a carefully managed diet based on ‘portion control’, means that I am quickly returning to the condition I expect of myself.

So, there is a sacrifice in all this, but it won't be forever. In the meantime it's a lot easier managing this if I keep a low profile and stay close to home. I feel like cutting loose socially, but that’s not really an option if I’m serious about getting fit. I’m pretty hard line and very disciplined.

Having said that I’ve not eliminated all joy from my life. When I’m forced to go out these days I’m just a lot more sensible about it. I order smaller, healthier meals in general, and have one drink rather than many. This is not forever, no sirree, but I expect I’ll keep at it for another month – by which time I should be in super shape.

The few occasions I’ve been out lately are worth reporting on purely from a culinary perspective.

I went to a Japanese restaurant called Izakaya Den recently with Fong. This is a very cool, subterranean restaurant in Russell Street. All the staff are Japanese in all black outfits lifted by red shoes. We sat at the bar which runs the length of a long, narrow space. Sitting there we caught the show as the cooks behind the bar prepared their particular specialities as the orders flowed in.

Each of us had one of the delicious non-alcoholic cocktails ( I also had a Japanese spirit) and a succession of small dishes which were beautifully presented and very delicious. It had a real funky feel and I would recommend the place unreservedly but for the prices. For the two of us having a quick meal it was almost $180. That’s too much. Most of the food prices are reasonable, but the drinks – even non-alcoholic – are too steep. Still, well worth checking out.

Last week before the concert I went to Gills Diner with Whisky. Gills Diner is one of those cool places at the moment, which seems odd to me because I used to there for a lunch of quiche or a sandwich with Jen back in the day. We probably went half a dozen times for a pleasant hour at a time. This is the first time I’d been for dinner, but I had a lovely meal of roast chicken with mushroom stuffed legs.

Finally I ended up at Barkers on Saturday night when I caught up with JV again. I love recipe books and cookery magazines and I’m hardly less excited by most menus. Having been to Barkers twice before I was able to venture deeper into the menu this time, which I did largely with a couple of small entrees: deep fried green olives in blue cheese, and cheese and rosemary risotto balls. We also shared a lovely bottle of South Australian Barbera.

The rest of the time I’m being a very good boy, with the result that my appetite has greatly diminished and I’m fuller than a lot sooner than ever before. That’s not a bad thing for a guy who’ll often order two medium pizzas in which will be all eaten but a couple of slices left for brekky. Right now, I reckon, I’d struggle with a single small pizza, and that’s no bad thing.