Every now and then, I find myself in a trough. Not the kind with
pigs (even I have some standards). I mean a low where nothing tastes right,
where everything you want to eat and even your cravings just aren’t enjoyable.
You might be bored, you might be down, you might be exhausted. It happens to
everyone at some point in time. For example, I was sick and
tired of going to the movies, but then I saw Phantom Thread and my faith was restored. Thanks to three great scenes
with toast, asparagus, and an omelette, I could go back to the world of film to
say nothing of food. That is because I saw what is possible in art writ large.
I get that way with eating sometimes, and writing on it too, but
then you have one meal that makes all the drudgery, all the grey days, all the
blandness, fade away. You realise what hunger is, what you have missed, and why
food matters. You get your appetite back. And so you write, because that
satisfies you too, somewhere in the pit of your stomach.
I have been writing for as long as I can remember. It has always
been part of my life and, in that way, it is like food. And there have been
milestones along the way, moments in the writing life that are like memorable
meals – from my first published poem to book launches. Writing can
be good, it can help people and not only oneself. In that way, I aspire to make some of my writing like Food Not Bombs, where I used to
volunteer. Helping others helps you too, but sometimes it goes the other way. Sometimes you need mates to pick you up off the floor, and those people matter a lot.
When I was homesick, a long time friend and I
cooked a Peking duck in Cambridge where I was spending the week. In a common room
at Kings College we marinated, steamed then fried a whole bird, going to great
lengths to serve it with buns and greens smothered in hoi sin sauce. He has
been with me at other places, for other meals, from spaghetti carbonara in the
suburbs of our youth to a Creole degustation in New Orleans, but this duck takes
the cake for when you needed to feel okay. The world is
a big place, an infinite place with plenty of suffering, but the truth of
community and food, the pleasure and joy of art, nature and people, helps one
get through.
This feeling is particularly acute during the holidays if you are
away from home, family and tradition. At Christmas last year, K and I spent the
day in New York - walking through Central Park, then down to watch people
ice-skate, but it was a sumptuous Szechuan feast that made me happy to be where
I was. While we were dining, I did not think of my family back in Australia
even though I care very much for them and wanted to know how they were spending
the day. By all reports, the ham was glazed to perfection, the turkey moist,
the trifle sweet and sour in equal measure, the pudding moreish, and the wine,
beer, spirits flowing over lunch and dinner. The day after, I became quite ill
with a heavy cold. What made me feel much better was a present my parents had
sent us. It was a voucher to an Upper West Side institution – Zabar’s, which is
the world’s greatest deli. It is a cornucopia of delights – olives, cheese,
baked goods, fresh pasta, ten types of smoked salmon, all kinds of wonderful
treats. And for us, in the week after Christmas away from home, it was a
voucher that seemed immeasurably generous. We got pot roasts, pies, latkes,
knishes, blintzes, bagels delivered to our door while the snow fell outside. We holed
up that week, eating those prepared meals, watching re-runs of old TV on
Netflix.
Of course, it is not always like this – sometimes you feel sick
eating a whole tub of ice-cream to stop you from crying; at other times, meals
that are meant to be excellent can end up disappointing; and then there are
those times when food just doesn’t matter, and you are so bored that nothing
helps, not even chicken soup for the soul. But, it all comes to pass. Life gets
better. We get better. The history of the world is with us and to be reminded
of that in every mouthful helps us get up in the morning and go on with living.
I needed a little help recently. I was missing friends and there
was no easy answer – they are scattered all over the world and I wanted to see people
who had not come to our wedding. That was a fantastic day – sunny and warm,
which is so lucky to have in Melbourne.
We ate share plates of beetroot and goat’s cheese, chervil salad with
Moreton bay bugs, roast lamb, a cheese course, petit fours. The wine was in
abundance, the view captivating and everyone was happy to have a long lunch
celebrating. Now, a few months later it was winter and we were away
from our friends, adjusting to a new reality. To be sure, I was happy, deeply
content in a way I had not felt before, but K was heading off to Europe for
work and the darkness of winter were getting longer. And then, a mate, just by
chance, happened to be heading over to Western Australia. Could he stay for a
few days at Redgate? I said, of course, I would love to host.
When people visit us here, we often take them on a tour – caves,
forest, beach. And the natural attractions are wonderful, but we are also very
proud of the vineyards in the region. When we were kids, we used to go through
the bush to the one just behind us, eating grapes and chasing sheep in paddocks
on the way. At other times, we went to concerts a few clicks away at Leeuwin
Estate, where we have seen everything from opera to folk to pop to rock to
blues on a grassy knoll overlooking gum trees that sway with the music.
My friends who were visiting were keen to have lunch out and I
took them to my favourite winery, Vasse Felix, which has the oldest vines in
the area. The dining room is austere and minimal without being cold or
uninviting. The wood panelling is beautifully crafted from local trees endemic
to the region and there is a fireplace in the middle of the room that makes the
place warm. It is homely and welcoming. Wineries have, of course, become big
business as Australia has grown wealthier and concerned with food and
beverages. What I get from them is a sense of how to entertain, how to have a
good time and relax in a country setting. They are very different from those in
Stellenbosch, Napa and across France, which each have their own culture and
sensibility. Here, if there is one word to describe that difference, it is
sunnier. It is a little lighter, a little brighter, with the grapes drinking in
the sun and being a robust contribution to flavour.
On the menu at Vasse, one is likely to read a list of ingredients
– emu, yolk, cherry, cornichon; beef, radish, shimeji, marrow; dhufish,
pumpkin, pipis, peach. And these are prepared in different ways – sous vide,
braised, roast, raw, pan fried, pickled, foamed. What it suggests is openness
and an appreciation of the upper middle register of dining out in Australia.
This is not an over the top degustation where you are over it by the
twenty-second course. Nor is it pub grub that fills you up. This is bourgeois
eating, which tastes just as good as the very best yet satisfies like a comfort
dish. It finds the path in between, not as a hybrid, as a fusion, but as a
synthesis. It learns from both sides and encourages good eating over long
lunches that is accentuated by the wine that is grown right here, in terroir
you can see and walk through.
This particular time with my friends, who were only visiting for a
short time, I thought about how lucky I was that I could live here and show it
off. We could participate in a good life, talk and relax, stretch and be
inspired to go on with our work precisely because we have community. That
feeling of community is the balm to being down, to being in the trough, to not
wanting to go on. I have found this with him on many an occasion, due largely
to a weekly tennis match we played when we lived in the same city.
That tennis match was a study in bringing people together and
while we came for the sport, we also stayed there because we could have a beer
and a feed at the club each week. It was always something cheap and simple – a
salad, a baked potato, a sausage in white bread. But it gave us points of
connection that sustain you, just like food does when you feel like you cannot
go on. And he had brought that with him to Western Australia in mid-winter. We
walked along the headland, we stoked the fire, we ate very well, we drank
whiskey, and I forgot about the dark days, the unsettling dreams, the shadows
that everyone has no matter their persuasion. It felt like summer was here and
all because you have mates that you can spend time with. And, we joked about
who would win the trophy next time we played our own competition – Business vs
Poets. I, being on the right side of history, assured him that the Poets would
regain the trophy, restoring it to its rightful owners. He laughed, but when he
left I knew that I could happily go back to the garden, to swimming in the
ocean, to making the fire. And that small visit repaid my faith in eating,
cooking and sharing with people who matter.
Food is, of course, a site of emotion – as a creative expression,
as a ritual that brings people together, as a tonic for ill. It is not without
its pitfalls from guilt to shame to addiction, but in a healthy relationship it
can help us find balance, pleasure, strength. And that is one of the great
possibilities that comes with visiting wineries, or making a picnic, or getting
food delivered to you in a blizzard. It allows us to connect with each other
and ourselves in such a way that we can go on. That is what it means to get out
of the trough by smelling the salts, the rose and the cheese.
