a moveable feast

   

After the indulgences of Bali, I was happy to return to the raw vegan sensibility - fresh, ripe, organic fruit and vegies, sprouts, seeds and occasional nuts. Simple, grain free, unprocessed, with nil by mouth other than herbal tea after sunset (which is 5.45pm here at 11 degrees south). The exceptions to our raw diet are a small amount of tempeh (an Indonesian delicacy made by fermenting soya beans), steamed sweet potato and dry grilled eggplant. 

Aquaman strung together an impressive 25 days caffeine free, whereas I crumbled after nine - my longest stint totally caffeine free (with not even green tea) for at least ten years. I was shocked by the mental space hijacked with thoughts of coffee, the internal struggle to stay away from the bean and leaf, and the feelings of deprivation as I drank another rooibos. Giving up yoghurt and cheese was much easier. It was pathetic, annoying and I was napping like a wombat. Behold the power of a single shot.  Lord knows how I’d react to anything stronger, or if I had a three-cups-a-day habit. 

We are fortunate to have some foodie friends that aren’t afraid to have vegans at the table, and this week has been a culinary sensation of epic proportions.  Firstly, a lunch next door with our newest neighbours, a Moroccan/Israeli living in Bali and his Italian friend. Cue falafel with tahini dressing, the most hummus ever to be served on the island, mixed salads, toasted rye bread, grilled eggplant with chilli, and floods of olive oil.  All served beneath a shady coconut leaf cabana with a white sand floor. 

  

After 24 hours to recover from the surfeit of garlic, we attended the annual Lodge afternoon tea, with its much anticipated menu of Balinese black rice pudding with coconut milk and banana, hot donuts and tea. Yes I said donuts. As in “I want to wash myself with a sponge on a stick” kind of calories. It is my one deliberate fried food item of the year, and I ate it with as much mindfulness as I could muster among the animated conversation. 

We had a 48 hour sabbatical after the donuts and before the third invitation; a glorious raw meal with our friends Colin and Linda. Despite an unexpected break in power supply, Linda came through with her promise of banana and pistachio “semi-freddo”; the exclamation mark to a poetic stanza of ingredients.

Back in the days of no refrigeration and smoky pots of rice cooked over an open fire, I couldn’t imagine ever seeing a pinenut or mizuna leaf in this environment. A splash of balsamic vinegar at someone’s house was a luxury to be savored for weeks. Now we have rocket and fancy lettuce, miso, walnuts, dates and Lindt chocolate. They are all still carefully rationed, but I am grateful for their mere existence and the generosity of friends who share their supplies.

market report

Number of tomatoes per heap increases each week, price steady at 50c/pile

Leafy greens are plentiful, with lettuce a hot favourite among the expats, but too expensive for the locals at 50c a bundle. Early season watermelons are expensive, lack flavour and are seedier than the back streets of Bangkok. Pumpkins on their way out, carrots just arrived, coming in at a costly 

$1 per bunch.

Hand harvested sea salt virtually free. 

Beans in abundance, but how many beans can one eat per week? Only 50c/bucket.

Small red chilli only for those with tolerant, or dead, tastebuds.

Spices by the cup or in painfully small packages, shrivelled ginger and balls of fresh tamarind, 

20-50c each. Bugger it, just get the MSG it's cheaper. 

Cold donuts with rank margarine and sprinkles, or deep fried dough balls with fluorescent sugar frosting, all going out at a bargain 5c each. 

Triangles of tasteless glue and seaweed, useful for fixing surfboard dings or illuminating the dark, 

5c each.

Organic shallots for the patient cook who can be bothered skinning and chopping them, $1/tin.

Unidentified balls of boiled dead animal on a stick, price unknown. Limes steady at 4 for 50c, while bunches of kankung persist as the best value green, 50c/bunch.

season of plenty

The middle of the dry season is the peak time for produce. Carrots have arrived, tomatoes are in abundance, cauliflower make a brief appearance, cucumbers are sweet, and lettuce thrives in the cooler temperature. Kan kung (water spinach) is always plentiful and very cheap (top photo), and it provides the green in our green smoothie; the fuel for fearless paddling and blogging.  The local tofu is firm, delicious and versatile - scrambled, steamed, marinated, blended with cacao...I'll prepare it any way except fried.  The fridge is fully stocked this week for the arrival of Aquaman's parents, and we called upon our friendly neighbours to deliver the bounty in their ute. This called for morning tea, followed by the great veggie wash-up and a market day feast for the goats. There goes another simple morning. 

late lunch

Afternoon tea and lunch are often rolled into one, as our meal times revolve around hunger and surf rather than clock time.  Our caloric intake so far today has come out of the blender, starting with a thick green smoothie that included ten frozen mangoes, half a papaya and four bananas.  Today I'm alone at the table as Aquaman is off playing in the rollers. To score offshore and head high this late in the season is a real unexpected gift. 

I suppose you are expecting a photo of the wave, and what do you get but a picture of my one bowl wonder lunch.  Dont' pretend you aren't excited by the alfalfa sprouts.  I wanted to show off the beautiful ceramic bowl from Dayana in Bali, and my new coasters made from vintage kimonos that were a gift from Little Bamboo.

pot luck lunch

We don't need any excuse for a get-together, but with a birthday in the camp there is extra cause for a leisurely lunch and discussion about the state of the wind, tide and swell.  Today's guest of honor is Hal (second from left), the son-in-law of our neighbours Colin & Linda, 300 meters to the south.  Hal, Fliss and their three kids are changing down gears from a frantic Queensland pace to a new chapter in Bali - via two weeks of rubber time under the coconuts.

The walkabout vegie ladies delivered ripe mangoes that I added to a salad of lettuce, tomato, rocket and alfalfa.  The lunch spread was a vibrant mix of local produce and Balinese organic red rice and even the tiniest  hands were digging in. 

tomato relish farm style

The markets are sporting tomatoes by the bucket full at a very low price, so I called upon my pioneering spirit and the Country Women's Association bible of cookery and household hints to make an old fashioned tomato relish. The aroma taps into my olfactory memory of delivering dad a packed lunch or dinner during seeding and harvest on the farm. Cheese, corned beef and tomato relish eaten beside the tractor; the  moist ground freshly tilled or a cloud of wheat dust hanging in the hot air.

Tomato Relish (No 2)

from page 318, 42nd Edition of CWA Cookbook

1 1/2 kilo ripe tomatoes

1 tablespoon sea salt

250 g raw sugar

500 g onions

1 tablespoon mustard

2 tablespoons plain flour

1 1/2 tablespooons curry powder

brown vinegar

Cut up tomatoes and onions finely and sprinkle with salt. Leave for 6 hours or overnight then drain well. 

Put into saucepan, add sugar and enough vinegar to just cover.  Boil for 5 minutes.

Mix flour, mustard and curry to a paste with a little vinegar.  Add to pan and stir well.

Simmer for 1 hour, or until desired thickness is reached. 

If  you like a sweeter pickle, simply add more sugar. 

Allow to cool, then bottle in clean jars. Refrigerate after opening.

salad patch

The local vegetable plots are in full production, and a source of much envy and admiration to this lazy gardener.  Carrots, spring onions, tomatoes, eggplant, lettuce, chilli, basil and a variety of Asian leafy greens. All organic, watered by hand and eaten  within hours of harvest. Every Tuesday baskets are walked to the weekly markets. This is carbon negative food with zero food miles and an abundance of available nutrients. Super fuel for Aquamen, lontar climbers and wordsmiths.

moving to a different beet

You are seeing the first ever beetroot to appear at our weekly market. The seeds were given to a local lady by a keen expat gardener, and we are reaping the rewards in our lunch. I made a simple salad with grated beetroot and carrot, lemon juice and cumin seeds.  I would normally add juicy raisins, but alas the cupboard is bare and the closest shop stocking such exotic imports is a day's travel away.

Swell has picked up and there are double over head sets pushing through.  For those of you far more interested in barrels than beetroot, I will hopefully have some action shots to share in the next couple of days. That is providing Aquaman and his mates put on a decent show. I don't shoot kooks.

garden plots

Almost every house in the village has banana and papaya trees growing in the grey water zone. These are the source of the fruit that is pivotal in our diet.  Hand delivered, organic, zero food miles, and the price is right. Pumpkin vines ramble around the yards, and small plots are set aside for spring onions, chilli, soya beans and leafy greens.  The more enthusiastic gardeners have a second, larger plot that is shared with neighbors and other family members.  They tend to neat beds protected from the free range livestock with rocks, sticks and living posts. Soil varies between red loam and a black clay that hardens like a rock when dry.  There is no volcanic activity in this part of the archipelago; therefore none of the fertile earth that feeds the crops of Java and Bali.

The common practice is to burn manure on the surface and dig in the ash.  The addition of compost or mulch is not widespread.  Watering is by hand, hauled from a nearby well, except in the sizable sweet potato crops that are planted in swamps. Every time I visit the local gardeners, I return home with renewed vigor for my little keyhole plots.  The rocket and basil seeds germinated in 48 hours, and the seedlings I received from a friend are sprouting new leaves. Hopefully, by the time the in-laws arrive in August, I'll be picking fresh greens.

sprouting

When I was an impressionable teenager, my revered brother poked fun at the hippies who embraced a carefree life and sat in contemplative lotus chanting om to the stars.  He labeled them “mungers” after their supposed excessive consumption of mung beans.  At this stage I hadn’t been introduced to the wider world of legumes, nor met a real live breathing vegan, and thought my brother was the very impression of the perfect man.  He drove a yellow Hilux, windsurfed, and oscillated between work as a carpenter and the exotic world of crayfishing at the Abrolhos Islands.

At this age I didn’t imagine I would marry a surfer, build my own thatched house on an Indonesian island and sprout mung beans bought from a toothless betel nut chewer at the weekly market. The suit boy of my future was wearing Armani, not neoprene. I thought you had to aspire to a shiny Landcruiser or a Holden ute and the latest TV.  You filled your days with "honest" work for a good wage and happiness would flood in through your bank account and the recognition from significant others that you were successful.  However, somewhere deep down, the admiration I had for my brother, despite his mockery of mungers, molded my values and visions of the perfect husband.  An aquaman that knows how to swing a hammer and looks hot in boardshorts.

So here I am sprouting mung beans, peanuts and alfalfa, and picking organic rocket from my garden.   I do head stands and cartwheels and have daytime naps.  My heart beats faster when I pick up a well weighted pen or push an audible camera shutter.  I love our rusty '89 landcruiser, I haven't owned a TV for 15 years and like to pretend I don't have a debt that supports the Macquarie Bank Christmas party.  

Yet there are still times when I find myself on Seek or Careerone fumbling through the drop down lists of job titles, searching for me, for something to define me in society, to answer my most dreaded question "what do you do?" A fruitless activity that does little but rouse fear, doubt and confusion.  Then I get up, walk down to the lagoon and give myself up to the ocean.

I empathize with the words of Richard Bode, the beachcomber of Miramar : "As I walk the beach, I like to think I am an autonomous being, moving through the world as I wish to move, free of encumbrances.  But despite my deepest yearnings, there is a contrary force, buried in some secret, shameful part of my being, drawing me toward conformity.  I am still trying to meet the expectations of others, still afraid that if I don’t the whole unstable world will come down about my head".

What does the real world look like?

green for go

It hasn't rained for over five weeks, and with the cooler, dry weather the leafy greens have flourished.  Lettuce has made a welcome appearance, and watercress is an unexpected bonus. It makes a spicy pesto, and is delicious tossed with orange and walnuts.  Our adopted goat, Bo Diddley, and her grown-up baby, are never far away to take receipt of their daily feed.  Greens in one end, fertiliser for the garden out the other.