At Home
I love chicken curry, South Indian style – smooth aromatic gravy over juicy meats marinated in the flavours of several spices, chillies and seductive coconut milk. A sister of a Portuguese mate living in Wollongong remarked that she could not understand why I put potatoes in the curry mix and then serve them with rice – a double whammy of carbohydrates that bewildered her logic.
The curry I learnt to cook comes from Mum, who experienced a forerunner of current Australian multiculturalism by sharing and exchanging recipes with her cosmopolitan neighbours in the tropical heat of Malaysian afternoons. It took me perhaps a quiet weekend in summery New South Wales to realize why she and I – plus the multitude of others stirring up Tamil-styled chicken curry in the former Malayan peninsular – had put both potatoes and rice in the same meal.
The British had ruled Malaya in colonial days, and it dawned on me that they had been raised on potatoes and bread. Savoury, well-textured potatoes must have been hard to come by, more difficult than the flour and yeast to make bread. So whilst their house keepers in the humidity of their outpost dished up what they knew best – their childhood curries – the masters also yearned for their own comforts of childhoods past.
Sydney, and most of New South Wales, continue to perpetuate in the nether zone of no or little rain, despite cloudy overcast days and some unusual of rain. It has been several years that water use restrictions have been imposed, and now it has grown worse to restricting hand-hosing gardens on two days of the week, before 10am and after 4pm. The idea is not to think so much of watering lawns as to find more sources of water for household use. In my corner of Australia, tucked between rising hills and miles of beaches, many families have installed rain water tanks so that they escape the legislated water use restrictions. The question is whether the skies do allow sufficient water to pour down to be collected in such tanks, but I admire the spirit of my regional neighbours.
So my garden in Balgownie has to be in tune with these water-conscious times. Maybe not. My front patch, outside the bay windows, is an attempt of a microcosm of Australian flora from Darwin to Hobart. There is frangipani, more at home facing the Arafura Sea; jade-like leaves of native succulents that thrive on benign neglect and little rain; cane palms; green and gold coloured coastal bushes; and pink flowering geraniums. In contrast at the back of the house, where bedroom windows face, are aromatic plants covering a spectrum of mint, basil, chillies, chiam hong, curry leaf, strawberry and parsley. The garden bed facing the lawn and lounge houses what I think are really useful growth – aloe vera; deep yellow and iceberg red roses; kumquats, Tahitian limes and Imperial mandarins in a citrus-related collection; chrysanthemums; ornamental red and yellow small chillies; daun gaduh; and some red and pink boundary blooms of a plant that seems to flower the year round. There is another patch with work-in-progress but now viewed with a flowering theme in mind – hibiscus, bougainvilleas, geraniums and some native wildflowers.
The curry I learnt to cook comes from Mum, who experienced a forerunner of current Australian multiculturalism by sharing and exchanging recipes with her cosmopolitan neighbours in the tropical heat of Malaysian afternoons. It took me perhaps a quiet weekend in summery New South Wales to realize why she and I – plus the multitude of others stirring up Tamil-styled chicken curry in the former Malayan peninsular – had put both potatoes and rice in the same meal.
The British had ruled Malaya in colonial days, and it dawned on me that they had been raised on potatoes and bread. Savoury, well-textured potatoes must have been hard to come by, more difficult than the flour and yeast to make bread. So whilst their house keepers in the humidity of their outpost dished up what they knew best – their childhood curries – the masters also yearned for their own comforts of childhoods past.
Sydney, and most of New South Wales, continue to perpetuate in the nether zone of no or little rain, despite cloudy overcast days and some unusual of rain. It has been several years that water use restrictions have been imposed, and now it has grown worse to restricting hand-hosing gardens on two days of the week, before 10am and after 4pm. The idea is not to think so much of watering lawns as to find more sources of water for household use. In my corner of Australia, tucked between rising hills and miles of beaches, many families have installed rain water tanks so that they escape the legislated water use restrictions. The question is whether the skies do allow sufficient water to pour down to be collected in such tanks, but I admire the spirit of my regional neighbours.
So my garden in Balgownie has to be in tune with these water-conscious times. Maybe not. My front patch, outside the bay windows, is an attempt of a microcosm of Australian flora from Darwin to Hobart. There is frangipani, more at home facing the Arafura Sea; jade-like leaves of native succulents that thrive on benign neglect and little rain; cane palms; green and gold coloured coastal bushes; and pink flowering geraniums. In contrast at the back of the house, where bedroom windows face, are aromatic plants covering a spectrum of mint, basil, chillies, chiam hong, curry leaf, strawberry and parsley. The garden bed facing the lawn and lounge houses what I think are really useful growth – aloe vera; deep yellow and iceberg red roses; kumquats, Tahitian limes and Imperial mandarins in a citrus-related collection; chrysanthemums; ornamental red and yellow small chillies; daun gaduh; and some red and pink boundary blooms of a plant that seems to flower the year round. There is another patch with work-in-progress but now viewed with a flowering theme in mind – hibiscus, bougainvilleas, geraniums and some native wildflowers.
Comments