Food, Politics and Change
I was in the electorate of Bennelong, Sydney when the news came through - a Federal Government which had been in power for around 138 months had been voted out in a sheer process of democracy. Over the delicious Indian rojak salad that cousin Susan and her hubby Boo Ann had prepared, the people in this gathering contemplated the experience of change. A sitting Prime Minister, who perhaps had stayed on for too long, was almost on the verge of being replaced by a fresh newcomer in Bennelong. Political history was being made over the night.
The evening before, in another suburb, I had tried Swiss pizza for the first time, with thinner crusts and more meat. I was not convinced that my group of colleagues were not eating Italian pizza, for how can one separate the two definitions? It was a warm night outside, but we were sitting in air-conditioned comfort. I watched, with intense interest, the goings-on of an open kitchen preparing the food, with the woodfire oven in full view and a fatigued teenager continuing to turn the dough. How can this place be called Swiss Quattro, I thought. The food perhaps reflected the Australian society of today, a fusion of values and cultures. After downing the bruschetta, Ceasers Salad, pasta and pizza, we could dip pre-cut strawberries and marsh mellows with chocolate sauce as if we were having fondue on the mountain slopes near Lucerne.
Recovering on Sunday in Wollongong town with a lunch enjoyed with an ex-colleague, I realised that the flavour of the weekend had been change. It was about actual and contemplation of change. Politics - or basically how those in power run a place -may not be related to the partaking of food, but is perhaps best digested together, for achieving that balance of nourishment for both the mind and the stomach. Three individuals I know, and whom I had met up that past week, were making changes in their lives, one even going inter-state. Do my friends already want to make that change long ago, or were they encouraged in a kind of evolving process? Do people remain in their comfort zone and require to be pushed to change? Or do people refuse to change and push out others who seem be a threat to their presumed existence?
And to celebrate those changes, we had met, over food.
The evening before, in another suburb, I had tried Swiss pizza for the first time, with thinner crusts and more meat. I was not convinced that my group of colleagues were not eating Italian pizza, for how can one separate the two definitions? It was a warm night outside, but we were sitting in air-conditioned comfort. I watched, with intense interest, the goings-on of an open kitchen preparing the food, with the woodfire oven in full view and a fatigued teenager continuing to turn the dough. How can this place be called Swiss Quattro, I thought. The food perhaps reflected the Australian society of today, a fusion of values and cultures. After downing the bruschetta, Ceasers Salad, pasta and pizza, we could dip pre-cut strawberries and marsh mellows with chocolate sauce as if we were having fondue on the mountain slopes near Lucerne.
Recovering on Sunday in Wollongong town with a lunch enjoyed with an ex-colleague, I realised that the flavour of the weekend had been change. It was about actual and contemplation of change. Politics - or basically how those in power run a place -may not be related to the partaking of food, but is perhaps best digested together, for achieving that balance of nourishment for both the mind and the stomach. Three individuals I know, and whom I had met up that past week, were making changes in their lives, one even going inter-state. Do my friends already want to make that change long ago, or were they encouraged in a kind of evolving process? Do people remain in their comfort zone and require to be pushed to change? Or do people refuse to change and push out others who seem be a threat to their presumed existence?
And to celebrate those changes, we had met, over food.
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