Gag reflex

Monday Jeanet had signed us up for an Australian cooking class. She had booked it, so we hadn’t seen the place. The first thing that happened when we got there was that a bug ran across the table. Bettina and I looked at each other in mild alarm, and it didn’t get any better. Occasionally the chef would look at the ground, then casually step sideways and slam his foot on the ground. We’d hear a mild crunch and then he would move back to the head of the table. I was about to hand him my money and just split, but I figured Jeanet would kill me for being rude, and Bettina would kill me for ditching her there. I stayed but swore if I saw any bugs in my food I’d walk out with my money and tell the guy to take a hike. The chef was nice enough, too, a French chef who says he came to train cooks for the Olympics and decided to stay. I think he was gay – he put Elton John on during our lunch and Sydney is like the second biggest city in the world in terms of gay/lesbian population. Those two factors surely seal the deal! Elton John and in Sydney? Must be gay! Okay, anyways, this is not really relevant, so moving on. I was totally queasy about the place and can tell you lots of horror stories. For example, when he needed a wet rag to put under the cutting board so it would stay still, he took a rag that had been sitting in the bottom of the sink. After he’d wrung it out, he walked over and opened the rag to fold it and it was then that I caught a glimpse of a small bug dead on the rag. Maybe he killed it when he wrung the cloth out. UGH. Then he folded it and placed it on the table and a cutting board on that. I figured since he wasn’t cutting on the side that touched the nasty rag I wouldn’t die – but later he flipped the board over to cut the meat! UGH. Anyways. Baaaad hygiene, but Jeanet kept saying that she’d seen worse when she travelled through Asia for four months. I wasn’t sure I was going to eat anything, and especially not the meat, but we ordered the meat well done and I figured it was going to be okay. It all started with about a 30 to 45 minute lesson in native Australian foods, which was very informative and interesting. The menu looked good, and we saw all the food being made, so we all assigned each other to keep an eye on the food and make sure no bugs got into it. The menu included Akudjura tomato soup, which is a bush tomato that dries on the tree before harvesting, followed by crocodile with eucalyptus pesto. This was followed by kangaroo fillet with riberry sauce (my notes say: “little, purple berries of the lilli pilli family with light clove flavour”), sweet potato puree with Tasmanian berries (“small black and red peppery hot berries coming primarily from cold climate Tasmanian forests”) and roast peppery pumpkins with macadamia nuts (“most commonly used and commercially grown native nuts in Australia”). For dessert we had roast macadamia and wattle seed muffins along with chocolate and wattle seed mousse. Wattle seed is “seed of a particular wattle roasted and ground with a distinctive light chocolate/coffee/hazelnut flavor”. Everything was served while we sat in the front of the “cooking school” where we thankfully didn’t see any more bugs. It all tasted excellent, and I’m glad that I stayed, but next time Jeanet signs us up for anything I’m going to check it out first. Afterwards, I took a bus and headed to Oxford Street. That is where the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was, too, remember? It is the core of the gay and lesbian cultures in Sydney, plus it’s in the suburb of Paddington, which is this posh neighbourhood with boutique stores and such. So walking down the street one store is gay shop, specializing in colourful thong underwear, next store is overpriced boutique with hats displayed on fancy hat boxes. The restaurants even get into it, with names like “Thai Me Up”. It was a fun walk and I bought some clothes in one of the less expensive stores. The street is pretty long, though, so I have to go back and finish it off. I got home late and never got food poisoning, hurrah!