The purpose of ballet

We are not doing very well with the fishing at the moment. In my last 4 fishing sessions I have managed to catch no take-home-able fish at all. Okay, before that I caught 4 squid, but since then I have only managed to scare off the fish.

We went out in a little tinny boat, only suitable for the estuary, (no superstructure, or padded seats) to catch Salmon. We did not even have a nibble, and we had taken the smoker with us, so we could eat some for lunch with the bread Dave had baked at dawn. But we eventually settled for bread and butter, with no fish.

Then the boat owner went off to do something to his cows, and Dave went for a dive, so I took a light rod to the beach. I was casting out from a sandy beach, between two sets of rocks, so as not to lose the lure. All the other beach fishing I have done here to date has been off rocks into deeper water. So there I was taking a few steps into the waves and then throwing out as far as I could.

Suddenly I realised the point of all the ballet classes I had struggled through. Poor Mrs Suckling, she did her best, but I was not flexible, able to keep time or even interested. But I did master a "step-together-step-hop" move that she spent months drumming into me. It is ideal for casting far out with a light rod from a sandy beach, as long as you substitute "cast" for "hop" at the end. So I had a ball, literally, dancing on the sand, throwing my lure into the sea, and, not suprisingly, catching nothing.

At least this is Flinders Island, so there was no one around to watch me, and wonder what the crazy South African was doing now! The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the view was absolutely stunning, what more could I have asked for? Well, apart from some fish.

Formalin

Did you know formalin damages DNA? The useful stuff you learn on this site! Barbs went to try and scrounge 2 millitres of 97% alcohol from the hospital today to preserve some ant specimens for my entomologist friend back in SA. Alas - semi-undertandably - they can't do that. But they did let us have a few drops of formalin. Which we can't use because it does the DNA in. Ah well. Some idiot would probably try and drink the 97% (even though it is full of methanols.) Anyway got to get the word count up, as I am skiving tomorrow - we got an invitation to go salmon fishing with one of the locals, and as Australian salmon are likely to be one of our major food sources, and my only attempt at catching them ended in a fat zero and being broken up, I'm keen to learn.

Roswella

The Green Roswellas decided to have a riot outside the bedroom this morning. Actually I think they're called Rosellas, but it was more like the aftermath of an alien abduction scene. Screech squawk chatterscreech squawk (repeat). Clatter about on the tin roof. Screech squawk chatterscreech squawk (repeat at increased volume). (Translated: "Where have BEEN all bloody night, you useless bum?!" "I was abducted by Aliens." (swat) "Aliens! ALIENS! I'll GIVE you bloody aliens. It's that Myra Greenfeather from the pub, you lying bastard.")

After this promising start I got and went for a walk. I was not disembowled by any Wallabies or abducted by aliens. It was still dark, so perhaps they were all in bed. I've been trying to get a good picture of the Green Rosellas for about two weeks now, but they're not easy with my little point-n-shoot. They're rather startling green and bright blue wild parrot-type things that fly about these parts in... shall we say, rather loud groups. They seem prone to things like crash landing in gum trees and falling off the windi-dry (which has an Australian name that avoids me right now). I think the master designer had got carried away with the beak and had to put the rest of the bird together in a hurry before knock-off time.

For my lunch today I had Vegemite on my sandwich (all part of the 'Learn to be Australian' thing). See what it has done to me already. It's either that or wrestling with the Australian PLR registration - which, as I have to fill in one form for every ISBN of every edition of every book I have been involved in (and I don't have enough fingers and have run out of toes to count on), could have this effect.

But I think I'll stick to blaming the Vegemite.

Goose my banana passionfruit

Banana passionfruit - it sounds like one of the dodgy e-mails I get sometimes offering viagra... two new taste experiences today, firstly the banana passionfruit. Um. Well, I'll plant some. The flowers are beautiful and the scent... scented. The taste is a let-down. If it grows (and it grows in Lady Barron) I think it could be good for jam or a cordial. But as ready-to-munch fruit, not really a great hit.

Second off - on the opposite extreme - Cape Barren goose breast. This comes in as the best poultry I have eaten. (and me, as you might guess, I have tasted a lot of different birds). The meat is deep red and so flavourful and powerful it should be a chef's signiture dish. Australia should be famous for this, and have epicures from across the world beat their way here to taste it. It apparently breeds in captivity and can be effectively domesticated so long as you have big grass-paddocks. Having been endangered it is now doing rather well out here, and a limited harvest is permitted, under licence. B and I had two little pieces each, simply rubbed with a little oil to stop them sticking and grilled hot and just with salt - medium rare - pink inside. This licks ostrich with one hand behind its back, and a blindfold. There is some gameyness to it, but unlike wild duck or francolin (where 'gamey'can be the dominant description) - it tastes like poultry - add the gameyness and you're somewhere between grass-fed chicken and turkey - but the meat is not in the least dry. Just like that, with a simple green salad (in the picture, made from our garden with our first green beans - thin fingers of green crispness, and our very first sunripened tomato), it's a winner.


It'll perfectly partner a green peppercorn sauce - the flavour is strong enough to match it and lift both, or with oyster mushrooms and red jerepigo... or, well I think there are slew of stunning possibilities. Yes, you get the picture. I really loved it. I was telling John about our crab-soup and the wrasse and he shook his head. "Right. You'll eat the whole island at this rate. I reckon you'll love mutton-bird." I don't know... but there is such a lot to taste and try here. Years worth, I reckon. The island doesn't even have its own abbatoir anymore. Meat comes in from tassie - although my guess looking at them is that the grass-fed island lamb and beef - without even going to the exotic possibilities, should be worth coming all the way here for. For a self-sufficiency guy, a forager and foodie like moi... wow. It's hard to beat. I just wish they wouldn't ship the good stuff away without enjoying it here. People should come here to eat food as it should be: seasonal varied and wonderful. I am offering mouse on the spit, as my own meat-catch (yes -another mouse in the bath). It's a South African treat, and I'd be very hurt if you refused (The locals like Jimmy-the-plumber's-offsider have had some fun winding me up with seeing what tall tales we'll swallow, so a bit of quid-pro-quo, I reckon ;-))

We had a still, hot humid morning and howling curl your bean-shoots windy afternoon, and now a still evening. Probably snow by morning at this rate. Need to understand the weather? Come to Flinders, all your seasons in a day.

a flat day

One of those 'and nothing much happened and I worked on the book' days. I am a little closer to understanding what 'Byzantine' means as I spent several hours trying to come to terms with the relative ranks of heirarchy in Byzantium. Answer seems to be: the more ranks and more heirachical and stratified your socety, the more inevitable its fall. Hmm. Maybe I could get quite keen on the whole Aussie 'tall poppy are you?' syndrome.

There are some green beans almost ready for picking and the first sign of cucumbers. And more of these.

Crab soup

So far the only crabs I have been able to catch are about an inch long - I gathered a bunch of them at lunch time (low water)in about 10 minutes and some tiny ribbed mussels, along with some little mantis shrimp and some burrowing shrimp (my experience with the latter two says 'bait'). These are the little hoon pea-crabs I've mentioned before - and catching them was a matter of finding a bunch of them pigging out on a clam and swooping in from behind (nippers in front).

I've been looking for a way to deal with our most common rock-fish - wrasse. So I thought I'd try a mix between Tal-Grottli bisque (grottily?) from IIRC Malta and Bouillabaisse - cook the crabs whole and then toss the mix into a blender, sieve the shell out, and at least get the crab flavour. So I did this, along with some of Inge's tomatoes, Lisa's red onions and garlic and a red jalapeno chili. Some sherry stuff we'd been given and Tasmanian pepper - not a single bought ingredient, outside of the olive oil I softened the onion in. The soup was then brought to a rolling boil and I added the wrasse (chopped into boneless inch-wide squares, and some abalone just after. The fish had about 3 minutes and the abalone maybe 2 before I took it off the heat. I added the pre-cooked mussels and some of my chopped parsley. Served with fresh pao rolls (made with flour and some potato - the way they did Mozambique to save flour) it was superb - and near as dammit all free or foraged food. I could feel self-righteous and thrifty for nearly half a bowl - which was as long as took me start feeling a little unwell. I need a stronger liver.... it's RICH. Still, you can eat wrasse like that and really enjoy it.

John-boy popped in to lend us a couple of paddle-skis - one kid-size, the other a real fishing sit on kayak I can definitely set crab-traps from. Work presses so I need to get the wordcount up before I go and try this. Thank heavens the weather is set lousy for the next few days. It makes resisting temptation so much easier.

Island News and pears in red wine with Tassie pepper-berries

Occasionally something just works perfectly. Usually rather sadly this is not my attempt to buy the right multi-million dollar lottery ticket. This one is more likely to just cost me money... I've mentioned Tasmanian Native Pepperberries before. I had come across a recipe that had black peppercorns with pears preserved in wine and ea de vie. So, as I am rather short of spices still (had to leave them behind, and are slowly accumulating rather than bulk buying) I decided to try pears in red wine with these. Do it if you can.

For those interested I used 5 very green pears - 600 grams, roughly 120 grams of sugar (adjust to the tartness of your red wine) 300 ml of revolting red box wine (Stanley-never-to-be-bought-again-even-for-boiling-tongue-in in this case - tannic, nasty), a half a tsp of ginger and about 15 pepperberries. The pears I peeled and quartered - (you could do them whole, but your waiting to use time will go up) and packed into clean sterilised preserving jars. Bring the wine and sugar and spice to the boil, taste (should be like slightly tart gluwein) and add sugar if needed (start with a bit less sugar if the wine is gentler) and fill jars to cover fruit. I then processed the bottles in a waterbath for an hour - which may be a bit long but the pears were very green and still were a nice eating texture.

We ate the first bottle after a week, and the colour had drawn through them, leaving them a deep rosy pink rather than the purple-bloody red of the wine. The pepperberries (and ginger) had given them (and the sauce) a bite and the wonderful amalgam of complex spicy flavours. We had them with ginger ice-cream, and it was one of those desserts where you take a spoonful and just hold in your mouth (some of us quivered a bit).

Today we went and bought some more jars and pears (we have to use the wine. It's dangerous to even have it in the cupboard)

This morning Barbs and I put in our first little bit of volunteering for 'community service' - helping put the Island News to bed(Essential fortnightly local paper, with everthing in it from local news, times for the tip, and seasonal information (like what plants and animals you see in March.)). It's still collated by hand, 34 pages this issue, and B and I were the newbies on the production line. I was stiff afterwards, and I am deathly slow compared to the old hands. It's serious business, with a bit of stirring from Peter, but everyone works at like the fish-shoal will move off any minute. All done in an hour and a half. It has a circulation of IIRC 540-ish which on an island with the population of Flinders (somewhere between 700-900 depending on who you believe) approaches the miraculous. Put together by volunteers and for sale at the princely price of 80 cents its something I bet you wouldn't see many other places. It's been running for 55 years - not one of these newfangled community papers - this is the real thing. Isolation does some wonders for community cohesion sometimes. And the proof reading and editing would put the products of a few multi-million dollar publishing houses to shame. Yes, actually I was pleased to be involved.