Fifty-Plus News - Pastiche with Virginia Hill

Table Tyrants
with Virginia Hill

The festive season is pending and the geese are getting fat, but Melbourne’s healthy but harried gym trim fifty-somethings are not.
When was the last time this bunch of cautious, sober, taste free, low fat, ‘table tyrants’ had any fun? Certainly not last Christmas nor indeed the last several that I attended and observed. The twenty-first century seems to have entirely wiped out the silly season as an excuse for a group of gals of a certain age getting together to indulge in some lubricious behaviour, where like-minded people can enjoy some seasonal sloth, gluttony and tippling.
In fact, people who enjoy too much of a good time are seen as a liability by their peers and these days it’s your friends who disapprove of you especially if you’re interested in indulging in an array of different foods and wine just for the fun of it.
Over the years I have caught up with a group of old school friends at a pre-Christmas lunch at different restaurants, all of which have been doomed food failures, due to allergies, dietary discipline or self made food neuroses.
The range of food restrictions has made eating out a health hazard where the ubiquitous red circles each with a line through it now denote, NO SMOKING, NO DRINKING and NO FOOD, NO FUN, which vindicates some clinical psychologists’ view that the affluent seek to protect themselves via their bodies in an out of control world. Behaviour which ignores Fran Lebowitz’ sound advice that "Food is an important part of a balanced diet".
Take for instance the year we chose to eat traditional Yuletide French fare at a well-regarded, long established inner Melbourne restaurant. We were presented with a menu a mile long, with a wine list to match. You could choose two entrees or hors d’ouevres if your appetite was small, or a bouillabaisse to gladden the heart of Thackeray, an enthusiast of the famous stew, as well as please the person who can’t or won’t eat meat, or enjoy organically grown pheasant for the health conscious or socially motivated diner. Add to this wine by the glass, or god forbid the bottle and the setting was ripe for a languid lunch.
No siree, our leading table tyrant after scrutinizing ‘Le Menu’ from top to bottom decided nothing but an omelette and skinny chino would do, which she rapidly devoured leaving the rest of us to gamely indulge the standard fare.
Our next festive foray was Italian style, at everybody’s favourite restaurant where the food is flavourful, the service sensational and the atmosphere cheerfully cosmopolitan, just right for picaresque seasonal socializing.
Our table tyrant certainly proved Margaret Visser, author of ‘The Rituals of Dinner’, right in her assertion that food can be shared, abstained from, used as a weapon or proof of prestige, by attempting to give half of her meal to her nearest neighbour who was skilfully pushing Pesce alla Marinara around her plate then declining Dolci. A depressing and debilitating Christmas scenario, sufficient to drive one to drink if it weren’t so disapproved of.
Determined to ensure a better outcome, last year I succumbed to the suggestion that a bucolic outdoor eat at the Botanical Gardens was just the spot to supply some much needed lustre to the season’s celebrations which took place on a suitably sunny day.
On arrival one allergy prone friend announced she couldn’t sit in the sun, as it was bad for her eczema. Alas she was also unable to drink wine ("but don’t let me put you off") because it affected her asthma and she was unable to finish her vegetarian sandwich as it was too much, so it was duly ‘doggy bagged’, for the only vegetarian pooch in Melbourne.
Meantime, my friend the nurse, shuffled a salad around her plate because she was concerned about the temperature control of re-heated food. It was useless to reassure her, that all things considered our restaurants happen to be among the world’s best.
So much for pre-Christmas conviviality.
Because this is an era where we have little control over world affairs, employment and relationships, food becomes the one thing people do have control over, nevertheless, it still should not be made into a bore and a chore, or as my Father’s generation would have succinctly said, become ‘bad manners’.
What of this year’s shindig? Obviously, we can’t cut back to a ‘happy hour’ as nobody drinks let alone nibbles high cholesterol nuts, and coffee and cream laden cake is out, because our table tyrants don’t or won’t eat dairy products.
So, I guess I’ll just join the blokes/garrulous gourmands, Alan, Harry and Clarry who consume what they feel like, drink the best but most importantly still know how to eat, drink and be merry.

PAUL KEATING’S TWICE RISEN CHEESE SOUFFLE – makes 4

For the bon vivant here’s a soufflé that will rise twice – it can be prepared ahead, eaten on the day or reheated up to 2 days later.

Ingredients:
40 g butter
3 tablespoons of fresh self raising flour
350ml milk
3 large eggs separated
125gr Gippsland blue cheese, chopped
300ml thickened cream
3 tablespoons freshly finely grated parmesan cheese
Lemon Juice
Spray oil
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly spray 4 x 1 cup (250ml) soufflé dishes with oil. Melt butter in a large Pyrex jug, on Medium High (80%) for 1 minute. Add flour and stir with a whisk. Heat on Medium High (80%) for 30 seconds. Whisk in milk, and cook on Medium High (80%) for 2 to 3 minutes until the mixture is smooth and thickens. Let it cool for a few minutes.
Whisk in the egg yolks one at a time then the blue cheese. Beat the egg whites with a squeeze of lemon juice until they stand in soft glossy peaks. Fold a third of the egg whites into the cheese mixture and then the remainder. Stand the filled soufflé dishes in a baking dish and fill with hot water to come half way up the sides of the soufflé dishes. Cook in the oven for 20 minutes.
Soufflés may be served at this point with a French salad and crusty bread. Alternatively, cool completely, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 2 days. About 30 minutes prior to serving, remove from the fridge. Heat the oven to 200 degrees C. Pour cream over the soufflés and dust with Parmesan. Cook on the top shelf in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden. Serve at once with a French salad and crusty bread.
Bon Appetite!

• Contact Virginia Hill at her Cooking Centre, 10c Cromwell Rd, South Yarra, Victoria, 3141 for copies of ‘Zap to the Max’, $19.95 plus $5 delivery charge. All enquiries phone 03 9804 7235, fax 03 9804 7489. Email, virginiahill@i.net.au or visit her website www.virginiahill.com.au