Rain Drops and Jam Drops

Yet another rainy day although this time it's becoming an issue. Brisbane is flooding! My favourite park...gone! The river is rising, people are getting edgy and it seems like the entire population is heading to Indro shopping mall. It must be serious. So what do I do? Make some jam drops. Here is the recipe for Bill Granger's Jam Buttons - it's pretty delicious. They turned out light and fluffy which is excellent if that's your kind of thing. I'm more impartial to a stodgier, jam-ier (apologies for the word invention) version of ye old jam drop (thanks to Nanna whose jam drops will always be the best in the world). Nonetheless they are rather scrumptious so give it a whirl!

Jam Button's (taken from Bill Granger's Simply Bill cookbook)

250g unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons caster (superfine) sugar
zest of 1 orange
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
250g (2 cups) plain flour, sifted
90g (1 cup) desiccated coconut
raspberry jam
blackberry jam
apricot jam

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line a large tray with baking paper. Beat the butter, sugar and orange zest with electric beaters until pale. Add the egg yolk and vanilla and beat until combined. Fold in the flour and coconut. Roll tablespoon measures of the dough into balls, arrange on a baking tray about 2cm apart and press to flatten slightly. Make an indent in the centre of each one with your thumb. Place half a teaspoon of jam in each indent. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Makes 25-30.

New York I Love You

So it's a rainy Sunday morning and let's face it, i'm feeling a little under the weather after a big night out. What better time to make a nice hot cup of chai and perch on my window seat with my laptop admiring the soggy view. People in cyber space - I have news. I have been on a great adventure in which I probably ate my body weight in food, saw some great stuff, met some lovely people and learnt what it is to be an American. You heard it, I have been to the great land of America.

Having been to the US of A once before when I was about 8 my memories were a little fuzzy and I was under the impression that it was just a bigger, fatter version of Australia. I was pretty damn wrong. I love the US. The people there are lovely, they all LOVE their country which I think is fabulous and the food is nothing short of amazing. So on this wild adventure I went to New York, Boston and Portsmouth and then popped over to Canada to ski at Whistler for Christmas. Did I mention it was a family adventure? We caused quite the spectacle. Six people all squabbling over which direction to go, stopping traffic and giggling hysterically when times got a little tough.

What I am really wanting to write about is the food. Especially in New York. The thing that amazed me about New York was the diversity of the people there. Whilst sitting on the subway keenly searching for the mole people you would hear people speaking English, French, Italian, Hindi and a number of languages I thought sounded slightly reminiscent of a pig snorting but they might have been taking me for a ride (I do hear there are crazy people in New York). This diversity also corresponds to the food. We went to some amazing places - Eatily (an enormous Italian market serving the most delicious pasta I think I have ever had, all made fresh on site), Balthazar, the Spice Market and the restaurant (I cannot for the life of my remember it's name) in Grand Central Station are just a few of the places we whetted our culinary appetites. I won't go into the details of each place because frankly, I would be here all day but take my word for it - yum! I should have written about it at the time but I just couldn't be bothered so now the opportunity has gone poof like the vanilla cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery.

I will leave you at this, pictures will come later (all taken by my lovely sister, Eliza).

Toodooloo old chap.