I started the day on a most pleasant note: breakfast with friends at “Fruits of Passion” in Belair Street, Kensington. Eggs Benedict, avocado, hash browns, ham and spinach with lashings of hollandaise sauce always get the day off to a good start, as does good company.
The Belair café strip in Kensington is a gastronome’s delight. “Blue Door” does a magnificent dinner, “Fruits of Passion” are renowned for their giant American pancakes and “Corner on Belair” used to do a great pan fried breakfast until they took the homemade baked beans off the menu and replaced it with the tinned plain label stuff. I haven’t been back there since they changed the menu and since I was witness to the managers lambasting the waiting staff in view of the patrons. But still I dream of those divine baked beans.
“Droul’s” café was great up until a few years ago when the proprietor, Androulla, left. A couple of new café’s have opened up recently which I have yet to try but they look quite divine.
Around the corner in Macaulay Road we have “KitCch” (spelling?) which also do a superb breakfast and you can’t beat “Tonik” for Sunday afternoon jazz. For Indian cuisine, “Amania” is the best curry house in Melbourne and their staff are the friendliest! The fish’n’chip shop next to the Post Office isn’t too bad either, but they can’t beat “Ocean Foods” in Drummoyne, Sydney who do the most superb Greek octopus.
Needless to say, I’m a foodie. Especially in winter when the cold hits my bones and I just want to curl up on a plump sofa, drink hot chocolate and indulge in all sorts of sweet cakes. And it’s in winter when I have to be careful not to tip the scales! Oh, it’s so hard! So many wonderful foods, so little self-control!
Today, after my 1 o’clock Portuguese class with João from Fortaleza & viewing a most interesting Brazilian movie called “Domésticas”, I had the pleasure of indulging in some Brazilian delicacies: coxinha, pastel, risole e empado de frango. Mmmmmmm. So exquisite.
João is the most perfect host and it was great to be able to experience Brazilian cuisine for the first time! Yes, I know – shameful, isn’t it that today was my first encounter with Brazilian food! Okay, with I admit that I have dined at Rio’s Brazilian Restaurant on Church Street, Richmond, but the neither the restaurant nor the food are exactly Brazilian, are they? It’s run by a couple from Chile who play salsa and meringue at the end of the night. Salsa and meringue at a Brazilian restaurant? Huh? I don’t get it. Where’s the samba? The bossa nova?
Anyhow, I’m digressing from the details of João’s Brazilian soirée today. Every Saturday I join together with Kim and her partner, Justin, to have two hours of private Portuguese classes with João. He is a most excellent teacher. I must say, he is the best language teacher I have ever had (and having studied several languages I’ve seen the best and the worst!). So after today’s class, which is conducted in João’s beautiful inner-city apartment we watched a Brazilian movie called “Domésticas” (translation: “Maids”). Absolutely brilliant! It was a superb account of the live of domestic help in Brazil. Hilariously funny in parts, heart wrenchingly sad in others. I highly recommend it.
Opa! I have omitted to describe to you the most important of today’s events: JB-Hi-Fi have a sale! Well, I had only intended to pop down to JB Hi-Fi on Elizabeth Street for a few minutes after the end of my Portuguese class and before the commencement of the movie. I only wanted to pick up a blank audiotape for Kim and to purchase both the soundtrack and DVD of “Love Actually” (which I watched for the first time last night and cried inconsolably for the entire 129 minute viewing time)… but… I discovered all these magnificent DVDs on sale! So I bought five: “Love Actually”, “Respiro”, “Basquiat”, “Four Weddings & A Funeral” and “Before Night Falls”. [Oh ¡*&!@#?$%, my mother is probably reading this blog and will call me any minute now to ask me how much I spent and could I really afford it. “Yes, Mum, they were really cheap, honest”]
So this evening will be spent viewing my new DVD purchases before retiring to my bedroom to listen to the soundtrack of “Love Actually”. Yes, I’m a hopeless romantic, I admit it. But what is life without a little love and romance? I come from a long line of romantic women. I have a genetic predisposition to love and romance in its most pure and profound form. It’s inherent in my personality. Love makes the world go around. If you have love you have everything. All we need is love. Make love not war. And as George Sand once said: There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.
Came but for friendship, and took away love - Thomas Moore
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