And then it was Boxing Day

It happens every year. November and December revolve around the build up towards the 'festive season', the Christmas break, the time of the year where everything everywhere shuts down and people can slow down, spend time with the loved ones keeping up various family traditions and justify any excess with a smile on their faces.  We (at least I) tend to do more of the things that I want to do less of.

Facebook's walls are filled up with happy declarations of how fat people feel, or all the things that they think they should be doing but they won't do because it's Christmas.

Importantly this is also the time when people take respite to reflect on the year that has just gone and focus on the year ahead. This is a time of rebirth. I have wondered often (and I am sure I ain't the only one) whether the key point of having Jesus being born in this period, apart from the convenient overlapping with previous pagan festivities that Christmas replaced in the ancient Roman times,  is just recognising the fact that people need to think (and do think) about birth as the year comes to a close.  Just like the Big J we are reborn to save ourselves from our imperfections. We are given yet another opportunity to be the better selves that we want to be.

However, we give ourselves some few more days and wait until New Years Eve to really, really cement those determinations. It does sound like a good process, so why the great majority of us fails their New Year's resolutions? I thought about this over the years, investigating theories ranging from the depressing bad London weather to the conspiracy of self sabotage,  and I have formed the opinion that resolution and change should start and follow a different timeline pattern from the one we tend to adopt.

Just like I maintain that starting a diet on a Monday is a recipe for failure, I think that forming great determinations at the very end of the year is not necessarily a good idea. We charge that 1st of January with so much expectations, so much pressure, that when we find out that we are the same people on that day that we were the day before, the anticlimax is very likely to result in loss of drive. In addition, such an obvious starting point just stresses how long the road ahead is and suddenly we feel like we have started climbing Mount Kilimanjaro without the right gear to make it to the top.

Perhaps the solution is to look at the big picture, and see life as a long winding road that goes up and down. Whether the previous years has taken us up or down, that 1st of January really is not a new beginning, but the continuation of where we have been. It is not the day where we stop or start doing something, it is the day where we pick up where we left from at the last turn of the road. Christmas is hence not time to be born again, but just time to look ahead and plan for taking the right turn in our journey ahead. The end of the year is not the time for great determinations, it is the time to stop and set the SatNav towards our next destination. We might surprise ourselves and find that we have kicked off that length of the journey already.

Panino Number 5

Who said that the humble panino cannot be a gourmet triumph? I made this for lunch today and it was just delicious. Try it out and tell me what you think!

Panino number 5 (serves two people)

• Cut a red pepper (capsicum) in half, clear it from the seeds and crap, pierce it with a fork several times and slam it on the grill (one of those press grills is ideal). Grill it until it is perfectly cooked, keeping piercing it and turning it every now and then to get rid of all the water. Once it's done, cut it into strips and toss it with one teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil and some salt. Put is aside.
• Cut a tomato into halves. With a teaspoon remove the pulp and the seeds. Fill up the resulting empty pockets with balsamic vinegar. Grill in the same grill as the pepper until the tomato is soft and squashy;
• Cut a third of a red onion and caramelize it in a small frying pan with a teaspoon worth of butter.
• Put the caramelized onion in a bowl and toss it with two tablespoons of mayonnaise, a teaspoon of mustard and some leaves of fresh basil. Put this aside.  
• Cut some pickled cucumbers in small slices (you will need approximately 5 small cucumbers). Put aside.
• Take a chicken breast and toss it in 1/2 a lemon juice and then your favourite spices. I recommend Moroccan spices, salt and pepper. Grill it in the same grill that you have been using all along. Once cooked, cut into strips and put aside.
• Take a ciabatta bread (or your favourite bread), cut it in halves, butter both halves and add salt and pepper. Put it in the grill you have been using all along to toast whilst soaking up all the flavours.
• Once the bread is ready, take the bottom half and squash the tomatoes on top of it -covering the whole surface;
• add a layer of picked cucumbers;
• add the chicken strips and some spinach leaves;
• cover with the red onion and basil leaves mix;
• cover with strips of grilled pepper;
• Add the top half of the ciabatta.

Share with somebody or be a pig and have it all by yourself whilst shoving  down a few beers. Don't look so shocked. You know you can.

Food, Coffee and Wine

After one year (to the day) living in Sydney I can say that one of the things that I love the most about this place is the gastronomic culture of this city. Whilst I maintain that the (post dinner)  night life leaves a lot to be desired, if you like going out with friends for a great meal and a few bottles of wine this city will not disappoint you.

In a way it is one of the defining features of the Easter Suburbs where we live.  Good places are not cheap, but the ratio quality/price is not a gamble like it can be in other places. I am led to believe that this Food&Wine craze is a relatively recent phenomenon in Sydney and that Melbourne has historically led the charge. A freshy like me would not know.

The influences of a plethora of countries and immigration waves mean that the city is full of places that will leave you wanting to go back. Sydney does 'authentic' and 'fusion' to the t.
For instance, you will find here authentic Italian restaurants serving real Napoli style pizza like there are not left in Italy, together with innovative and adventurous establishments that leave you thinking why someone had not thought about that before. The Asian influence is very strong, which brings delicious flavors and possibilities.
In addition, after having lived in London for a long time, being able to grab great coffee almost anywhere has also been such a nice change.

Here are the highlights of my first year here. For more info and full reviews check out my TripAdvisor contributions at : http://www.tripadvisor.com/members-reviews/youngprofessionalUK

Also, there are still lots of places I haven't checked out - let me know what your favourites are.

HIGHLIGHTS (as of Dec '11)

Best Thai: Longrain, Surry Hills *****
Best Vietnamese: Miss G, Kings Cross ****
Best brunch: Yellow, Potts Point ****
Best coffee: Norton Road (Little Italy) ****
Best homemade pasta: A tavola, Darlinghurst *****
Best tiramisu: Mille Vini, Surry Hills ****
Best pizza: Pizza Mario, Surry Hills ****
Best gelato: Messina, Darlinghurst *****
Best cafe by the sea: Aqua Bar, Bondi Beach *****
Best people watching & coffee: Zinc, Potts Point  ***
Best customer service: Longrain, Surry Hills *****
Best casual dinner: Mad Pizza, Darlinghurst ****
Best fish place: Fish Face, Darlinghurst ****
Best restaurant for lunch in the CBD: The Lane, CBD ***
Best pre-dinner drinks: The Passage, Darlinghurst ***
Best lunch on the go: Saladworks, various ***
Best date restaurant: Concrete Blonde, Kings Cross ****
Best beer garden: Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills (Friday&Sunday) ****
Best gastronomic weekender: Hunter Valley ****

Letting Go

I have very few memories about my grandmother Mercedes. I remember her kind smile, her calm aura, the fact that her kisses felt sloppy on my cheeks. Granddad and granny lived next door, in the house that my grandfather Nemesio built a million years ago.

We would sit outside in the big patio during hot summer nights in Sardinia, and the grown ups would talk about their day, or play cards. They would talk for hours, until it was late and time to go to bed. Battisti's songs about peach blossoms would be distorted by the old radio, still managing to engrave that moment and provide the perfect backdrop.

The adults would talk about the family business, they would talk about the town's gossips or what they would cook that weekend. This is what we did back then. I was four, perhaps five, and I would sit on my mother's lap and listen, or fall asleep like children do. The dogs would sit around us as well, and listen carefully.
Pomegranates would grown red on trees, and the breeze would smell of sea and countryside.

Mercedes wore cheap dresses with dark floral patterns. Her skin was pale because of her anemia, her hair dark with shocks of grey - held together in a tight knot - like pictures from the 1800's that you see in antique shops. She was barely 60, but back then people looked much older after a life of war, work, sickness, Mussolini and the stupor that people back then must have felt to see the world change so much in their lifetime. She had also survived through malaria, because the disease still existed in Sardinia until the 60s, or something like that.

She was a quiet woman with a dry sense of humor. She would find people falling on the street hilarious, and she loved taking the piss out of people, herself and life - in that respect she was just like me.  She had a silent determination and kept the whole family together through that gelling that only mothers seem to be able to do. We all liked her : once I emptied my mother's fridge to bring over all the food cause granny had mentioned that she did not know what to cook that night.

Big Sunday lunches with all the uncles and cousins somehow managed to overcome the dramas and tribulations that small town people manage to create for themselves. From outside, from the eyes of a child it all looked like simple happiness looks like. The dark pink flowers on the porch seemed destined to grow in peace.

I was thinking about Mercedes the other day, about the last time I saw her. It is after all one of my very first clear memories - I was six. She was going to the hospital for the operation she would never come back from.
Her pale skin seemed to disappear in the glaring early September sun and the dark pink of those flowers.

She was so tall, and I was so small. She gave me one of her kind smiles. It is bizarre, but that moment I felt that we both knew that that was the last time we would see each other.

She gave me a kiss, said goodbye and then whispered in my ears something I have never forgotten but I have never told anyone. It was something about letting go. She put it in such a clear way that a six year boy could get it and a thirty one old man still remembers it after so many years.

Then she went, never to return again - just leaving behind her ghost to appear every now and then to remind us that the past is like spilling olive oil on the kitchen floor.

Apple&Apricots Christmas Cake

I made this last night and it was a Christmas cake of dreams......

• Preheat the oven at 180C.
• Butter a circular cake tin (usual size).
• In a container put 4-6 halves of apricots (canned in syrup), 1/2 cup (like a coffee mug) worth of the syrup, 1/2 a lemon juice, a bottle cup of dessert wine (like marsala), 2 apples cut in in slices, a spoon of tricle, a spoon of sugar, 1 spoon of cinnamon and 1 spoon of nutmeg. There should be enough liquid/spices to cover all the fruit - if not add a bit of syrup/spices.
• Beat 3 eggs with a cup of sugar until fluffy.
• Add 1/3 of a butter pannier and 2 spoons of extra virgin olive oil - beat until fluffy; 
• Add the zest of 1 lemon - keep beating;
• Add 1 mug of vanilla yogurt - keep beating;
• Add the juice from the fruit- keep beating until all ingredients have been mixed thoroughly;
• Slowly add 2 1/2 to 3 mugs of self rising flour, carefully beating it in. The cake mix has to be soft but not runny.
• Pour the mix in the tin, cover with the apples and apricots (the fruit has to cover the whole top of the cake);
• Put in the oven (same temperature) for about 35-40 minutes (start checking after 30 minutes) - the cake is cooked when you can put a knife through it and it comes out clean/mostly clean.
• Let cool before eating.

One Year On

Next week we are going to celebrate one year since our flight from Buenos Aires to Sydney took us here on 16th December 2010.

Whilst the flight's path took us through the fringes of Antarctica I remember looking outside the window and thinking that my life felt a bit like that alien world: it looked so peaceful from the outside, but the terrain ahead was going to be possibly treacherous and unexplored. That feeling was both exhilarating and terrifying.

I was wondering the other day how our lives have changed over the last year - what are the biggest takeaways from the beginning of this new chapter.

One of the first feelings that came to me was on the same line of that time I jumped off a plane during my travels: the pleasant surprise when you accomplish something outside of our comfort zone. It turns out the path was not treacherous - just very unexplored.

I am chuffed about the life we have managed to create for ourselves: it is fabulous. Australia feels like the right place at the right time. And not just personally - with the world's epicenters slowly shifting towards Australasia being here really feels exciting. Strangely one of the most remote places now feels like it is in the middle of the action. When I was growing up Australia was a fabled land people like me never visited - having built a life here with Tatz and being in the process of buying our first home over here makes me feel proud.

The other feeling that came to me was the realisation that this year has been strange in many ways - there has been a lot of sorting things out. It was like going to the supermarket and shop for a intricate recipe.

Someone has recently pointed out to me how life is made of small segments - a concatenation of things and stuff that we do, we think, we plan. This year has largely felt that way.

These things included finding jobs (and once found getting comfortable in them), hunting for flats, building a new life, discovering a healthier side of us, etc etc.

It turns out that buying a flat is a job by itself! Seriously, could anyone make the process any more complicated to the naive and unaware First Time Buyer?

Perhaps for the first time I have not thrown myself into a new million things and I just allowed myself to slow down.

Perhaps this is the first time that I have allowed myself to stop since I applied for that government scholarship 14 years ago and I embarked on that weird and wonderful journey that has taken me from a small town in Sardinia all the way to the fringes of Antarctica. It has been great, but so exhausting. I gave all of myself to this during my 20s.  It was quite fitting how the circle closed when I turned 30, and in the same year another cycle started off.

So I reckon this is the biggest takeaway: Sydney has given me space. Space to stop rushing for a while. Space for The Rat to buy all those ingredients with his tuberous companion. This period was necessary and now I feel a bit like I am coming out of hibernation.

As I come into a new year I feel my soul is more peaceful. I feel ready for the new year and pretty excited because there is a lot I want to do.

I am happy here doing the things and stuff that I am doing.