Nice food, nice lady

"I just know that it's possible to eat truly good food that doesn't take eons to prepare (although it does need to be cooked with TLC)" Belinda Jeffery

'Nice' - it's a word that was banned in my high school English language lessons. We were not to use it in our various attempts at writing. And yet there is at least one definition with a precise meaning - "a very slight difference". So I tried not to use it, but sometimes these days I find that it is just the right word to use.

And it's a word I find myself often using with reference to Belinda Jeffery - whose book I have rescued from the pile on my desk - the underlooked star of Australian food I think. Maybe it's the lady herself, rather than the recipes she creates, because her words hover on the edge of cloying, and corny as in this example:

"Life is about taking what's given to us and creating something wonderful"

Which is true, but - she's just so - well nice. It's really sad is it not that whenever anybody says something like the above, we all cringe a little? The world has become such a cynical place.

Enough of such thoughts. This will be a quickie on the food in this beautifully presented book, because her food is above nice. So when I saw this book on the shelf in the Op Shop I grabbed it immediately, and it has been sitting on my desk for a while waiting for its tiny moment in the sun - which shines intermittently today - the last time for a couple of weeks my husband gloomily tells me.

Her food philosophy as stated on her website is also nice:

"My recipes are easy. They’re for the food I like to eat. Simple, fresh, full of flavour and just a bit different. You certainly don’t need any great cooking skills for them, you just need to like food and like eating – just like me. The rest is simple."

"Just a bit different" is a quality I often look for in my favourite recipe creators, whether it be something they have invented or something they have found on their travels which is new, but at the same time familiar. Too new and too different is a step too far. And sometimes very weird. We have to start with familiar, move into that 'just a bit different' stage and eventually strike out with the really unfamiliar and adventurous worlds of Ottolenghi, his team and his protégés. 'Just a bit different' is what I love about Delia, about Jamie and some of the recipe developers in the Coles Magazine - Jessica Brook, Emma Knowles and Sarah Hobbs, being three that spring to mind.

And most of those people - and Belinda Jeffery too, can also do the very familiar in such a way that, even though we know how to do it, we will give it another go by following an actual recipe for what we can do with our eyes closed - like this Classic beef stew from the book. It actually illustrates as well the problem I am grappling with when it comes to example recipes, in my cookbook for the grandchildren. A problem she expresses in her introduction to the recipe:

" I know the method for this stew looks rather long. I suspect I get a bit too wordy at times, as I so want to explain things."

The list of ingredients also looks long and as my friend Monika and I agreed, the young will just look at that and decide it's all too hard. Which I guess is where the importance of a really good illustration of the dish is crucial. Belinda Jeffery always uses the same photographer - Rodney Weidland - for her books and he does a magnificent job. This photograph of the notoriously difficult to photograph 'brown food' is so very tempting. You can almost smell it. And yes the method takes up a lot of space on the page, but it is because, as she says, she explains each tiny step - and really they are tiny - and dead simple too.

Another recipe which is not online, but which I really am going to try some time soon is this Easy-peasy lemon semifreddo with blueberries in syrup. And in the introduction it comes with several suggestions for doing something slightly different:

"strawberries and raspberries are both fabulous with it too. ... The semifreddo needs to freeze overnight so start with this recipe the day before you need it. Having said that, the mixture also makes a divine lemon mousse, so if you're short on time you can always chill it, then scoop it into bowls or goblets and spoon the berries over the top."

And she also says that the syrup and the almonds are not strictly necessary. But then surely even the most novice of cooks can see that these are the little differences that make the dish?

This is not ordinary food. It's all a little bit special. In many ways her recipes are a reflection of how the ordinary home cooks of Australia have caught up with the massive influx of new ingredients and new dishes into our formerly unimaginative - even if delicious - food. I have chosen a few examples to illustrate this.

Two potato salads

- We have been making potato salad since forever. And I confess that even I do not stray from the recipe that I know my family likes - the usual thing - potatoes, bacon, onions and hard-boiled eggs with a vinaigrette dressing - but Belinda actually gives us two in this book : A darn good potato salad and 'Green' potato, pea and bacon salad - the recipe for which can be found online at the Grow Food Slow Food website. And it shows the value of a really good photograph, because the writer of that website's picture, as she says herself, is in the category "her pictures are much prettier than mine." The picture below is from the book.

The book is arranged into three sections according to the seasons - Dishes for warm days, cool days and in-between days. She's so nice, she doesn't say cold and hot, but the milder cool and warm. There are several salad recipes throughout the book - warm and cool - each one with a little twist. This one is An energy boosting tuna, rice, dill and egg salad from the in-between section. She maintains that it sustained her whilst writing the book, eating a portion for lunch on several consecutive days because it keeps well for a few days. Which you can't say about many salads. And she's not so fancy as to use fresh tuna. It comes from a tin. Looking at it I'm wondering what it is that makes it different - a touch of balsamic vinegar together with lemon juice in the dressing? The olives, the rice, the dill? Not very different at all, but it does look gorgeous - and foreign.

Prosciutto wrapped chicken with lemons, spring onions and potatoes There are plenty of recipes around for prosciutto wrapped chicken - so commonplace these days - and lemons too, but probably not that many with actual potatoes - so old fashioned - and spring onions. The real 'different thing' however, is just a suggestion in the introduction:

" I sometimes make a lemony aioli to go with it, although I must admit I have been known to cheat and just mix lots of finely chopped garlic, lemon zest and parsley into good mayonnaise and serve this on the side instead. It's a small addition that makes the dish that much more special."

So modest, so nice.

Harissa, cumin and preserved lemon chicken - the recipe for which is not online, although there is a variation - from Belinda herself on the delicious. website called Harissa, lemon and cumin chicken an example of how chefs and cookbook writers fiddle with their own creations. It's a human thing to not leave things alone isn't it? The lemons are the most obvious difference. I do not know which recipe came first, and there are also slight differences in the spices that are used, but fundamentally it is the same dish. I fear it won't get made in this house however, because of the harissa which she stresses as the most important component of the dish, telling us that they are all hot, though some hotter than others. One she recommends, which I have seen in Woolworths is the Belazu rose harissa.

And for dessert - Butterscotch pears with pear ice-cream - which is another example of the same recipe with a slight difference in two different places - Butternut pears with almond praline in the book and Butternut pears with pear ice-cream on her website - which I guess is a bonus. The almond praline, I guess you could say, is just something you sprinkle on top. And that recipe is not online. Interesting that the photograph is virtually identical though. Was the almond praline an afterthought when she was testing the recipe?

There are many more doable and attractive recipes in this book, but alas I think it is now out of print, so unless you see it in an Op shop or second-hand online you won't be able to make use of most of the recipes. Only a select few are online. She may be nice, but she's not as generous as - say Delia - in publishing her recipes to the online audience.

I do love her recipes though. I've made a few now. Interestingly I had her down as fundamentally a baker and pastry cook - sweet things, and yet in an interview that I saw she replied 'Savoury' when asked which she preferred.

One more book removed from the pile. I shall have to try not to add any more.

YEARS GONE BY

September 27

2024 - You've got to eat a peck of dirt before you die

2023 - Nothing

2022 - Good things = kippers

2021 - Nothing

2020 - Missing

2019 - Nothing

2018 - Nothing

2017 - A word from Bert Greene

2016 - Food courts