“Spare-ohs”

Last week I went to see the local acupuncturist/herbalist for my recent fatigue. She diagnosed me with blood deficiency (anemia), qi stagnation (standard issue for uptight people like me) and weak wei qi (immune system). After 30 minutes of needles and a bag of ground herbs, I’m now on the mend. I should mention here – there are few things as unpleasant as decoctions. They smell bad and taste worse. My herbalist grinds the herbs so you can steep individual cups rather than boiling up 2 days worth, which takes a couple of hours and “scents” the home. You should use a sieve to remove all the grounds, but because ours is in transit, I’m sipping around them. Only three cups of this granular, brown liquid a day for 10 days….

So with renewed energy this weekend, H and I continued our quest for a decent coffee and brunch here in Jacksonville. The Cool Moose Coffee Company looked and sounded perfect – cool, old building in Riverside, hipster wait staff and excellent food served with organic coffee. Well the space and staff were great and laid back, and that’s where the positives end. I wanted to order the Reuben sandwich but was told that they only serve breakfast/brunch on Sundays. OK -- then the salmon bagel will do. H ordered a latte and the Eggs Benedict. Good lord – they should have paid us to eat his meal or allowed him to cook his own! Was there even a cook in the kitchen?

The latte was just warm coffee-scented milk served in a paper cup. Seriously people – if you can’t make proper espresso drinks, just stick to drip coffee! Note to selves: perhaps we should just order drip coffees since 99% of Jacksonville establishments can’t make proper espresso drinks….*

Anyhoo, the “Eggs Benedict” consisted of 2 poached eggs on a muffin with more-processed-than-usual ham all topped with… (wait for it)… a mound of butter??! This “sauce” didn’t come close to hollandaise – there was no tang of lemon nor was it smooth or creamy. Obviously the ingredients weren’t measured or emulsified properly, and the VERY well-buttered egg yolks coagulated from excessive heat. And the folks at Cool Moose served it this way with no hesitation. My smoked salmon bagel was fine despite the fact that it was only served with cream cheese, tomato and a smidgen of salmon – no red onion or capers.

Numerous reviews state that the Cool Moose serves a consistently good brunch; it’s even where you head if you’ve had a disastrous/disgusting attempt at brunch. If our experience is anything to go by, the “bad brunches” in this town must be downright lethal.

While walking off our meals, we met a nice chap from Sydney. His advice was to give JAX 4 years as that’s the amount of time we need to adjust to it. His tip on coffee was to buy our own espresso maker. And when it comes to restaurants – he said all but 3 or 4 were shit. So save money and eat at home. The money we save from not eating out should go towards travelling up to NY (or any other big, progressive city) about once a month, which is what he does. That way we’ll keep our edge and our sanity. And then in about 4 years, we’ll actually feel at home here and be able to laugh at it all.

Is this advice really meant to make us feel better? If it is, it ain’t working.

* The coffee problem here cannot be explained away by the fact that Jacksonville is small or southern. While in Augusta, we actually had lattes that were comparable to the ones in Melbourne.

#4 Haule Haule

It’s been a boring week in blogville. Life and a general malaise have prevented my fingers from typing.

As promised to J -- here is a lovely little video clip H and I recorded while walking home from Melbourne’s 2008 Coffee Festival. Fueled with 4 coffees each on a sweltering summer day, we stumbled upon a Bollywood movie shoot. The Indian crew had blocked our path out of Docklands so we pulled out the camera and captured this classy little dance number. This was Take 2 – here’s hoping there were a few more takes as it needs a little work! Excuse the shaky camera work – excessive caffeine and fits of laughter are to blame.

And here is another favourite of mine taken inside the Karachi tram -- one of Melbourne's city circle trams. So loud and fun! I miss trams and trains. In Jacksonville, PT is unheard of, and we've probably driven more miles in the last month than we did in 5 years in Melbourne....

“from hell to breakfast, hold your fire”

I’m not a political person. In fact, I really loathe politics. This moment of clarity came after a short stint volunteering for the Victorian Greens a few years ago. During this time, I also discovered the true meaning of radical and that I’m not THAT left-wing after all. So I’m really surprised how into the 2008 US presidential election I am. I have such pre-election jitters at the moment that I’m in a perpetual state of nausea. Thank goodness it will all be over some time tomorrow, and I can decide whether or not to abandon my Australian and NZ PR….

So to get my mind off the election and ease my frayed nerves, I thought I would take J’s advice and write more about the cultural differences between Jacksonville and Melbourne. (J is not his real name since we all speak in code here in blogville.) After coffee, the next biggest difference that we have seen has been in the concept of going out for breakfast, one of H’s and my favorite pastimes. Honestly the two cities are polar opposites!

The staples of the Melbourne breakfast scene are:

• Option 1 -- Savory: Poached eggs on sourdough toast served with steamed spinach, sautéed mushrooms and half a roasted tomato. Maybe a hash brown thrown in if you order the “big brekkie”


• Option 2 – Sweet: Ricotta hotcakes with lemon curd and fresh berries


• Option 3 – Healthful: Fresh fruit with or without untoasted muesli topped with organic plain yogurt

And of course all options would be preceded by a perfectly made espresso or $3 latte. Now this was fine and dandy despite being rather limited in scope. But the downside was that 2 people couldn’t go out for such a breakfast for under $30 a pop.

Then the Melbourne foodies decided that these basic options were, well, a bit too basic. And our favorite haunts started serving more exotic dishes. There was the spicy Indonesian breakfast – steamed jasmine rice topped with mesclun, bean shoots, mint, cilantro, toasted peanuts in a sweet and sour soy dressing topped with 2 fried free-range eggs and sambal on the side. Or bagna cauda eggs served with toasted Turkish bread covered with roasted red pepper and olive stew, topped with 2 poached eggs and then slathered in a creamy anchovy and parsley Piedmontese sauce. (Words cannot describe how HARSH this is first thing in the morning, and I adore olives and anchovies!!) Or maybe a Middle Eastern take on the humble omelet with chickpeas, roasted red peppers, diced tomatoes and haloumi finished with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses and a sprinkle of ground sumac and coriander.

Towards the end of our stay in Melbourne, H and I were bemoaning this pretentious trend. Yes, I know that we’re both rather pretentious foodies ourselves, but these gourmet breakfasts just didn’t pair well with coffee, and prices jumped up to $40. That’s dear for a simple, just-rolled-out-of bed Sunday morning breakfast!

Back to Jacksonville where we have sampled two of the most popular breakfast joints. Our Melbourne standards now seem gourmet compared to the simplicity (sorry southern home-style cookin’) we have encountered. At the Fox, H got poached eggs that were over-cooked and served not on a piece of toast or English muffin but in a heaping mess in a bowl. There was a plain biscuit and what I guess was Jimmy Dean sausage on the side. I had rather ordinary eggs with cold, undercooked turkey sausage links and some rather loose grits. All white, tan and tasteless and not a green to be seen! It was cheap, but it was all about the quantity rather than the quality. The same with the Metro Diner – granted my waffle did come with a strawberry on top.

So in my breakfasts -- like my politics – I don’t like extremes. I guess H and I will continue searching for that perfect middle ground where quality is key and where a sprinkle of culinary imagination has dusted our plates.