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Vegan in Adelaide
Back from our brief holiday in Adelaide, which I rate as a hot contender for vegan capital of Australia! When my Mum travels she sends postcards which only contain descriptions of food eaten, probably the source of my view of holidays-as-food (she now chronicles the weather so as not to be eating-centric).
In Hahndorf I desperately wanted to go to The Fairy Garden, but we didn’t have time so just ate at The Seasonal Garden Café.
Mmm chips!
I had the quinoa burger (vegetarian but made vegan, it was delicious but not as good as a burger I had later) and a nectarine cake (pretty tasty but needs coconut cream or something to go with it).
So many cakes!
I felt a bit weird from the heat and so much cake so we went to Chocolate Bean for more cake (logical!). I’m pretty sore that I didn’t realise there was a lavender cupcake (my favourite flavour), on one visit I had the vegan choc hazelnut praline cake and another time I had the vegan peanut butter cheesecake. The praline one was better but too much for one person. I’ve previously enjoyed their chocolate soup but unfortunately it’s dairy-based.
Halo of sauciness
We met with family at pinehill bistro in Glenelg, I didn’t have high hopes and their menu didn’t list any vegan items. So it was exciting when they offered to make stuffed eggplant (although one of my friends would cite eggplant, mushrooms and onions as the vegetables-of-first-resort for veg*n options on the fly). It looked nothing like I expected but I was pleased to be able to eat something, and it was quite good.
“Squeeze me and eat me” – orange
Then we headed to Grind it (also Glenelg), they had a few vegan options on the menu so I got the quinoa patties. I had to refill the parking meter, on the way back, I saw another cafe had a sign with a cartoon orange saying “squeeze me and drink my blood!”. When I returned to my seat, the quinoa patties were waiting there interfiled with dead slices of orange. Awkward. The patties were a bit dry and the green sauce was super hot! They had also placed a spoon with nectarine and yoghurt on the plate which was surprising given it was advertised as a vegan dish, so I didn’t risk it.
Hello bug friend
In Brighton there was a very familiar caterpillar (but not identifiable for everyone in our group! Previously documented by Helen) – on the way to the Brighton Jetty Classic Sculptures. My favourite sculpture was Monica Prichard’s Sand City.
Unfortunately we missed out on the Brighton Jetty Bakery which has lots of vegan options. Next time.
Most delicious Adelaide dessert
In Goodwood we lined up to get a table at Eggless Dessert Café, and it was so worth it. Their menu is on a different theme each month, and Ken at the counter said there was a family that came once a month and ordered every single item. Efficient! I had the spring rolls and then the black sticky rice sundae (rice, f-ice cream, coconut cream and toasted coconut). The waitress recommended the sundae over the plain rice with coconut cream. It was amazing. I could eat 5 of them. Both the spring rolls and the sundae are on the February menu, too.
Goodwood saints?
It was also fun to walk up and down the street, the stobie poles are emblazoned with angels, there is a mosaic couch, teapots growing succulents hang from the pedestrian railing, corrugated iron magpies are pinned to the fence and finally a pink cat shop (nsfw).
Most delicious Adelaide burger
Our last stop was in Port Adelaide at the Red Lime Shack. I am so glad we went there, because it was the best vegan burger I have ever had on all counts – flavour, charm, price, romance, whether I would eat 100 of them, etc. I had the walnut, sage and roast carrot burger, which tasted “convincing” without being meaty. The tahini mayonnaise may also rekindle my mayo love affair, which had lost the spark when I’d tried other vegan mayos that had the taste and appearance of bodily fluids (not in a good way).
Pretty pie, pretty plate
The raw key lime pie was delicious and reminded me of the raw vegan food made by Raw Capers here in Canberra – really good texture made with good quality sweeteners and a health focus. M thinks that the most tasty part of a cake is the little “V” at the centre (broken off in this photo). I think this is more the anticipation of first bite, but perhaps the theory requires some exploration.
On our next visit, we’d like to get to Zen house, Two bit villains, Vegetarian delight, and Godzilla. There are heaps of restaurants listed on the Adelaide Vegans site – it’s my hope this will one day be the case for Canberra, see the current veg*n restaurant list on the ACT Vegan & Vegetarian Society site.
Thanks Adelaide, I am very full.
Blooms on the Big Island
During our holiday on Hawai’i Island, seeing hibiscus in context has really improved my attitude towards tropical plants. I think I confuse them with frangipani flowers, whose dubious reputation stems from car stickers which tarnish all flowers’ “particular style of beauty” (this phrase used with thanks to author Zenda Vecchio, who uses it to describe clothes or accessories not suiting someone’s particular style of beauty).
A few years ago the infestation of adhesive frangipani gave rise to the responding trend: “Frangipani stickers: Australia says no.”
Sharry Baby orchid
We visited the Akatsuka Orchid Gardens showroom (Volcano, Hawaii). It would be a lovely project to make a scented maze with all their plants, but I have a weird feeling that keeping flowers inside seems like a plant version of veal calves.
My favourite orchid was Onc. Sharry Baby “Sweet Fragrance”. It has a wafting chocolate fragrance, it would be fun if it came with piped music like The Four Seasons’ Sherry playing on a loop, out where the bright moon shines. I have absolute immunity to that song because I used to hear it ten times a day when I worked as a seamstress undergoing aural torture. I have similar experience with Mariah Carey’s Christmas album.
Naupaka flowers
A wistful plant I’ve learnt about is the Naupaka, which grows on the coast and in the mountains. Both types appear as a half flower, but you can put two together to make a whole – an opposite of the floral rhyme: loves me, loves me not.
There are different stories around the two types of the flower, one is that two lovers were forcibly separated and went to these different parts of the landscape. They either distributed the flowers in their respective areas, or the flowers bloomed from each person’s sadness. Putting the flowers together reunites the lovers, McDonald’s book mentions the naupaka kahakai ‘auwai completion ceremony (which I think is the same thing), but I haven’t yet found more information on this topic.
The story has also been developed into an award-winning book by Nona Beamer, illustrated by Caren Loebel-Fried, and the legend is in more detail on Hale Moana B&B’s post and within Hawai’i Volcanoes & Haleakala National Parks’ Nature Notes. It’s so beautiful, I wonder if it would have positive floriography for my bouquet, but today we chose the Sonia orchids for our wedding leis instead.
Say yes to all the flowers, say no to flower stickers.
Teeth and gallstones
My family has an usual hobby of collecting body parts. Mum kept the extra teeth she had removed and in an ill-advised move, gave them to me as playthings (I was 5).
Gran’s gallstones
I thought they were really unusual shells, I would plant them in the garden like creamy skyscrapers. Their jagged tops mimicked the stereotypical scalloped edges of clouds and were a perfect match for meeting with the sky and solving the puzzle. They have been lost to the soil (not sands) of time, because they are resting in peace with my shell collection, buried below the camellia leaves. I think that my shell garden was trying to live up to Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary’s reputation.
Grandma kept her gallstones in a jar, with a dream of making them into earrings. She never had pierced ears, so it made sense that she saw the clip-on earring aesthetic in calculi. They seem more like carved wooden beads than something that could come out of the body, it’s like Jenny Holzer’s shock at the range of colours in her mother’s dying body.
I inherited Grandma’s gallstones a few years ago, as well as her glove collection, a hairbrush, nail kit, scarves and of course a huge sense of loss. I miss her a lot and I still surprise myself when I think of telling her something and then I remember. I had a wonderful conversation with Blaide today that I could make the gallstone earring project, and if I wore them then I could symbolically have my Grandma at my elopement (the “old” in something old, new, borrowed and blue).
I am harvesting and collecting quite different body parts of my own, but that’s a story for another day. In the meantime, ABC Open has an interesting project, “My Crazy Passion”. So far there are videos featuring people who collect/obsess about tractors, cacti and crochet. No body collectors yet.
Adelaide weekend catch up
Here’s a catch up for blogjune – or considering how I’m going, perhaps it should be dissected to blogju or blogne. A roundup of my very brief weekend trip to Adelaide for a friend’s farewell.
I had some unexpected running practice at Canberra airport because I thought my flight had closed. It had not. I watched another Dawson’s Creek episode while I waited, which made me much calmer.
On the plane, a man sitting in front of me reclined his chair and smashed into my head because I was leaning down to get my bag. I felt less calm. Why isn’t it common to have the courtesy to tell the person behind you that you’re planning on reclining your seat? I think I read this tip in The Penguin Book of Etiquette, or was it somewhere else, I’m unsure.
I had a weird conversation with a flight attendant about whether vegans eat chocolate (yes, but only if it doesn’t contain animal products including dairy, gelatine, or sometimes honey).
I arrived in Adelaide for the farewell party, and tried vegan cabbage rolls at Suzie Wong’s Room which were delectable. But then I haven’t tried regular cabbage rolls so I don’t really have a reference.
I danced the nutbush outside a very noisy party at The Lady Daly Hotel. They didn’t see us through the window (the real dancers were inside through the glass doorway), which is lucky because we couldn’t really remember the moves.
I met 2 chickens and patted 3 cats.
Turner is a puzzle
I visited Zenda Vecchio (South Australian author), she is making steady (but painful) progress with her puzzle of Turner’s Venice, the Bridge of Sighs (exhibited 1840, oil paint on canvas (bought from Art Gallery of South Australia’s shop during the Turner from the Tate exhibition, which is now at National Gallery of Australia, but I’m not sure if they have the puzzles).
We talked about Zenda’s upcoming book The Swan’s Egg, which is at the proofing stage – I’m designing the cover (I previously designed another of Zenda’s book covers – with the help of Wesley Hobday – see post on “Becoming Kirsty-Lee”, launched in May last year).
Grevillea Mason’s Hybrid, Adelaide
I saw some beautiful plants, perhaps the loveliness of Grevillea ‘Mason’s Hybrid’ (previously sold as ‘Ned Kelly’ and ‘Kentlyn’) will rehabilitate my view of Grevilleas. If you’ve ever had to remove one, you’d understand my dislike of the genus. There was also an unwell honeyeater in our yard once that I tried to capture so that she could be seen by a vet or the ranger, and she was totally unreachable in the horrid Grevillea. The honeyeater died and I blamed the Grevillea. At least it provides a good spot for native animals and birds to hide from predators, even if the predator is trying to assist.
It was nice to come home to Canberra Airport’s sculptures:
”People coming to Canberra ought to have their spirits lifted and be inspired on arrival in the national capital; this sculpture [Andrew Rogers’ “Perception and Reality 1”, 2012, bronze] will take their breath away. It’s a very, very powerful work.”
(from Diana Streak’s article “Striking pose to alter perception of airport”, 3 April 2012, Canberra Times)
…and I opened a gift from a friend, which is a terrarium kit! So now I know my plans for tomorrow.
Swarms of Lepidoptera
Continental butterflies and more!
I returned home this month from a delightful jaunt through England (and a little bit of Scotland).
During the trip, butterflies emerged as a recurring theme.
I’m collecting moths for a collage, but butterflies seem to market themselves more effectively.
Damien Hirst’s butterfly room
Damien Hirst’s show at the Tate Modern had a whole room dedicated to live butterflies. Plastic ribbons cordoned off the doorways, and special assistants removed errant butterflies from hair and clothing. Photography was forbidden, so all my butterfly photographs are from other venues.
The butterflies hatch from pupae on canvases and fly around the room to feast on fruit and a few begonias.
Patrick Barkham has written more about the emotional experience of the butterfly room here.
I walked through the Hirst exhibition in a haphazard way to avoid the crowds.
However, this meant that I saw the butterfly canvases (wings glued to canvases in the style of stained glass windows) prior to the live butterfly room. The butterfly collaged canvases changed and glittered in the light, the blue Morpho wings would briefly have a pearly lustre and change back to a bright blue.
Changing my path through the exhibition meant that the butterfly room seemed unnatural, as though the butterfly paintings were reanimated.
After regaining life, they escape capture only to be sentenced to stay in a very small room.
Butterflies as drawing materials
Closer to home, Genevieve Swifte’s art uses butterflies in a more subtle way, to mimic cloud patterns. Swifte creates her pigment by mixing butterfly wings with silver leaf and binder on paper.
In “A Study of Clouds I-II”, the scales catch the light and simulate the shifting nature of clouds. The drawings make the connection between flight, air, weather and creatures that inhabit parts of the sky.
The drawings are so delicate that the effect is best seen in person, otherwise they may be viewed on Swifte’s site here.
Atlas moths
I also saw a giant Atlas moth at the ZSL London Zoo – but the ones that Sloane Crosley found irresistible (mentioned in her book, I was told there’d be cake) were at the Museum of Natural History. There was also a great moth talk in the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Garden.
Butterfly houses and the Morpho “surprise egg”
I visited two butterfly houses – Edinburgh Butterfly & Insect World (Edinburgh, Scotland), and Butterflies and more (Congresbury, UK).
Butterflies and more is tricky to find, but is worth it for the established banana plants, eager turtles, and multitude of Morpho butterflies.
The Morpho is my favourite butterfly, because their lustrous shimmering wings (as glued on Hirst’s canvases) are like a special surprise present. When closed, the wings mimic a brown owl, and when opened, expose a brilliant blue. It’s the nature equivalent of a surprise egg (bath bomb).
The inner vivid blue is an easier beauty to appreciate than the brooding camouflage variations of the undersides of the wings.
Perhaps a preference for either one could be a personality test!
I think there’s a market for butterfly ecotourism…