Lesley Truffle's Blog, page 16

The Bees Knees

 

If you’ve ever been stung by a bee you probably got the impression that bees are quite hardy creatures.  I accidentally trod on an unsuspecting bee – in bare feet – when I was a kid and his sting was excruciatingly painful.

The adults in charge couldn’t seem to decide how best to handle the situation. Chances are they were probably indulging in a summer afternoon drinks session which usually kicked in well before sundown. Fortunately a kindly neighbour stepped in and took over. She produced a laundry product that she swore would soothe the bee sting and fix me right up. Jean extravagantly daubed my foot in blue dye – which made the whole event memorably bizarre – but I can’t remember what the hell happened next.

I recently read that bees pollinate around about one third of all food crops worldwide. This means that we are dependent on bees because they are such an essential part of the food chain. And they’re crucial to maintaining the biodiversity of the world’s ecosystem (Shannon Harley ‘Hive Minded’ 8 July 2018 THE AGE).

According to Harley, bees are not as robust as they seem and their lifecycle is precarious. Take for example the virgin queen bee, she can only be fertilized by male drone bees within twenty days of her birth or she won’t be fertile. And to make it even trickier, as she sets off on her journey to mate with the drones, it’s essential that the day should be pleasantly warm and virtually windless. Bees are very susceptible to temperature and the hive has to be maintained between 33-34 degrees to enable the queen bee to lay her eggs.

Small scale bee-keeping is increasing. Australian apiarist, Vicky Brown, maintains over 800,000 bees over several locations. Brown is a co-founder of a unique company called The Urban Beehive and the company establish beehives for their clients on Sydney’s rooftops.

Rooftop beehives are also becoming increasingly popular in many other cities worldwide. In Australia they’re usually they’re installed by restaurant owners who utilize the bees honey in their menus.

Unfortunately, bees are becoming endangered globally because of habitat loss, pesticides, disease and other environmental factors. But according to The Urban Beehive there are a few simple things that we can do to help. Such as eliminating pesticide in urban areas, cultivating plants that flower – especially blue and purple as these colours are especially attractive to bees – and establishing your very own bee hotel. I didn’t know bee hotels existed, but apparently city folk are building them or purchasing them from garden stores. I am now very keen on becoming the concierge of my very own bee hotel.

When I stayed at the Mayfair Hotel in Adelaide, I was delighted to find that they kept beehives on the roof and that the hotel’s special honey – in several varieties – was offered at breakfast. I discovered it was sensational smeared on croissants or toasted breads and washed down with milky coffee. Honey is also used in cocktails up on the hotel’s alfresco rooftop bar.

We could order a Honey Trap cocktail and get our calcium, phosphorous, magnesium and selenium that way. And what’s more – while getting pleasantly loaded on essential nutrients – there was a magnificent night view of the city streets and the nearby hills. And a raging electrical storm that provided a touch of danger to the proceedings. Sheer genius! A brief digression for those with inquiring minds; the ‘Honey Trap’ cocktail is a fusion of honey-infused vodka, lime, ginger, mint with a drizzle of raw honey to finish.

Napoleon Bonaparte had a thing about bees. He believed the legend that bees didn’t sleep and they were industrious, diligent and orderly. Accordingly Napoleon and his Empress had golden bees embellished on jewelled snuff boxes, embroidered on their coronation robes and painted, carved and printed on walls, wallpapers and doors. Golden bees may also have lent an air of legitimacy to Napoleon’s rule, as bees were associated with the ancient kings of France.

There’s a lot of folk lore around bees. Vicky Brown mentioned in a recent interview,

‘There’s a beautiful tradition that when a beekeeper dies, you tell the bees about the death. I’ve had very close friends of mine die, friends who really loved my bees and supported me. So I’ve told my bees about it.’

 

Photograph: Napoleon poses as Emperor of France, painted by Girodet-Trioson.  Smothered in embroidered golden bees and standing on a bee motif carpet, Bonaparte’s right hand hovers ominously over the Civil Code, the orb and the hand of justice (it’s lurking under the cushion and looks a bit like a back scratcher).

 

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Me and Eloise

 

Eloise and I go way back. At about seven I discovered six-year-old Eloise. She was parent-free, running amuck in the Plaza New York and Paris, with her nanny, a pug and a turtle. I didn’t find it strange that Eloise exercised with champagne bottles, as my sister and I had hidden a bottle of Sweet Marsala under my bed. It was delectable topped with cream! When in Paris, Eloise insisted – if ‘ You cawn’t, cawn’t, cawn’t get a good cup of tea ’, you simply must devour a peach languishing in champagne. I was smitten.

Originally Eloise was not intended for children. The first book was published in 1955 under the title, Eloise: A Book for Precocious Grown-ups. Later this was retitled as Eloise. Kay Thompson’s series, brilliantly illustrated by Hilary Knight, is still in print.

I managed to find an original 1958 copy of Eloise in Paris. Published by Max Reinhardt, it retailed for the princely sum of twelve shillings and sixpence. On the back cover, there are comments from celebrities of the era. Nöel Coward states, ‘I adore Eloise’.

The author, Kay Thompson, was a habitué of the Plaza Hotel. She had many talents and was a professional singer, vocal arranger, composer, musician, dancer and actress. When asked on whom Eloise was based upon, she answered, ‘I am Eloise ’.

Most of the time, Eloise lives in luxury at the Plaza Hotel New York, at a time when the Plaza Hotel was considered the height of elegance and the haunt of the most fashionable and wealthy folk. Many artists and creatives hung out in the Plaza Hotel’s bar and restaurants.

What is it that makes Eloise so damn appealing? For me it was the fact that she was essentially motherless, she lived in an adult world, didn’t attend boring schools and got away with pretty much everything.

Eloise has Nanny to take care of her and Nanny is up for all manner of interesting adventures. As they travel the globe Eloise’s observations of society are astute and wickedly funny. Hilary Knight’s marvellous pen and wash drawings capture the curiosity and delight that Eloise brings to the adult world.

Then of course there is Koki – her mother’s lawyer’s chauffeur – who lives in Paris. A telegram, from Eloise’s mother to Nanny, reads –‘ Koki at your disposal, let Eloise do anything within reason.’

Koki knows all the great places to go and he takes Nanny and Eloise on a picnic to the Bois de Boulogne. While Nanny drinks wine and recklessly plays with a flick knife, Koki plays guitar and Eloise dances wildly. Bliss.

‘French sandwiches are abolements large and we had to put all these flags on them so we could tell which one was anchovy and which one was concombres which is cucumber.’

Small wonder that when I was a child I didn’t just adore Eloise, I wanted to be her.

Photograph: Cover of ‘Eloise in Paris’ by Kay Thompson, illustrated by Hilary Knight.

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The Midnight Hours

 

‘Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, the death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast.’

                                                                                                            William Shakespeare

 

Shakespeare knew a lot about sleep, especially insomnia. He often alluded to the fact that sleep is crucial to our wellbeing; a nourishing sleep is essential for restoring both body and mind. And while we sleep the brain sorts out our tangled thoughts and soothes us.

In Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s guilt about Duncan’s murder escalates to the point that she can no longer sleep. Hallucinations and nightmares haunt her, she obsessively washes her hands, becomes irrational, rants, raves, cannot bear to be alone and sleepwalks.

Quite some time ago I purchased a new bed frame and mattress that was known as the Kabuki Package. It was all sharp lines, black metal, very chic and it looked terrific in my apartment. I was delighted with it – until I tried sleeping on it. I then discovered that the mattress was decidedly uncomfortable, and way too short for the bed. To make matters worse there was nothing at the end of the bed frame to stop the mattress sliding down.

The absconding mattress meant that that at approximately 3am, my pillow would slip through the substantial gap at the top of the bed and disappear. Then if I got up to turn the light on, there was a good chance that I’d crack my shins on the protruding metal edges of the bed frame.

After enduring a few nights of insomnia, I morphed into Lady Macbeth. And one night at about 4am, I got up, fixed myself a nightcap, sat down at my desk and fired off a letter to the manufacturer of the Kabuki Package. Unfortunately I broke the cardinal rule regarding angry/sleep deprived letters – I sent it off without allowing a cooling off period.

I had to laugh when I got around to reading what I’d written. And things got even more surreal when I received the manufacturer’s reply. He came across as a decent bloke, who was a under the impression that he was dealing with a madwoman.

For not only had I bullet pointed what was wrong with the goddamned Kabuki Package, I’d also explained in great detail the psychological damage his bed was causing me and what could be done to fix a major design flaw. Furthermore, in closing I’d suggested that the root cause of Lady Macbeth’s affliction was that she too had undoubtedly experienced the Kabuki Package. Oh my. After it was all sorted out, I swore off letter writing in the midnight hours.

Many hormones are hard at work during the night while we are sleeping, to make us fit for the next day. Sleeping is a highly active process. But irrationality in the midnight hours is quite common due to hormones secreted by the human body. The hormone Melatonin dilates the peripheral blood vessels and signals the body to go to sleep. But Melatonin also lowers mood, causes us to ruminate and fret and makes our problems seem overwhelming. Then miraculously – when the morning light reaches our retina – Melatonin is suppressed and we wake up.

Cortisol – known as a stress hormone – also enters the fray at about 3am and gets to work preparing us to wake up. So if we are already stressed the body releases even more Cortisol which keeps us awake and we miss out on our restorative sleep.

I’ve always admired the way the average domestic cat sleeps nods off so easily and never passes up the opportunity for a quick kip. They also seem to be very content with life most of the time.

Photograph: Film poster,  Mercury Productions ‘Macbeth’ 1948. Directed by and starring Orson Welles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Goodbye to Autumn

 

 

It’s great.

Having an autumn lie-in.

As the host.

Haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

 

Today is the last day of our autumn and tomorrow winter comes to town. It’s been a superb autumn; because it’s been so dry, the leaf colours have been exceptional. There’s been whole carpets of gold and red leaves to shuffle through late at night when there’s a special stillness in the chill autumn air.

I love winter and look forward to unpacking my Euro filled down doona and breaking out the disreputable fake fur coats stashed in the back of my wardrobe. I’m already thinking of mulled wines, molten cheese toasties, pubs with open fireplaces and the sound of night rain on my garret roof.

Meantime friends and colleagues are battening down the hatches. They loathe the winter and dread its arrival. It’s not wise to rhapsodize about the pleasures of winter, when your friend has been bought low by flu and is morbidly fantasizing about their recent vacation in warmer climates.

I was raised as an English girl and in winter this involved prickly woollen thermal undergarments and fat globs of Vick’s Vapour Rub. Much as I like gum trees, the smell of Eucalyptus oil still triggers memories of scratchy wool and inhalations of vapour rub.

It’s strange how smells can take you back to childhood and often it happens when you least expect it. For some reason the smell of vanilla essence, when used in cooking, always provides nostalgic feelings of pleasure. But I can never remember where this memory comes from.

Apparently, Marcel Proust – he of the French madeleine cakes that triggered nostalgic childhood memories – went through several drafts of his famous novel, Remembrance of Things Past (À la recherche du temps perdu). In the first draft it was toast with honey that inspired nostalgic memories. In the second draft it changed to a biscotto and finally by the third draft he settled on a small, soft madeleine cake.

Thanks to Proust the simple madeleine became one of the most evocative and powerful metaphors in French Literature. Baked in scallop-shaped moulds and flavoured with lemon or almonds these little cakes went on to become more famous than its showier sisters. According to Proust it was the quick dip in hot tea that did it, for the tisane/tea bought out the full flavour of the madeleine and released a rush of involuntary childhood memories.

Not everyone is as keen on memories as Monsieur Proust.

‘One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory ’. Rita Mae Brown

 

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: Autumn inner city Melbourne

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Ode to an Old School Pub

 

I often sneak back to the old neighbourhood to meet friends. It’s become increasingly gentrified; old houses have been tizzied up and sold for exceedingly high prices. Subsequently many of the artists, writers, junkies, musicians, booze hounds, photographers, dressmakers, poets and reprobates, I once knew have moved on.

Some wisely moved up the coast to Byron Bay or disappeared overseas to live, whilst others crossed the river to suburbs that hadn’t gone upmarket. Leaving Fitzroy was the only option once rents skyrocketed and the old rental houses and gnarly old flats that had housed us all were gobbled up by property developers.

The saddest part about seeing an inner-city neighbourhood going upmarket is the destruction of magnificent old buildings. Due to the way the Heritage Laws work, this often means they end up being victims of facadism. The guts of many 19th and 20th buildings are ripped out and all that remains is the outer façade. Contemporary buildings are then blended with the original façade, but the building’s heart and soul are long gone. Leaving nothing behind except a few earthbound ghosts.

It can be spooky walking down a city street late at night and realising that hidden behind the façade of what was once a classic nineteenth century commercial building sprawls a massive supermarket. And that the top floor and roof has been ripped off to provide an open-air carpark where nefarious activities occur after hours.

But here’s the thing folks. There are still some pubs built in the 1800’s that have retained their original purpose, grace and style. How? Because some publicans flatly refuse to give into pokie machines, flat screen panels or serious renovation jobs that would suck the life out of their old school pub. The toilets and kitchen are usually re-plumbed and renovated but the pub still looks essentially the same as it always has.

My favourite pub was established in 1866 during the city’s boom period. The hotel is directly opposite the magnificent Fitzroy Town Hall built in 1863. This pub is chockers with old memorabilia: faded football photographs, old Fitzroy football jumpers suspended from the roof and 50’s to 80’s kitsch piled up on the wonky shelves. There’s a small black and white flickering television that sulks on the top shelf – flickering silently with snow static. There’s also a modest colour television in the front bar but the sound is always turned off in favour of music.

And tucked under the bar – where the wooden bar stools are all lined up – are little bronze hanging hooks for your bags and jackets. I love all the old dark wood in the joint, the wooden tables and stools and the creaking sound the floorboards make when you walk across the bare boards in your cowboy boots. And if the beer keg runs out, one of the bar tables has to be moved, so that the barman can lift the trap door and go down to the worn cellar steps to change the kegs over.

Leadlight windows tinge the fading sunlight and the façade is unchanged. There’s a small tower over the corner of the building, decorated with a unique rose motif. Inside the pub the lighting is warm and low and it’s especially cosy in winter when the open fires are lit. But in summer the aircon operates at full bore and it’s a great place to retreat to post beach. You can sit in the front bar sipping an icy cold vodka and soda and listen to the Town Hall clock chime the hours.

What’s more, the food that is served is recognizable. You know what the hell you are eating; it doesn’t need to be explained. It’s fresh produce, cooked simply but with flair, style and utterly delicious. Bar food that acknowledges that we’ve moved on from meat pies and rare steaks with three veg. Delectable food that caters to punters who are familiar with culinary diversity; Sunday roasts are listed on the blackboard menu next to curries, vegan burgers and risottos – and everyone is happy.

Locally produced beers are all on tap, as well as all your usual adult beverages. A coffee machine that would please a professional barista, sits at the ready but the tea drinkers are not so well catered for.

Last Sunday it seemed all the Bushell’s tea bags had run out. The barman searched all the 70’s kitchen canisters next to the coffee machine but found nothing. Nobody – including the tea drinkers – gave a rat’s arse. The punters were united, ‘ Oh come now, it’s a bar for godsake. ‘

Long live old school pubs!

 

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: The front bar at the Napier Hotel, Fitzroy.

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Our House

 

 

I was born in London but raised in Australia by English parents. The second house we lived in was referred to by my mother’s friends as ‘ Little England ’ , while some local kids rudely called it ‘ The Addam’s Family House ’. I thought the insult gave our place cachet, as there were replays of the 60’s sitcom on TV and it was very funny. I’d only seen a couple of episodes as my TV viewing could only be done when visiting friend’s houses. My mother thought television was terribly ‘ suburban ‘ and quite unnecessary. Interestingly enough, once my parents divorced they both bought televisions.

The opening words of The Addam’s Family theme song were:

‘They’re creepy and they’re kooky

Mysterious and spooky

They’re all together ooky

The Addams family

Their house is a museum

When people come to see ’em

They really are a scream

The Addams family…’

Admittedly our house was a little spooky viewed from the front gates. And it did seem rather sinister because of all the tall pine trees that dominated the front garden and overshadowed the house. The house was out of kilter with the suburban brick houses that lined the street. Its decorative half-timbered exterior, steeply pitched gable roof and over-scaled chimney made it an oddity.

It was rumoured that the bachelor who’d built the house in the 1930’s had been a homesick Englishman. Apparently, he’d created a Tudor-style house on a small scale, with solid oak beams, leadlight windows, a large open fireplace, and quirky nooks. His pretensions to the Tudor’s grandeur were undermined by the smallness of the rooms. This was a bit odd, given the size of the block of land which was large and could easily have sustained a bigger house. But it also meant that the front garden was quite big, with many mature trees and an enormous ghost gum leering over the front gates.

My mother spent a lot of time decorating each room with antiques and faux antiques. Each room had a colour theme. Visitors often remarked that the red dining room with its shining silver, champagne bottles and red glassware looked like Christmas. She also gave free reign to her taste in heroes and Napoleon Bonaparte featured heavily on the walls fighting various bloodied campaigns in brutal locations and inclement weather. I always felt sorry for his horses who always seemed to be falling down ravines or stumbling across impossible snow-capped terrain.

Hanging above the telephone, just below the leering gargoyle lamp, was an etched print of Napoleon as a sullen faced baby. When some randy schoolboy was on the phone unsuccessfully trying to chat me up, I would notice Napoleon listening in and eyeballing me disapprovingly. He wasn’t the only one either – even the gargoyle seemed to be smirking at the absurdity of it all.

Our house looked substantial but some of the woodwork wasn’t as solid as it looked. The hallway – which appeared to be panelled in solid oak – was comprised of flimsy wood that creaked when one of us kids was shoving the other up against the panelling.

When my sister and I had been banished to the kitchen – so my parents could entertain the adults with fine cuisine and copious quantities of red wine – we made damned sure that our parents guests got to hear the creaking panelling. Such subversive action was guaranteed to make my mother lose her sophisticated English mannerisms.

At the time I deeply regretted that I hadn’t been born into the Addam’s family, as their two children indulged in all manner of ‘ inappropriate ’ behaviour. And because the Addam’s family was so whacky it was their straight, conservative neighbours who were deemed strange!

by Lesley Truffle

 Photograph: The Addams Family – Lurch the family butler, Gomez Addams who is madly in love with his elegant wife, Morticia Addams, Wednesday their daughter and Pugsley with his pet crocodile. There were also other strange and fascinating characters throughout the series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Mad Boy

 

Lord Gerald Berners was a talented musician and painter. He also wrote for the stage and his impressionistic paintings continue to sell well today (that’s Gerald in the photograph above). He converted Faringdon House, in Oxfordshire England, into a luxurious country mansion that soon had England’s fashion set vying for a weekend invitation. Exquisite food, exotic plants and flowers, fine wines, central heating, hunting and brilliant conversation attracted London’s acknowledged beauties, adventurers, courtesans, wits, artists, musicians, politicians and socialites.

I’ve just finished reading a marvellous non-fiction book titled, The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me, by Sofka Zinovieff. It’s a true account of life at Faringdon House.

Gerald Berners was an aesthete in possession of wit, acute intelligence and great charm. He was prone to dramatic mood swings, frequently followed by exuberance. Prior to visitors arriving, Farningdon’s white doves would be bathed gently in coloured dyes, dried off and then set free to form a cloud of flashing colours. Plumed birds-of paradise, flamingos and storks strutted around the gardens and freely entered the house.

Salvador Dali loved Faringdon and became smitten with the large tower, a folly, that his Lordship had built on the rural property. Zinovieff writes that Gerald – like many other humourists – recognized ‘frivolity as the most insolent refinement of satire’.

In about 1931, Gerald fell in love with a man twenty-eight years younger than himself. Robert Heber-Percy was twenty years old and known as The Mad Boy. He had a reputation for bad behaviour and had no desire to conform, even though he’d been raised in aristocratic circles and provided with an expensive public school education. The Mad Boy knew the rules and conventions but chose to flaunt them.

Robert loved to ride his horse around the estate bareback – often while naked – and he spent his life crashing expensive cars. Reckless, handsome, dark-eyed and athletic he entertained Gerald with his antics, while contributing greatly to the organization of the large estate. Robert was highly sexual and although he had a sexual preference for men, he sometimes became intensely involved with women. Much to the surprise of his friends and his enemies, Robert managed to get married twice.

One of my favourite scenes in Zinovieff’s book is when Robert is entertaining some dreary hunt members in the drawing room. Gerald chooses to avoid them but then requires a book from the drawing room. So he covers himself in a large rug, slithers into the room on all fours, removes the book without revealing himself and slithers back out. When Robert asked him later why he’d done that, he coolly replied, ‘I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.’

What I loved so much about this book is the detailed observations of the eccentric, clever, bohemian characters. Nancy Mitford and her siblings were made welcome at Faringdon as were the Sitwells, Elsa Schiaparelli, Evelyn Waugh, Cecil Beaton, Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein, Marchesa Luisa Casati, Nöel Coward and many others. It was customary for Gerald’s and Robert’s friends to take the train to Oxfordshire and spend the the whole weekend at Faringdon. And they all signed the visitor’s book.

The style with which Gerald Berners spent his days; free of monetary concerns and actively creating art, music, exquisite parties and theatrical events seems to me to be a wonderful way to live. So many interesting people partied at Faringdon over the years and the author details their excesses, love affairs, disasters, creative endeavours and feuds.

The photographer, Cecil Beaton, doesn’t come off well at all. He and Robert loathed each other. Robert spread the story that initially Beaton had found him, divine. While staying at a friend’s country house, Robert tricked Beaton. He provided him with a hand-drawn map, directing Beaton up to his bedroom – supposedly for a late night assignation. When Beaton snuck up there in the middle of the night, he found himself in Gerald’s bedroom instead. Gerald sat up in bed with a knowing grin and murmured, ‘Cecil, I never knew you cared!’ Beaton put up with the teasing that followed but referred to Robert as Horrid Mad Boy.

Many years later, the Mad Boy had the pleasure of punching Beaton on the nose over a published personal insult regarding Gerald. Naturally the whole of London heard about the fight. Robert demonstrated no remorse and publicly declared that his action had made him feel much better.

Fortunately, well before the altercation, Beaton had already taken several photographs that appear in Zinovieff’s book. And it is these photographs, along with the work of other photographers, that contribute to the feeling that you’ve actually met Faringdon’s many visitors and maybe even dined in style at Lord Berner’s splendid table.

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: Lord Gerald Berners painting Moti, a visiting horse, who was made most welcome inside Faringdon House. Moti was also photographed having afternoon tea in the drawing room and peering out the front door. From ‘The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me’, by Sofka Zinovieff. Vintage publication 2014.

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The Chocolate Menace

Easter is here and the time is right for some serious chocolate overindulgence. But this year, following an increase in online wine sales, a group of online shopping researchers daringly stated that Australians are more interested in imbibing wine at Easter instead of gobbling up chocolate. Really?

No doubt wine drinking greatly increases during the Easter mini break as does gorging on foodstuffs generally. But perhaps there isn’t a national decrease in chocolate indulgence? Maybe it’s actually that we prefer making our  Easter chocolate purchases from specialized chocolate shops, supermarkets and department stores rather than online.

Who can resist all the coloured foil and exotic Easter egg displays? Teetering shelves of chocolate eggs, huge chocolate gift boxes, Bilbies (desert-dwelling marsupial omnivores) and giant chocolate rabbits tempt us in the supermarket. Or what about the lure of the elegantly displayed arrangements of handmade chocs in our lovely chocolate emporiums?

Just walking into Haigh’s Chocolates – situated in Melbourne’s Block Arcade – can make adults go weak at the knees. It’s not just the aroma of premium chocolate that brings us unstuck, it’s the mosaic tiles, the exotic glass canopy, intricate 19th century wrought iron and carved stone embellishments. And what’s more, you get to personally select each chocolate before it’s gently tucked into a slim, elegant box.

Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Ireland are famous for their dedicated gourmandization of chocolate but for years Australia has been knocking itself out to catch up. And we’ve done ourselves proud.

A couple of years ago the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization sternly informed the nation that the amount of chocolate we were eating was shameful. The CSIRO director played headmaster and stated, ‘If we were handing out report cards for diet quality Australia would only get a C.’

So why do sensible folk devour more chocolate than they should? Surely there must be more to chocolate than just a sugar hit coupled with a delectable mouth feel? Scientists have taken this question very seriously indeed and they’ve painstakingly analysed the chemical composition of chocolate.

Lurking underneath all the chemical formulas, information about neurotransmitters and 300 naturally occurring chocolate chemicals etc, lies a very simple fact – chocolate makes us feel good. Very, very good. Indeed many chocolate devotees are dancing with the Devil on a daily basis.

Just think, Phenylethylamine – a key chemical in chocolate – has become known as the love drug. It arouses feelings similar to being in love; such as alertness, excitement and a quickening of the pulse. My my. It’s also worth noting that chocolate releases blissful endorphins into the brain, which can mean a decrease in levels of both stress and pain.

As the Chilean-French filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky put it, ‘If God gives you chocolate, you open your mouth, no?’

by Lesley Truffle

 

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Freud’s Cigar

 

‘Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.’

Dr Sigmund Freud 1856 -1939.

 

In my novel The Scandalous Life of Sasha Torte, Sasha is introduced to the famous Austrian neurologist Dr Sigmund Freud, at The Sperl Café in Vienna. Sasha Torte – world famous Tasmanian pastry chef – is very taken with the Sperl and Vienna’s ornate architecture. ‘It has much in common with grandiose wedding cakes.’

Freud became known as the father of psychoanalysis. Psychiatrists, psychologists, journalists, feminists, historians and researchers have spent decades dissecting Freud’s theories but the debate still rages.

Much has been written and Freud has been accused of everything from being an unrepentant womanizer/misogynist to fictionalizing his research – but there is no denying the fact that Freud continues to fascinate.

A measure of his fascination is that for several decades, stand-up comedians have utilized Freud’s theories to riff on the chaotic state of the human mind. And Freud’s Oedipus Complex theory, Dream Analysis and Wish Fulfillment have provided endless fodder for literature, film and the fine arts.

In high school I developed an unhealthy interest in Freud’s theories about the divided self. Put very simply, Freud’s theory is that we all have an Id (instincts, primitive wants and desires – your wild child), Ego (reality, tries to juggle logic and reason – your grown-up self) and Superego (morality, philosophical and morals – your quest for perfection).

I found it soothing to think that my problems might be due to the fight going on inside me between my Id, Ego and Superego. It also helped explain what the hell was going down with the derailed adults around me. But fortunately I decided there were many other strange factors contributing to divorce, adultery, domestic violence, dedication to hard liquor and wild boar hunting.

At university while studying Psychology I developed an interest in Freud’s clinical work; treating patients through psychoanalysis to ease anxiety and depression rather than resorting to radical medical intervention. Psychoanalysis was revolutionary in the late 1800’s when many ‘hysterical’ women were being coerced into having surgery on their genitals to ‘normalize‘ their emotional state.

Dr Freud also developed therapeutic techniques such as free association; His patients would talk about what was topmost in their minds and allow Freud to analyze what it all meant. He was big on subtext and hidden meanings.

Freud was a heavy cigar smoker and supposedly said, ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’. As many of his theories directly relate to uncontrolled libido and wild sexual impulses, this statement can be interpreted as meaning that a phallic-shaped object such as a cigar, doesn’t necessarily have to have any subtext. It just is.

Despite his intense seriousness Freud was an interesting and complex man. He not only fathered six children within eight years to his wife, Martha Freud, but he dabbled in cocaine and fought bitterly with his friend and colleague, Carl Jung. Bizarre photographs exist of the two men bonding on a rather gloomy expedition to the Arctic and an African big game hunting safari. Jung looks dismayed posing for the camera with Freud, lethal weapons and their big game booty.

Freud openly supported the use of cocaine as a tool for exploring the human psyche. At the time cocaine was expensive but freely available from pharmacies as erythroxyline. And it was quite the done thing for clinical researchers to experiment on themselves.

Cocaine may well have influenced Freud’s work The Interpretation of Dreams; for Freud believed dreams were, ‘the royal road to the unconscious’. In 1884 he wrote a paper on the merits and joys of cocaine titled, Über Coca. He wrote it as ‘a song of praise’ and described his first experience with Cocaine as, ‘the most gorgeous excitement’.

Some writers – including researcher Dominic Streatfeild – believe that Freud was responsible for popularizing the use of cocaine. Streatfeild wrote, ‘If there is one person who can be held responsible for the emergence of cocaine as a recreational pharmaceutical, it was Freud.’

But like most things relating to Freud, there is still no real agreement. Was Freud a raving coke fiend hell bent on destroying his nasal passages? Or was he simply a dedicated and intrepid researcher?

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: Dr Sigmund Freud and his cigar.

 

 

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The Dangers of Fancy Cooking

 

When I was a child I couldn’t understand why a large part of the world lacked essential food and clean water – and were frequently starving – while the rest of the world were either dieting like fiends or noshing on exotic food stuffs in fancy, expensive restaurants.

Not much has changed.

I find the epicure section in my newspaper comedic. Once a week food writers present the findings of their research into all the latest nosheries, bars, cafes and food trucks. Anything that is new and innovative is talked up – even if it means paying through the nose to dine off chunks of blackened cauliflower, whilst sitting under the bare light globes of a re-purposed railway station.

Celebrity chefs are lauded for their recent excursion into personal health and wellness and treated with the utmost respect. Some chefs have dramatically halved their weight and are photographed working out at a gym or shadow boxing.

The dark, moody photographs of sweating chefs provide the illusion that they are tough noir film characters. If Bogart was alive he’d be weaned off the cigarettes and whiskey and cast as a celebrity chef.

Chefs who are on record as disparaging vegetarian menus are now ‘embracing’ their inner vegan. Instead of getting rat-faced at the end of service, they’re now sipping Matcha tea before heading home for an early night. And so it goes.

The hedonistic days of Anthony Bourdain and his band of piratical chefs staying up all night to partake in debauchery, blotter acid, cocaine, Stoli, heroin and Cristal champagne are long gone.

Bourdain’s book, Kitchen Confidential documented what went down in the 80’s and 90’s –

‘Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.’

‘Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans … are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.’

These days even folk who eat at home are desperate to refine their culinary intake. I enjoy the weekly column of Richard Cornish in the AGE newspaper, answering emails from aspiring cooks. There are questions about cakes that fail to rise to the occasion, jams that refuse to set and dodgy eggs that ruin the Sunday brunch.

Recently there was a home cook who’d been publicly shamed at a suburban BBQ when her onions blackened and turned dry. Cornish soothingly advised her to keep the flame low, heap the chopped onions into a pile and moisturize the onions like mad.

Cornish has some followers who feel a desperate need to challenge his advice or berate him over what they perceive as an appalling oversight. Usually they’re wrong. But to his eternal credit, when the reader is right, Cornish publishes the critical letter and his response.

Cornish has a marvellous sense of humour as did the late food writer/journalist AA Gill.  Adrian Gill’s cutting wit, naked honesty and beautiful prose make his writing a real treat. In his biography, Pour Me: A Life, Gill writes about his wild ride into food criticism and his early days at British society magazine, Tatler.

Gill strongly makes the point that he wasn’t wasting the years prior to succeeding as a writer.

‘… I wasn’t wasting time, I was banking it, and I discovered that in writing and in cooking and gardening and fucking and whist, experience always trumps cleverness. There’s no substitute for having been there and got it under your fingernails.’

Yes indeed.

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: Cover of Anthony Bourdain’s book, Kitchen Confidential Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Bourdain is on the far left.

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