The Aussie alphabet: M is for morning tea

Morning tea. Now there is a custom that needs to be adopted in the US.

Morning tea - not just a cup of something hot at around 10 or 10:30 in the morning, like the American coffee break.

Morning tea has tea, yes; coffee (always - this is Australia where they are serious about coffee). But there's more! Because you can't drink tea or coffee without a little bit of something to go with it, can you?

Scones. Banana bread or carrot cake. Lamingtons (yuck, but some people like). Even brownies. Or savoury treats like mini-quiches. Often bite-sized so you can have more than one or two. Sometimes fruit. Mmmmmm. You almost don't need lunch.

No conference, meeting, or gathering that happens in the morning will fail to offer you morning tea. It's part of the deal. Always good to know in case you didn't leave yourself enough time to eat breakfast; you needn't worry that you'll faint before lunchtime. Morning tea to the rescue.

I shouldn't leave M, though, without mentioning 'mate' and mateship. 

Mate = friend, buddy, pal; can be used as a noun ('my mates are coming by later') or a form of address to virtually anyone regardless of how well you know them ('hey mate, how're you going?' - to a friend you haven't seen in a while; 'no worries, mate' - to a stranger who has just apologised to you for some minor contretemps like bumping into you in a crowded space). In the past it was used mostly by men ('blokes') to other men. These days it's for anyone, though it seems to me I hear it mostly from blokes.

Mateship = an Australian value implying equality, loyalty, and friendship (says Wikipedia). A bit more intense than camaraderie. It comes up in military contexts where each one depends on and looks out for all the rest, a Band of Brothers kind of thing, or other circumstances in which a group of people share a common, usually difficult, experience.

The Oz series #2: food/morning tea

Ah...morning tea. Now this is a custom we should import to the US. It seems like wherever you are, be it at a conference, in class, weekday or weekend, around 10 AM there will be a break in the action and you'll have the opportunity to go get coffee or tea and a bite to eat. If you're in some sort of gathering of any size, it's likely the food and beverages will be provided by the host. The best thing is when someone invites you to their home for morning tea because you often get homemade goodies.
Even though it's called morning TEA, this is such an insane coffee culture that almost everyone gets coffee, but at least tea is available. The bites to eat tend to be sweet: little chunks of Danish, brownies, carrot cake, this horrible stuff called lamingtons (see photo, courtesy of www.benjaminchristie.com), that sort of thing. Sometimes there is fruit. It's great as long as you avoid the lamingtons. Unless you like them, of course. That white stuff sticking to the outside is coconut.

My favorite restaurant

Back in November I posted a photo of me with my peeps having lunch out at the Hundred Acre Bar. It is (so far) my favorite expensive restaurant in Brisbane. It's located on a public golf course in St. Lucia, about 2 miles from our house and a mile or so from campus. The menu is creative, focuses on seasonal foods, the wine list is broad and mostly reasonable, and the surroundings couldn't be better. And except for around the holiday season, you hardly ever need to book ahead.

I said Do you speak-a my language?

In my recent post discussing brekky in Oz, I neglected the most important breakfast item of all: Vegemite. It's not just for breakfast, of course, but it's frequently offered with toast. And just to be clear: I have NOT tried it.

The Oz series, #1: food/breakfast

I've been giving some thought to what people might actually want to know about life here in Oz, from the warped perspective of a Yank of a certain age. I've decided to do a series of posts on everyday items or experiences, starting with food.

Let's take it meal by meal and then we'll do snacks, perhaps with a trip to the supermarket.

Breakfast: anyone who knew me well enough in Cambridge knew I was a big, big fan of maple oatmeal scones from Darwin's Ltd. I'd have bite-size shredded wheat, Grape-Nuts, or granola some mornings, but I had a serious 4 to 5 scone a week habit. Sometimes, it would be bagels on a Sunday morning, or cinnamon rolls at Carberry's.

Here, you can get a pretty decent croissant and pain au raisin (French boulangerie style) in some of the local bakeries. Scones, however, are limited to the English/Bisquick style with raisins or sometimes dates & raisins. Muffins exist but are not very appealing visually. Donuts -- worse than Dunkin. As for bagels, I'm told you can get decent ones in Melbourne but they haven't made it to Brisbane yet.

I recently discovered unsweetened big (not bite size) shredded wheat -- all the minis have sugar added (go Kellogg's) -- at the supermarket. My vote for favorite breakfast item is cafe-style raisin toast. The cafes all serve this fluffy (not Wonder-fluffy, more like Arnolds or Pepperidge Farm) raisin bread sliced thick (about 1" per slice) and toasted. You can buy this bread in the supermarket under the brand name "Mighty Soft." Toasted at home and topped with some butter & cinnamon sugar, or pb & jam (you can get Bonne Maman jam!) it's about as good as it gets. For company, I make buttermilk pancakes using a very good recipe from epicurious.com, accompanied by real maple syrup imported from Canada, naturally.

For breakfast ("brekky") out, beyond the aforementioned raisin toast, there will usually be muesli with yoghurt & fruit, oatmeal, and plain toast on offer. Those who want the classic Brit greasy fry-up can get it: eggs, bacon (American-style is called "streaky bacon"), hash browns, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast are the building blocks of this artery-clogger.

why Oz is almost as fat as the US

This was one of the lunch offerings at the Celtic fest. Just your ordinary mega-caloric stuffed baked potato.

Phil's unofficial office

Here are Phil, another Phil (R) and John (L) having a 'meeting' -- and by that I mean having coffee -- at Wordie's, one of the campus cafes. It's really called Wordsmith's, but this being Australia, one is compelled to shorten it in that amusing way they do here...

Candy at the newsstand

Here's a shot of the candy counter at the campus newsstand. You can also get USB drives, cold drinks, Go cards for public transport, and you can drop off your dry cleaning!