Bite-size Stories

This story began with a door hidden behind a Czech sideboard in a Kyiv apartment and slowly became a story about the people who lived there before me. About rooms, memory, and the strange things that survive history. This is Part 1. The Door Mathematics tomorrow. I remembered late. I am in Year 4, and homework still feels sacred. Besides, Sashka Popov will never let me copy his work. I spread my books across the dining table.  My father jumps up from his chair in front of the television.  Loud and animated, he shouts at the referee on the screen. It is the semi-final: Dinamo Kyiv against Spartak Moscow. Dinamo is leading by one goal. The Central Stadium stands at the end of our street. The old city feels flooded with football fever. The rolling hum enters through the open balcony doors. The game is nearing full time. The referee gives Dinamo another penalty. The clock strikes nine. The match disappears. Nine is time for Vremya. Mechanical trumpets explode from the television. ...

It was 6 am and I could see the Zócalo from my window. I couldn't take my eyes off it. The sacred ceremonial centre of Tenochtitlan. The beating heart of Mexico City. The red pavement reflected in the morning light like rich Oaxacan embroidery stretched below me. Even that early, it was already loud — traffic, heat, cathedral bells. She was parked in a no-parking zone right across from the Gran Hotel de la Ciudad, where I was staying.  "Impossible to park near the Zócalo," she said, stretching out her hand. "Micaela." Short dark hair, large expressive eyes fixed on me, a cigarette balanced in the corner of her mouth. We were probably the same age, I thought. "Nothing good or easy ever comes out of the Gran Ciudad," she told me later. Micaela was my guide. I had booked a day trip around Mexico City months earlier for Veronica and me. That morning, Veronica woke up sick, and I had a guide waiting outside. Her car blocked the alleyway near the hotel entra...

It is not sensible to walk a Chihuahua through a dark park while singing ABBA. I come over for sleepovers and she walks me at night. This is not sensible. I am a Chihuahua. If you ask me, it’s a strategic error.  It’s already dark, and I can’t see much beyond the end of my nose.  This is not a time for emotional expression. This is a time for perimeter control. I am small, but I am not careless. I scan constantly for movement, sound and scent. This is what professionals do. She starts belting out ABBA as soon as we hit the park. I know all her songs by heart, because I have to. The Winner Takes It All is acceptable. It provides a steady 4/4 beat, allowing me to maintain rhythm while I scan for the Great Nugget. There is order to it. I can work with that. Fernando is also useful. It usually means we are heading home. There will be sardines. This is a reliable system. What I really hate is One of Us. I don’t understand why we have to stop every time.  The loud part....

Working mornings don’t usually sound like freshly baked raspberry slice and coffee. They sound like city-bound trains spilling colourful crowds into narrow Melbourne alleyways - a funnel into cubicles, paper jams, and meetings in buildings that never quite made sense to either of us. Years ago, we ran through those same buildings with Starbucks in hand, speaking in accents that made no sense to anyone but us. Or so we were told by people who weren't really listening. Someone called us the Dynamic Duo. But we knew better - two outsiders, on the hunt for good coffee, the nearest exit, and a good laugh. Workdays were never really about food, though restraint was never my forte. At +39, I blamed the Italian accent for the bruschetta. At Sahara, autumn light leaned through the window and for a moment, the air smelled of spice, wine, and a city pretending to be somewhere else. For an hour or two, it almost worked. These are the moments that stay. Not the meetings. Not the paper jams. Not...

I am on a coastal hike. One of the things I didn’t expect, between ocean swims, morning yoga, and kayaking, is the people who join these hikes. I’m sitting in the lounge room, drenched in sunlight. On my left is a quiet, almost statuette-like woman in her late seventies, reading a book.  I look at the unobstructed ocean in front of us and think about her. She had been a Human Rights Commissioner, appointed by Kevin Rudd. She grew up on a farm. As a child, she was struck by a truck and spent years recovering. Now she has found a small space in the shade on an expensive mint-coloured couch, quietly immersed in her book. Our group dynamic would not be the same without the plastic surgeon, who keeps himself on the front deck, his naked torso, indifferent to the sun, perched right above the sea. He made it clear on the day we met that it was them, the five Levines, who made the trip possible. His wife and three grown-up children had taken all the spots required for the walk to go ahead....

I was having breakfast at 12:30. On a Wednesday. My God, I love a late breakfast. Is there anything worth enjoying before nine in the morning? Not by me. Of course, I know this road leads to a cruel reality: sooner or later, I’ll be back to dry toast and scorching coffee with my eyes closed at 6:30 a.m. Inevitably. But for now, we’re in the “Walk, Don’t Run” kind of mood. Literally — that’s the café. A bit Japanese, a little posh, like most things in Armadale. Everything on the menu is “activated” or “cold-pressed,” the Melbourne gospel of health. I never bother with either. It feels rebellious enough to order plain eggs in a place this pure and polished. My companion, admittedly trendier than me, chose the porridge — quinoa, almond milk, poached pear, rhubarb, pomegranate, goji berries. Seventeen dollars and a halo. I’m not judging. I just hope we can stay friends after that. And maybe, on the way out, I’ll ask for a deconstructed coffee — if only to smooth over the quinoa betw...

I am full of good intentions, I truly am. Healthier habits. Earlier walks. Lighter breakfasts. Tomorrow. This morning, of course, it was raining — and even my dog refused the beach. So I congratulated myself on compromise: Organica, temple of green juice and activated virtue. Even reading the menu feels like biting into an organic apple. I began nobly with an espresso and a juice of every fruit available. But then the woman at the next table received her French toast: buttery, crisp, fragrant with rhubarb and maple syrup. No, of course not, I told myself. But to the waiter I said: Yes, please. So there it was: a breakfast of one healthy juice and one guilty, golden, berry-crowned French toast. Oh well. I’ll have a celery stick for lunch. Promise.

It is not terribly exciting to be a sandwich. Like it or not, you need to know your place in the stylish world of delectables. You can’t compare yourself to the ever-popular desserts. Those snobby chocolate types, draped in strawberries, won’t even look your way. Nor can you compete with fancy salads and hearty soups — they get to play with ingredients, stay on trend, and make themselves look handsome. It’s hard to be noticed when you’re a working-guy sandwich. All you can offer is a simple filling and an even simpler purpose: to feed the office types rushing about their daily business. They’ll have their moment later with sophisticated dinner sorts, but now all they want is a quick bite. But let me be honest. If you’re a sandwich from Earl Canteen - made to order, with roast pumpkin and gorgonzola piccante, or free-range pork belly with apple, cabbage and fennel — you’ve made it. You’re on par with the sit-down dinners served at night, with dim lights and grown-up conversation. I ...

The sun loves Melbourne. In summer it is a harsh and demanding lover, but in autumn, its tender light spills gold from the trees, leaving the town half-naked for winter. I am off to Sahara, Melbourne in autumn, dressed as Morocco. Melbourne in autumn. A narrow stairway leads to a room scented with spice, warm with Moroccan charm. Tagine, kofta, wine. We talk of life, faraway places, the past and the future. The wide window lets autumn in. Faces, food, and stories steep in Moroccan spices, glowing in golden light. Autumn sun loves Melbourne the most.

This story is not about how we met at +39 Pizza Bar on a bustling Melbourne laneway for the love of pizza. It is not about how too much food was ordered. Food restraint is not my forte. This time I blame it on the Italian accent—perhaps rehearsed, but still, not helpful when it comes to saying no to a plate of bruschetta. Neither is this a story about the bottle of red we shared. I am not even going to mention how it had a grape-stomping party in my head the morning after. This is a short story about moments of life, little stills stitched together by the thread of time. Moments like these are the brightest threads in that thick, strangely cut fabric.

Italians grew up with ai frutti di mare ; the French with boeuf bourguignon . My iron-curtained past is personified by Herring in Fur Coat -  a pickled herring dressed in seven layers of pungent veggie swagger. Nothing embodies the kitsch of Soviet life - the outrageously tacky, overdone ways - better than this playful dish. Its taste and colour stood in stark contradiction to the drabness of daily life. Naively optimistic, desperate to inject brightness into the grey Comi-collage, people served this magenta salad as the centrepiece of any gathering or celebration. The Empire may be gone, but this souvenir from the Motherland endures. From communal flats in Kiev and Moscow to New York, Melbourne and Monte Carlo - where the people go, Herring in Fur Coat goes too. You may think your palate isn’t ready for the experiment. But baked beets, mixed with grated waxy potatoes and carrots, boiled eggs, and homemade mayonnaise, all layered over pickled herring laced with onion and dill, ...

Le Baron Wine Bar, Chexbres, Swiss Alps. Just a small coffee table between us now. Ten years and ten thousand miles apart felt like only yesterday, when all we had were memories - prized, collectible possessions, once given to us with such generosity. Silver threads of rain connect us, cover the lake, tie us together. “Why does it rain every time we meet?” I ask. “It rains three hundred days a year in Chexbres,” you reply, ever practical. “No,” I laugh, “that’s not true — it would rain in the Sahara if you and I had a coffee there.” We order cognac, local cheese, fresh bread. What defence could I possibly have against this open smile, these dark eyes? None I could ever master. You, me, and Geneva Lake. Nothing between us. Not even a small coffee table.

Tuesday mornings don’t usually sound like freshly made raspberry slice and mulled wine. They sound like City-bound trains, spilling colorful crowds into Melbourne’s narrow alleyways, cubicles, and paper jams. Yet when the good things arrive, even in small batches, they sound like coriander-spiced falafels, buoyant poached eggs, warm corn and black bean fritters, and apple juice. At Hawk & Hunter Small Batch, mulled wine in hand, I watch the trains inhale the crowds while my morning hums like a raspberry slice.

You kept asking me why I want to go. You’d say I always leave you, and I’d remind you: I always come back. I will come back again. I just have to go and see where the Champs-Élysées flows into the Arc de Triomphe, and sit under the chestnut tree. When I return, I’ll bring you all my stories and we’ll laugh together. You know me - such a tragic case, always stumbling into ridiculous situations, unprepared, naive, childlike. Maybe that’s the reason I go: to travel, to learn, perhaps even to grow up. When I return, I’ll bring gifts from rolling lavender fields and the Côte d’Azur. My skin will still carry the salty sea air and the taste of wine baths. My stories will be sweet and cheesy. French stories always are - pastry stories, golden with butter and dipped in chocolate mousse. There will be wine too, in glasses, bottles, and barrels. And a bottle for you and me will go so well with the sweet and cheesy.

I don’t do attachments when it comes to gastronomy. It’s hard to know what makes it work sometimes. I’ve tried them all: Mediterranean - charming, but a little too self-absorbed. Asian - endlessly exotic, but too much mystery. French - definitely some sparks, but once you’ve had it, you know what to expect. With the Mexican, though, the connection was instant. Complex yet relaxed, never revealing its secrets, always leaving me hungry for more.

For most, it’s just an odd-looking beetroot soup. For me, it’s much more than that. Kiev - the old town perched high on its steep hills, clasped by the river. In summer, its narrow streets are drenched in lilac and chestnut blossom, generous under the sun. In winter, snow falls in heavy flakes, turning the city shiny, grim, and mysterious in the dark. Kiev is grandma’s borsch. Flushed pink and pungent, impossible to forget, impossible not to return to. At twenty-three, I crossed Australian border security with two hundred dollars, a suitcase, a new husband, and a baby bump. Who needs more to start a life? What I didn’t know was that beetroot soup came too, undeclared. It was the most important of all possessions. Decades later, it still is. Because the most important possession is who you are.

I didn’t want the night to slip away. I wanted to hold the warm spring air in my lungs and the red wine in my veins. Chez Janou - bright yellow walls, a handful of tables under chestnut trees. Laughter, small talk, plates carried outside, and the sense that Paris needs no staging. Life was simply unfolding around us. Glass in hand, I asked the bartender, “Tell me about French wine.” He looked at me, his dark southern eyes lit with laughter. “All you need to know,” he said, “is that there are two types of wine: French, and all others.”

120 Hardware Street, Melbourne This little cafe is like a pocket guide to Paris, complete with teeny-tiny counter seats, Croque Madame, Cassoulet Et Eggs and excellent service. I tried the superb confit duck with chestnut puree and potato gratin ($22.00) with a glass of Abellio Alberino ($8.50). One of the 'it' places in Melbourne for quite a while now, eating out at Hardware Societe is more like a cultural event, complete with walking through the Melbourne lane ways and queuing out front. You will need to be ready to forgo your weight loss program, but who wants to be on a diet, when you can have a fried brioche with lemon curd instead! Confit duck with chestnut puree and potato gratin Mon to Fri 7:30 am - 3:00 pm Sat to Sun 8:30 am - 2:00 pm

If the reader prefers, this can be read simply as a recipe. One that coaxes ruby-red tenderness from the hard and inedible fruit. When I first came across it in Gourmet Traveller , I was desperate for an antidote to the winter blues. Winter is not the kind of fair you buy a ticket to. Like it or not, you’re in attendance, with or without your scarf and gloves. The daily orchestra of rain, with its endless wind chorus, sets sadness even in the most joyful of souls. This questionable composition plays on for months, until its natural end. Deep in suburbia, I was ready for battle. Armed with vanilla, a cinnamon quill, and lemons, I set my eyes on a pair of quinces. I needed burgundy from the virtues of poaching. Instead, I found happiness - and a taste of spring itself. Ingredients From Gourmet Traveller with some small changes. 800g organic coconut sugar 1 vanilla bean, split 2 lemon, cut in half 2 cinnamon quills 3 star anise 2 or 3 large quinces Me...

Of course, there are better ways to tell a story - with intelligent characters, sophisticated dialogue, and a well-designed plot. This little tale, though, is all about dumplings. Tender pastry morsels filled with cherries. Back in Kiev, growing up, they were too lavish to have at any other time but cherry season, when the summer sun gave its abundance. At holiday houses, it was a family affair - hours around the garden table, folding small pockets of pastry, sometimes with blueberries, but mostly cherries, the favorite and the affordable. Fresh from the markets, they came in rattan baskets, carrying the sun in their burgundy weight. You’d split the flesh, prise out the stone, and carefully collect the thick, sweet juice for sauce. Each cherry was wrapped in a delicate pastry floret, sealing in its nectar. Allowed to eat with my hands, cherry juice streaked my face and dripped down my fingers. That’s how I learned: the messy things in life are often the best.