Bite-size Stories

Year 1B group dynamics were complicated. One thing, however, was obvious. The most desirable position of all was to be Marina's best friend. I held the office for exactly one recess. We had a whole-school assembly that day, and Marina, a tiny blue-eyed queen bee with a long blonde braid, had forgotten to wear white socks. This was impossible. Unthinkable. Nobody could appear at a full primary school assembly without white socks. Fortunately, I lived close enough to school to run home unnoticed and return before anyone realised I had disappeared. Barely able to contain my excitement, I offered to rescue Marina. I would fetch the socks. It was the high point of my entire Year 1. For one glorious recess, I ate my sandwich with Marina while the other girls looked on. Then Lena decided she wanted some of the limelight too. Lena was the tallest girl in our class and my neighbour.  Living next door to Lena felt like having a distant relative on the Moon. I had been to her ap...

The Friendship Strategy Spring was rushing towards summer, and it was nearly the end of my first year at school. Most of my friends looked forward to the holidays. I dreaded that. I knew the summer Pioneer camp was approaching. I was far too young to be a Pioneer. The honour began at ten, which meant I still had three years before I could officially devote myself to the construction of Communism through extensive marching. Unfortunately, summer camp had no such age restrictions. My mother, who had grown up attending Pioneer camps, was already making plans to send me. She admitted that she had hated them too, but believed strongly in discipline, fresh air, and exercise. And, as far as I could tell, marching. I wanted to stay home and read books. Not because I was a dissident. At seven, I had no political opinions whatsoever. My concerns were far more serious. I had recently discovered books and found them vastly superior to discipline and organised recreation. As usual, my mother was wi...

The Soviet Union spent a great deal of time and money attempting to turn children into model citizens. The results were mixed. In my case, there was simply a persistent series of misunderstandings. This collection contains several incidents involving gladioli, books, milk, Pioneer camps, Lenin, firearms, organised recreation and other childhood hazards of the 1970s and 1980s. None of the lessons described here should be relied upon. Most of them ended badly. I survived anyway. Chapter 1 — The Gladiolus Problem Or How to Transport a Bouquet Larger Than Yourself. At six and three-quarters, I was the second smallest child in my kindergarten group. I was a fussy eater, disliked sport, and was about to begin school. My new school uniform had been purchased well in advance by my mother and was at least two sizes too large. The dress reached somewhere below my knees and suggested a future I had not yet grown into. The academic side of school did not concern me. I had already passed the ...

📖 The Rooms We Live In — Contents 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 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. My father swears loudly at the man in the grey suit with the square face. The voice is grey too, I think. He is new. Usually, the nightly news is read by an ageless woman who looks like my school principal, only with heavier lipstick. The television sits ...

📖 The Rooms We Live In — Contents   I never met her. My father did not have a single photograph of Rosa, his mother. Nor of her sister, who studied voice at the Kyiv Conservatory, her older brother, who later made his name in medicine, or their parents. They owned this apartment before the revolutions, before the wars, before the communal kitchens and Czech wall units. In the years after the Revolution, the apartment began to shrink. Another family was assigned several rooms. Doors that had once connected bedrooms and sitting rooms now separated neighbours. By the time war came, Rosa's world occupied only part of the apartment she had grown up in. But back in 1916, the building was brand new. The streets around the old centre were filled with curved balconies, coloured tiles, wrought iron and tall windows. The balcony doors stayed open late into summer evenings.  Music drifted upward from the synagogue and mingled with the sounds of the streetcars below.  At night, the p...

📖 The Rooms We Live In — Contents   "We’ll go to Vova’s tonight," my father says. Vova—my father's childhood friend and guitar virtuoso—is back from the prison camp. During the occupation, the Germans moved new families into the rooms left empty by evacuated families. One of them was Tasia and her son, Vova.  By the time I was born, four families lived in the apartment, each occupying a room and sharing the long corridors, bathroom, and communal kitchen. My father and Vova grew up together there. Whenever Vova returned, my father became animated in a way I rarely saw. His voice lost its gruff edge as he slipped into the slang he used only with Vova. Around Vova, my father always seemed younger. I know Vova is back. I saw him in the kitchen early in the morning, wearing only his grey singlet and boxer shorts. The smell around him was a heady mix of sweat and unfamiliar cigarettes. He was making his tea. He emptied an entire packet of black tea leaves into a thick faceted ...

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, like rich Oaxacan embroidery, stretched below me.  It glowed in the morning light. 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 Micaela waiting outside. Her car blocked the alleyway near the hotel ...

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-class 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’s 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 am one of...

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 Curtain childhood is personified by Herring in a Fur Coat — a pickled herring dressed in seven layers of pungent veggie swagger. Nothing captures the kitsch of Soviet life — the outrageously tacky, overdone aesthetic — 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 shadeless Soviet grey, 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 Kyiv and Moscow to New York, Melbourne, and Monte Carlo — where the people go, Herring in a Fur Coat goes too. It doesn't sound promising. Pickled herring layered with onion and dill beneath grated beetroot, potato, carrot, egg, and homemade mayonnaise shouldn't work. Yet somehow it does. It's earthy, salty,...

Le Baron Wine Bar, Chexbres, Swiss Alps Just a small coffee table between us now. Ten years and ten thousand miles apart, and it 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 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 Lake Geneva. 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.