Bite-size Stories

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.

These small, sweet pancakes were my favorite growing up. I remember whole apple slices being browned in the still-sizzling pan. Fond memories of the place where I grew up, in the country that doesn't exist.  I often think I have two lives. My first twenty years spent on steep hills above Dnepr. Heavy chestnut tree blossoms and heady lilac flood the streets as you climb back up from the river. Kiev. The next twenty-five are coming to an end in sunburned, windswept Melbourne.  One day, there will be a pen, sharp and witty, factual and insightful, that will tell the whole story. Chaotic, intense, and often agonizing times that pushed a whole generation away from home.  And I, for now, just keep my food memories to connect what I had been with what I have become.