Bite-size Stories

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.