Author Archives: gerard oosterman

To Pare the Perfect Pear

05 Sunday Dec 2010

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To pare a perfect pear.

There is nothing quite like the perfect pear. Of all the fruit, surely the pear is king amongst all of them. Some might argue the durian is better. That choice comes from mainly the southern hemisphere. I remember a long arduous sea voyage where many Indians had taken with them enough durians to last them all the way to Freemantle. People, especially the 10 quid poms almost jumped ship well before landfall. Of course, even the smell of soap can make some poms feel sick.

Anyway, back to the pear. The flesh is grainy and unlike most fruit, it has a luscious sheen, a certain gloss that the apple for instance lacks. While the verb ‘to pare’ can be applied to some other things, I believe that the usage applied to the pear is what it was meant for.  Verbs are ‘doing’ words and the paring of a pear conjures up mum with a long perfect unbroken pear peel in the kitchen of food and eating pleasure. The peel was not only unbroken but it still had spring to it and was curled up as if wanting to get back onto its host. Too late for that though. The glistening fruit, dripping with juice was eaten, core and all, but not the stem.

And so….partake to peel and pare of the pleasing portion of a plump ripe pear!

Lehan and others; here the etching I did after seeing a pear picture on a poster, somewhere, many years ago.

Sydney Characters

02 Thursday Dec 2010

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Going through all those boxes of collected remnants I found some pictures taken when, for brief period, I had made a dark room in our garage and mucked around with taking pictures and developing them.

Here are some of people that I used to see regularly when strolling through Sydney’s back streets on my way to Argyle Cut and a studio somewhere above it. Was it Harrison Str.?

I would not mind if some of you still remember these men in the pictures. This one is of a news paper seller. An unusual character, totally focussed on spotting the next customer.  He was to be seen at the entrance to Botanical gardens or Hyde park, especially during those ‘concerts in the park’ events. Note his special bag and coin storer.

The second picture is of a more mysterious nature. For many years he was to be seen pushing a kind of large covered stroller. Perhaps it contained his whole world? Perhaps a refugee from Belsen or Auswitch, still unsure if the world had become a safer place. Perhaps a doctor whose qualifications were not recognized. Who knows?

The third picture gazing at the Opera House is of course from….?

And then an etching of a nude (woman), for some light relief.

Bee Boxes and Dove Tails

23 Tuesday Nov 2010

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The plight of adequate shelving inside homes is generally solved by buying shelving from shops. I will never understand architecture that supplies multitude toilets but no shelving. We, after our move from a place where the owner had installed so many shelving one could almost have sub-let to small Turkish families all the space taken up by it. Acres of book shelves!

After initially storing most of our books in milk crates, finally got some second hand antique bookshelves. Take the antique with a grain of salt, merely some dark stain applied to a light coloured background giving an aged look where perhaps only about thirty years might have passed. None the less, many books were hopefully shelved on those during its history and I have no reason to believe that only Car magazines or Playboys ever adorned those wooden surfaces. Here and there an attempt at patching the framework showed up, further proof that they had been used and that at least some time had passed.  This is a great consolation and a good omen when buying book shelves.

After many hours by Helvi of unpacking the milk crates, many books now found a more substantial, and hopefully final resting place. The milk crates were also a remnant of past history when I used to roam the Inner West, at the crack of dawn, for milk crates when I was making home brew beer in the garage.

The space for books on those shelves was still somewhat scarce and we went for another hunt. This time we drove again to ‘Dirty Jane’ where we had secured the previous shelving.

I noticed a couple of boxes that had a ticket written and pinned to them, ‘bee boxes, and kauri pine’ and ‘dove tailed’, thirty dollars each. I suppose, the bees, not in their wildest dreams, could ever have thought that their homes would end up shelving books. There you have it though. No more honey just books.

Mango Happy Hour on the Hume

22 Monday Nov 2010

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Mango Happy Hour on the Hume

While driving back from Sydney and just past Campbelltown (The ghost of Fisher) turn off, we kept noticing colourful signs with “Happy Mango Hour”. After another five kilometres or so the signs kept on appearing, stating,  “3km happy Mango Hour”,  “2km happy Mango Hour” till we arrived at a large parking spot with many semi trailers parked, as well as cars near another large truck. “Happy Mango Hour Here now,” heralded yet another sign on the truck.

We had arrived at the “happy Mango Hour.” The area is a popular truck stop over, also has drinking water and public toilet. The toilet was unisex but ‘naturellement sans pissoir,’ and as we all know, male toilet habits are less precise as that of females so Helvi quickly darted out, decided she could hang in till we arrived back in Bowral.

For Vivienne.

The truck with mangos was at the tail-end of trade, packing up with just a few cases of mangos left. We hit the Jackpot and were sold 22 glorious mangoes at twenty dollars. Two golden syrups, tall skinny boys were running the show, black and eagle eyed with large sharp noses. “Sri-Lankans we are;” after I asked where they came from. Turned out they drive each week-end from somewhere up north and then get this spot on the Hume, rightly guessing that way south, there would be keener mango lovers, perhaps with people as yet to come out of hibernation? An early touch of the tropics down south, as it were.

 Clever blokes, savvy like anything, cheerful like buggery, cottoning on ‘happy hour,’ quick flash and making a bit of dough. Good on them

Blue Illusion and Love

18 Thursday Nov 2010

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We had just settled to our first Zeffirellis coffee and a shared Danish, when we noticed a somewhat stroppy couple arguing about something or other. You know those couples that have had decades of ‘quality time’ time together and gone through thick and thin, hell for leather and with far too  few infidelities to reminisce and look back  on. In short, the sort of couple that was somewhat ragged for wear but still on a reasonable footing and with some good years ahead still.

“You would be so stingy”, I haven’t got a stitch to wear, just rags  around my clapped out bones,” she stated with some vehemence and loud enough for others to hear. Was he being shamed into something, we wondered? He was old enough to have learnt that ” I haven’t got a stitch to wear” really translates and certainly  heralds very clearly, “I am going shopping” and “no one can stop me.”  No man worth his salt would suggest going to Bunning’s to buy chip board or more brackets for some shelving. There is a lot in ‘I haven’t got a stitch to wear,’ far more that Bunnings could ever possibly offer.

We finished our coffee and went around town for a stroll and who would we come across but the quarrelling couple in front of a shop called ‘Blue Illusions.’ Her chin was firmly set, jutting forward, and he had a look of total compliance. (Not unlike a recent photo I had just seen of that much younger Royal couple that are planning getting conjugalized in the UK.) The scene was one of those moments of couples facing the situation of give and take. He gave up on the quarrel and smiled as she took steps inside this Blue Illusion.

 

Bowral’s St Jude with Barbecued Sausages Fund Raiser

14 Sunday Nov 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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It’s all quiet at the Southern Highlands Front now after a couple of manic and hectic months aided and relieved by Coliseum’s take away Pizzas and Royal Hotel special pub nosh of $10.- rump Steak with chips and salad. Helvi, as always, remained a beacon of serenity, sanity and calm.

Yesterday, our first day of some time off. ‘Quality time’ as popular parlance prefers to call it. Popping into the local C&E St Jude’s church long awaited and well heralded fund raiser it gave us the first opportunity to meet and savour the locals at; I suppose one of their favourite haunts, the local church.

We sauntered, somewhat worse for wear, but with the church’s age old cypresses and huge conifers shading us, giving us respite from multiple trailers haulage of personal stuff, such as obstinate settees, thousands of spoons and hordes of as yet un-shelved milk crated books, between ex- farm, Moss-Vale and a final resting place at Bowral. (See Mount Calvary post)

There, at St Jude’s, the usual face painting, lucky dips and stalls of hopeless superfluous household goods were for all to buy and boost the congregation’s coffers. There was a 1989 computer with the keyboard welded to the screen, a handy cabinet with pull-out drawers for cassettes and many transistor radios with pull-out antennas. Even, and surprisingly for C&E terrain, a bottle opener in the shape of a lewd naked woman. Many video tapes of The Sound of Music and King and I. Lots of Jane Fonda’s girth and weight reduction tapes with coloured manuals.

In between all that, Helvi with her usual eye for another book, found Susan Kurosawa’s ‘places in the heart.’  ‘Thirty prominent Australians reveal their special corners of the world.’ All for half the cost of the barbequed  sausages.

The most fascinating stall was the barbequed sausages  stall. There they were, all staunch church goers, comfortably retired previous airline pilots, store managers, investment advisors and above all,  a sprinkling of ex Liberal premier bureaucrats. Now all aprons and gloved. An all male sausage team.

There was stacked a descent mountain of white Tip-Top bread which one bloke was buttering with no-frills margarine, another doing the Barbequing, yet another collecting orders and the fourth man the money. As usual at those kind of affairs, chaos reigns supreme and we all know this is totally peculiar to doing things the ‘English way.’ Why would it be any different in Bowral? This is what gives fund raising and community markets its piquancy and cultural originality.  If anything, Bowral is probably the place where Barbeque sausage fund raising chaos is continually honed to even higher levels than ever before.

On the table where the bread was being buttered, there were different relishes, including a green tomato, a normal sun dried tomato garnish as well as the obligatory mustard and barbeque and tomato sauce squeeze bottles.  The problem was there was just one knife. Each time someone wanted a garnish from the glass container, the buttering had to be stopped in order for this single knife to put to use extracting the garnish.  The tomato plastic bottle was empty. Of course, no kid worthy of any salt, age or description would buy a sausage roll without tom sauce. The paper towels had run out. No worries, a box of tissues would suffice. The tissues would be eaten as well, solidly stuck to the white bread. The whole affair was done with total bonhomie and not a single complaint. We bought two sausage rolls with the green relish and tasty tissue.

  A wonderful day for everyone.

The Mount Calvary model with Chrome handles

05 Friday Nov 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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Glad to hear you are still all passionate about the Pig’s Arms. I suppose in between reading all those lovely little snippets of wisdom, art or trivia you all have time to reflect on many things including life and what it is all ab0ut.

Well, I sure hope there is more to it than moving boxes, bed heads and filling drawers with knives and forks.

We still haven’t found the wheels underneath our settee yet. We had taped them together in order not to lose them but we have. Also my corn pads have gone on walk about again. Still, my toothbrush is safe and waiting for my teeth in a special metal container..

Sorry if I have been a bit slack with  responses but we are busy and are also having our grandkids over. At the moment one of our daughters and her son are here and we had some lovely pizza. One regular ‘meat lover’ and one regular ‘Italian”. You just phone up and after 20 minutes they are ready to pick up in a carton box with a nice Napoli-bay scene printed on top of the lid. Inside, apart from the pizza of course, is a special little spacer to prevent the lid from sticking to the hot molten cheese. I wonder how many years it took for that little invention to appear and who was the genius? Talking about carton boxes. I wonder why Ikea hasn’t come out with a fold out coffin a la the “Mount Calvary” model. It could come in a flat pack with its own Allen key. The chrome plated plastic handles neatly packed in its own little bag tucked in between the bottom and top board.

Here an old one for the friday evening.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLjbMBpGDA

Cheers,

Gerard

Survival in Backpacking

13 Wednesday Oct 2010

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Watching some footage about our venerable leader Julia Gillard in Brussels at its historic centre, the memories came flooding back.

I had returned from a trip to Russia and had just finished painting the exterior of a house owned by Timothy Healy Hutchinson’ to help pay for the trip. (A bit of name dropping might be justified here, lifting PA to new heights)

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2931996/Business-profile-Aristocrat-who-can-spot-a-good-title.html  

The house was situated in London’s Sheppard’s Bush, where the three story terrace needed the hiring of an enormous 60ft ladder, which the raising of it to its full height was helped by a man who, to my utter surprise, stopped his car, got out all dressed in a suit and tie, and helped me hoist the ladder up. He then, without a word as much, returned to his car and continued his journey. This ladder came in three parts with lots of pulleys and ropes and made of course from aluminium, still weighing a lot.

Little did I know at the time that this would be the closest I would ever get close to literary fame.

 But I regress. Back to Brussels where I had arrived with backpack and advice to potter about Brussels before catching a plane back to the delights of domesticity and The Inner West in Australia. The very hall where Gillard was filmed is also the centre of the world’s culinary delights. I don’t care about opinions from anyone or any Master Chef; Brussels is it when it comes to artistry of manipulating simple potatoes and salty prawns.

The amazing part of it is that the best of morsels, especially sea food morsels, are offered on  silver platters, held by white coated ‘ garcon’ out on the streets in front of the restaurants, for anyone to taste and perhaps decide to come in and order a meal afterwards. Perhaps this delightful cultural procedure doesn’t exist anymore but at that time I took  advantage of it, even to the extent of going full circle and honing in on another lot. It would certainly be helpful in case of being homeless or destitute. Would you not have done the same? Would you have gone back to your hotel room, changed your shirt and try look different and gone back for more? Be honest.

It was so nice an experience, and totally gratis…

Castoring Aspersions on Shopping Trolleys

09 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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Shopping is not anymore what is used to be. Remember buying biscuits loose by the ounce and the shopkeeper knowing you by name? All gone now. A typical experience is now often bereft of contact with anyone, unless through a person with trolley rage. By the time one fights for parking with the usual hoons giving the two finger greeting, the tone is set and with grim determination one sets forth for the task ahead.

The wrenching of a trolley out of a long row of tightly jammed together stainless brothers is just the beginning. Of course after one goes through the one way electronic gates, the trolley decides to go off at a tangent when pushed, and as the return through the gates for another one has now been barred, one sadly tries to ‘shop’ with a dysfunctional trolley.

Silently one trundles through row after row of vegetables that are often now pre-peeled and mayonnaised, perhaps even pre-digested. Most meticulously sealed and ready to throw out. Lucky that the onions and carrots are still recognizable, so are beans and celery. On the left are the delicatessen and fish counters. By this time the trolley has been loaded with some items and now obstinately refuses to go straight at any cost and the hapless shopper is forced to counter this by pushing from the side and aiming for the next isle totally askew. This means that one side of the trolley is further away from the shopper than the other side. To compensate for this discrepancy, the pusher has to cross one foot over the other occasionally in order not to end up on floor.

With some basic maths and luck one might end up at  the delicatessen side. After waiting to be served, and being the only customer with a cramp in one leg, a large bearded lady tells you to get a ticket. Finally: three hundred grams of double smoked ham, please. The bearded lady rubs a plastic bag between kransky like fingers, blows in it, sticks her hand in it and turns bag inside out. Now, ( get a little closer to the screen now) this is silver platter stuff and ultimate platinum service. She grabs a fistful of double smoked ham and forces it in the inside out bag, kneading the item unconscious and to a pulp. Will four hundred fifty grams be ok? Meekly, yes ok. Anything is alright now, hoping Mental Health will not be necessary.

Next, the dairy products need to be bought and isle after isle of the most miserable items are limbed through, also traversing past acres of toilet papers called ‘symphony’ (with a hint of Ludwig’s 9th and oh so choral) and ‘confidence’, then through a puddle of spilled mock vanilla slush. One finally arrives at the butter, frozen foods and cheese section. Bedlam here. Why are the isles so full of shoppers? What is it that seems to draw and fascinate shoppers inexorably to all those frozen boxes? Do they come here for a good read like to a library? One shopper is deeply immersed in studying the instructions on a frozen instant lasagne box while her three year old is scooping violent crumble bars out of a huge sack.

The only way to put up with this punishment and unrelenting abuse is to take a leaf out of how I bravely try to get even with the abusers.

I want to share this with you.

Go for ‘specials’ that have been discounted. Not so long ago at a carnivorous Woollies store, I bought smoked salmon that was on special as well. Going through the counter I was charged the full price. Overcharged items incur full return and item given for free. Check small print near check out. Try and concentrate on items that you could get overcharged with! That is the secret. You will get them free. A win win!

So, free salmon after going to the customer desk. It is important NOT to tell cashier at check out about mistake but calmly pay up and get refund and free item from customer service after. As you have been overcharged, show some indignation.

So, back I went for another smoked salmon. Another refund and more free salmon. I did this until I collected 2 kilos. This is all legit. Oddly enough, Helvi is not impressed by my canny devices to balance the injustice heaped on shoppers. I have now exploited this many times with different items and pride myself as a modern Robin Hood  of the Shopping Mall. I always check for mistakes and the girls at the desk know me by now and are powerless, also don’t care.

Those trolleys of course are abused by hoodlums who skate them away for miles, across kerbs and open wastelands. Helicopters fly overhead, tracing them. Reward posters for errant trolley are on telegraph poles. Suburbia and shopping malls have become war zones.