Women's Weekly and Mid-Week Women

In line with my slightly retro stylings at the moment, I've been delving into recipes from the Women's Weekly. It's not nearly as sexy as a lot of the big, glossy cookbooks but the fact that the recipes are no nonsense and tested three times can be terribly appealing - maybe it's the CWA in my bloodstream... 

I know I'm going to lose street-cred. when I say my latest recipe book is the Women's Weekly Asian in Minutes but so far, I'm impressed. No, really! Trust me on this one! Last week I made a Balti fish curry for N. and D.M. which was rich, warm and easy on a completely sodden Sydney night - not a scone or a sponge-cake in sight - with little discernible short-cutting. Last night the experiment continued with Udon Soup. This faltered a little on my inability to find dashi (the best part was the utterly blank look that I received when asking for this in an Asian grocery store) but was still well-worth doing with dried seaweed as a substitute. Chicken, baby bok choy, sprouts, oyster mushrooms and spring onions together with the udon. 

Really the whole Women's Weekly thing is pretty amazing. I was perusing the 1970's Women's Weekly Cookbook and, while the bakery sections and standards radiate auctoritas, the international section was kinda frightening. There were no actual tomatoes in the spaghetti and meatballs. Nothing fresh at all actually. The Hawaiian section (yes there was a Hawaiian section!) worked on the basic premise that pineapple is a very good thing in every context. We've come a long way baby.

Tonight N. and I went a short way to Haberfield for pizza (it's an actual requirement of life for N. and I'm happy to help keep her healthy) at Napoli in Bocca. Working against the current of popular experience on Eatability, the service was pretty good! The pizza, of course, was spectacular. Light, chewy dough that's worth eating without any toppings and even better with potatoes and rosemary and mozzarella or pungent little mushrooms and tomato. If you're a tomato and thinking of giving up your life for the greater good please consider signing on to the insalata caprese. Go on - take one for the team.