The niceness of being wrong, and Zabaglione Ice Cream.

I am wrong about stuff all the time. A little more than I would like to be, but it is what it is. 

Example, for a while I thought I could get away with having long hair. Wrong.

At one stage in my youth I thought purple corduroys were a good way to spend my hard earned dosh from the local fish and chip shop. Wrong again. 

There was also that brief moment in 2008 when I thought Bill Shorten was a nice guy. Definitely wrong. 

Then there was that day last semester when I thought I was grown up enough to manage an unlidded coffee in the computer area at the library. Yeah… wrong.

Being wrong can be bad. It often makes me look like an idiot. But sometimes discovering you are wrong turns out to be a good thing.

Like when an initial reading of someone turns out to be off and they’re actually a lovely person who you look forward to spending time with.

Or like how I used to think whiskey wasn’t the drink for me. It’s actually heaven in a tumbler. I see that now.

I also used to think I didn’t really like ice cream. Wrong again. I’ve discovered it’s actually pretty great. And it has restorative powers for those times you’re wallowing in your own wrongness.

I created this recipe using Maggie Beer and Stephanie Alexander’s recipe for zabaglione from their Tuscan cookbook as a base.  The brandy comes through quite intensely. I made it to have with Maggie’s Walnut and Fig Tart, a recipe for which you can find here. The overall effect was quite Christmas Pudding-y.

I’d say this recipe would fit quite nicely on a low calorie eating plan. Joke.

Zabaglione Ice Cream

6 egg yolks

1/3 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup brandy

400ml cream

Heaped tablespoon brown sugar

First, in a fairly decent sized bowl whip the cream to soft peaks then mix through the brown sugar. Pop in the fridge while you make the zabaglione.

To make the zabaglione, whisk the egg yolks, caster sugar and brandy in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until thick. Remove from the heat and continue to whisk till cool. To speed this up, I sit the bowl in a sink of cool water as I whisk.

Then just fold the cooled zabaglione through the cream and freeze. I did mine in a loaf pan lined with plastic wrap.

When frozen, go mental and eat as much as you want. 

A meandering on youth and a nice lemon cake.

Brace yourself, I’m headed down a slightly self-indulgent path with this one. Though I like to think I represent the reality of my generational peers and not just me.

At the risk of sounding whiney, precocious and pissing off everyone older than me, I think our mid-twenties can be a tricky time.

It seems like yesterday we were all babes in the woods together at uni. Writing ourselves off on an altogether too regular basis, writing assignments on an altogether too irregular basis, meeting incredible new people, getting our feelings hurt and hurting feelings in return, discovering our personal strengths and playing at being adults.

Now we really are adults and that time in our late teens and early twenties is a brief snapshot in our past where once it seemed to stretch forever in front of us.

Save for a small handful of us (including me, perpetual student), most of the people around me now have proper jobs with the associated responsibility, rent and bills to pay, and possibly relationships to maintain. An air of routine has descended and the years seem to gain momentum. Days, weeks and months pass in an increasingly speedy blur. But there is an undercurrent of discontent amongst a few of us, and possibly a longing for the vivacity of our early days in the big confusing city. It’s a hum that steadily increases in volume till we can’t escape it anymore.

I wouldn’t call it a crisis (though I now understand the sports cars and young lovers associated with the so-called mid-life crisis), more a questioning wrapped up in nostalgia and served with a sense of urgency. What to do? Where to work? Where to live? When to travel? Who to love? How to love? We have realised our routine may need a shakeup so we aren’t eaten alive by the potential drudgery of a nine to five law abiding existence.

I can see us reaching out to some old ties and simultaneously rejecting others.

I think it’s about seeking the truth of who we are. A daunting life-long process, but an extremely valuable one. The changes I’m watching in some people’s lives are drastic. Onset or acknowledgment of depression, breakdown of long term live-in relationships, returning to study, embarking on huge overseas adventures, coming out, moving in, becoming engaged, getting married etc.

In others it’s a quieter shift. Opening up the careers section of the paper to see what’s around, picking up an old musical instrument, spending more time with family and friends, resolving to wash the sheets more often just like mum, that kind of thing.

Me? I’ve joined a gospel choir, started a blog, and hopefully soon will be volunteering in the prison system. I’ve sat back and had a think about where my study can take me, and where I want it to take me. I’ve also had a think about all the things and people in my life (good and bad) who make it so brilliantly colourful. I’m endeavouring to surround myself with more of the good and less of the bad. I’ve developed the odd habit of smiling to myself about the smallest of things – a clear morning on my pretty street, my collection of recipe books, an everyday conversation with my brother, an average day spent at my café job. For me at the moment, my world is filled with promise. Which is not to say everything around me is good all the time.

I’m currently bearing witness to a devastating manifestation of this introspective phase in a dear and special friend. Our friendship is unravelling, and it hurts to be so disconnected from someone I’ve known since school when I thought our lives would be intertwined forever.

I’ve done a bit of self-reflection over the past few months, and tried to face honestly some things in my life I wish I’d done differently. Never a pleasant task.

I’ve also encountered a bit of sadness about the fact that my grandparents won’t live forever though I desperately wish they would. As we age, milestone birthdays bring celebration with a hint of melancholy.

But far from tainting everything with negativity, these experiences serve only to accentuate the beauty in the clear mornings and the recipe books.

This thing we call life is ultimately a very individual pursuit and when all is said and done we only have ourselves to reckon with.  For some of us youngsters, I think that is becoming clear for the first time.

So here’s to us. I can’t wait to see where we all end up.

And now to a somewhat tenuous link to food. In some ways, I think the aforementioned tricky phase of life can be well analogised through a study of the seasons. Mid twenties kind of equates to spring. Spring is a bit complex. Up and down, hot and cold. But the promise of happiness and long summer days is right around the corner. Sometimes it's hard to know what to eat in this in between weather. Salad or stodge? There you have it, that’s my questionable segue to a recipe for cake.

Right now I am blessed with an abundance of meyer lemons courtesy of my aunt and uncle. I think lemon syrup cake bridges the gap between winter and summer rather deliciously. It has spring written all over it. The subtle tang of the lemon and the pretty yellow of the cake foreshadow the days of hats, sunscreen and picknicking lurking around the corner, while the addition of syrup keeps the memory of cold weather puddings alive.

I stole this recipe from Matthew Evans, he of Gourmet Farmer fame. Make it, its pretty nice.

Yoghurt Cake with Lemon Syrup
(serves 8-10)

125g butter, softened
200g (1 cup) caster sugar
3 eggs
zest and strained juice of half a lemon
200g (1 1/2 cups) self-raising flour
200g (3/4 cup) natural yoghurt
1/3 cup water
150g (3/4 cup) sugar
thickened cream for serving

Cooking time: Allow over an hour until it comes from the oven, but eat the cake cool
You’ll also need: a 20cm cake tin

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Cream the butter and sugar until pale and light. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. It may look a bit curdled but don’t worry, we’ll fix that. Fold in the lemon zest and flour gently and then fold in the yoghurt too. Use a spatula to scrape into a lined 20cm cake tin, making the centre a little lower compared to the edges. Bake for about 30-40 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
While the cake cooks, heat the water, sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. When the cake is cooked, leave it in the tin, poke a fine skewer into the cake all over about 30 times and spoon the hot lemon syrup over the top. Try to spoon it so it soaks into the holes evenly rather than all soaking into the edges around the tin. Allow to cool and serve with lightly whipped cream, coffee and a grin.