Text 31086, 127 rader
Skriven 2015-09-20 14:37:22 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: AU 251
==============
QF 679 MEL ADL 1015 1110 738 5AB

Pretty nice seats, despite the pitch being an ungenerous
30". Next to me was jovial but quite sizable Danny, who
kept up a banter until takeoff time. Thereupon he and I
both fell asleep; I woke up for the snack trolley but went
back to slumber when it turned out there was no beer (pooh).

We came in right around 11, and a few minutes later were
at bag claim where old reprobate #1 (actually the youngest
among us but arguably the most reprovable) Kevin was there
leaning on baggage trolley waiting for us. Turns out he's
seriously lame now and needs something to lean on. We
hobbled to the curb of the newly redesigned and rather tony
airport, where Glen in his ancient red Camry estate car
promptly zipped past despite our efforts to flag him down.
Luckily he came to a stop right at the end of the drive,
and we piled in.

The first order of business was to buy two 5-liter boxes
of Berri wine for filling in the interstices - this purchase
came to $20 Oz money; then Kevin, who doesn't drive, had us
join him in the local Cole's supermarket to do his shopping,
including a rather elaborate list of ingredients for Asian
dinner, which he was going to take it upon himself to cook
tonight.

And so home to Blair Athol, a pleasant suburb north of the
city, about half an hour from the airport (10 miles), where
Tex the dalmatian and the ginger cat, name unknown, were
quick to mug us for food.

We retired to the sitting room to chat after Kevin shooed us
out of the kitchen. At intervals I went to make sure he
wasn't burning down the house - by the fragrances he was
putting Glen's electric stove through extreme paces. As it
turns out, he hadn't burned down the house but did a number
on Glen's previously thought to be indestructible aluminum
wok. Midafternoon, improving smells alerted us to the
availability of food.

We started with a trio of dips, which Kevin had painstakingly
stuffed into the Korean equivalent of Bugles - cornucopia-
shaped puffy corn things, this version labeled with a
picture of a hot chile and the caption Teenager Party Time.

The Bugle analogues, made by food conglomerate Lotte under
license, were like General Mills' but were dusted with a
sweetish hottish powder.

The dips were store-bought: honey-artichoke with a mayo
base, sundried tomato with cream cheese, and olive avocado.
They tasted pretty much as you'd expect, except that the
tomato one appeared to have had added sugar and salt both.

Glen had encountered a dish called eggplant pachadi at
the Hanuman restaurant, said to be the best Indian, Thai,
and Malay food in Darwin - he raved about it to Kevin,
who did some digging and came up with the recipe, which
he made in a more careful, painstaking way than I'd ever
seen him do anything. There were a few divergences from
the original - Kevin used round green eggplant in addition
to the long purple ones; sriracha instead of sambal asli;
and he cooked the eggplant in the sauce rather than having
the sauce on top. Also, he chopped the spices instead of
grinding them, which lent a rustic character to the dish.
It turns out there's a branch of Hanuman in Adelaide, and
I threatened to take Glen there later for comparisons. Of
course that didn't happen.

Also, using intense heat under the pan, he made an excellent
facsimile of barbecue chicken using soy, hoisin, and some
secret ingredient that I didn't press him about.

No rice - he gets his carbohydrates from alcohol, as did
we on this occasion.
==
The wines were precious old things from Glen's cellar, which
is really the bottom of a bookcase in his bedroom.

Landhaus The Saint Shiraz 08 - cooked fruit, quite heavily
oxidized, a backnote of brown sugar cookies and maybe a
touch of cinnamon. Kevin really hated this, as his palate
has become used to wine made fresh yesterday. I admitted
that it was seriously over the hill and probably hadn't
benefited from being out in Adelaide summer heat for six
years.

Penfolds Thomas Hyland Cabernet 04 - this was also somewhat
oxidized, with plums becoming prunes and currants becoming
raisins. Still some tannin to redeem it, and it had aged
somewhat more gracefully, though behind the dried fruit
there was an annoying touch of rot as well as the sherrylike
asoect. Where had this wine come from - well, in '06 we'd
visited the same crew, and I'd picked up a couple bottles,
and we'd opened one, and it wasn't ready to drink, and here
was the other bottle, caught on the downslope.

I brought out some World Market chocolates - the 70%
(you'd call it extra-bittersweet), a chipotle version, and
one flavored with chile, type undisclosed, and lime, sad to
say in the form of dried peel. To go with, three Adelaide
area Ports:

d'Arenberg vintage Port 1975 - gone very pale, old musty
raisins and nuts, bittersweet; a fairly long undescribably
off-flavor finish that turned out to be really annoying
when I tried to cook with half a cup of it later in the
trip;

Penfolds Club Port 1956 - still good color, raisins and
dates, maybe an almondy scent, a bit over the hill, with
a long boiled sweet and raisin finish; and the

Para Liqueur Port 1944 from Seppelt was the big star, still
vigorous and rich with that odd minty aspect that many of
the better stickies possess: beginning to show its age but
still going strong, rather like Glen.

After which those who wished more alcohol were directed to
the Stanley box Cab-Shiraz, which is vin at its most
ordinaire, quite potable, but you wouldn't want it to
touch your taste buds if you were fully sober, sort of what
I figure the last wine at Cana would have been like before
the Man stated meddling with the catering.
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