Text 31819, 78 rader
Skriven 2015-10-10 12:07:34 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: 314
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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.
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