Kaaron Warren and Slights, part 2
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I did try to make golden syrup dumplings once. I got as far as buying the jar of golden syrup at the local shop and carrying it home. I dropped the shopping bag at the front door, shattering the jar and spreading golden syrup far and wide across the landing. Never tried again.
My own list of favourites, foods to give you a sense of me, would run more like this: caeser salad, chicken soup, beef, black olive and fetta pie, chicken pie, pad thai, Anzac cake, butter chicken, any kind of tagine but I always leave out the prunes, Greek potatoes and roast chicken, spaghetti alle zucchini and prawn curry. This is my favourite prawn curry, inspired by the local Suva restaurant Singh’s Curry House.
Kaaron’s Singh’s Curry House’s recipe for Prawn Curry
Grind 4 tablespoons coriander seeds and 4 tablespoons cumin seeds.
Mix with 2 tablespoons paprika, 1 teaspoon turmeric and 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper.
Fry that for two minutes, or until fragrant, as they say.
Add 8 finely crushed cloves of garlic, 1 grated onion, some ghee or butter, a piece of grated ginger, a pinch of salt and 4 finely diced tomatoes.
Add a litre of coconut milk. That’s easy here because I make my own coconut milk.
Simmer for ten minutes.
Add a heap of peeled and deveined prawns. How many depends on how many you are and how much you like prawns!
Squeeze some lime juice over.
Sprinkle some freshly chopped coriander over.
After all that cooking, and after a hard day’s writing and book-launching, there’s nothing better than a lovely glass of “Tail of the Monkey”, a drink from Chile.
6 cups milk
1 cup sugar
2 cinnamon sticks plus a pinch of cinnamon
¼ cup instant coffee
2 cups tequila
1 teaspoon vanilla essence plus a bean if you have it.
Boil milk, sugar and cinnamon. Dissolve coffee in the milk. Add vanilla. Cool for an hour or two, then add tequila.
I think it’s important to separate yourself from your character in many ways to ensure you aren’t writing yourself, unless you are, then go for it.
My character Steve has an almost adversarial disinterest in food, which is very, very, very different from me. It’s part of her character. I do tend to judge people in part on the way they deal with food. I don’t think this is shallow. I remember winding a friendship down when a woman refused to eat nuts because they were fattening. She wouldn’t even eat one nut and she loved them, because she wanted to stay a size 10 for her husband. All this was stated clearly. We had nothing in common beyond our sons, so it wasn’t a friendship lost with sadness, but it was certainly one I never bothered building on. By contrast, my husband and I spent our first year or so eating out, and those many hours of food and conversation built a deep and abiding friendship.





