On Aussie pubs
I have a giant pile of books on my desk. Every single book in the pile is waiting to be mentioned here. I could cheat madly and just list the titles and authors and get them over with and done in this past and then put them away, but really, that’s not fair.
The top book in the stack is one that you’ve been waiting on for a while. It’s the pub book that went walkabout a while ago. “Counter Meal: Recipes and stories from great Australian pubs” is its name, and was written by David Carr and Ned Meldrum. When I opened it I found an entry form for “The Ultimate Shout” Competition, which closed in 2005. I guess I’m not going to win it. I might keep the entry form inside the book, though, and contribute to the world’s collection of interesting ephemera in stray books.
This is a lovely coffee table book. It has full page pictures of hotels round Australia, form the elegant Hope and Anchor Tavern in Hobart to the lightly more raffish Three Brothers Arms in South Australia. It isn’t a vast selection of hotels, but with each one comes their best recipes and a bit of a description of the pub at the time of writing.
Unfortunately for you, I’ve got a migraine (it’s early Summer here and with early Summer comes thunderstorms and with thunderstorms, I get migraines) and just looking at the recipes makes me feel ill, so I’m, not going to even try transcribing one.
Maybe you’ll be luckier with the next book. Or the one after. I have such a stack of them and one day I will be blogging without nausea and a book will have your perfect recipe. So hang in there!
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