On this weekend, Michael and I had rare chance to share some time and food with Doof. A lot has happened since Doof and I were co-renting five years ago, yet it was surprisingly familiar and comfortable sharing wine and takeaway pizza with him and his current housemates in their New Farm home. His beige and brown crockery, which once held my mediocre pre-vegetarian meals for one, probably helped.
Doof's housemate was on the receiving end of a painful accident and some poorly executed medical attention that week, and a combination of medication and wine had her excessively apologetic that she hadn't made cake for dessert. She had this great cream, you see. I didn't, but figured some cake was achievable enough.
With my hosts' blessing I raided their cupboards for cookbooks and ingredients, converting a Donna Hay recipe for a rectangular maple cake into a dozen golden syrup cupcakes. Though they were nothing spectacular, I was quietly proud of my resourcefulness and spontaneity and my companions loudly expressed their own appreciation. The cream did turn out to be special - a $7.75 jar of thick, pale yellow bliss from an exclusive dairy in Tasmania.
Saturday morning's plan was a mini-road trip to the hippy-ish hinterland town of Maleny. So what better way to start the day than the
Alibi Room's Kombie Drivers Breakfast for two?
$35 gets you this vegan-friendly monstrosity: soy coffee and fruit juice for two, heavy toast with nuttelex, sublime sweet chilli scrambled tofu, a mountain of mushrooms, baked beans, spinach, tomato, soy bacon, haggis-like sausages, sweet potato chips, and four of the biggest, greasiest, most fabulous hash browns I've ever seen or eaten. Needless to say, we didn't need to eat again for some time.
