The Tribal Tomato

'I would rather suffer with coffee than be senseless...' *

Ristretto in Rosanna? Syphon in Spotswood? Cold-filter in Collingwood?

Over the past few months, I have been coordinating a bunch of writers-cum-coffee lovers to go out to Melbourne's top coffee spots. They have drunk hundreds of cups of coffee, written up their thoughts and sent them back to me to edit.  Add to that some great photographs, overlay it wtih nifty design, and you have the definitive cafe guide: Melbourne Coffee Review: A journey through Melbourne’s top 100 coffee spots. This is the third time MCR have produced this guide, and it is a bit gorgeous if you ask me.

Before editing this book, I thought I knew a thing or two about coffee. For example, that a latte shouldn't be too hot (I have since learnt that 65 degrees is optimum - just a moment while I whip out my thermometer, barista!). I have always travelled with my two-cup stove-top espresso maker in my luggage. And I have been known to swoon loudly in public places over the perfect espresso.

But editing this book was a revelation. From underground hole-in-the-wall type places, to cafes housed in old coin laundrettes, the variety of venues out there is mind-boggling. And it's not just the inner-city folk doing a good coffee. From ristretto in Rosanna, to freshly ground beans in Gardenvale, there are some lovely surprises for those of us who need a decent caffeine fix in suburbia.

A lot has changed from the days when cappuccino was made with Nescafe -- an unfortunate experience in Warragul, circa 2002 --  with syphon and cold-filter styles featuring on the menus of many decent coffee shops. And then who would have thought that there is such an art to preparing the humble latte, from sourcing and roasting the beans, to decorating the tightly frothed microfoam?  It's been a delight to wallow in the language of coffee-dom, which now rivals the language of wine appreciation for its colourful adjectives and sensuous descriptions – 'citrus notes' rub up against a 'velvety mouth feel', 'cherry hints' tango with 'blood orange' aromas.  

All this affrims why Melbourne is renowned for its diverse cafe culture. Yes, I am a bit biased, and clearly this blog entry is more in the realm of marketing rather than musing, but if you want to know where to get the best coffee in Melbourne, check out the Melbourne Coffee Review website to pre-order your guide– soon available in hard copy, as an e-book and app.

Happy caffeining!

*this quote has been attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

The Box Hill blues

In my 20s, I used to get my fix of Greek blues at The Retreat in Brunswick; jazz at the Night Cat in Fitzroy, African drum beats in the town of Tocumwal. To all these beats I danced, sometimes on tables, sometimes on dirt, sometimes simply on a dance floor. I would lose myself in my body, in the thriving mass around me, in the pulsing rhythms emanating from the toumbeleki or the saxophone. No matter where I was, there was a heady sense of being home in my own body.

Now, in my more sedate 40s,  I can’t remember the last time I went out dancing at night. The idea of doing it on a table makes me tremble with embarrassment.  It’s hard to stay up after 10pm, and all it takes are two glasses of wine to take me over the edge. But still, the love of music and dance remains. Where to get my fix now?

I think I've found the answer in a fluoro-lit room in middle suburbia. Here the trademarked rhythms of a Zumba class transport me from Africa to South America to India in a pumping sixty minutes of jiggling joy. And all this at 9am for the cost of breakfast. No need to organise the babysitter, no need to cram my feet into a pair of heels.

The gym's wall-to-wall mirrors indicate that my body has changed – a black tracksuit and old t-shirt do nothing to flatter a bottom that is showing the effects of a few too many sausage rolls and homemade pasta dinners – but the feeling is the same. I am once again 24, learning how to belly dance in the back room of a pub in Gertrude Street Fitzroy, or squashed on a little dance floor dancing to Rembetika in Brunswick at 26, or following the drum beats with my husband-to-be at Comfest at 28. I still feel a childish freedom in being silly, of hamming it up, and an adult sense of connection with my body, with my own sensuality. I am in the class with some 20 women, and we are all sweating and shimmying and sashaying to the same rhythm. According to the Zumba PR machine, I am one of  '12 million people of all shapes, sizes and ages taking weekly Zumba classes in over 110,000 locations across more than 125 countries'. Whilst this makes me feel that I have been sucked in by a well-oiled marketing machine, perhaps the founders have also hit on something more universal -- a need to be moved by music, and our need to dance.

I turn my attention away from the mirrors and my cerebralism, back to the instructor. She is now rousing us up into the Zorba dance, Zumba-style. And for just a few moments, I leave the fluoro-lit room, I leave my head and I am back in my body -- home where I belong.

An image from Cafe Rembetika, a play about the Greek blues at the Arts Centre, finishing tonight.

The mulberry tree

Well over a year ago now, my family and I visited my parents' ancestral homes in southern Greece. The visits were tinged with sadness. Since our last visit 13 years ago, my last remaining grandparent had passed away, as had my father. The homes and gardens my grandparents had worked so hard to cultivate were slowly crumbling.

(Vanada by George Mifsud)

It was this feeling of sadness that prompted me to write the story Shot Glass about my father's ancestral home. The story revolves around the mulberry tree in the front yard (not to mention a shot-gun toting koumbaro, my father's best man...). 

When my parents first returned to Greece for a holiday after migrating to Australia, my grandfather used to push us kids (and his young daughter-in-law, our mother) back and forth on the rope swing he had rigged onto the tree. Up in this very same tree, my father and a number of villagers built a bed made out of slats. This is where my mother and father slept all summer.

(My brother in white shorts, me in purple, my mother on the swing, and my grandfather swinging her...)

While my father’s ancestral home now lies nearly in ruins, the mulberry tree still stands tall -- the mulberries sweet and juicy as ever.  Our children filled a bag with them, their sticky juice pooling at the bottom.

Despite the ruins around me, there was still life in that stately old tree. I fancied I could feel my grandfather nearby, watching over his great grand-children, who were almost exactly the same age as my brother and I were when we first visited Greece.

The experience of visiting the homes inspired my husband George to take many photographs. We have compiled these into a beautiful book, Stories of My Greek Home, based on three village homes – my father’s home in Vanada, my mother’s home in Petalidi, and my aunty’s home also in Petalidi in the south of Greece.

My hope is that the mulberry tree continues to thrive. Because that's the kind of man he was, I'm reckon my grandfather will make sure that it does.