Unbelieveably right … Chef and co-owner of Spice I Am Sujet Saenkham talks about his craft

One of my favourite Dr Seuss books is the one about green eggs and ham, and the thing about Spice I Am, is that like the aforementioned dish you can eat Spice I Am anywhere.

If you ever find yourself in Sydney’s Kings Cross on a Saturday night, I know a place where you can get away from the crowds and enjoy some of the city’s best Thai cuisine.

I say some of the best only because Spice I Am – Sydney’s iconic Thai eatery – has two other locations, one in Balmain and one further downtown in Wentworth Avenue.

But back to Spice I Am Darlinghurst, a short stumble from the Coke sign.

I get there late on this particular night and my date is running even later. The light is subdued but you can still find your way around without stumbling over things or tripping on handbag straps. There is polished dark timber everywhere soothingly reflecting the gentle lights.

Outside, next to us through the huge glass window a group of eight girls are sitting under the heaters laughing and cheersing each other.

We start with cocktails – a lychee martini for me and a lychee mojito for her.

“This mohito has everything I like about mojitos and nothing I don’t like,” she pronounces.

We swap. It’s the best mohito I’ve ever had, all the sweetness – without being too sweet, and none of the vinegar rictus some mojitos can give you. My martini is pleasantly spicy.

Then it’s on to entrees – steamed spicy fish wrapped in banana leaf parcels. “It’s like a Christmas present and dinner all in one,” she says, again writing my review for me.

The minced fish is spicy. Very spicy and loaded with finely chopped kefir lime leaves. We are both starving and this is just what the doctor ordered on this chilly night.

By now the cocktails have disappeared and have been replaced by an Austrian gruner veltliner by Nigl.
If I had my way everyone would eat Thai food with this awesome grape the Austrians have been growing since they were flogging it to Roman legionaries in Kremstal, Niederosterreich.

More food arrives, deep fried betal leaves topped with prawns – like a giant crunchy prawn chip. Then the crispy pork belly with chilli jam.

Spice I Am’s co-owner and executive chef Sujet Saenkham gets this dish so completely right it’s almost unbelievable. The crackly is still crunchy, yet the pork is still melt in your mouth.

It’s very rich and I have to struggle to save room for Spice I Am’s signature dish, the roast red duck curry.

This comes served in a fresh coconut with the top hacked off.

It’s rich and spicy and unctuous all at the same time and no trip to Spice I Am would be complete without this dish. Let me say it again. Only a gibbering idiot would go to Spice I am and not order the roast red duck curry.

What we can’t eat is taken home, because after all, you can eat Spice I Am anywhere, right Sam?

Spice I Am

www.spiceiam.com

info@spiceiam.com

Lauren Arena

One of the best things about Trieste is the food. It’s not typically Italian, but a delicious mix of Italian, Germanic and Slavic tradition.

The culinary scene in this city, perched on a hill overlooking the Adriatic ocean, is as varied and colourful as it’s past. Whether its fine dining or grabbing a bite on the run, Trieste’s history is etched onto almost every plate – be it porcelain or plastic.

Where culinary worlds collide… Trieste

Restaurants, cafes and bars all reflect the city’s Austro-Hungarian roots as a prominent trading port and shipbuilding centre throughout the 19^th century. So while pasta and pizza are easily found on the menu, so too are dishes like jota, a bean and sauerkraut-based soup, wurzel, and krapfen (the German word for doughnut).

The city’s development as an urban melting pot was the product of Habsburg mercantilism, beginning with Charles VI’s declaration of Trieste as a free port in 1719. Foreign merchants and traders were welcomed in order to foster a merchant community.

With the arrival of Greeks, Serbs, Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, Croats, Bosnians, French, English, Turks, Armenians, Italians and Jews from all over Europe, Trieste become the most prosperous port city and an important Mediterranean ‘bridge’ and a vital ‘gate’ to Eastern Europe.

After being annexed to Italy in 1918 Trieste’s economic significance diminished but its eclectic combination of flavours is still alive and well.

Delizioso… Gelateria Zampolli

Near the city centre, in Via Dante, there’s Eppinger Caffè, a historic pasticceria and restaurant that soon becomes a personal favourite. It’s the best place for a pre-dinner aperitif, all of which are served with freshly baked savoury nibbles, or a sweet treat afterwards.

A short walk away is Via del Ponte, a narrow laneway in the city’s old Jewish quarter that is jam-packed full of bars, restaurants and a few boutique shops. Come here any night during the week and it is swarming with people. So it’s a great place for a casual meal and a few social drinks.

Shifting through the crowds here I find the inconspicuous Taverna del Ghetto, a pint-sized, rustic tavern with a home-style menu and two incredible bar men, Eugenio and Michele. I order a hamburger – served on a toasted, ciabatta roll and stuffed with beautiful things like pancetta and provolone cheese – accompanied by a beer. Talking with the two kindly gentlemen behind the bar, I am soon very well acquainted with the cocktail list and after three delightfully refreshing Moscow Mules, I decide that is my favourite of all.

Next door is Osteria da Marino, another cosy tavern with a scattering of eclectic antiques, fish nets hanging from the ceiling, a fresh, seasonal menu and a hugely impressive wine list.

I stumble out of the Via del Ponte at 11:45pm – just enough time for me to walk across town to Gelateria Zampolli (in Via Carlo Ghega) before it closes at midnight. There is a ridiculous variety of flavours to choose from, all the classics are present, but so too are some original concoctions, like walnut, pink grapefruit and pumpkin. On a whim I chose ‘millefoglie’, a gelato reincarnation of the French mille-feuille dessert. It’s deliciously creamy with hints of vanilla and crunchy flakes of puff pastry. It’s better than the original and at 12:01am I quickly order another scoop.

My advice – visit Trieste on an empty stomach and stay a couple days so you can really appreciate its epicurean offerings.

Sitting in the low-ceilinged loft of a smoky bar in Yangjiang – China’s answer to Sheffield – Zheng Guogu has just learned the English for ‘piss artist’ and likes it so much he says it three times over.

Piss artists… the Yangjiang Group

With the kind of arresting rawness that you only get when foreigners or very young children swear, Zheng relishes the fact he has no idea what he’s really saying and lets out one more emphatic ‘piss artist’ just for good measure.

Zheng and his collaborators in the Yangjiang Group, Sun Qinglin and Chen Zaiyan,use Chinese calligraphy and alcohol to occupy exactly this space – the unconscious mind seething up through the cleft created when you know vaguely what it is you’re trying to say, but you’re so bladdered on the local Zhujiang Beer you can barely hold an ink brush.

“When we first started working together we used to drink and then by accident we found things that we’d written that we couldn’t remember doing at the time,” says Zheng, who first began working with the other two 10 years ago.

The power and clarity of these calligraphic works impressed them so much that drinking became a pre-condition for their Jackson Pollock-like art jams, sometimes binge drinking for up to three days at a time.

“When you’re in this mental situation you don’t remember what you’ve done,” says Zheng. “It’s exactly this distance and unfamiliarity between your state of mind and what you are doing that draws you to a higher state of art.”

Often taking preposterous news stories for inspiration, the calligraphy is so sloppy the viewer is forced to read the label to find out what the work is referring to.

The results are hilarious and disturbing at the same time.

Hilarious and disturbing… drunken calligraphy

One piece entitled “The Morning After: Masterpieces Written While Drunk, No. 1: ‘I Need a New Kidney to Kill Bin Laden’” references American would-be assassin and dialysis patient Gary Brook Faulkner who launched a private mission to kill Osama bin Laden; the dribbles and spatters of the drunken calligraphy highly suggestive of madness.

Another “Bloodwritten Letter on Imprisonment with the Opposite Sex” uses calligraphy to retell the shocking news story of a 16-year-old girl who, in 1996, was imprisoned for a week with two dozen male suspects who sexually abused her. Zheng writes the text over an unrelated photograph of what appear to be binge-drinking revellers.

The group is unusual in China in that they’ve never left their hometown for the art centers of Shanghai or Beijing. Yangjiang is an unprepossessing coastal industrial town in the southern province of Guangdong famous for producing one-in-ten of the knives in American households.

Staying at home means the money from their growing international reputation (they say there’s little interest in their work in China) goes further.

In the past couple of years, they’ve built a sprawling studio in urban Yangjiang in the shape of an iceberg and in the countryside a complex of interconnected exhibition spaces, rooms and gardens that ranges over several acres and is inspired by the video game “Age of Empires”.

Zheng says there’s little in the way of planning or design in the studio or the complex, the various rooms are created depending on discussions with the builders on the day, and there’s nothing in the way of official planning permission for the buildings.

Urban iceberg… Yangjiang Group studio

He says he even once made an exhibit of the receipts for the bribes he had to pay to various authorities to get his architectural projects through. Kickbacks in China are often demanded through semi-official means, for instance overly rigorous fire safety requirements and the like.

“Oh yes, a lot of people complained,” Zheng says matter-of-factly about his own flat, a warren of connecting chambers built on two presumably illegally constructed floors on the top of a central Yangjiang apartment block. In China, obstacles such as bent-out-of-shape neighbours are usually simply a matter of compensation.

While the group is not overtly political, and they say the authorities take no interest in what they are doing, their works are radical and directly challenge the complex position of calligraphy in China where it is regarded as something of a sacred art.

Chen Zaiyan, who studied calligraphy at university, says simplified characters – a system introduced under Mao Zedong which drastically reduced the number of strokes and characters in a bid to lift literacy – is still unable to take complete hold in the country even after more than 50 years.

He says there’s a gravitational pull towards traditional script because the characters carry a deeper cultural sense, which he says comes shimmering out of the characters “like a mirage”.

“Most calligraphers habitually tend to write in traditional script,” says Chen. “I think in 20 years or more China will return to traditional script.”

Their calligraphy and installations not only keenly identify where the written language is debased, but where it is most vital.

Their Presidential Decree of the People’s Republic of China No. 74 takes the dead language of a screed of bureaucratic text outlining the minimum aesthetic requirements for the modern Chinese city and breathes life into it by blowing it up to 30 metres high and slapping it on the side of a glass tower in Shenzhen.

Meanwhile, their installation Last Day, Last Struggle gives a new context to the kind of bold and direct messages you can see on any market stall in China – “I’m bankrupt and suicidal. Everything must go” says one sign, “I’m old, I’m poor and my wife has left me” reads another.

“In China you can’t just go on the street and protest,” says Zheng. “In many ways, these people are using their shops and these signs to demonstrate.”

As for China’s many calligraphy associations and academies, Zheng says the Yangjiang Group has yet to receive any formal approaches.

“From these groups,” he says with a deadpan and faraway expression, “We have had very little interest”.

Australia is rapidly running out of international icons. It doesn’t have many internationally recognizable brands it can be genuinely proud of. I only think of this as I sit becalmed in an ageing late-running Qantas tinny on an asphalt pond at Sydney airport. It’s a sad reflection of what Qantas has become – fewer flights everywhere is the new business plan at the same time as more of the world’s consumers take to the air.

Iconic… Penfolds

A mechanic scrambles onto the wing with a can of WD-40 and a few minutes later we’re disgorged back into the airport with $20 food vouchers. I’m trying to get to Adelaide where Penfolds are holding a tasting of their 2013 Bin series as well as their luxury and iconic wines such as the 2008 Grange.

Having spent my Qantas $20 exceedingly well I’m thinking Penfolds might be one of the few true international Australian icons. It’s a brand that hasn’t been spoiled by crazy management decisions and might just be our only international luxury brand thanks to Grange, RWT, Bin 707 and St Henri among others.

Then again, the magnificent bluestone heritage-listed Magill Estate, just a few minutes from the heart of Adelaide, is ripe for a casino development. Attach a billionaire to it and it will be green lit within hours.

When I do finally arrive in Adelaide I’m led to a hushed room where Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago flits silently around a small assembly of leading wine writers. None of them seem overly engaged and I’m reminded of a recent chat with a high-profile Sydney sommelier who was fairly nonplussed by Penfolds wines because “it’s Penfolds” – an altogether pathetic excuse.

As for this year’s release and the “it’s Penfolds” crowd, they’d be doing themselves a monstrous disservice. Reason being is the latest release features a line-up from the 2010 vintage which, to put it quite mildly, was a cracker of a vintage in South Australia.

A few highlights included:

Yattarna Chardonnay 2010

Sourced primarily from Tasmania (around 96 percent), the latest Yattarna is a gorgeous reflection of the new age of Australian Chardonnay. Lots of beautiful stone fruits pushing through on the nose with just a subtle hint of oak followed by slightly creamy caramelized peach flavours on the palate and almond nougat. Wonderful.

Bin 23 Pinot Noir 2012

A sweetly fresh example of Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir, the Bin 23 is not one of the marquee names in the Penfolds stable but it’s such a cute, young wine. It dances with the freshness of youth, like a stolen swig from your great Aunt’s liquor cabinet with its nose of wild raspberry and cherry liqueur. On the palate the dancing fruits punch through before the tannins ensure a more sophisticated finish.

The flagship… 2008 Grange

Bin 150 Marananga Shiraz 2010

A relative newcomer to the Penfolds stable, the Marananga is a sub-regional Barossa Shiraz from the 2010 super vintage. On the nose there was the dark nuttiness of a strong espresso melded with crispy skinned Peking Duck and plum sauce. A delicious mix slightly let down by the almond essence or Amaretto flavours on the palate. It’s definitely one to watch though as the lingering finish of licorice and a berry fruit pannacotta promises a tasty middle age.

2010 Magill Estate Shiraz

This is your homecoming queen. Everything in this masterful single estate wine is sourced, created and blended at Magill. Hand-picked fruit and lovingly handcrafted with spicy sausage and dark-roasted coffee on the nose, it delivers like a posse of hired guns riding in to save a small hamlet from bandits. On the palate, there’s a real slow reveal that will deliver over time a savoury meaty richness.

2010 RWT Barossa Valley Shiraz

Things step up a lot at this level. It’s a bit like Steve Carell killing a man with a trident in Anchorman – The Legend of Ron Burgundy. This particular RWT slowly reveals itself in the glass before opening up to a fullness of dark fruits, blueberry and ginger. It’s the ultimate smoothie on the nose before it comes down a level with a hint of sage and thyme tossed onto slightly damp earth. The palate is gloriously silken and smooth. A generous mouth feel with vanilla mascarpone daubed on almond biscotti and gently dipped in wine – a beautiful creation with a menacing promise of power to come.

2008 Grange

The flagship. I walked in already knowing this wine had been awarded 100 points by Lisa Perrotti-Brown from the Wine Advocate. It may have coloured my judgment but this is a classic Penfolds ball-tearer of a wine. Three regions – the Barossa and Clare Valleys as well as a little from Magill Estate make the 2008 a true flag bearer of Penfolds multi-regional house style. On the nose there’s an immediate lift of eucalyptus bark melded with smoked tea tree – it’s time to get the hookah pipe out with this baby. It’s like sitting around the campfire on the ultimate glamping experience. The palate unveils toasted savoury dark chocolate with a high cacao content as well as toffee malt and blackberry fruit – a tremendous wine from one of the great Penfolds vintages.

www.penfolds.com

In the hayseed towns of southern China, municipalities where the population barely nudges 700,000 people, little more than a dozen words of Cantonese will get you a pretty riotous response.

The standard reaction goes something like this: your interlocuter immediately starts as if he or she has been addressed by a talking horse or dog. Consternation quickly softens into relief and hilarity on the realisation the sounds are intelligible. As curious and friendly bystanders gather, a gratifyingly large amount of praise is then heaped on you.

“Wah! You speak Cantonese! How clever of you! How long have you been here? Five years! Five years and you can speak a dozen words! That is astonishing!”

It’s such a stock response it’s surprising it’s not in the first chapter of every Cantonese language text – it’s only later that you realise this form of phatic communion is used solely to promote warmth among foreigners. A real relationship in Cantonese is based exclusively on blunt put-downs of the this-lift-won’t-move-because-you’re-too-fat variety.

new ideas, new styles… Kaiping Diaolou

When all communication comprises critical personal remarks, then you are within the keep of a person’s closest associates.

And so it was, as my travelling companion and I basked in the gentle backwash of this flattery in Guangdong province, that a thief struck with such speed and audacity that it more or less ruined the rest of the trip.

It wasn’t bad enough that he managed to extract 1000RMB from a plastic wallet leaving everything else intact, but he practically showed me how it was done.

Diving like a heron into my rolled up jacket, which I had carelessly placed above my head in the luggage rack of a bus, he removed the cash from a zipped inner pocket, left behind anything that could identify him and dropped the money into one of the small black plastic sick bags provided on all buses in China. All of this in one deft move only just out of my line of sight.

Then using the time-honoured diversionary tactic of revulsion, he walked past me and hawked and spat into the bag on top of the fold of bills. Certainly by the time he was in full view, whatever was in the bag was no longer a subject of investigation.

The discovery of the theft in the next town released a powerful surge of primitive emotions. All the free cups of tea and warm smiles were suspect, everyone a potential enemy: we were suddenly in bandit country.

While it wasn’t much money, the theft shattered the mood of the trip and we sat in gloomy silence on a bus out of Yangjiang the following day. It was on this road, under this pall, that I saw a strange dreamlike structure.

Most architecture in China – certainly anything from the 1970s onwards – pays a deep tribute to the public toilet. Covered with off-white tiles and planted like an inverted L, these clusters are utterly ubiquitous and uniformly depressing.

But rounding a corner on the bus, I saw an assemblage of 19th century Qing Dynasty hovels from the middle of which shot two square five-storey towers capped with Byzantine domes supported by a series of arches formed by columns with Ionic capitals.

Bizarre… Guangzhou Kaiping Diaolou

The odd mixture of classical Western tropes on a Chinese building was eery and unsettling. I saw two more of these bizarre structures looming above separate small towns before the bus cruised on to Zhuhai. It’s rare in travel these days that you see something before you’ve heard about it and the towers left a lingering impression.

Back in Hong Kong, I retraced our journey on Google Earth but the villages we passed were a pixelated blur. Sifting through the Panoramio happy snaps of the area, I marveled at why anyone would take, let alone post, a photo of a motorway culvert or an irrigation ditch.

Eventually I found a picture of a squat version of the type of tower I’d seen and at least had a name – Kaiping Diaolou – or the watchtowers of Kaiping. With a UNESCO listing just four years old, the watchtowers are one of the world’s newest and strangest world heritage listings.

There are 1,883 of them remaining in the counties of Kaiping, Enping, Taishan and Xinhui – one small area of Guangdong province which, between the 1890s and 1930s, had a disproportionate number of emigres to the new world. Returning from Canada, the United States and Australia with new ideas and new styles, the emigres built towers to protect their families and fortunes in a lawless region governed by rival warlords and gangs.

The style – a kind of martial Edwardian with baroque and neo-classical features – caught on in the region and eventually more than 3000 of the towers were built, turning the province into a Chinese version of Italy’s San Gimignano.

The Fang Clan Watchtower – a typical example of the style – stands on a short rise outside Zili village. The dome on the stout five-storey watchtower covers a pavilion that housed a searchlight that swept the paddy fields for approaching brigands; a marriage of 20th century technology with medieval security solutions.

I asked my driver, Mr Fong, on a subsequent visit to the area, if the ornate style meant the towers were largely for show.

“No, they (bandits) used to come in their hundreds – sometimes on horseback,” he says, conjuring up a scene straight out of Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai.

A closer look at the diaolou reveals that many of the architectural fittings have a nasty and efficient business end – overhanging eves hide snipers’ spider holes that point straight down to the front door step, the diaolous’ generally good state of repair is due to the fact they were made from reinforced concrete and the internal metal doors often have complex systems of bars and wheel locks designed to keep home invaders from making it to the next floor.

The diaolou, however, were not just a show of force but also a show of wealth, reflecting grand styles in the country where the emigre had amassed his fortune. At various junctures, Mr Fong’s local knowledge gives out – towers not on the Kaiping city’s guide could only be found by asking locals or making dirt track detours.

“The German diaolou is around here somewhere – I know it is,” he says, finally pulling up beside a collection of tiny farm shacks from which a Chinese version of Schloss Neuschwanstein erupts, its turrets, known locally as ‘swallows’ nests’, pinpricked with tiny gun ports.

The best clusters of diaolou are museum pieces – many of them with their original furniture – and form part of a growing tourist industry, with Kaiping the jumping off point. Thankfully, the kitsch of diaolou-themed hotels is a good 30 minutes from the best clusters and it pays to hire a bicycle to thread through the paddies on your own. What you find is Chinese history snap frozen.

Some of the towers still show graffiti or signs of forced entry from the Cultural Revolution. Even more remarkable are the groups of ‘yang lou’ or foreign villas which have yet to gain heritage protection.

After 1928, when the warlord era nominally ended in China, the architecture in the region began to relax and wealthy families constructed elegant two- and three-storey Italianate villas with minimal fortification.

Most of them are empty and where people aren’t in southern China, agriculture rushes in. Peering through the windows reveals bundles of hay and firewood stacked against sticks of 1940s furniture or beneath beautifully executed wall murals. A common theme of yang lou and diaolou murals is the modern ocean liner, usually shown steaming towards a Fritz Lang-style metropolis, the conduit of the family’s wealth and the source of its dislocation.

Riushi diaolou is the high point of the style. A baroque confection with Chinese characteristics, it is still privately owned but after calling the mobile number pinned to the door and after a small consideration, the owner Mr Huang will take you around the nine-storey tower and tell you a little of the family history.

His story is typical of the region. His father, a successful businessman in Hong Kong, had moved most of the immediate family to the British colony but returned before 1949 with the young Mr Huang to attend to a sick relative. History and events overtook Mr Huang and his father. They remained in communist China while the rest of the family still lives in Hong Kong.

Standing in the pan-opticon of the top cupola next to a rusted 1930s searchlight, I asked Mr Huang if the tower had ever been attacked.

“No,” he says, with more than necessary directness. “They never came.”

Back on the road on my bicycle, I get my second Cantonese lesson, a chapter that should be entitled ‘How much did you pay for that?’. A small group of women near a fruit seller were reasonably impressed that I’d hired my bicycle for 40RMB a day, but 12RMB for a handful of lychees! Was I an idiot? Oh well, what could I expect? I was in bandit country after all.

When I meet Ben Quilty he looks and smells exactly as I imagined. He’s dressed in a flannelette shirt, jeans and sneakers, with scruffy hair and a beard that’s fiercely thick. He smells of oil paint and I can see it still jammed under his fingernails. Sitting in a leafy courtyard at the National Art School, Quilty disarms me with his warm and welcoming presence despite the obvious emotion he displays as we start discussing his latest exhibition.

On the war path… Ben Quilty

Quilty was commissioned as an official war artist by the Australian War Memorial to document the experiences of Australian servicemen and women and spent a month in Afghanistan back in 2011. The resulting exhibition After Afghanistan has quickly become the most hotly debated of his career. Interestingly, he was officially given the Australian Defence Force (ADF) stamp of approval but, perhaps ironically so, it has stirred up quite a few emotional responses since it’s opening last month. The 21 studio paintings – in Quilty’s signature oil on linen – and 16 sketches reveal a lot more about the human face of war than the ADF is perhaps willing to admit.

We’ve been speaking for only a few minutes but I can already see the incredible effect this collection of work has had on the artist. He speaks with intense emotion, his eyes are wide and concentrated and just as captivating as his words.

“It was dark and sinister and overwhelming,” says Quilty of his time in Kandahar.

“The thing I wasn’t prepared for was the constant threat and rockets landing inside the basin, that was horrifying.”

But Quilty’s exhibition isn’t one that celebrates the war hero in a traditional sense, rather, it focuses on the intense physicality of the soldiers and the emotional and psychological consequences of war.

“They carry with them an emotional experience that is almost physical and I wanted to record that emotional weight,” says Quilty.

Emotive… Troy Park, after Afghanistan

Works like Trooper M, after Afghanistan and Air Commander John Oddie and after Afghanistan no. 2 are not portraits of the traditional heroic nude, but images imbued with the lasting experience of war. The faces in the impressive canvases are frightened and hollow and the bodies stripped bear appearing fragile and contorted without the protection of armour or a uniform.

Quilty spent 12 months creating the works in his studio in the NSW southern highlands where he invited the troopers he met in Afghanistan to sit for him upon their return from deployment.

“It was very confronting, particularly watching these guys fall apart and unravel. There’s a sense of team morale while the troops are in Afghanistan but when they return to their green, safe, first world Australia that’s when they fall apart and that’s the classic time when post-traumatic stress hits.

At work… Quilty in his studio

“They have nightmares, they become very violent, they often drag their partners out of bed and hold them on the ground and scream for cover and I’ve heard that from many young guys who are dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ve had their wives and girlfriends in tears in my studio talking about their experience being married to these people.”

This is an overwhelming part of a largely untold story.

“Three guys have been diagnosed since I started working with them and most are going outside of the ADFA to find their own private specialists to help them and at the moment the ADFA isn’t making things easy for them.”

Quilty explains subjects like Trooper M are part of the Special Operations Task Group and are therefore classified under protected identity status.

“They are fighting a war every single day and they are engaging with enemies, risking their lives and dealing with high enemy casualities. There is constant death around them, extreme pressure and because of their status, they’re not allowed to talk about their experiences, which is doing them a big disservice.

“The stories [Trooper M] told me about Afghanistan, the triggers to his post traumatic stress, and the experiences he’s had are like nothing I’ve ever heard in my life. And most of them have these stories.”

Throughout the painting process, Quilty says he wanted to provide a vehicle for his subjects to tell their stories, confront their fears, and shed a light on the darkness so many are suffering – often in silence and with little help.

Vulnerable… Captain Kate Porter, after Afghanistan

“I found the commission so much more important than my career and in the end the work that I made is not my opinion of who they are, it’s the truth about how they feel, what they are confronting. It’s about their future and their past,” he explains.

Australian soldiers, sailors and a number of air force personnel have come to the National Art School to view the exhibition and have expressed their gratitude to the artist for telling a story that no one else would.

“The arts are crucially important to a healthy society. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I know what I’ve achieved with this exhibition and how cathartic it has been, on a personal level, for the guys I’ve worked with,” says Quilty.

Yet, in a nation obsessed with sporting heroes and the pursuit of physical excellence, the arts seem to fall to the wayside.

“The underfunding and lack of respect for the arts in this country makes me very sad,” says Quilty, his voice raised a few decibels.

“The arts isn’t just about painting; it’s about film, theatre and literature – these are so important and make up the real fibre and substance of a community.”

In fact, his exhibition is on show at the National Art School in East Sydney because the Australian War Memorial in Canberra doesn’t have an exhibition space.

“The Australian War Memorial has one of the biggest collections in Australia containing some of the most profoundly important work about war, death, sadness and hope, and yet, no exhibition space. In the past they probably thought their collection was worth a lot of money but not really important to their audience.

“I hope I’ve proved them wrong.”

 After Afghanistan will tour New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Canberra until May 2015.

www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions

www.benquilty.com

]]> http://www.lunchmag.com/after-afghanistan-when-the-war-begins/feed/ 0 http://www.lunchmag.com/a-fork-full-of-philadelphia/ http://www.lunchmag.com/a-fork-full-of-philadelphia/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:43:49 +0000 jonathan http://www.lunchmag.com/?p=7858  

Amy Hughes

Most foodies want to experience local food trends, local chefs, and the local palate. Fork does all of these things, even with cheeky amuses bouches which wink at Philadelphia’s famous pretzels. Owner Ellen Yin is ever-present and makes a terrific ambassador to the city’s food culture, stopping at each table to welcome guests.

Fork is one of those fashionable restaurants where every night feels like Friday. Perfectly low lighting and music blend with chic, eclectic decor that feels ever so slightly Asian. Maybe it’s the murals, hand-painted by our waiter who’s an artist by day. The images of trees give way to a real white birch in the centre of the room, surrounded by sepia-toned paper chandeliers.

Supporting Philly’s food culture… Ellen Yin

Yin first brought the “farm to table” food concept to Philadelphia when she opened Fork 15 years ago. Since then, Fork has worked its way through a few popular chefs. Eli Kulp, formerly of Del Posto in New York, is Fork’s most recent arrival. His menu is a blend of Mediterranean, Moroccan and Middle Eastern. Dishes are ingredient-driven, and now, in the dead of winter, it’s no surprise the offerings are game heavy.

Fork is a place for serious foodies. Dishes are focused on specialty ingredients and unusual flavours not particularly suited for the meat-and-potatoes crowd. Courses are divided into Bites Raw Bar, To Start, Pasta and Mains. The advice is to sample a Bite or an item from the Raw Bar ahead of a Starter, which will still leave plenty of room for everything else.

Some things are extraordinary hits, others need a re-think. We plunge in with the stracciatella eggplant bite which is essentially a crisp cracker served with local mozzarella so fresh its thin strands are draped over a mound of smoky, sweet eggplant. The dish has great texture and flavour and I’m not ashamed to admit I could lick the board it’s served on clean.

The oyster in gazpacho vinegar, another bite, is also a success. It’s a subtle dish, with the gazpacho ingredients strained into clear vinegar, giving the oyster a clean, tangy tomato taste.

Scallop crudo arrives with a parsley kimchi which is perfect for those who like the sharp, piquant bite balancing out the sweet scallop (I do not, my companion does). Instead, I demolish the mozzarella di bufala (yes, more) cleverly served with cured cantaloupe. It’s a vegetarian’s version of prosciutto, except the sweet taste of fruit leather is a better balance for the salty, oozy bufala.

The crab-apple soup could be terrific, but there’s far too much soup for a starter, and its sweetness makes it feel more like a dessert.

Fashionable food… Fork

Somehow we’ve overdone it on the warm-up dishes, but it’s time for the mains. The branzino is, we’re told, a signature dish; with an interesting East meets West take. A thin rectangle of buttery bread is slow baked on top of the fish which sits on a layer of tamarind sauce, spinach and thinly sliced onions. The flavours are complex, and again, texture plays a big role with the crunchy bread.

The poached lobster has a lovely strong, preserved lemon sauce with a local sun choke puree. It’s exactly what I want – light, with a fresh flavour. Great thought has gone into even the simple dishes and it shows.

Service is terrific and our artist-waiter Anthony appears to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the menu. The one area where things go a bit wobbly is dessert. The chef who seems to master melding unusual pairings for the savoury dishes goes overboard with things like charred eggplant cake, which simply tastes like I’ve been forced to eat something blindfolded. But all that’s required is a shift from experimental to decadence to make Fork’s endings flow, because everything else, from the ambience to the service, to Yin’s personal touch, really works.

Fork: etc. just next door is a specialty market offering charcuterie, artisan cheeses and prepared foods from Fork’s kitchen.

Fork 

306 Market Street

Philadelphia, PA 19106

(215) 625 9425

www.forkrestaurant.com 

Imagine a luxury hotel in the heart of one of the most densely populated conurbations on the planet.

Now fill it with attentive but unobtrusive staff, award winning chefs, and scatter it with private secluded rooms in extensive tropical gardens and run scores of bubbling brooks, rivulets and cascading waterfalls through its open areas and atria. And give it plenty of room; yes. Set its rooms on 10, nay 15, rolling acres of grounds purchased by its farsighted owners 40 years earlier.  Finished?

Tropical haven… Chai Spa

Welcome to the Garden Wing, Singapore, Shangri-La’s new premier property on the island nation.

My chamber for my three-night stay is an executive garden room, with three gruelling steps amid the bougainvillea up to a private garden and cabana (OK daybed if you must). To be honest, I do not feel like I’m within 1000 miles of Singapore.

With the cabana – (sorry, daybed), outdoor lounges on the deck, a lounge suite in the room and a king size bed, giant bath and tropical shower, there are plenty of relaxation options after a hard day exploring the heady sights, sounds, tastes and smells of one of the great cities on Earth.

If you do find your way out of your room and its tempting room service options – or what I have christened the Magic Book – you can bathe in the cool waters of the enormous pool complete with fountains, indulge in poolside dining at the Waterfall Cafe. There’s also a Chinese restaurant and several other bars and cafes scattered around the hotel, including The Line. You can try Cantonese cuisine at Shang Palace, take on some Japanese at Nadaman, or enjoy high tea at The Rose Veranda.

Secluded… Executive Garden Room

There is also a gymnasium, the Chi Spa, tennis courts, golf pitch and putt, a sauna, steam room and jacuzzi.

Garden Wing truly is a haven, wrapped in an eyrie, surrounded by an oasis.

Breakfast at the Waterfall cafe is a madrigal of Asian and Western fare. The first morning I opt for bircher muesli with mango yoghurt, a buckwheat waffle with caramelised bananas, watermelon juice, followed by gravlax on dark bread with capers and lemon juice and the International Herald Tribune.

The second morning I decide to give the chef a workout with eggs benedict and smoked trout with potobello mushrooms on rye with a garden salad, then a trip to the buffet for some other sundries. The food is good. Very good. There is no IHT the second morning so I make do with some online papers on my Samsung Galaxy S3 with 4G – no Apple zealot I.

Although I didn’t try it, they also do a champagne brunch and luncheon and dinner.

Scrumptious… Waterfall Cafe

Walking around the cafe piling gourmet morsels on my plate, the place has the feel of a country kitchen of some tropical expat magnate who has left for a few days giving me the run of the place, but who has had the common decency to leave the place fully stocked with vittles.

There is also world-class free wifi, which comes in very handy, complimentary evening cocktails from 5pm to 7pm at Garden Wing Lounge, which – I hope you’re sitting down – I didn’t get around to, but it looked like it might be a good idea to dress up for when I walked past.

Each afternoon during my stay the tropical rain sets in for a one-hour downpour you could set your watch by, which is fun to watch from the deck, icy cold Tiger in hand, as I take in the fecund smell of the rain hitting the warm earth and swallows dart around the skies of Singapore.

The Garden Wing

22 Orange Grove Road, 258350, Singapore

Amy Hughes

Growing up in New England we used to say, “It’s cold enough to snow” when temperatures dropped. In Kiev, it’s the opposite. On this late January weekend, I learn to say, “It’s warm enough to snow.” Thankfully, I’m well prepared with a heavy wool duffel coat and multiple layers. It’s a great excuse to trot out a winter hat collection and my friend has been desperate to wear a new fur coat she bought in Athens during the height of the summer heat, and the financial crisis. In case you’re wondering, Athens is definitely the place to buy fur coats and other luxury goods these days. But we’re in Kiev, where the only thing to buy is vodka – great quality and lots of it.

Understated luxury... Fairmont Grand Hotel Kiev

We enter the Fairmont, which has a unique location down by the undeveloped waterfront. It’s situated just off a main street lined with restaurants and shops leading to one of the city’s universities.

Just around the corner, a funicular travels up a steep hill to the central part of Kiev with its wide boulevards and St. Michael’s Cathedral, a working monastery and one of a handful of beautiful, gold-domed churches all within walking distance. We were expecting austere, Spartan views around the city, and instead, each church surprises us with a different pastel colour of the rainbow, one is green, another pale blue, yellow, and even a periwinkle colour.

English isn’t widely spoken here, yet we’re greeted warmly at the front desk before we’re shown to a suite large enough to house a foreign diplomacy delegation. From the sitting room, through the corridor, and into the bedroom, there are fantastic views of the iced over Dnipro River. The beds are grand, covered in fine linens, and comfortable.

As is the case with so many hotels, the heating system is tightly controlled, and presumes every guest prefers a tropical climate in the dead of winter. At 3am, we struggle, opening windows and thrashing duvets to escape the heat pumping through the vents. We manage to get it a bit cooler the next night, but this is not a problem unique to the Fairmont. All hotels should allow guests a full range on individual thermostats.

Grand... suites at the Fairmont

Heating sorted, we test the Illy coffee machine (thumbs up) before heading for breakfast, a vast array of typical things, along with smoked fish, meats, cheeses, and interesting honeys: pistachio, balsamic and three spice. I’ve been to the Middle East, and other parts of Eastern Europe, where gourmet honey is the norm, but I’ve never seen these before. And this is where the Fairmont excels.

There are four different kinds of home-made granola, a selection of nuts, and even soy milk. This is no Soviet culinary wasteland. I’ve eaten breakfast at five-star resorts with a smaller assortment than this. And when we tell the waiter we’d love a coffee refill, but are in a hurry to squeeze in some sights, he returns with takeaway cups full of a rich roast. It’s a simple, but ingenious touch other hotels could learn from.

After a full day out, walking like grannies to avoid the ultimate wipe out (and we’ve seen some Ukrainian grannies take a tumble), it’s time for a blind vodka taste test.

The no-smoking rules aren’t quite as advanced here, and the Fairmont’s bar is a welcome haven for cigarette, cigar and even shisha pipe smokers. With a low hum of trendy music in the background, we set about sampling raspberry, honey, and cinnamon vodka before retiring. They taste a bit more like cordials, but warm us up, nonetheless.

Everything about this hotel is dignified, traditional, and comfortable. It stays far away from bling, with excellent, attentive service and trusty, reliable, understated elegance.

The hotel and the city are perfect for a 48-hour break, and if you can stomach the cold, come in the winter. It’s a romantic city made all the more so by falling snow.

http://www.fairmont.com/kyiv/

Lauren Arena

With piracy costing the global economy upwards of $10 billion a year it might be time to consider engaging and killing pirates on sight according to a world leading defence analyst.

Executive Director at the Australian Defence Association, Neil James says piracy was only crushed in the 19th century because pirates were killed and becoming a pirate was like signing a death sentence.

"International rights do-gooders have essentially created more pirates and recreated a very serious international problem.

Out of control... Somali pirates

James was commenting in response to maritime security company Typhon's announcement that they will attempt to tackle the spread of piracy across the Indian Ocean with the world’s first private navy in almost 200 years. 

Typhon's offering is a tailor-made navy escort service to the commercial market, allowing ship operators to safely cross the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Armed vessels, including a 10,000-ton mother ship and high speed armoured patrol boats, will be led by a former Royal Navy commodore along with 240 former marines and sailors as part of Typhon’s integrated protection model.

James, says this modern twist on a Letter of Marque is only a quick fix. 

“It’s purely a case of the commercial market filling a vacuum because the United Nations have their arms tied,” says James.

“A private security convoy is a reactive measure, they’re operating as a guard force and can't proactively engage with pirate vessels in order to address the problem and really make a difference in the long term.”

The company’s CEO, Anthony Sharp, says, “The areas we will protect are too vast for current naval resources to monitor effectively and this will be an even bigger issue when Operation Atlanta comes to an end”.

Winding down... Operation Atlanta

“With millions paid out in ransoms to pirates and much more money lost by businesses in fuel costs avoiding pirates, it is important that businesses are granted a safer passage with their cargo through dangerous waters.”

But safe passage doesn't come cheap. A private navy escort will cost between $5000 and $10,000 dollars per day.

Under current United Nations Security Council (UNSC) laws a person engaged in piracy must be taken into custody to undergo a fair criminal trial before being charged. According to James, this is at the heart of the problem.

He suggests Somali pirates have become more flexible, adaptable and better organised and have more modern weapons and communications. Western naval analysts also say they are extending their range to the Oman sea.

“Pirates are operating across enormous distances and Somalia has become a 20th century Tortuga,” says James.

Piracy is spreading rapidly from its Somali roots across the Indian Ocean as far as the Gulf of Guinea, Bangladesh and Indonesia, yet the EU naval presence in the Gulf of Aden is due to end in 2014.James says the UNSC needs to revise its laws in order to stamp out piracy for good, but doubts whether the necessary changes will ever occur.

Humble beginnings... Typhon's fleet

“An international agreement would require a pirate atrocity to take place in order to concentrate international minds on the issue,” he says.

Typhon is set to escort its first convoy of oil tankers and bulk carriers in April, but there's still a lot of work to be done before then.

The first of Typhon’s intended fleet of 10 ships, a 130-foot container vessel, is currently being retrofitted in Abu Dhabi and the crew of ex-Royal Marines and sailors is yet to be hired.

To-date the company has acquired three container vessels, only one of which is expected to be ready in time for the inaugural voyage in April, while Sharp and his management team attempt to finalise an insurance deal with Lloyd's of London.