The search for the perfectly feathered, exquisitely dressed, coiffed and manicured loon is never ending and surprisingly difficult.
You might think that with a world of loons it would be easy, and of course the common or garden loon is abundant. And sure, here at loon pond, our trained loons toil daily, tending to the scribblings of fair average loons with a bee in their bonnet.
The work is never done, it's soul destroying, it involves getting down in the mud and the dirt and the grime, into the kitchen or the engine room, and emerging with a mind that's inclined to be loony.
But the search for refined loons is a different more exalted quest. By necessity, as a quintessential matter of style, taste and refinement, taking pot shots at passing ducks isn't the point of the hunt.
No, it takes a certain class, a certain hutzpah to be an exceptional loon, and finding such a prize specimen is a bit like hunting for the perfect wattleseed icecream. Australia's very own contribution to the world.
But every so often, there comes a delicious moment, like that delicious tang when the raspberry sorbet first hits the tip of the tongue, then slides its way across the taste buds in a rapturous blossoming, exploding, cacophony of flavor, before ending its sensuous journey by settling on the stomach (let's not dwell on the rest of its journey).
If accompanied by a good chardonnay and perhaps a cafe latte, the moment can approach ecstasy.
Oops, I'm starting to sound like one of those hideous progressive, politically correct trendy inner west lefties with not a clue about the real world. Perhaps I was inspired by this:
When the new bakery opened near my home two weeks ago, there was just one product in the window: a row of large, round, dusty sourdough loaves. The miche loaf. They looked so alluring I bought one even though it was a hefty 1.7 kilograms and $13. As I carried it home the loaf was still warm, fresh from the oven.
It was immediately obvious this bread was exceptional, with a crunchy, almost caramelised crust. Tasting that loaf, especially the crust, was a spiritual experience. I resolved to do something I had never done before. I wanted to shake the hand of the person who made this possible.
It was immediately obvious this bread was exceptional, with a crunchy, almost caramelised crust. Tasting that loaf, especially the crust, was a spiritual experience. I resolved to do something I had never done before. I wanted to shake the hand of the person who made this possible.
Well there you go, there's someone who clearly harbors a deep affinity for the dilemmas of the outer western suburbs souls struggling in a world run by hideous progressives, greens and anal retentive bureaucrats.
Thirteen bucks for a loaf of bread!
Well the rest of you lot can just settle for cake, available in pre mix packets from Woollies for a couple of bucks. Yep, we Marie Antoinettes know how to deal with your common or garden Western Suburbs Leagues club members.
What, now you think I'm starting to sound like some kind of Paddington ponce? Because you know this fabulous new bakery is in Paddington?
Now, steady, this scribbler isn't me, nor even any foodies of my acquaintance, and I know a few, though most of them have been locked up in Adelaide for the safety of the rest of humanity.
This is actually the scribbling of an international jet setter, proud that we can even out ponce the Parisians on their home turf of du fromage et du paine:
Having marvelled in my 20s at the routine quality of the food in Paris people took for granted, it never occurred that, in my lifetime, the food within my life in Australia would, overall, become superior to the food I found in Paris. That I would have a better miche in my own urban village than the miche from Poilane was not an insignificant cultural marker.
Oh wondrous food snob, oh intrepid gourmet, oh elevator of the national cuisine above the perfidious French and their cheese eating surrender monkey ways, how you redeem the hideous banality of western suburbs life with this celebration of culture.
Perhaps you can even guide us to the perfect chardonnay and the most exquisite coffee.
Sorry, don't hold your breath, it's just Paul Sheehan taking a break from bashing the brains of dunderhead inner west trendy lefties in A flour blooms - and a family classic is toast of town.
Normal programming will resume shortly.
In the meantime, good luck to the bakery, who have got some nice publicity out of his intoxicating spiritual experience. Why I'm even thinking of dashing over to the eastern suburbs myself in the ongoing quest for the perfect bread.
But there's an even deeper pleasure contained in his lyrical foodie buffy incoherent ramble through the mysteries of bread.
The next time I read Sheehan, all I have to do is take a deep breath, have a slice of perfectly buttered toast with some exquisite home made blackberry jam, have a sip of coffee, and remember, whenever he gets stuck into the progressives and the politically correct, in his usual grumpy curmudgeonly way, that I'm reading the ramblings of a delusional Paddington ponce.
Which reminds me of a friend I have who lives in Woollahra and is incapable of going further west or south than Oxford street for fear of the dragons that live in the west.
Yep, she won't even come to Newtown to experience the taste treats to be found at Christopher The's (ex-Claude's) Black Star pastry shop. All the sweet young things are wildly excited, and while I'm not quite sure why it's important to preface The's status with a reference to Claude, I continually marvel how any single pastry purchased at the shop truly tastes better than anything I've ever tasted in any world famous pastry shop in the United States. Or France for that matter.
Oops, that sounded really poncy. Perhaps truth to tell Sheehan and I, or me and Sheehan, or is it Sheehan and me, are actually just two pretentious poncy gits without a clue about the real, hard world. There's just one nagging doubt I have about the matter of the bread ... Sheehan's previous taste for magic water.
Even so, I have hopes for the bread, and I plead guilty to the charge of snobbery and poncedom, and now I'm just waiting for Sheehan to write his next diatribe about dilettante progressives with their Twinings tea views of the world ...
Snobs, can't live without 'em, can't live with 'em. As Thackeray put it so nicely:
If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men's failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?
Thackeray also had something to say about French snobs, and if you substitute Australian for British in the following quote, perhaps you might note something of Sheehan in the text:
We are accustomed to laugh at the French for their braggadocio propensities, and intolerable vanity about la France, la gloire, l'Empereur, and the like; and yet I think in my heart that the British Snob, for conceit and self-sufficiency and braggartism in his way, is without a parallel. There is always something uneasy in a Frenchman's conceit. He brags with so much fury, shrieking, and gesticulation; yells out so loudly that the Francais is at the head of civilization, the centre of thought, etc., that one can't but see the poor fellow has a lurking doubt in his own mind that he is not the wonder he professes to be. About the British Snob, on the contrary, there is commonly no noise, no bluster, but the calmness of profound conviction. We are better than all the world; we don't question the opinion at all; it's an axiom.
(Below: self-portrait of William Makepeace Thackeray, author of - amongst other things - a book of snobs).
