Hello again world, I'm back, and no, I won't be talking exclusively about meat pies anymore, but just about things, anything and everything. I don't expect many people to see this, or to read it all that often, but those of you who do, I hope you'll enjoy it.

the holy trinity of Bacon Avocado and Chicken

so i've now broken into the world of "Gourmet" pies. I've gone through all the vanilla that australia has to offer, and now things are getting racey. hence the chicken bacon and avocado pie I had today from the Pies and Coffee House on Manly Beach. The incredible combination of chicken and bacon is one known only to those enterprising enough to have tried them together on a pizza, or lucky enough to find a Chicken BLT. but let me assure you, the flavor sensation of bacon and chicken is sublime, incredible, a whole equaling something far greater than the parts. now, when you mix these two amazing ingredients with a third, Avocado... well just prepare to be blown away. Put it in a pastry shell, and your head might just explode. if it does, I assure you, you will die happy.

pie of childhood

I don't think that I have to tell you that I came to Australia for a genuine experience, The real deal, True Blue, and "Dinky-Di" and all those other funny sounding words. so what could be more genuine than the McDonald's (note that this is McDonald's, the soulless mega-corporation, and not MacDonald's, the small town bakery, full of heart and fresh bread) McAustralian Hamburger, with "All Australian Beef Patty, Fresh Cracked Egg (whatever that means), Fresh Bacon Rashers, Golden Circle(tm) Pineapple Slice, and Barbecue Sauce." this burger has everything I could want, including trade marked pineapple (I love proprietary produce). Interesting side note the McDonalds breakfast menu had a McAmerican Sandwich, which is a bagel sandwich containing egg and bacon. Slightly less interesting side note, Contrary to casual conversation from Pulp Fiction, despite the fact that Australia (like France) is on the metric system, and "wouldn't know what a quarter pounder means," the sandwich is still called a quarter pounder. but back to our original topic, the McAustralian Burger. So I had recieved my order, with surprising efficiency (the speed that makes you wonder if they have a bunker of finished sandwiches out back) and I had decided to walk around outside and have my lunch. I had gotten one bite into my sandwich, and was about to go back for a second go, when my hand was attacked by a very persistent seagull. the McAustralian fell to the floor, and within seconds was engulfed in a squacking writhing ball of gray white feathers, all beak, baby. Thirty seconds later I was looking dumbfounded at an empty sidewalk and a few very satisfied seagulls. this is hardly the first time i have had my lunch stolen by wildlife, It happens so often, that i have started to think that the animals have it out for me. along with this instance, there was the time when I was eating fried chicken at a picnic in the park, when a pidgeon flew straight into my chest, in shock, I dropped the drumstick i had just picked up, which was quickly claimed by several other pigeons, including the original pigeon, who had served as a distraction. The earliest occasion that I remember happened when I was much younger, still in a stroller, and I was at a petting zoo with my family, I was attacked by a wallaby for a cookie I was eating. I guess this last one can't really count though, because years later, my sister confessed to me that she had fed the wallaby the last of her cookie, and that was probably what had gotten it hungering for my cookie, but still, the wallaby stole my damn cookie. And yes, I'm still bitter. so back in the present, I took this surprise air strike as a message to get back to the business of meat pie review, so off i went to the nearest bakery for a meat pie, a small australian meat pie which could be held close, and guarded. i wound up with a Pepper Steak Pie from the Fresh Oven Bakery, in The Rocks, just outside of Circular Quay (say it "key"). The Fresh Oven Bakery serves their pies with a much thicker crust, much less flaky, but no less delicious. The pepper steak pie had whole black pepper corns embedded in the top crust, but this seemed to serve mostly as a garnish. pepper steak pie is quite nice. It has all the flavor of a regular beef pie, with the added zest of black pepper. the pepper flavor is very strong, almost enough to overpower the steak, but it reaches a good balance. the steak in the pie was very tender, and the peppery sauce kept the whole thing juicy without being too tough. the pie itself was quite nostalgic. Pepper Steak Pie was the first meat pie I ever had. When I was 14 years old, I took a trip to Australia with my dad. It was at a waterfront lunch stand (at Circular Qua, Sydney no less) that I first sampled that savory pastry, the pepper steak pie. sure, meat pies have come and gone in the past, the exotic "Rabbit Pie" that I purchased at a farmers market in England, and my discovery of the Empanada, but the pepper steak pie has remained my favorite. The divine right-ness of something as simple as black pepper and steak together in pastry is something so incredible that it just defies explanation. you'll just have to try it for yourself. And I sincerely hope you do so.

one two, one two

it had to happen sooner or later. I have run out of pies to sample in gulgong. I'm sure some of you saw this coming with all the missed updates, and the non-pie entries, but I just can't do it anymore, the fertile plains of Gulgong have run dry, and can't support a pie blog no more. Is This Goodbye? of course not, because as i type this now, i am sitting in Neutral Bay, Sydney, New South Wales. The Big Smoke, as they call it. and i'm sure tucked away in this town are a few good pies to hold me over until I take that trip across the international dateline. stay tuned for tomorrow's update, whatever pie I can find in sydney.

The Meat Pie Review gets dangerous.

so in reading up on nutritional information for the sausage roll, i managed to find this bit of information on frozen processed meat pies sold in australia. "A study by ACA in 2006 found 5 of the 23 pie products tested had less than the minimum 25% meat required." less than 25% meat. that is a meat pie, containing 75% "other" even more, any pie that uses meat other than beef, pork, or chicken is allowed to just put the frighteningly ambiguous "meat" on their list of ingredients, but given what we now know, i am just reassured to know that meat is present. With this frightening fact, I knew what i had to do. put my health and wellbeing on the line for journalistic integrity. The people have to know what it is like to eat a pie which might only contain 25% meat. I am a martyr to the truth, and so in the spirit of Edward R. Murrows, reporting on the german airstrikes from inside london, i thawed and microwaved up a single Sargent's Meat Pie(tm). Sargent, please don't sue me. the first think i noticed as the pie came out of the toaster oven (a step which must be taken to avoid soggy pies, nobody likes soggy pies) was the brand name of Sargent stamped onto the crust, much in the same way (and almost the same font) as the brand name of Ford stamped into the center of one of their hard rubber steering wheels. So here's the deal. Imagine sloppy joe mix, with peas and something that looks like carrots in it. Put that in a pie shell. Now put the whole thing in a particle accelerator until it reaches the temperature of the sun. Do particle accelerators really do that? I don't know. I don't want to know. but that's exactly what a frozen meat pie does when put in the microwave. I'm sure that somewhere, under the crust, under the superheated magma, there was a rotating core of superdense beef giving this thing it's own north and south magnetic poles. but you let it cool off a bit, and it's not too bad. the texture definetely left something to be desired, and I am still not convinced that those were really carrots, what can you really expect at 5AUD for a pack of four pies. (apparently, nothing over 50% meat). and is this australian celebration of cheap eats any worse than Ramen, or Spam. It could certainly be no worse than heat and eat bacon (they weren't even in the freezer section of the store...) the trick with any of this is to not think too hard about what your doing, and enjoy the mad rush of it all. Now if i'm finished making cheap quisine look like a thrilling game of Russian Roullette, I think i'm done here. I still think I'm gonna hold off on the ready to serve bacon for now.

Sheee's My Curry Pie.

curried beef pie. so i can understand the connection between the brittish and indian cuisine, what with the rich history of trade between England and India (years of horrible imperealism), but just what is the connection between australia and indian food? And just how did a Curried Beef Pie come to be sold here? I suppose I suppose i should have learned my lesson from the mexican pie, but i've got plog updates to do here. it seems that the australian definition of curry is rather loose. apparently you just take beef stew and add a pinch of curry powder and a spoonfull of brown sugar. I guess you can't blame them, their one major link to india (being English) ended about 200 years ago, and since then I guess they've had to let their indian cuisine evolve on it's own, into what is really just slightly smokey tasting beef stew, with a few extra peas, and occasionally something spicy.

Bendigo? Wagga Wagga Show? 1951?!?

There was a time when I thought that the meap pie stood alone as the lone savory pastry in a world of sweet fruit fillings. Okay, well, that's not true, but you try getting empanadas in australia. Today, I was proven wrong. you see, the australians have this thing called a sausage roll. Given the peculiar taxonomy of australian food (a salad roll is apparently a vegitable sandwhich), I had expected some sort of delicious sausage in a bun, I have since discovered that this is a "Sausage S'wich". Oh no, the sausage roll is something completely different. Imagine, if you will, turkey stuffing, like what you eat on thanksgiving, all bread, and ground meats, and spices. now wrap that in a roll of flaky pastry, and you have a sausage roll. a lunch so unhealthy that Bob Carr, Premier of New South Wales went on record as saying that raising your children on a diet of sausage rolls and chicko rolls was akin to child cruelty. I don't even know what chicko rolls are. the wikipedia article on them starts of with
"The Chiko Roll or CHIKO Roll is an Australian savoury snack developed by Frank McEncroe, a boilermaker from Bendigo, and first appeared at the Wagga Wagga Show in 1951."
There is so very much I do not understand here. I am truly a stranger in a strange land, grasping for familiarity on my culinary travels.