First of all I would like to wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! May all your wishes come true, health, wealth and success.

Now that we got that out of the way I can tell you the new exciting things that are happening in my life.

Last week Steven Gargano, my General Manager, sat down with me to discuss where we would like to take the restaurant in 2010. We had a few ideas, but the best one, and I admit that it wasn’t mine, was to give our guests this old Retro style, that will include new decorations for the restaurant and bar, new menus, and hopefully new uniforms.

We also decided that everything will be in a cinemaish influence.

Stuff like James Bond’s beef Wellington, and Steve McQueen’s beer batter fish will be on our menu. A Casablanca’s giant Oreo cookie and ice cream sandwich and Robert Redford’s bomb Alaska and much more of that yummy stuff. And all wrapped up in a retro art deco and a smiley wait staff. If I wasn’t scared from an OHS lawsuit, I would buy all our waiters skate shoes to even get you more in the mood.

Getting Retro pictures wasn’t an easy task. God, sometime I wish I had a personal assistant to take care of these things. I was sitting down next to my computer for maybe 4 hours choosing the right pictures that we would like to have, the right pictures that as soon as you’ll see them you’ll go “wow I remember this movie… haha I loved that guy…” and when you see the menu you’ll have flashbacks from your childhood when your mum promised you that if you do your homework, and you are well behaved when the uncles and aunties are coming, you’ll get that Delusions cookie sandwich. Mmm.

Yes, I was only born in late 70’s, but in Israel I guess the retro was a bit late, and the cookie sandwich was popular all through the 80’s. Kind of thinking of it, it still is. And on a hot day on the Mediterranean beach, you will hear a distant voice from a guy that must be burned already from the sun, walking with a white foam box hanging off his shoulder, yelling‘’…Ice cream sandwich…’’, or how we call it, Cookilida.

Oh I miss the Mediterranean beaches. Yes, the Australian beaches are good and pretty, but on the Mediterranean, it’s a whoooole different story. The water temperature is perfect, there are bars on the beach, and I mean on the beach, like on the sand. Playing chillout music during the day and as soon as the sun goes down it will switch to electronic music, in some places. PARTY ON!!!!

Smoking hot girls, playing Matkot, which is one of the most popular games in Israel. Using a wooden racket and a rubber ball we play something that will remind you of tennis.

Anyway, sorry I got a bit carried away with some old good memories.

Back to Retro, IT IS HAPPANING. Our successful Cabaret nights are also getting a retro theme, with new costumes and new shows, I welcome you all to jump in to the Cambridge time machine, feel free to dress accordingly, but just make sure that if you’re planning on wearing an afro wig, you might get complains from guests that are behind you and cannot see the funny show, cause these things are HUGE!!!!

I think I will leave you with a great recipe for a cookie and ice cream sandwich.

Hopefully it will bring some good memories and will make you come back for some more.

For the cookies, to make 20 of them.

• 125g butter, chopped
• 200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 3/4 cup self-raising flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Method

1. Place butter and chocolate in a saucepan over low heat. Stir constantly until melted. Remove from heat and transfer immediately to a bowl.
2. Add sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Sift flours and cocoa over mixture. Stir to combine. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm enough to roll.
3. Preheat oven to 180°C. Roll heaped tablespoonfuls of mixture into balls and place 3cm apart on lined baking trays. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, swapping trays after 8 minutes, or until biscuits are cracked on top. (Cookies will firm when you’ll cool them but will stay fudgy and yummy inside.)
4. Cool on trays for 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the sandwich, just layer good vanilla ice cream in between two cookies, maybe 3-4cm wide, wrap with clean foil and shoot straight into the freezer.

I’ll recommend you to wrap each one individually, so it will not get the flavors from your fridge, and can be served individually to your kids, of course only if they behave.

Bye for now, and hope that you’ll join us for a spin in the Cambridge time machine.

Itzhak.

My mum in Sydney

Living in a foreign country by yourself, it’s not easy.

Lonely, isolated, neglected and abandoned are just some of the feelings that you might experience if you’re planning on doing what I did 5 years ago. Five years of constantly looking for somebody to replace your family that you’ve left back home.

“Mum, why you never come visiting me?” I kept asking her, and she always had the same disappointing answer, “I can’t come now… I’m very busy… I don’t have money now…” or even sometimes she gave me a glance of light and said “Soon my dear, soon…”

And then it happened, my mum called me and told me that she booked a ticket for the land down under, the land where the animals are weird and the beer never runs out. The landwhere the water goes in the other direction down the drain, and where criminals and gold diggers came two centuries ago searching for a new opportunity. The land that I love so much… Australia.

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!! Finally!!!! There are so many things I would like to show her, my college, the Harbour Bridge, fish market, botanic gardens and so so SO much more.

After a few days to let my mum readjust her jetlag (mind you that it takes you about 30 hours to get here from Israel)  and getting over the fact that she is actually here, I decided to take her first to the Sydney’s fish market to try everything that we can put our hands on.

Getting to the fish market is quite easy and parking is always available for a relative cheap fare. Only $3 an hr.

As soon as we walked in, we ran to Christie’s seafood, which personally I think has the best seafood in the fish market. The owner Wayne I know from long time ago while I was working for the Mercure hotel and always provides me with the best quality treasures from the ocean.

Huge king crabs, amazingly bright red lobsters, marrons, abalones, and some angry mud crabs. You know, I was never able to pick up those crabs with my bare hands. It doesn’t matter that their claws are tied, and they are really tired from the journey that they just went through, still those dodgy pink rubber bands around their claws and the ANGRY look in their eyes intimidate me and I keep my distance.

My mum mostly liked the prawns. She tasted a bit of calamari as well but other than that, anything that looks back at her before she bites or belongs to the mollusks family does not go in her mouth. As for me, the more the merrier.

The only thing I really wanted her to try is the soft shell crab, and if you never tried these ones, then consider this as a MUST!

Soft shell crabs are normally blue crabs coming from the USA or mangrove crabs coming from Asia. Teose crabs are caught just when they are molting their shells, which leaves us with nothing crunchy or hard to bite on. Even the powerful claws are soft as butter. Absolutely divine, with the right touch and species, which as you can guess I will tell you very shortly.

Back to my mum, after feasting her stomach with 3 half dozen BBQ prawns she felt that it’s enough, and does not need any more protein for next year.

So we bought a few huge pacific oysters for the road and left the market happy and full.

Now back to the Soft shell crab, and best way to cook. Deep frying is the most common way, in a good batter or even just dusted with flour, served with a fresh salad or even as a condiment for a main dish.

So here is my recipe for it:

Ingredients:

1 soft shell crab. You can buy it frozen in the fish market.

100 g flour

20 g flour for dusting the crab before dipping in the batter

50 g corn flour

Soda water

1 whole egg.

Pinch of sumac

For the salad dressing:

2 limes

70 ml extra virgin olive oil

20 g of raw sugar, grounded.

Salt and pepper.

Now, to cook the soft shell crab you better have a deep fryer at home, but if you don’t, its ok, a deep pan with lots of oil will do the job just as good.

Mix the flours together. Now slowly add the soda water while you are whisking it in, until its forms a thick batter that coats your finger but does not stay on in.Tthen add the sumac and the egg and whisk till smooth. Rest in the fridge for about 10-15min.

In the meantime, you can make the dressing. Now just squeeze the lime and mix well with all the rest of the ingredients. Make sure you taste it to see that it is not too sweet or too sour. It should be balanced perfectly.

The crab is very easy to be cleaned. All you need to do is gently remove the gills that are located under the head. The side of the head is open upwards and there you will see a grayish fiber and rough gills. Just remove it and gently wash it under cold water.

Cut the crab in to 4 and dust with flour. Then dip in the batter and BAM>> into the hot oil. The best way to know when the crab is cooked is when it floats on top of the oil.

When it’s ready, just take it out of the oil the dry on a tray. Then mix your salad and top it up with the crab. Dress generously, but NOT TOO MUCH. With over dressing, the crab will lose his beautiful crunchiness and won’t be as nice.

This will be the perfect lunch munchies on a sunny Sunday afternoon with a glass of sauvignon Blanc.

Enjoy the fruits of the sea.

Itzhak.