But there are a couple of less tangible things about it I think are worth even more. The first is the way that a memory of a town is ground into you by riding (or walking) a route over and over again. If I close my eyes I can walk again my commutes in Dublin and Brighton, remembering every turning, the horse chestnut tree on the side street, the change from concrete to cobble footpath at a particular corner, the white-painted walls of an alleyway, the metal of an old manhole cover worn slippery, the long, long wait at a particular pedestrian crossing, the low winter sun glinting on the windows of my office as I round the last corner. It’s the same in Brisbane now. There’s the slow climb up to the Storey Bridge, the twisty zip down the path and precipitous Ivory Lane to the river, the slow weaving in and out between pedestrians getting off the ferry at Riverside, the wrist-shaking juddering over the cobbled paths in the botanic gardens, looking out at where Lightfoot used to be moored before Michelle and Graham set off for Canada, then the brackish smell of the mangroves, the roar of the freeway above, watch out for the lip of the curb there, the winding back and forth with the river, up onto the road at Toowong, two hills in the looping St Lucia backstreets (on one of which I was almost run over by a garbage truck coming the other way, a year ago), and the final run into uni, past the old parasitology buildings, and down the ramp into the courtyard of our building. I’ll never fully lose this fine-grained knowledge of this route, not completely.

And the second: freedom. My bike lets me go places I wouldn’t venture on foot at night. Down by the rowing sheds at uni. Around the factories and warehouses in West End, when the streets are silent and deserted. Through the city botanic gardens, dodging ringtail possums hypnotised by my lamp, past the sleeping homeless people, even though QUT apparently sends out occasional emails suggesting that women keep out of the park when it’s dark. I feel like the city is mine, in a way it would never be if I were in a car or walking. I can cycle for miles, go wherever I want, explore whatever makes me curious, and sense it all directly.

Tonight, riding home from my Italian class at about 9.30, I found the river walk blocked off  just coming into the city. At first I was cross at the thought of having to take the suggested detour, which involved lots of road-crossing and getting involved with traffic. But then I decided instead to cross over the Go Between bridge to West End, cycle along the south bank of the river past the Cultural Centre, and cross back over on the Goodwill Bridge. Coming into West End, suddenly alert again, I smelled the sharp, sour smell of the milk factory on the night air as I turned into Montague St. I slowed down as I passed the old Montague hotel on the other side of the road, looking over at people sitting talking at tables outside on the footpath, under iron lace balconies, in warm pools of light, quiet amongst the empty streets around. When I came to the museum of modern art, I missed the turnoff for the cycle path, and since there was almost no-one else around I continued on and followed the narrow twists of the pedestrian path for a while, then bumped over the edge of the path to coast down the steep rolling hill of lawn between the garden beds, back to the river’s edge and the boardwalk. It was like a dream - somehow intense but full of floating potential. I smiled the rest of the ride home, thoroughly aware again despite the familiar route.

150 g orecchiete
1.5 cups frozen peas
3 slender zucchini
garlic-infused olive oil
finely grated zest of one large lemon
2 dessert spoons of the best creme fraiche
a piece of feta about 10 x 5 x 1 cm , finely crumbled
leaves from a small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
sea salt and black pepper

Cook the orecchiete in boiling salted water.  Defrost the peas by putting them in a bowl with hot water.

Meanwhile, slice the zucchini finely with a mandolin or slicing side of a grater. Saute it with some garlic-infused olive oil for 5 or 6 minutes, till it is soft.

Three minutes before the pasta is done, add the peas to the saucepan in which the pasta is cooking. Once the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the frypan with the zucchini. Toss together for a minute over low heat with the lemon zest, creme fraiche, feta, parsley and salt and pepper.

Eat up. Serves 2.

Back to Edwige and Jean’s for lunch, which translated to 5 hours on the couches in front of the pot-bellied stove, eating pate and rillettes with good bread (delivered from Chouquette by Ted, along with pastries) and salad, drinking wine, and chatting.

And finally home in the twilight, and much later a dinner of pasta and mushrooms, as below. This is a wintery tangle of nutty spelt linguine, mushrooms with an edge of garlic, green herbs and slightly sweet comté cheese. I would happily make this many times again - hopefully always after such an enjoyable day.

Spelt linguine with mushrooms, herbs and comté

200 g spelt linguine
butter
a dozen or so swiss brown or other tasty mushrooms, sliced
a dash of garlic-infused olive oil
fresh thyme and flat-leaf parsley, chopped
100g comté cheese, coarsely grated

Cook the linguine in boiling water until al dente.

Meanwhile, heat the butter in a  pan and saute the mushrooms until brown and soft. Add a dash of the garlic-infused olive oil a bit before finishing. Season with salt and pepper.

When the pasta is done, drain and toss with the mushrooms, herbs and cheese. Eat at once.

Serves 2.

I was given a lot of different cooking inspirations during my trip. Various shrimp and fish tacos in Merced and LA. Carolin’s breakfast pancakes made with rye, chickpea and almond flours, with maple syrup and berries. A sweet skinny mango eaten with a spoon, sitting beside a river in Yosemite, after a lunch of bread and cheese. Jon-Paul’s one-dish bliss pilaf with pistachios, artichokes and greens, and his foaming sourdough pancakes the next morning. A slender rack of lamb drizzled with ume plum vinegar, eaten outside in the twilight while listening to the cicadas. Basil ice cream at Ici.

I can’t easily recreate all of these dishes here - not least because I’m missing the company that made them so good - but I’ve been reminded yet again of how much enjoyment there is to be had from cooking with friends, eating good food at each meal rather than accepting bad robot-kibble from the uni refec, spending the half-hour chopping and roasting and chatting at the end of the day for the sake of the pleasure to be had from a proper dinner. I’d fallen into the habit of having pasta or toast for dinner, eaten at the computer all too often, before I left. That was partly the mad rush to finish off some research before the conference, but also partly laziness and forgetting what actually makes me happy.

After summer meals in California, the dish below probably seems like a bit of a contrast. It has the potential for stodge, but it’s warming and comforting rather than lumpen, honestly. I arrived home an hour or so before Ted on Friday night, and pottered around the kitchen, wanting to use up various bits and pieces left in the fridge from the week before. A couple of heels of cheese, half a pot of cream, assorted vegetables rattling around in the crisper. I considered a pasta bake but wanted something earthier, nuttier, more chewy. This dish of baked barley and vegetables, held together with scraps of cream, cheese and egg, was the result. I think it would also do very well with other combinations - maybe mushrooms, spinach and herbs with a smoked cheese? You could also swap the cream for some vegetable or chicken stock, as it’s just to add some moistness rather than creaminess per se.

1 large butternut squash
olive oil (preferably garlic-infused)
salt and pepper
3 zucchini
1 large bunch spinach
2-3 cups cooked barley
150 ml cream
1 egg
a couple of handfuls of grated mozzarella
a smallish chunk of feta, crumbled
coarsely grated parmesan

Peel the squash, cut into 1.5 cm cubes, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast at 180 C until softened and golden around the edges.

Coarsley grate the zucchini, then saute in a pan with garlic-infused olive oil and a pinch of salt for 5 minutes, until softened. Drain and set aside. Wash and chop the spinach, then wilt in the pan, drain any liquid and set aside with the zucchini.

Mix together the vegetables and barley. Whisk the egg into the cream, then mix that into the vegetables together with the feta and mozzarella. There should be more vegetables than barley, and the mixture should be damp and hold somewhat together, but not be runny. Add a little extra cream if needed.

Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish (a lasagne dish works well), smooth the top, sprinkle with parmesan, and bake at 180 C for about 30 minutes, until the top is bubbling and light gold. Rest it for a few minutes then serve.

Serves 6.

Leftovers of this (together with a panch dal) are going to be lunch for  me for several days this week. Can’t wait!

oil or ghee
1 heaped teaspoon brown mustard seeds
3 green chillies, deseeded and thinly sliced (or equivalent dried chilli flakes)
12 fresh curry leaves
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
2 onions, finely chopped
425 g can tomatoes
200 ml coconut milk
300 ml water
500g  pumpkin, peeled and cut into 2 cm chunks
1 bunch spinach or silverbeet, chopped
1 lime, juiced

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat, then add the mustard seeds and cook for a minute, until they start to pop.  Add the chillies, curry leaves, fenugreek seeds and turmeric, and cook another couple of minutes until they are aromatic. Add the onions and a pinch or two of salt, and cook for 5 minutes, or until they’re soft. Now add the tomatoes (break them up with the spoon if they’re whole), coconut milk, water and pumpkin, and simmer, partly covered, for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is a few minutes away from done. Add the spinach or silverbeet, stir it in, and cook until wilted. Sqeeze in the juice of half the lime. Taste the sauce and add more lime juice if needed.

2. I sliced off the tip of my index finger last night, cutting fennel on the mandoline in a hurry and not using the finger guard.  It HURTS.  Use the finger guard, dudes, it is there for a reason.  Thank heavens Miffy, trained medical professional, was in the house and willing to go beyond normal guest duties and dress it for me. Thanks Miff.

Salad of mackerel, white beans, capers, watercress, etc.

This is to remind me that we found good tinned mackerel fillets at Pennisi in Woolloongabba, and I should go back and buy more.

Seriously, this was awesome.  We had soft tacos tonight with chipotle black beans, avocado, and this corn salsa-thing and my god it was delicious. I totally expected the chipotle beans to be my number one love of the night, but they faded into insignificance in the face of the corn.  I ate a couple of tacos and then just sat there eating the corn with a spoon.

It’s a simple dish, riffing off this recipe for caramelized corn with fresh mint on from the Wednesday Chef.  But its flavour is complex, intriguing, intense without being overwhelming. It’s a little crisp, setting off the beans and avocado perfectly.  It’s my new favourite thing and I’ll be making more tomorrow and possibly the day after that.

 Corn, chili and mint salsa-like thing

2 cobs of corn
1 long red chili
garlic-infused olive oil
sea salt
juice of half a large lime
about 10 large mint leaves

Cut the kernels off the corn cobs. Halve the chilli, remove the seeds (or not, to taste), and finely chop.  Finely chop the mint leaves.

Heat a glug of garlic-infused olive oil in a frypan over (the high end of) moderate heat.  Add the corn and chili, and cook, stirring now and then, until the kernels are crackling and jumping in the pan, and getting browned in places.  Remove from the heat and add the lime juice and a big fat pinch of sea salt, and stir through.  Add the mint and toss.  Serve warm.

And today we had a surprising win with a frittata put together from an almost empty fridge.  Normally I make frittatas with more vegetables - steamed sweet potato and greens, or sauted capsicum and zucchini.  But all we had was chives, flat-leaf parsley, scallions and feta so that was what went in, along with 4 eggs and some salt and pepper, into a wee frypan.  It was quite thick, so we cooked it on a lower temperature than usual to try and set the middle before blackening the bottom; browned the top under a grill while the middle was still a bit liquidy; then left it to sit off the heat with a lid over the top for a couple of minutes to finish setting. It was really perfect - light, almost fluffy, not tough like they can sometimes be, and with a lovely delicate flavour.  I realise that this is no real recipe, but I’m making a note of it to remind myself to try cooking frittatas more slowly over lower heat in the future.

The last week’s been lovely though.  Judy’s down from Pomona, and she came over for excellent conversation on Thursday night over a dinner of linguine with home-made pesto, a salad of cauliflower, slow-cooked onions, anchovies, currants and parsley, and some roast cherry tomatoes with spinach. She also sent me some Spirit House recipes the next morning, including one for tea-smoked duck salad that is now on my immediately-try list.

We went out with Ian and Lisa on Friday to the new Indian restaurant in Toowong, Ceylon Inn, where we accidentally banged noisily into a table and spilled red wine (separate incidents, both within the first 5 minutes of arriving and while completely sober), and I later tipsily tried to explain the mechanics of next-generation sequencing technology to Ian after the meal.  Sunday we met Francesca for a relaxing meal and chitchat at the Tibetan Kitchen in West End and I renewed my love affair with their lime and tofu curry.

And on Saturday we were at Anne and Arthur’s for a great party to which I brought this couscous salad. It’s forgiving about being made several hours before being eaten, and also about being carted across town on public transport, bless it.  It’s yet another variant of the grain/roast vegies/herbs/cheese salads that I keep making and lab people keep asking for recipes of and I keep neglecting to write down…  sorry dudes, but here is one at last.

2 large red capsicums, finely sliced
5 slender zucchini, chopped into pieces 1.5 x 1.5 cm
5 finger aubergines, cut into half-moon shapes about 1 cm thick
olive oil
garlic-infused olive oil
sea salt and black pepper
aged red wine vinegar (e.g. Forum) or sherry vinegar
cinnamon powder
harissa paste
1.5 cups pearl couscous (aka Israeli couscous)
2 cups boiling water
1 large bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and chopped
1 large bunch mint, leaves picked and chopped
1 packet feta, crumbled

Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Toss the aubergines with several teaspoons of salt in a large colander and leave to drain for ~45 minutes.

Toss the capsicum with a glug of olive oil and vinegar and some sea salt and pepper in a baking dish.  Roast for ~30 minutes, depending on size of slices, until capsicum is soft and brown at the edges. Set aside.

Toss the zucchini with garlic-infused olive oil, salt and pepper in a baking dish.  Make sure the pieces aren’t piled up on one another, so they can roast rather than steam.  Roast for ~30 mins, until softened and golden.  (If you don’t have garlic-infused olive oil, you can use normal olive oil instead and then add lots of crushed garlic for the last 10 minutes of roasting.) Set aside.

Rinse the salt off the aubergines, and toss dry in the colander.  In a large saucepan, heat some olive oil over medium heat and fry the aubergines until they are soft and golden.  This shouldn’t take too long (and they shouldn’t absorb too much oil) if they were well salted.  Mix together in a little bowl a glug of the garlic olive oil, a glug of red wine vinegar, a teaspoon or so of cinnamon powder, and harissa paste to taste (depending on how hot your harissa is, this could be a quarter teaspoon or two heaped teaspoons).  Add this to the pan and continue to cook for another couple of minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large saucepan, heat a dash of olive oil over medium heat, then add the couscous and stir until you start to smell it toasting.  Add 2 cups of boiling water and a pinch of salt.  Simmer, covered, for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  The water should then be all absorbed and the couscous cooked.  Add a little more water near the end if it is dry before the couscous is cooked.  Now spread the coucous out on a large flat bowl to cool.  Give it a stir every few minutes to break up any clumps and make sure it does not get gluggy.  (I’m not totally sure if this is necessary but I always do it to be safe.)

Make a dressing for the salad by collecting the olive oil and vegetable juices from the baking dishes of roast capsicum and zucchini, and mixing into that liquid a little more red wine vinegar, some cinnamon powder, and some harissa paste to taste.

Toss together in a large bowl the vegetables, couscous, herbs, feta and dressing. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.