Umpleby's Bakery & Café

Australia Day is next week on the 26th.  And as fate would have it, an auspicious news item appeared in the NYT yesterday – Vegemite is coming back home – after over 60 years of being owned by an American company the vegemite brand is being bought by an Australian company.  You beaut!!

As I am sure most readers of this blog will know, my wife Carolyn, who is now an American citizen by the way,  was originally from Australia.  And one thing she made sure she brought with her on the plane from Tullamarine was a rather large supply of Vegemite. I can only speak as a Northern Hemisphere native but I have to say I really don’t care for vegemite that much.  The flavor is too strong for me. It is I believe an acquired taste.  Carolyn of course grew up with it and she still eats it on occasion – especially if she feels homesick or is in a blue mood.  For her, as well as a lot of Australians, I imagine it is a comfort food. Our children started eating it at an early age – in fact I think it was one of the first solid foods that they ate.   Their lunches when they were toddlers often times consisted of toast with a thin spread of that dark yeast extract.

So I am happy to read that this Aussie icon is now back in the hands of the people who love it so much.  Welcome home Vegemite!

Now if only Blundstones could return to being made in Australia as well!

There was an article in the New York Times today about “The Banned Books Your Child Should Read” .   Reading the article took me on a time machine ride back to the 90’s when I was living in New York City.  Let me explain – There is an event every year  which I believe is called New York is Book Country.  It is a bibliophile’s Christmas day.  On a Saturday afternoon in September about 10 blocks or so of Fifth avenue in midtown are closed to traffic and instead of cars it is instead filled with stall after stall of book sellers.  There are vendors selling all things book related – new books, used books, antiquarian books, comic books and all things bookish.  There are publishers, authors, book activists, and everyone else celebrating the written word and celebrating reading!  I believe it was 1991 when I went and met Ed McBain there and asked him to sign one of his books for my mother. (Both of us are big Ed McBain fans). I must say it was a thrill meeting him.  If you don’t know him google him!!!  This brings up the topic of banned books that the Times wrote about. I think every year there is the ongoing theme of celebrating banned books.  When I went  I bought 4 posters that listed books that have been banned in the United States.  Books like Carrie,  To Kill a Mockingbird,  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Huckleberry Finn, Where the Wild Things Are, Catcher in the Rye … etc. etc, you know, all the subversive ones that should be burned and not read.  That’s why the NYT article made think of that fun afternoon in NYC more than 25 years ago.

Okay, what does this have to do with food?  If you have ever been to the cafe you will have of course seen either our breakfast sandwich board or lunch sandwich board.  With the exception of Rosie the Riveter ( who has a soft place in my heart for a number of reasons which would be too long to explain in this post) all of them are based on characters in books.  Why?  Well isn’t it obvious?  A person needs to feed his or her self in two ways –  good food, courtesy of Umplebys, and reading books.  

We took the Christmas decorations down yesterday in the cafe so I am blue today.  I always hate saying good bye to the festive season of hope and joy known as Christmas.  I really do love the nutcrackers and sparkly lights and all things green and red.  I love making Stollens and Christmas cookies.   I love, love Christmas songs.  The staff get a little annoyed with me for insisting that we play them all the time to the exclusion of everything else but now that is all behind us so I am blue.  If I had my way we would keep the Christmas Tree up in the house until around March but Carolyn always insists that is not appropriate and one day I’ll come home from work on the weekend and the tree will be bare of its decorations.  A sad, sad day.

But wait, there is something that can distract me from my blue meanies –  the Fedco Seed Catalogue!!!!   I love the Fedco seed catalogue!!!   My wife loves the Fedco seed catalogue.  Our children will one day in the possible distant future love the Fedco Seed Catalogue.  It is the catalogue of hope and good wishes.  Of things that might be like the Ghost of Christmas Future. I take garden planning very seriously and I couldn’t do it without the Fedco Seed Catalogue and  Seed Savers out of Iowa.  Seed Savers is another great company that I love for their heirloom tomato and pepper seeds among other things  as well as their garden planner software.

So on this grey and rainy day I will look through the Fedco Catalogue and think of Spring!  I invite you to do the same.