But now it’s Friday night, and I deserve a pop-tart.

Usually I leave them for The Husband. He loves them so, and I’m sure they’re just high-calorie junk. But I deserve some sugary, chemically trash tonight.

I thought I knew all the places in Sydney you could buy pop-tarts, but I’d never thought of looking in a tiny suburban IGA before! Expensive little morsels that they are, I’m glad I indulged The Husband in them. He has so few food delights!

I offer to do the toasting and he comes to take over, concerned I’ll burn them. Oh, I see, there’s two in each foil package. He pops two brown rectangles down… and spring! Less than a minute and – according to the box – now we have hot chocolate pastries.

Pastries? That’s a funny use of the word. They’re much more like crunchy chocolate biscuits oozing moist filling with some strange hard icing than pastries. Standard brown chocolate colour. Pretend sugar sprinkling.

Nibble a corner. Just the hard biscuit, no filling. Average chocolate biscuit flavour and texture.

Taste the frosting. It cracks when I snap it but I can’t actually separate its taste from the sandwich it sits on.

Okay, let’s go for the goo!

Yes, it is the best thing about the pop-tart. It’s warm and soft and tastes just like under-cooked cake batter. I like warm raw cake batter. With the filling the pop-tart begins to feel more like a brownie than just a biscuit.

It’s okay. I don’t see The Husband’s fascination, but anything warm and cocoa-flavoured is welcome during winter.

It’s not a pastry though. I feel like that’s an abuse of English to call it that. It’s a biscuit you put in the toaster. Even the icing is a bit like the top of an Arnott’s Hundreds & Thousands. Just a 200 calorie biscuit. That’s all.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tart, bought from the IGA in East Lindfield

I don’t normally buy the Nestle diet yoghurts – anything so exotically-named but that low in calories doesn’t inspire confidence -  but none of the others were on special.

And the names are enticing… I mean, blueberry and apple crumble, what part about that isn’t tasty?

Pulling the plastic cover off the tub.

The yoghurt is very lavender-purple, a bit too bright. There are little blue-black flecks. But what is with the layer of watery whey on top? It’s like a lake!

Stirring it back in. Taking a spoonful.

It really does smell buttery, like a crumble out of the oven.

Taste.

It tastes of blueberries first, with a hint of baby-food apple second. Swallow. Then the scent of crumble crust becomes an after-flavour. Then a funny chemical finish.

The texture is like a runny mousse. It flows rather than holding shape. There is an occasional snippet of withered blueberry that has no taste of its own. The yoghurt leaves a grainy feel on the back of my teeth.

But, overall, it does taste somewhat as promised!

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Nestle Diet blueberry and apple crumble flavour yoghurt, bought at Coles Macquarie Fields

Not even hungry. Late breakfast and now an early lunch. But if I don’t eat I’ll spend the whole wedding mentally hurrying the service along and that’s not pleasant.

Hey, this place has onigiri! And apart from the meat and fish varieties they have both seaweed and mushroom. I could eat one now and the other one closer to the ceremony.

I hand over $6 and take hold of the onigiri. Oh, they’re quite solid and heavy! Hmm, maybe I only needed one… They’re bigger than my hand, a triangular rice sandwich with filling in between the rice and a sheet of nori wrapped around like a paper holder. The rice really does act like bread rather than encasing the filling on all sides.

Sitting at the table. The Husband watches people on the ice skating rink over my shoulder. Can’t watch the skating, too busy trying to follow the Korean opening instructions written on the plastic packaging my onigiri came in.

I’ll eat seaweed now and mushroom later.

Well, the little pictures say to pull a strip down the middle off and then slide the halves off. Pretty funny that they included directions, I’m sure I can manage this!

Yup, here’s a tab marked one. Pull it. It twists around the package. Slide one side off… oh, huh? The nori is encased in plastic rather than touching the rice. To keep it crunchy I guess? Tugging the plastic off. Leave the other side on so I can hold it without getting ocean smell on my fingers.

The middle layer of seaweed filling is the typical seaweed salad. Long green chewy strands with specks of red chilli and sesame.

Bite. Yup, the nori is crunchy… and really good! Toasted, not fishy, with a vague sesame sense. Normally I dislike dry nori but this is nice. It crackles and is easy to bite through, no chew.

The rice is bland. Not like sushi rice at all. I like sushi rice better; what isn’t improved by vinegar? Also the grains are at least medium grain, if not long, rather than the fat stubby balls of short-grain sushi rice.

And the seaweed salad is seaweed salad. Why do I keep buying this stuff? I never really like it. I don’t trust food that refuses to be bitten or chewed. The chilli is a good temperature, warm without burning, and there is the occasional seed.

So half gone. Now to get the wrapped off the other half.

Uh-oh. I think I was supposed to pull this off while the onigiri was whole. Now I’ve got no other end to hold while I tug, so I’m always holding the plastic I’m trying to remove.

Doh! Try and inch it out. Ooops, now half the nori is free but the other half is stuck and my sandwich is coming apart. Fine, okay, I’ll do a reconstruction job when it’s gone.

Eeek… hmm… there! Okay, wrap the green crunchy sheet back around my rice slabs… Not too bad, didn’t fall apart much.

Eat. Seaweed is not great but it’s fine.

Pretty full… but the other one is looking at me…

Back in the car and I give in! I will eat you mushroom onigiri! I’m sure time won’t make you better anyway.

This time I free all the onigiri at once. Bounce goes the car. But my onigiri technique is clearly improving.

Ooo, they put two little soy sauce fish in the bag! Darn it, I bet that would have improved the first one.

Trying to hold the onigiri and hold the fish and unscrew the little red mouth-lid at the same time. This always happens when I eat sushi too, it’s so awkward! Another bounce, and now the lid is gone somewhere beneath my seat. Gotta use all the sauce then, or I’ll get brown on my wedding clothes.

The mushrooms seem to be thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms. Nothing really with them, just scattered by themselves. But soy sauce will cheer them up!

Crunch goes the nori. Soy soaks into my tongue. Man, this is like a million times better! No can’t-chew seaweed, just salty rice and mushrooms and crunch!

Hoeing in even though I’m full. Bounce. See, got to eat it quick before all this bumping results in mess.

And it’s gone…and I’m really full. That was a lot of rice! No hungry stomachs distracting me from the ‘I do’!

So the lessons of today: always follow instructions – even when written in another language – and use soy sauce liberally.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Seaweed onigiri and mushroom onigiri bought from Totoro, in the Macquarie Centre

Trying to think of the advice I was given in the Masterchef chat. Look for it in a jar, not a can… or was it the other way around? Brown is better than green, because the green is just food colouring. And that’s all I’ve got.

I’d never even heard of kaya before reading food blogs. I may not be able to eat it in Malaysia – and I’m not willing to spend so much time cooking something I’ve never experienced – but shopping in Cabramatta? That’s fun!

Browsing the shelves… dried foods… teas… noodles… canned vegetables… where is this kaya?

“Is this it?”

Turning. The Husband points to a jar I just walked past. A jar, score! But the insides are decidedly green.

Pick it up, look at the ingredients. Lots of coconut… no pandan in the list. Just chemicals.

Well, tasting the fake version will get me on my way at least.

***

Spreading it thick on toast. Super thick. I should have thick gobs of butter with it… but I can’t quite stomach that! Also, no eggs. I’m in a hurry!

The green paste is thick and grainy, as if there are tiny crystals mixed inside. It looks like lemon butter and moves the same too. It smells headily strong of coconut, fresh rather than dried.

Bite. The crunch of the toast is muffled by the thick mattress of kaya. It tastes new. Not just coconut, though that’s the primary flavour (particularly in the after taste). Not just sugar, even while being sweet. Can’t be pandan, since there isn’t any in the jar! Perhaps it’s the egg that turn it into something else. Whatever it is, it makes my mouth water at the next bite.

Normally I just eat two slices of toast. With kaya, I eat three.

***

Time for a white-girl method of eating kaya. With vanilla ice cream.

Two big spoonfuls of the kaya, plops of translucent green against the creamy pale dessert.

Mashing it all together into a soft-serve of coconut kaya swirl. The gritty texture spreads into the milky smoothness until it is all as one.

Resting it on my tongue to melt. The extra sweetness of the ice cream dials the coconut down. I find the combination of cool and wet more pleasurable than the hot crunch of the toast.

This sugar rush is going to keep me up for hours! I don’t care. Forget kaya for breakfast, give me kaya for dessert!

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Glory brand kaya, bought in Cabramatta

Then the ribbon is cut and the plate is placed on the table.

There’s at least three or four varieties before me. I’m not a huge fan of the most common baklava, the layers of pastry and honey, so what else do we have?

Hmm, slices of a cylinder. The outside looks like golden vermicelli, tightly-packed, wrapped in a thick doughy layer around a very green filling. Pistachio I’m guessing, from the context.

Yup, give that a go. Hopefully the large chunk of filling will make it moist.

Picking it up. It’s densely heavy for its size.

Bite. Urk, my teeth are almost stuck. The pastry is chewy and solid, initially giving way and then needing to be torn to break it. Little noodle-like flakes of pastry splinter and fall into my lap. The pastry is sweet and buttery, but not overly sugary. It reminds me of honey, a little. I think they’re soaked in syrup.

Eating enough pastry to get a clear go at the green nutty filling. There are small hunks of pistachio mixed with a fluro-green paste. Disconcerting taste, a bit salty, buttery, but sweet with pistachio notes. Almost creamy, the weird part. The filling is so crumbly when against the pastry it’s hard to eat them both at once; they have to be bitten in completely different ways.

It’s okay. Actually my mouth is tired from the effort of the pastry. About the same as regular baklava. But more nuts makes it more healthy, right?

Yeah, right.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Burma pistachio baklava, bought in Bankstown

Last time I was here I was thwarted by monolingualism from purchasing a snack from an enterprising old lady surrounded by take-away containers filled with her home-cooking. This time I come bearing a piece of paper with a Vietnamese message written for me by a work colleague: I’m a vegetarian, I don’t eat any meat but I eat eggs and milk. Holding up this baby should get me some kind of mystery food.

Ah-ha! An elderly woman sits on one of the many benches. She has three piles close to her; one of round yellow-orange cakes; one of congeeled black in containers; and a pile banana leaves wrapped around hidden treasures.

The woman next to me in the crowd points to the yellow cakes. “What are they?”

I don’t hear much of the answer, only that they cost $5 so that’s a bit out of my planned budget. But I can tell that it was in English. Darn it, I was looking forward to busting out my sign.

Waiting for her to finish the transaction, then gesturing for her attention. “What’s inside the banana leaves?”

“Coconut rice, banana. $1.20.”

That’s more like it! I pass over the coins, and now I’m holding a warm moist bundle, looking for somewhere to sit and devour.

Unwrapping the leaf. Inside the long flat rectangle of rice is yellow-cream and sticky. I can see an occasional purple-black lump, looks like black beans.

Trying to tear it in half. White starch sticks to my fingers. Inside… it’s purple! The steaming has turned the bananas purple, though I can see the occasional dark pattern of banana seeds same as ever. The rice around the banana has also stained mauve.

Bite.

The rice is long grain and willingly breaks apart in my mouth, sweet and coconut-flavoured, light and not too creamy. The banana has all its flavour despite the colour, the mush contrasting nicely with the slightly firm rice.

The combination of coconut and banana is sweet without being sugary. It all tastes so fresh!

Don’t like the black beans much though. Little pockets of dry dusty blandness. But there’s only about five of them so they can be easily ignored.

Licking my fingers. Glad that this woman is happy to share her skills with strangers; it’s a pleasure to eat freshly-made real food.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Coconut sticky rice with banana and black beans (probably khao tom mad) bought from a clever home cook in Cabramatta

The Husband has never been to Cabramatta before. He’s trailing in my wake as I stride purposefully down arcades looking for snacks I’d like to try. There are crowds of people everywhere; it would be hard to walk side-by-side anyway.

In the corner of my eye a girl opens a waffle iron and pulls out something green. Bingo!

“Yay, pandan waffle!” Scooting over to the store, eager to get it into my hands before it cools in the winter air. The Husband follows. I think he’ll like this, he likes regular waffles more than I do. Then maybe I’ll stop feeling bad for dragging him around tasting random foods.

I hand over $1.50 and have myself a large flower-shaped waffle in a paper bag. It’s really light and lots thinner than a western waffle, crisp rather than pancakey.

The flower has five segments. I take two. The two heart-shaped petals weight nearly nothing. The square grooves have toasted brown, little air bubbles speckling through. Around the outer curves of the heart the batter is still green, overflow cooked stiff. Sniff. Smells like batter.

The Husband is already well into his.

Tastes… like waffle. This is the first pandan-flavoured thing I’ve eaten in my life and I still can’t tell what pandan tastes like. Like vanilla? It’s certainly not strong, whatever it is. The light crispness is pleasing since I still want to fit in lunch after this. It’s a bit like eating a sweet bread. Sugary blandish carbohydrates that vanish with no aftertaste once swallowed. At least it’s not dry. Actually there is a bit of moist softness in parts that are less cooked.

Looking at his progress. Oh, what’s that? “Does yours have coconut in it?” Those little white bits sticking out of one side of the waffle… is it batter or desiccated coconut?”

The Husband looks. “I don’t really taste any coconut. I don’t know.” Returns to eating.

Inspecting mine for any sign of coconut. Nothing. Slow down my eating and… yes, okay, not in every bite but occasionally I feel chewy thin strands between my teeth and a vague coconut flavour.

Still not sure what pandan is supposed to taste like – perhaps there is no actually pandan in the waffles, just food colouring? – but I clearly don’t dislike it!

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Pandan waffle (Bánh kẹp) from a random snack and drink outlet in one of Cabramatta’s arcades

Time to break out this week’s mysterious dried fruit! A bag of dried orange-yellow mango strips.

Using scissors to cut across the top. Tug at the piece on the top. Ooops, all the bits are fused together. Pulling. Nope. Gotta pull the whole clump out and prise it apart.

Two thin stiff mango cheeks seperate from the crowd. That’ll do.

Leaving the pack on the table for anyone else and returning to the bean bag, golden snack in tow.

Samson gets his hair woven into a loom and I nibble my mango. Standard dried fruit texture, perhaps a bit more stiff and crisp. Tiny specks of sugar and salt across the lightly sticky surface.

It tastes sweet and vaguely tangy. Not really much like mango. It tastes very much like dried papaya, only not so dominant. More pleasant actually. Sometimes the cubes of papaya in muesli are so strongly sugary that it takes over the whole mouthful. This dried mango is still sweet but happily. It doesn’t bully me or get stuck in my teeth either. Refined and well-behaved!

Not much like mango, however. Doesn’t smell like mango either.

Go back for more. Now that the packet has been near the heater the pieces are softer and more pliable. Taking mouse bites, breaking through the stringy parts where the flesh was becoming seed.

Thai preserved mango: no preserved rose plum but pretty good. Perhaps I will try it in my porridge someday. That’s the real test, can it rescue watery oats? I look forward to knowing.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Heng Fai Thai Preserved Mango, bought from an Asian grocer in Merrylands

The raspberry chocolate did not taste like raspberries. The blueberry chocolate did not taste like blueberries. I doubt pear will be any better.

But open mind, open mind!

Smells bitter, an earthiness arising at the back of my throat. Breaks with a beautiful snap.

The chocolate is glossy, with shards of almond speared throughout the brown-blackness. Almost like stripes of stars! I think a couple of those specks are dried pear but there is way more almond than pear.

Bite.

Strong cocoa taste. Dark, not a lot of sugar or milk. Standard Lindt stuff. The almond adds extra crunch but not much else other than texture.

No pear taste.

Mouse nibbles. Ooo, a piece of pear! Carefully getting it into my mouth without much else, trying to get some pear flavour…

Nope. A little extra sugar, gritty feel of dried fruit, but doesn’t taste of pear. If I hadn’t read the pack I doubt I ever would have noticed anything other than the almond. Why so much almond? Why not more pear?

Poor Lindt, I want to like your chocolate! But once again, not enough fruit flavour.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Lindt Excellence Pear Intense, bought at Coles Macquarie Fields.

Okay, the internet recommends cutting a cross into the curvy side of the nut so they don’t explode and to help peel them later. Wouldn’t an exploded nut be peeled without effort from myself… popcorn style? Oh well, I guess it’s not recommended for a reason. Shame, it would be exciting to hear a bang and say ‘the nuts are ready!’.

Fold up a tea-towel to stop them rolling around. First one scores easily, I can feel the knife get through the skin. Second one is really hard: the mahogany-brown nut really is like wood! Hope the difference doesn’t mean one of them is bad…

Nut three is easy to cut. Nut four is another difficult one.

It feels a bit silly to only be roasting four, but face it self, you’re just too cheap to risk wasting another bag of nuts.

I’ve been asked several times if I’m a high achiever, and I’ve always laughed… I’m too lazy and ready to settle to consider myself an achiever! But it is true that I don’t like making or repeating mistakes.

Anyway, into the oven with you chestnuts! Warm up my cold house while you cook, okay? See you in thirty minutes.

Okay, in twenty-five minutes. Peer into the oven. Oh, they have opened up at the cross and look just like the photos! The nut inside appears toasted golden.

Pick one out in the tea-towel, squeeze my hands around it. Soft crunching noises. Unwrap and gingerly pick at the shell. The recipe said to let them cool a bit but… the brown casing comes away perfectly, very easy! The nut feels a little softer than I’d expected but it looks perfect!

Second, third… all easy! Number four has an extra furry layer clinging around but soon it is also dispensed with.

Four golden ovals. Now to taste!

The skin has a little crunch and chew to it. The inside is soft and slightly doughy. Did I not cook them long enough? But the skins would be difficult to remove if they were under or over-cooked so I must have it right…

Their flavour is not very strong. Some residual sweetness. Really does remind me a bit of popcorn. But much more bland than other nuts. I like the contrast of the hard crust and smooth inner flesh though.

Still, I managed to do something quite easily that the internet said was going to be hard… that rarely happens since I’m so lazy! Not high-achieving… just lucky.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Whole chestnuts bought at Harris Farm, Merrylands.