Faine, Jon; Schiel, Marty; Shield, Mark --- "At Liberty" [1997] LawIJV 27; (1997) 71(1) The Law Institute Journal 85

• At Liberty
• Vroom Vroom
• Food for thought
• Thinking Drinking

At Liberty

Vroom Vroom

Tiptoe through the Toyotas.

Toyota now offers a staggering 35 different versions of its 4-wheel drive in the Australian market. Unbelievable. From the humble and underpowered RAV4 (starting at $27,000) through to the giant killing Landcruiser Sahara at about $ 115,000, the Toyota-ites have got every base covered. The newest colt in the stable - called a Prado - is impressive, albeit with a few flaws to iron out. No doubt they will be.

The lido is designed to be a mid-size Iamily car, offering all the things that people look for in a station wagon, people mover and holiday off-road car all in one. It is a very difficult set of specifications to meet, and inevitably involves compromise. The Prado is smaller than the standard Landcruiser, which clarifies in the punter's mind the Landcruiser's deserved status as very much the off-road specialist and outback truck that it always has been - but so hit en is not used for. In the Nod Hein territory the Landcruiser has earned its reputation as the toughest and most reliable of the big 4-wheel drives. The Prado is not designed to intnrde into that turf. Instead it is planned to take the Pajero buyer away from Mitsubishi, and the leep buyer away from Chrysler, and to drag them into the Toyota dealer.

The Prado comes in four models: the basic car with a 4-cylinder motor (the RV), costing $36,000; the same car with the V6 motor (the RV6), costing $39,990; the deluxe model (the GXL), which comes with the V6 and trimmings like CD players and cruise control ($44,590), and finally, the Grande, which tarts up the GXL and has leather power operated seats and so on - with all options fitted you are paying over $60,000 for a car which in basic kit costs just over half that amount.

Each version, except the hamburger with the lot, comes as either manual pr automatic gearbox, although both offer fulltime° 1-clhccl drive. There is a 4-wheel rlricc ir,n<lurbox which gives you different ratios for off-road work, although most of these cars will never experience the rough stuff at all.

Although the Prado is high, it is not bulky. You get all the advantages of sitting up above the traffic and seeing over everyone else's roof.

Airbags are an option across the range, costing $2660 fitted as a package with the far more likely to be used ABS brakes. Why ABS brakes are not fitted as standard gear I have no idea - they should be compulsory as far as this driver is concerned.

On the road the RV6 has impressive power and acceleration. As a highway cruiser it has fabulous pickup for overtaking. The V6 is a smooth motor and pulls the big car happily at just about any speed in just about any gear. You can even make the tyres squeal if you're feeling a bit of a hoon. Despite its bulk it is an easy car to park, and has a good turning circle for those tight supermarket parking spots.

The seating arrangement is the now common bucket seats in the front, a folding/sliding bench in the middle (which surprisingly did not split as well) and two collapsible occasional seats which fill the boot if you need them. When not in use these hook up against the side windows and only block about a third of your rear vision. It only takes a few minutes of lever poking to turn the whole thing into a taxi truck, or back into

the bus that takes the cricket team to Saturday's game, and that is exactly the market for which it is intended. When the rearmost folding seats are down there is minimal boot space, a problem that none of the Prado/Musso/Explorer/ Discovery/Cherokee/Nissan mob have an answer for.

The dash and major controls are the absolutely standard Japanese pattern. The only distinguishing feature is the addition of a second fuel tank, switchable from the dash, to offer additional range on long trips.

The flaws? Sadly, and typically, everything that opens and shuts depends on horrible, flimsy plastic hinges, so already on the test car the central storage box had lost its cover and the collapsible front cupholders seemed too fragile. The plastic lugs that cover sharp edges on the fold up seats and cover the locating lugs on the floor had all gone for a wander and the window winders flexed ominously, suggesting a shorter than desirable life span under stress. But do not let those irritations detract from a deserving new entrant in the stakes for supremacy in the hottest section of the new car market. 

JON FAINE

Food for thought

"They roused him with muffins - they roused him with ice They roused him with mustard and cress -

They roused him with jam and judicious advice -

Tiuci set him conundrums to guess."

Lewis Carroll, The Baker's Tale

It's not often that you talk about law and cooking in the same breath. But when you think ~bout it, both rely heavily on giving Ind receiving advice. n cIdinHrv ,.,i.l,book is really nothing more Iinn huok crf advice on how to manipu laic the P ',s of nature related to turning er ingredients into what we consider line cuisine.

* * *

Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion (Viking, hardcover, $751 is anything but ordinary. On the market only a few months and alreuciL in its second printing, it is the culmination of Stephanie's more than 40 years' experience and a definitive work for any serious cook. Each chapter focuses on a particular ingredient, spice or herb, giving a bit of history, a bit about the industry in Australia, varietal or seasonal information, selection and storage, preparation and cooking techniques, and affiliated flavours.

The recipes Tin hided in each chapter are beau I in I', lad out and clearly written, and the sidebars give suggested variations and tips, adding to the Ileeihility of the book and encouraging ,. pcrinientation and an attitude of using '.chat you've got on hand. Any related recipes are listed at the end of each chapter but, unfortunately, not with page numbers.

From the bright orange and earthy terracotta cover of the book to the

i rn i I, I r I v toned photographic plates and Koala hul use of typography, the design in vpuisite. Only occasionally, however, do I hr photos match the chapter in villa h (Ho rr ipc' are found. So, for n~iHIftc. ou mijJI I>~ reading about chestnuts, wondering what one looks like, only to see a picture of yellow and green capsicums, corn on the cob and

cucumbers. Beautiful to behold, but not supportive of the text. This, while not a problem for experienced cooks, could be confusing for those just embarking on the challenge.

Stephanie is clear in the introduction that this is not an encyclopaedic book. Rather it claims to focus on the easily available (though I would not expect to find kangaroo, pigs' trotters and tripe at the average butcher's shop), locally produced, and best quality foods, providing basic information on equipment, techniques and terminology. What she does not purport to do is provide nutritional information, choosing to focus instead on that marvellous commonsense concept of

"balance, variety and moderation in the diet".

One small failing is a confusing tendency to use both general measures and specific metric ones - for instance, you'll find references to 1/2 cup olive oil and to 200mls olive oil (about 3/4 cup) on the same page.

Otherwise there is little to fault in this beautifully crafted book. Its real value is that you are able to spend as much time as you want - any time you want - in the kitchen with Stephanie Alexander, who has been incredibly generous in sharing her "secrets''. She has a great ability to convey the concepts of cooking, share her enthusiasm and convince even a novice that it is possible to create wonderful food.

Like Australian cooking, American cooking bears little resemblance to the classic cuisine of France. Instead, it is a blend of Asian, Latin American, Caribbean, Chinese, South-East Asian, Russian, South American and Indian cuisines.

Of course, any cookbook highlighting the work of contemporary chefs in the United States would have to. be titled Superchefs (Zahler, Jacaranda Wiley, hardcover, $59.95). The subtitle is no less over the top: "Signature recipes from America's new royalty". But then Americans do love their food.

The list of contributing chefs is a who's who of American cuisine, with the likes of Charlie Trotter (Charlie Trotter's), Mark Miller (Coyote Cafe, Red Sage), Barbara Tropp (China Moon), Jeremiah Tower (Stars), and Wolfgang Puck (Spago, Chinois on Main).

The book is difficult to classify. It contains what the author and the selected chefs feel are the dishes that best represent current tastes and trends. With a few terminology changes, the recipes could just as easily have been created here. Although it has a distinct south-western flavour, there is an almost seamless melding of ethnic cuisines to create such dishes as Puck's spicy chicken pizza using lime juice, jalapeno chillies and coriander (which includes the recipe for his famous crispy-on-the-outside chewy-on-the¬inside crust), Ted Fondulas' (Hemingway's) pheasant with basil, sauternes and polenta, Dean Fearing's (The Mansion on Turtle Creek) red jalapeno Caesar salad with shrimp diablo tamale, Susan Lindeberg's (Morrison-Clark Inn) mushroom tawny port soup, and Michael Smith's (The American Restaurant) stir-fried lobster with spiced Chinese cabbage and curried kaffir lime sauce.

The book is well laid out with plenty of white space (to scribble notes if you're so inclined) and the recipe methods are clear. There is a good "fundamentals" chapter which includes all the basic recipes and the elegant pictures show how to present the more difficult dishes.

Still, one could ask just how much American cuisine has changed, given that the dessert section in Superchefs is by far the largest - with a hefty helping of chocolate.

Taking a step back from the hype of Superchefs, New Native American Cooking (Carson, Random House, paperback, $35) is an interesting insight into the origins of modern American cuisine. The recipes are based on traditional dishes which, in the definition of the author include indigenous foods such as corn, tomatoes, beans, squash, berries, maple and different meats, fish and fowl, or those foods which have been assimilated such as apples, wheat, oats, and dairy products.

While there are a few impractical suggestions, such as trying to get a hunter friend to get you a wild turkey to smoke, and more than a few differences in terminology due to the use of native terms that will take a bit to get your tongue around - like quahogs, Algonquian crab and attuck-quock (venison) - there's plenty of great trivia and ideas. Did you know that guacamole was originally an Aztec dish? The avocado got its name from the Spanish aguacate, which in turn came from the Aztec word ahuacatl, which meant testicle and presumably described the shape of the avocado. No mucking around here!

This may never be a book that you use on a daily basis, but it's well worth a read.

There would be few vegetarians who aren't familiar with the original Moosewood Cookbook (Katzen, Ten Speed Press, 1977). It was one of the first to make vegetarian cooking accessible to home cooks and acceptable to many of the members of the meat-eating public. Nearly 20 years on, the Moose-wood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York is still in the business of dishing up good food and writing new cookbooks. The latest is Moosewood Cooks for a Crowd (Jacaranda Wiley, hardcover, $59.95) and, in the tradition of the other books, it is compiled by members of the Moosewood Collective.

There is nothing flash about this book. It is meant to be a kitchen workhorse - and a commercial kitchen at that. The recipes are imaginative, clearly laid out and geared to serve 24. Nutritional information is provided with each recipe and there are serving suggestions included in many of the tips.

While the book at first glance may not seem to have application in a home kitchen, there's plenty of room to write in the amounts needed for much smaller batches - and it's often much easier to scale down than up. The book does not have the personality of the original, which was illustrated in pen and ink sketches with the hand-lettered text, but the irresistible character of the food which made Moosewood a household name is still to be found.

The history of pasta is about as easy to unravel as a bowl of tangled spaghetti. According to Lorenza's Pasta (de'Medici, Pavilion Books Ltd, hardcover, $39.95) "there are at least three hundred names for a hundred different types of pasta".

It's true. Pasta is one of the most versatile foods and adapts well to a variety of flavours. The book is divided into an introductory section demystifying types of pasta, the preparation of dried pasta, the best way to sauce the different shapes of pasta and ingredients that can be combined at short notice to prepare a sophisticated dish for family or friends.

The second part deals with the preparation of fresh pasta - a time-consuming art most often left to the experts, particularly when such good quality pasta is available locally. It also includes the indispensable sauces necessary to set off fresh pasta and which ensure a simple meal is spectacular. The final section deals with the countless ways in which pasta can be used - in soups, with vegies, seafoods, and meats as well as stuffed or moulded and baked.

It is a lovely, easy-to-use book with photos that illustrate various dishes, albeit in that irritating, half out of focus mode that's supposed to be all the rage. Another annoying point is that the recipes, which originated in the UK, have obviously been written and printed to apply to European, American and Australian audiences simultaneously, with metric, American and Australian (or imperial) measurements being given. It's just plain confusing in a book which otherwise is a valuable addition to any pasta-lover's collection.

If you want information about nutrition and food terminology, the Dictionary of Food and Nutrition (Bender & Bender, Oxford University Press, paperback, $16.95) is a handy reference, covering scientific nutritional concepts and terms as well as common and scientific cooking and food terms. The appendices give primarily European Union and UK labelling, additives and RDAs for vitamins that are not as relevant in Australia. '

MARTY SCHIEL

Thinking Drinking

It's 3am and the smoke hangs in the air.

The band is playing and there is that worn out but mellow feeling you only find in a jazz club near to closing time.

What to drink as they take the last orders? It's not really a question, because of the nature of the music, which is essentially American, and the hour. Bourbon with or without soda is the natural last slug.

You can blame bourbon on rum, or a lack thereof. When the Brits blockaded what is now the United States during the War of Independence, supplies of rum from the West Indies were cut off. This meant the Americans had to improvise, so they started distilling corn liquor. Bourbon was created out of necessity.

Its character was also formed by the naval blockade. Access to French oak for constructing barrels was out of the question, so American oak had to be used. American oak adds a vanilla taste which is essential to the bittersweet flavour of bourbon.

Bourbon is a county in Kentucky and the spirit can claim two inventors. John Ritchie is supposed to have started distilling in 1777, but the popular myth has the Reverend Elijah Craig as the inventor in 1789. Both used maize which grew in the county and sour mash was born.

Add better known names like James Beam, Will Samuels and George Dickel and American whiskey became a shot that was tasted around the world.

It became the quintessential American drink. What was Humphrey Bogart drinking when he said, "You played it for her, now you can play it for me"? (He never said, "Play it again, Sam"). What was Robert Mitchum running in Thunder Road?

It should also be emphasised that bourbon can only come from the county of the same name. Other whiskeys like Jack Daniels from Tennessee are classified as American whiskey.

Where's the Australian equivalent? It's too simplistic to say: no naval blockade, no incentive. Australia was a whiskey producer, but with our typical cultural cringe mentality the local product was always considered inferior. In reality it was different from the product of Scotland.

There were several Australian brands on the market but these have dwindled to only one - Corio. It takes its name from a suburb in Geelong, Victoria.

It's not a bad drink and resembles blended scotch in many ways. But sales slowed in the sixties when there was a brand of petrol on the market called COR 10. While COR was an acronym for Commonwealth Oil Refineries, the name became associated with the whiskey.

Sales slowed to the stage where the stocks in barrels reached the age of eighteen years and the distillery was closed. Worst of all, a large part of the inventory was transported to South Australia to be redistilled. The process strips out any wood influence and the final product is sold as a neutral spirit like vodka.

There is no reason why Australia can't make a great whiskey. Just watch Tasmania for proof. It has the grain, the water and the peat and there are some very exciting single malts in the barrel. They are so promising that some have been sold to the Springbank distillery in Scotland for blending.

These days Corio is a surviving but not thriving brand. Scotland rules but only just because the bourbon competitors are making inroads, particularly among the younger set - bourbon and coke to a deafening techno beat and a flickering strobe.

The bourbon producers are also playing the Scots at their own game and exporting special bottlings like distillery strength (around 60 percent alcohol by volume) and single barrel (unblended) styles. These are not for the disco but they are great in smoky nightclubs.

So when "Round Midnight" starts to tumble out of the piano and the crowd starts to thin, order a bourbon on the rocks. It's a very American spirit, born out of necessity and like Irish whiskey it makes a refreshing change from scotch. It's great at 3am as a nightcap in a nightclub.

MARK SHIELD