Bloomsday Sydney 2012

Bloomsday on Bondi, Sydney 2012

There are numerous Bloomsday events taking place around Australia this year. Sydneysiders will be treated to a day of Joyce by the sea, when the Bondi Pavilion becomes the latest place to celebrate Joyce's Ulysses on Saturday, June the 16th.
Bloomsday on Bondi begins at 10am with individual and group readings planned until 10pm.

Most of the days events are free, but there are two ticketed events for the morning and evening sessions. Buy tickets for Bloomsday on Bondi here:
Centre for Global Irish Studies

Book Review: Extra Virginity

Extra Virginity: the Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil (Atlantic, 2012)

Tom Mueller

Oleaginous. The trait you'd pin on Iago or David Brent in The Office has, at some point in the history of handing out metaphors, acquired murky connotations. 

The goodness of oiliness seemed to have slipped our grasp. Tom Meuller suspects the 1980s fat-free craze, but he also goes back as far as one of the Napoleons who awarded first prize in a food engineering contest to the world's first maker of margarine. That a Frenchman invented the nemesis of butter is one of the many Did-you-knows in this tasty book. 

Compromised by dodgy labeling and dubious extraction practices, the extra virginity of olive oil cannot always be taken for granted, Meuller warns. Through extensive interviews with oil-makers along the spectrum from humble, struggling farmer to mega-rich, multi-national executive, the reader is assured of Meuller's passionate, yet patient involvement in the cause of honest oil. If Meuller were a superhero, he'd be Oleicman! Olive green cape shimmering as he zips from harvest to centrifuge, from farmer's market to restaurant, ready at a moment's notice to alight beside any suspect bottle of oil, take a swig and assess its authenticity.

Although the book suggests that niche genre of History of A Surprisingly Ubiquitous Food Object (Cod, Salt etc), Extra Virginity does both past and present with equal punch. You get the eerie thrill of oil-soaked archaeological artifacts as well as an up to the minute stock-take on what's good, bad and ugly about the olive oil world. Best of all, the book praises Australian-grown extra virgin olive oil, some of which I felt compelled to buy and drizzle liberally over thick toasted slices of pane di casa. 

Food match Italian bread, olives and locally grown extra virgin olive oil.

Wine match Full-bodied, meaty, rustic red - durif, or shiraz.

Makes you wanna pour gorgeous green oil over everything you eat.

Readability Four Ligurian olive seeds (fruit happily gnawed while reading) out of 5

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