Fake Food for Curium

Hungry? Excitable for what’s cool and good? The following filthy premonitions (photos and words) were commissioned by and appeared in Curium Edition Four. Big thanks to Jessi for getting me involved.

The New Namaste Bowl
Imagine being the kind of person who’s so damn boring they relocate to coastal New South Wales just to form some sort of personal brand, a tattooed shell wading in a pool of wide brimmed hats and tepid artistic notions – one of those annoying bastards raking in instagram likes and dollars, hurling transparent sponsored posts to naive and oblivious followers. Another photo of an immaculate smoothie bowl served in a half coconut? Nobody has time for that sort of self care! Here is the real namaste bowl for us working men and women: Moccona Medium Roast whipped smoothie adorned with every sugary cereal in the supermarket aisle, in whatever bowl is clean, served on your table still stained from last night’s filthy MenuLog binge. Good morning, world! Brown is the new green.

We Get It, You’re High Right Now
No longer satisfied with the subtle wink and a nudge associated with being a little hungry after you know what, the powers that govern our online social behaviours have reached unanimous agreement: if you got it, flaunt it. If you blaze it, praise it. Gone are the days of subtle 420 references. Huge green leaves are plastered on venue walls literally spelling out that stoner food is our lethargic future of cool. Prepare a peanut butter and brownie pie, dye it green and top it with crumbled brownie and enough Doritos, Twisties and Cheese and Bacon Balls to leave even the most proper connoisseur of green with cheese matted fingertips. Smoke drugs. But first, tell everyone that you do.

Rainbow Food
How’s your instagram follower count going? Are you ready to celebrate your paltry number of followers yet with a sweeping, calligraphic thank you message to all of your supporters? Need a little boost until then? Well here you are: rainbow scrambled eggs and avo, a perfect brunch accompaniment to a subpar social media presence. It will look great next to your timely regram of Bondi Icebergs.

Burger Culture
Double down or go home boys! Two beef steaks cradle cheese, peanut butter, Nutella, a donut and tomato sauce. Has outlandish burger culture surpassed the need for burger buns? Has the Nutella laden lifestyle of Sydney infiltrated each and every culinary crevice? Much like the recent extreme milkshake calamity of Sydney, structural integrity is irrelevant now – to become successful simply hurl what you can at at the godforsaken thing. Appease your inner manchild, who is clearly cruisin’ for an disgusting oozin’.

RSL Chic
Pub culture, or RSL Chic as I have penned the phenomenon, is reaching its inevitable peak: fine hors d’oeuvres served on Jatz, the “revival” of the roast chook (which actually never, ever went away, but whatever), dishes possibly imagined from the worst “Easy Microwave Dinner” cookbooks of the 70s, and white bread as far as the white guy can see. Behold, the seafood extender sandwich: combining facets of both New Casual Dining and 90s Australiana. Pair this fistful of minced ocean dregs with a shit beer and bask in the knowledge that you ate That Cool Thing at That Cool Place first.

A Foraged Lunch
When times are dire we are all urban foragers in our homes – your living room carpet a gentle, rolling moss. Mastering good plating by way of negative space and immaculate objects means you’re 90% there to creating a Michelin-starred masterpiece! Stale old cracker? Cool. That half packet of M&Ms lying around? Even better. Crusty old miso paste? Quenelle it. A single rocket leaf in your failing balcony garden grasping at its last few moments of life, an anchovy fillet, some really old muscatels from the cheese plate of a dinner party hosted with your last thread of dignity and a smattering of… stock cube? Yummy. Rene Redzepi eat your flawless Danish heart out. Be the forager you wish to see in the world.