Cooking With Baz: How I Got To Know My Father
Sean Dooley
Language: English
Pages: 191
ISBN: 1741752736
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
When Sean's mum' Di' starts treatment for cancer' it is cooking' of all things' that brings father and son together. Baz starts whipping up Japanese fish parcels and braised lamb shanks with polenta to tempt Di's flagging post - chemo appetite and Sean is impressed. When Baz gets the bad news that a lifetime of drinking and smoking has caught up with him' it's suddenly Sean's turn in the kitchen . . .As much about the changing landscape of Australian male culture as it is about losing loved ones' Cooking with Baz will make you laugh and get a lump in your throat' often at the same time. And you'll think about what 'family' really means.
bother me. But then, much to my surprise, Baz took me aside and said quietly, ‘How ’bout we head home and cook up those steaks, hey, Rupe?’ I think the adrenaline had drained from Dad’s body after the first few drinks and by the time I got him home he seemed uncharacteristically tired. It may have been that those little black shadows Dr Nick had shown us on the x-ray were already taking their toll on Baz’s fitness, but I suspect that he was as emotionally exhausted as he was physically. I
her immediate family had put her off men, for she had many boyfriends. But it was the most illsuited of them all who eventually won her over. He was laddish, loutish and had no interest in art or any of the finer things in life, save for a decently cooked steak and an appropriately cold beer, and his name was Baz. By the time Baz met Di, her family had sold up their dress shop in Collingwood and had moved in together with their children at the family beach house at Edithvale. They sarcastically
refreshing or the computer had a brain freeze, Baz was known to throw his hands up in the air and jump off the stand, yelling, ‘You can throw that bloody machine to the shithouse!’ Hally and I got on pretty well and at times like these, when Baz was raging and fuming, we’d have to avoid each other’s gaze or else we’d both crack up laughing. Hally’s greatest asset as a clerk was his unflappability, though this was tested at times as you would always get some mug punter who was either a total
certainly wasn’t much fun to be hanging around, hence his decision to head home, courtesy of another airfare paid for by Baz. Wok flew Qantas – I had got a follow-up call from the airline a couple of days later but seemed to have smoothed things over, at least to the extent that they didn’t veto his flight when we booked it for him, though they did refuse to serve him alcohol. I made sure I booked him on a morning flight, before the pub opened, and timed my driving so that we could only have one
had even though Donny had nearly buggered up the building of Baz and Di’s dream home. Donny was in the building trade and Baz had subcontracted him and another mate, Daggs, to build their new house on the waterfront at Patterson Lakes. Both of them were pretty good on the drink, and with Baz as their foreman, they would have cracked open their first stubby of the day by seven o’clock. In the morning. Did this affect the quality of the construction? Well, the house itself turned out fine, save for
