Blog Archives

Plating it forward – on AUSTRALIAN STORY (ABC Monday night & iVIEW) & OTHER ITEMS Shaun Christie-David can still picture the bin where he used to ditch his dhal sandwiches, the furtive act of a teenage boy of migrant parents desperate to fit in. He loved dhal at home. The aromatic combination of lentils, tempered mustard seeds, spices and fried onions made by his Sri Lankan-born mother, or amma, Shiranie, was his favourite meal. But at school, he’d be teased about his weird-looking, pungent lunch, buffeted by taunts of, “Shit man, your lunch stinks”. So, the sandwiches stayed in his schoolbag all day before being dumped in that bin next to the ticket machine at the train station in south-west Sydney where Shiranie was waiting to take him home. Today, that dhal, Amma’s Dhal, takes pride of place on the menu of Colombo Social, the first of Shaun Christie-David’s string ...