Aunty Vicki's first food memory

When I first moved to Melbourne from Sydney, 23 and reeling from a dramatic relationship break-up, it was Aunty Vicki who met me at the train station and wrapped me in her navy-coat warmth, smelling like Chanel, smelling like safety. She drove from Flinder's Street through South Melbourne and down the wide plane-tree lined boulevades to St Kilda. I remember her plum-red lipstick, the fat toast we shared in a graffiti-walled cafe, and that the sky was low and grey. Palm tree leaves whipped about in the salty air and yet there was no waves on the bay - the silver water seemed eeriely still, like a dream. I was used to the crash of white spray on cliff, azure blue above me and a glaring horizon. Here the horizon was contained by the bay's edges and I felt suffocated, compressed by the landscape and grief.

Vicki knows the power of food to heal and connect. She used food to draw me in to her heart and to inspire in me a love of Melbourne.  She took me to Acland Street for European cakes, Chinta Ria for laksa, Brunswick Street for coffee, Marios for pasta, her local Turkish takeaway for carrot dip and fresh pide and over time I did grow to love Melbourne despite my heartache and it's uncanny reflection in the heavy, melancholic skies.

I moved in to a share house with an ensemble cast of writers, herbalists and performers. About once a week I would go to Vicki's for dinner, opening her pantry, then fridge on my arrival. The sight of her neat jars of herbs, expensive olive oils and stocks of pasta was soothing, like a safety net beneath the whizzing trapeze of my life.

Vicki is famous for many dishes - her individual chicken pies, Vietnamese coleslaw, spicy tomato pasta with crispy salami, her myriad of ways to cook the fresh fish Uncle Roger brings home from the Victoria Market on Fridays -  but when you say "Vicki's famous..." it is usually followed by "plum tart".

She told me the story behind her famous plum tart while we pitted persham yellows from Jane's tree that lovely weekend at the end of August, that now feels like it belonged to a different life, as I sit here in my terraced house in South Manchester on a blustery September morning.

Plum Tart

A little girl called Marion lived across the road from us and used to play with us in the afternoons. Mum had a plum tree but didn't know what to do with all the plums (she was never much of a cook) and so she would give them to Marion's mum Claire. 
Claire was a holocaust survivor from Germany; she made this tart from the plums and would give it to mum as thanks - after the war the whole street would swap fruit and veg.
I loved this tart, it is my first real food memory, my first taste of European cooking, but I never got the recipe off her.
25 years later I was on the North Balwyn tram when I spotted her, Claire. She remembered me and, even though I had only three stops to go, I went to the end of the line with her and got this recipe. I have been cooking it ever since.

200g unsalted butter
6 tblsp castor sugar
2 egg yolks
3 tablespoon plain flour
1 tablespoon self-raising flour
1 kg plums - a dry variety
3 tablespoons golden castor sugar

Method:

Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Cream  the butter and the 6 tablespoons of castor sugar in a food processor.

Add the eggs, incorporate, then add the flours in the proportion of 3 plain  to 1 self raising untill the mixture balls but remains glossy and moist.

When I saw Vicki make this pastry, she ended up using 9 tablespoons of plain flour and 3 self-raising.

Put the ball of pastry straight into a 20cm flan tin and spread out with your fingers to the edges, making it as even as possible.

Chill in the fridge while you pit and quarter the plums.

Place the plums on the pastry in a neat spiral, starting at the outer edges of the tin.

Sprinkle with golden castor sugar.

Bake at 180 for approx. 50 mins or untill the pastry is golden and set - check at the edges.