food and drink – phonakins

I got what I wanted for my 43rd Birthday (Takoyaki for lunch at Umi in Toronto) but what do I want from the 48th Parliament?

Labor is back with a bigger majority and only really needing to appease the Greens in the upper house to get anything done. But what will they use this for and will it be at all progressive? Or will they still pretend they can’t do things their supposed base want – such as all the local groups calling for sanctions on Israel, or community groups seeking investment in public housing or increased welfare payments – because I’m skeptical as always, and fell sad that I have to wait and see.

Takoyaki in a black moon shaped dish — Takoyaki, $10

But first – I turned 43 yesterday and all I wanted was to have Takoyaki and chill, and that I did!

Restaurant inside. Umi sign on wall, a fish lamp and Japanese script

Bruce and I dropped his car off for new tyres – finally spending the money I got from the selective schools supervision earlier this year – then we went to try Umi, the newer of the two Japanese restaurants in Toronto. It’s a bit less fancy that Mizumi which we’ve gone to for many birthdays since it’s been there, and it was very quiet being only 11am on a Tuesday, but there were a few people coming in for their Bento as we were heading out.

japanese lemonane and a coke — Ramune, $6

I normally get lemon iced tea with my Japanese food, but went the ramune today as a special treat. They were tempting me with grape soda though!

Miso soup in a black bowl — Miso soup, $4

We started with some miso soup, the takoyaki and some kara-age chicken. Bruce has been watching more Japanese and other Asian food tourism videos, such as from Dancing Bacons and making me want to travel and eat and eat and travel. But that’s not anywhere near in my future, so local it is!

Kara-age friend chicken with a side of saces — Kara-age chicken, $13

Obviously being my birthday we had to follow the tasty fried goodies with their Umi Supreme Variety of sashimi: Hamachi (Kingfish), Hotate (Scallop), Salmon, Tuna, Octopus (3 pcs each), and Salmon Roe. Love popping the little roe balls in my mouth lol. Tasty fresh fish!

Variety of sashimi: Hamachi (Kingfish), Hotate (Scallop), Salmon, Tuna, Octopus (3 pcs each), and Salmon Roe — Umi Supreme, $42

We left full and happy and in no mood for dessert, so picked up a tray of cake pieces from Coles to graze on later, and browsed some op shops til I got over it and just wanted to go home (via picking up the car with the fresh tyres and avoiding the traffic chaos that seemed to be everywhere yesterday!)

tray of cake slices - lemon tarts, brownies and berry and passionfruit cheesecake — Coles Cake Variety, $22

My parents got us a new coffee machine which was on special during the prime day sales and we’d had our eyes one. Slowly getting the hang on the manual pour and getting the accessories to help make the tasty morning brews.

I’ve also been spoiled by my internet friends, with some items off my wishlists coming already and a few more to come! (and I few I’ve bought with birthday money from other amazing souls!)

lilac backpack and pridge and coffees — Backpack from Leigh and porridge sachets and mocha sachets from Jave from my Amazon list

Hello kitty mug stack — Hello Kitty Mug Stack from Sally off my Amazon wishlist.

So, back to reality after a food coma Tuesday afternoon – I didn’t miss much from the first sitting day of the parliament – lots of speeches and ceremonies and the like. A rally and vigil for Palestine outside parliament has been ongoing and well attended.

They’re introducing the “20% off HECS” bill today which will help a few but again it’s a drop in the ocean compared to recent indexation amounts and the rapid increase in house prices which is the real reason university graduates can’t afford to buy homes, rather than their HECS stopping them.

Hounding people on low incomes for so-called "overpayments" based on dubious data is petty and cruel.

Labor's Centrelink payments are below the poverty line. The last thing recipients need is the Government pursuing them to disprove a dodgy – and often decades old – debt notice. pic.twitter.com/zaE3jalLqn

— Penny Allman-Payne (@senatorpennyqld) July 18, 2025

Historic welfare debts are back, with court backing to pursue them. Labor should have at least legislated the recommended 6 year limit on debt collection, like applies for ATO debts, but they chose not to. They have no excuse not to this term, with their majority overflowing to the opposition benches of the house, but really, they have no will to. Unfortunately there’s gonna be more ugly deaths they can be accounted for by neglect through state enforced poverty.

The red is the blood of Palestinians https://t.co/FvNEYisbvw

— 💜 phonakins 🍉 (@phonakins) July 22, 2025

Meanwhile we get an economic round table with tech, business and mining representatives, but no one from health or disability, even though “Delivering quality care more efficiently” is one of their “productivity pillars“?

One of our local Labor MPs (and deputy speaker) was boasting about their 25% increase in food relief and “financial wellbeing” support – such as financial counselors and food and petrol vouchers and more money for food banks. This is not something to celebrate. You CANNOT budget your way out of poverty – when welfare is half the poverty line you just cannot find that extra money. More happy snaps and warehouses rented, which people just can’t afford to feed and house themselves and their families? Not a win Sharon.

One of my Antipoverty Centre comrades gave me a great birthday present – a few more FOI requests on food relief charities to go through when I can focus on them. Let’s see how they manage to leverage their gearing this year or whatever business words they use for being a middleman between actual humans and often unsuitable food. GO you guys!

Brunch at Vulture Street Espresso

cappuccino in a black cup and saucer with a spoon on a wooden table — Skim cappuccino, $4.50.

What a whirlwind! Just spend Thursday to Monday up in Magan-djin/Brisbane for the People Against Poverty summit that I helped organise! I’ll post a recap of the event sometime this week (including my presentation which I’ll hopefully get the audio of soon and plan to do an online version of when we all have spoons again), but I’m excited to do a food blogging post for the brekkie the interstate folk had before flying out on Monday at Vulture Street Espresso in the West End.

We were treating ourselves after a weekend, week, and MONTHS of hard work pulling this together, spending our conference allowances on a great feed before returning to the reality of our sub-poverty welfare payments, job seeking responsibilities and, appointments and caring roles. It was a good chance to finally relax a little and eat slowly!

The weather was a little damp all weekend, which threw some plans out, but VSE has a back section that feels open even though it’s nicely sheltered. Lots of plants and wood! I nabbed the large table for what ended up being 10 of us.

They serve breakfast all day, and I was filled in by one of the former Brisbane residents that former lord mayor and brief premier Campbell Newman was one of the reasons cafe’s opened so early every day in Brissie, with the huge spend on bike lanes when he was (a Lycra-clad-cycling-) mayor who needed to access morning lattes with the gang.

puree avocado and creamed feta and almonds on two slices of seeded sourdough on a round bluegreen plate — Iconic Aussie Smashed Avocado – $19.50.

Many of the meals came with a poached egg, but as I don’t eat that I got my “Iconic Aussie Smashed Avocado” without the egg. There was lemon through the avo, the feta was oddly creamed and squirted but it was tasty as 🙂

Vietnamese omelet with rice and lemon on a blue plate — Vietnamese Omelette – $18.90

The Vietnamese Omeleltte was intriguing and smelled delicious – filled with bean sprouts, pork mince, onion, cucumber, carrots, capsicum, spring onion, mint and coriander, the fish sauce was noticeable and served with shallots and rice.

bacon, egg, cheese and avocado, tomato relish milk bun — Aussie Bacon, egg, and avocado roll – $13.50.

a stack of fritters with egg and bacon and lettuce — West end vegetable fritters – $18.90. With a side of bacon – $8.

two bices of French toast with bacon, syrup and fruit on a white plate — Creme Brulé French Toast – $18.90.

scrambled eggs with sourdough toast, bacon and relish — Free range eggs on toast – $10.

eggs with holondaise sauce, bacon shallots and spinach — Bao Benedict – $21.

Vulture Street Espresso was recommended by a gluten free local who came along and most meals had vegetarian and gluten free options, and a great coffee and drinks selection. They also let us split the bill and individually pay as we each needed to leave, I bought some espresso beans to try at home, which were a good start to today!

Vulture St. Espresso

1/85 Vulture St West End QLD 4101

(07) 3844 3208

Anzac biscuits cost more at the food bank than Aldi. That’s it. That’s the title.

So, I got access to a FOI (freedom of information) request about a grant “Grant agreements and expenditure reports for identified grants with Oz Harvest, SecondBite, Foodbank Australia” through my Antipoverty Centre connections. I’d like to say it’s shocking but then it’s all so fucking broken out there than it doesn’t surprise me any more that these organisations use language like “capturing new markets” and talk about how the “gearing” of certain essential items is better than others and they’re happy to source from overseas if it means better gearing.

So one way Foodbank sources staples is the "collaborative supply program" where the supplier donates the indigents but foodbank pays for the production. Thus the Vetta povvo branded pasta for $1 at your local food pantry pic.twitter.com/5RR9ieFfSx

— 💜 phonakins 🍉 speak because your voice shakes (@phonakins) April 8, 2025

I did learn more about how their povvo pasta and similar “collaborative supply program” products work – the company donates the ingredients and Foodbank pays for the production (then on-sells the items to local food pantries aka “emergency relief organisations” EROs). They also purchase other staples direct at mates rates – at least 40% below retail price, more often 50%. Which again then gets sold onto local EROs for distribution (sale or giving out.

I also read about how the “food rescue” organisations like OzHarvest and SecondBite source extra produce if it’s in high demand – yeah they buy it using grant money. Not so food recue anymore.

One of the organisations also noted that there was high demand for gift cards – again not food rescue anymore – but that doesn’t help supply food on the ground if there’s a natural disaster.

So much money is spent on transport and warehousing and “relationships” and advertising and branding and so on.

The major supermarkets in this country – Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, IGA and Foodbank.

Just give people enough money to afford to feed themselves maybe? FFS

PURPLE

What do you mean I’m disappointed in Jim’s Election Budget? I thought I’d given up hoping for better from Labor by now.

I went to Canberra last week, it was fun, tiring and good to spend time with the people who I work with every day, but in person. It was to mark 5 years since the Covid supplement was introduced, but it was also to get our own stuff in the media before the Budget this week and the inventible election being called (today).

I felt a bit like a “cosplay lobbyist” to co-opt an insult (cosplay socialist I think?) wandering the halls of Parliament House. I was even on the radio Thursday morning and in the paper this week.

My quote for the Antipoverty Centre Budget media release:

With politicians themselves this year reminding us that budgets are about choices – it’s infuriating, but not unexpected, that Labor have chosen to keep millions in poverty by refusing to raise welfare above the poverty line. Instead, they give cash to power companies and pretend that it’s responsible to give short term bill cuts rather than plan ambitiously for the future.

I have “thoughts” on the budget but here’s a couple:

They could have raised the tax free threshold rather than giving a percentage tax cut. This would have helped everyone, but it would have helped those at the bottom the most – those on JobSeeker whose every dollar earned is taxed and then starts to eat into their payments because the tax free threshold is less than the single jobseeker payment and your JS started to reduce when you earn $150 a fortnight.

I’d argue for the tax free threshold to be above the poverty line. You should certainly let people get to poverty level earnings before you start taxing them, particularly if you’re not giving them enough to live off to start with through welfare.

OMG stop asking for welfare BELOW the poverty line. I’m looking at ACOSS and any other organisations that claim to speak for welfare recipients because they know what’s best for us. Pensions are below the poverty line, and people are struggling on them. Your cite them all the time saying how people are struggling on pensions and yet you ask for LESS for others. Well done.

“Mutual” obligations aren’t really a part of the budget but I hear Labor are cutting Social Services staff – maybe you can keep current service levels that have improved a bit since you came in if you also remove mutual obligations. They’re turning out to be looking pretty illegal on top of their well known cruelty.

Indexation came in – I’m going to be getting more rental relief from May 19 when I don’t have to pay thee $1.50 a fortnight for the direct debit of my rent anymore than the 80c from rent assistance indexation :/

I also got to relive some feels – my food blogging days were mostly in Canberra, so got my “nooooo you can’t eat that til I take a photo” back on!

Dinner at Thai Cornar:

Wasn’t going to bother with brekkie at the hotel, but then I had to hang back a bit later to do the phone interview (travel all the way to Canberra just to talk to ABC Newcastle – but they asked for a Hunter person if there was one and that was me!) SO I got the $12 breakfast pack at the hotel and had it with my instant coffee….

Coffee at Parliament House with macadamia cheesecake:

Got the see the carpark the CEO Vinnies sleepout was in last year.

Post presser lunch at the Kingston Hotel – giant parmi!

And my bewbs made this really good Crikey article from press conference day:

‘We call that social murder’: Five years on from COVID supplement payments, more of us live in poverty

Get the poster by donating to the artist fund or wait til they go on sale soon (there will be ones available for those who can’t afford to pay)

Get the tee from Mel’s redbubble shop.

Support The Antipoverty Centre and The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union (AUWU) so they can continue to send welfare recipients to events to represent ourselves in political discourse.

Support my personal endeavours by sending cash or buying me treats off my wishlists.

Food banks are broken, just like the rest of system they are in

So, I’ve been sharing this article “Shopping at Australian food charities can be more expensive than supermarkets. What’s gone wrong?” because I’m the foodbank user quoted and because the whole system is broken when charities on the ground are struggling to afford to buy food from mega charities to continue their essential work on the ground.

Regulars here know the story – I shop around foodbanks and Aldi and occasionally the majors since I have all three in my major town centre, in order to get the best value for myself and my little family that looks different each time I take stock. I haven’t gotten back to doing that this year – the food charities are reopening this week after Xmas shutdown, and I don’t have access to a car all the time since one is off the road at the moment. So I’m shopping at Aldi (or my partner is) and we’re getting our meal boxes and I’m sure it’s better for my waistline to not be able to get more food for less, but ugh I’m bored lol. Also, my stepson’s summer job just ended so he’s eating more at home and earning less until the Centrelink systems are reliable enough to reapply for jobseeker or he can find another casual job around the place.

I knew that charities on the ground were facing increased costs for their purchases from Foodbank, but I didn’t realise it had gone up so much.

But I don’t see the answer as giving more money to Foodbank itself. They have corporate and individual donors, they have government funding, volunteer labour and other in-kind support, and yet they still have to charge more to the charities on the ground to receive the food and other items.

I also find myself even more cranky at the local charities that on-sell the items with significant markups (to just under full major supermarket prices) to fund their other work. Whether that’s to fund their free food hampers to those even more in need than the regular foodbank shopper, to pay their rent of warehouses, or to go into their missionary coffers (yes it happens), if there’s such a shortage of food coming into Foodbank warehouses as donations or being purchased it shouldn’t be marked up. Selling it on at your cost when it’s an essential item should be expected. (I’ll pay a markup on my short-dated Lindt though, happy to help when I’m able).

I’ll come back to it again – people need enough money to survive. They need to be able to afford to buy the food and other essential items they need to survive. Welfare rates need to be above the poverty line. People need to be able to afford to buy groceries and afford healthcare. There’s a lot that candidates can take into the election this year, and I want to see more of them promising to do the easy thing to lift millions out of poverty – Raising the rate of all welfare payments above the poverty line. That will cut demand greatly for emergency hampers that charities hand out each week. That will enable people to be able to directly support their own families and friends in need.

There is a place for emergency help – but having large corporate charity machines is not lessening the need for it.