Black spaces
good eats in Perth, travel gut health kit
A slightly delayed letter this time, because life, weddings, and Perth’s soft, sunny weather got in the way. I haven’t been back there in over 20 years – my last memory was specifically sharing the sausage rolls from Tas’ Bakery (yes, I remember restaurant names from back when I was 8 or 9) and learning how to ride a horse in Margaret River. A real throwback, and a lot of blank headspace that led to today’s insight of the week.
Food of the week:
In Perth we went to quite a few ‘famous’ restaurants but the standout had to be Balthazar. The silky-creamy seafood pasta, the kangaroo (my virgin experience!) and the signature cruller dessert rendered both of us totally speechless. It was this well-orchestrated amalgamation of flavour in one meal - that kangaroo was stupendously tender and soft despite it being a very lean and gamey piece of meat. The cruller, or delicate fried doughnut, was air-light and crispy all around, drenched in what was maybe too much dark chocolate sauce but so worth every single one of the three bites I took. The pear addition was very elegant, too.
We even managed to cover the classic Aussie brunch episode, and hop over to Fremantle to try some authentic Perth fish and chips over the weekend! The brisket eggs Benedict at Hylin was phenomenally juicy and tender albeit very rich and heavy, and the eggs were perfectly runny; I have a personal gripe with cafes which can’t serve poached eggs right like this. Between the more iconic, touristy Kailis and Piscari further out, we were well more entranced by Piscari, which tasted like they fried the fish fresh out the sea, and you can watch them do it in real time right in front of you, too. The batter was light without being pathetic, and the squid rings were the softest I have ever had, incredible! Next time I’m around Perth, I’d head straight here, a wine bar in the subiasco area, and then try for Margaret River.
Science of the week:
I became somewhat friends with a pediatrician, who revealed that she is just as interested in nutritional biochemistry as she is in what the poop of babies looks like. We started thinking about nutritional blockers to one’s overall health and wellness, and we stumbled on sources of lectins, which are proteins that bind to sugar and bacteria, present in all plants and animals. Lectins are present in most beans, legumes like lentils and soybeans, grains, soy, dairy and nightshades (plants like eggplant and peppers). Depending on our genetic makeup we react to them differently. The general consensus, though, is that they more likely than not damage gut barrier integrity by damaging microvillus (the little needle-like projections in our intestine) and through increased endocytosis (extracting external nutrients by creating little bubbles to trap them in, effectively stealing them from our gut) and these two things reduce the small intestine’s ability to absorb nutrients, thus affecting intestinal permeability or ‘leaky gut’, contributing to hypersensitivity reactions and reduced immunity. Good thing is that there are specific sugars that can completely bind lectin, offering nutritional counter to this leakiness that might happen, in the form of foods like fucose (okra), N-acetyl glucosamine (bone broth) and D-mannose (cranberries). So, if you suspect you have a sensitivity to nightshade plants or lectins specifically, maybe try adding some okra to your meals.
Insight of the week:
Perth did something strange to me. I went blank a lot. Not in the dissociative or burnt out way, but in the way a screen goes black between scenes. Maybe it was more striking because this was my first trip this year, or maybe not. Didn’t even have my AirPods working for the 5 hour flight. Long flat stretches of nothing in particular, sitting with a coffee that had gone cold, watching a tree do its tree things, no thought worth recording. I did not realise how much I needed it until it was happening to me.
There is a tidy story we tell ourselves about wellness. You optimise. You stress out over your HRV that lets you know how well you manage stress, you walk to the gym to walk the incline.
