“Better than sex” – Earl Grey and Other Favourite Drinks

By Greg

As I hope you know, one goal of this website is to get you to know Trenna a little better. So, I thought I’d provide some insights into the things Trenna liked to drink.

Spirits

Cine Cellars and Tia Maria

It would have been 1986 or 1987 when I first met Trenna, and it was in a downstairs bar called Cine Cellars near the corner of Hay and Barrack Streets in Perth city. She would regularly go there on a Friday night with workmates from the nearby HBF.

One of her main drinking mates was my friend Evo. On a few occasions I went to Cine Cellars to have a few beers with Evo, and of course met Trenna.

Cine Cellars was crowded, dark and smokey. Evo and his companions were among those contributing to the smoke and Trenna was smoking St Moritz Menthols – very classy!

She clearly wasn’t the least bit interested in me, and I thought I’d have no chance with her. Besides, she smoked – yuk!

But the impressive thing was the amount Trenna could drink. She would drink Tia Maria and Coke, and because she was friendly with the barman she would often get double, triple or even quadruple measures of Tia Maria for the standard price – responsible service of alcohol just wasn’t a thing then.

Evo could drink pretty well but for every beer he had Trenna would equal him with one of her potent Tia Marias. Many a time Evo would be almost too drunk to find his way home on his bicycle whilst Trenna appeared perfectly OK.

When I eventually got together with her a year or two later Tia Maria and Coke was still a favourite.

Gin and Tonic

Once we moved to Darwin in late 1994 Tia Maria didn’t seem right in the hot, humid conditions. Like many people who live in the tropics, she switched to G&T.

We learnt that Tanqueray Gin was the stuff of blues songs, so a T&T became the drink of choice.

Having said that, ever since her heart operation not long after we were married, Trenna ALWAYS had a glass of wine with her evening meal. The operation, and warfarin she took for the rest of her life meant that from then on she could really only have a couple of alcoholic drinks a day.

Wine

In the near future (in another post) I’ll tell the story of how, on our first date, in 1988, through pure luck, I guessed Trenna’s favourite wine. It was a 1986 Moondah Brook Chenin Blanc. Unfortunately it is no longer made. Trenna liked other white wines, but she really liked that particular wine, and it’s subsequent vintages.

A Trailing Economic Indicator

Trenna and I took out a mortgage and bought our property in Kensington (where I still live) not long after we first got together. We would put all our money towards the debt. When we did renovations and put in a swimming pool we took out other mortgages – and more debt.

After a number of years it became evident that we could tell how we were doing financially by the type of wine we bought. At first all our wine came in 5 litre casks (cardboard boxes), then as we got wealthier 4 litre, and then 2 litre casks. As our net debt increased so did the size of the wine box, as our debt decreased, so did the container.

After many years of debt, plus putting additional money into superannuation we got to the point where all our wine was in bottles.

When we got there, we really felt we had made it!

New Zealand and Pinot Gris

When we went to the South Island of New Zealand in 2011 Trenna discovered Pinot Gris, another very enjoyable variety. Interestingly she didn’t enjoy Pinot Grigio wines, which, as I understand it are made from the same variety of grapes.

So, from 2011 on she tried many different Pinot Gris and Chenin Blancs. Amberly Chenin Blanc, another Western Australian wine was an economical but enjoyable drop.

The choice was expanded further when on our first visit to the excellent Millbrook Winery Restaurant we tried their Viognier. Very Yum! I’m pretty sure we were trying either their first, or a very early vintage of this wine. Trenna insisted that we buy 2 cases!

Margaret River and the Trenna Lunch Time Curse

A curse? Well it seemed to be. It seemed like every time – although I’m sure it wasn’t – that Trenna and I were out and getting a bit hungry, she would say what she would like to eat, and we just couldn’t find that thing.

So it was the case one year – maybe 15 years ago – certainly before smart phones and GPS – that we had been touring around the Margaret River Wine region. It was lunch time and Tren said “Arrh! Lets go to Amberly Wines and have a nice lunch.”

“Yum! Let’s go!” I agreed.

So out came the tourist map and we headed there. But… it wasn’t where we thought it was. After driving up and down the road a few times we realised that one of the wineries we had passed (Aravina) was where Amberly used to be.

For those not familiar, the Margaret River region of Western Australia is towards the South West corner of the state. In those days it took about 3 hours to drive there.

Today it is full of many wineries and small breweries and the majority seem to have restaurants attached. The standard of food and drink in the region is very good indeed. In fact, I had an excellent lunch at Aravina earlier this year.

However, this story is set before that boom….

“No problem” we thought, “we’ll just go here, the food will probably be just as good as it’s always been”.

So we went there – NO RESTAURANT. The new owners hadn’t reestablished the restaurant when they took over the property.

Time was marching on so into the car – “There must be another restaurant in a winery around here somewhere?” We drove and drove. Stopping many times at the entrances to wineries looking for signs of an eatery.

Tassell Park

As we drove the number of wineries got less and less, and our hunger pangs more and more. We were on a road that seemed to have no wineries at all …

Then we spotted a welcoming sign for Tassell Park Wines. We had never heard of it but we thought “SURELY they will have SOMETHING we can eat!?” We were getting desperate.

As we pulled up it didn’t look promising. A small, rustic building with a sign “Cellar Door Sales”.

Without much hope we entered, and …. it was obvious that all that was there were a few small squares of cheese and equally small squares of bread.

“Let’s go” I whispered, but as I did the owner appeared and gave us a very warm welcome. “Have a seat, try my wines”. It didn’t look like he got a lot of customers…

So we settled in and said we would try his whites. As soon as he turned for the glasses we both swooped on the bread and cheese, we were STARVED! I’m sure he noticed, but he said nothing.

What followed was a very pleasant 30 minutes of chatting and trying pretty much all of his wines – and eating all of his cheese and bread. He even brought a little bit more out.

Trenna loved his Chenin Blanc, and I was partial to some of his reds. We ended up with two or three cases – I can’t remember which, we were tasting on an empty stomach!

The other thing we got at Tassell Park was confirmation that we weren’t likely to find any restaurants open near there, especially as the time was now approaching 4pm.

So into the car again and another half hour drive, pedal to the metal – we HAD TO EAT!

Yallingup is a small town, and even smaller in those days. The one food shop open was a sort of deli/cafe/surf shop. But, they had a couple of dried up meat pies in a battered and slightly grimy stainless steel pie warmer – and that was our restaurant meal.

The Trenna Lunch Time Curse had struck again.

From that day on Tassell Park Chenin Blanc was well and truely Trenna’s favourite wine.

Hot Drinks

Coffee

When we first got together we wanted to ditch the instant coffee that was totally ubiquitous in Perth. Trenna owned but didn’t use what I now realise, was an underpowered espresso machine that her brother had brought over from Europe.

We never got a really good coffee out of that – it may have been our technique, or lack of it. So our search started for an alternative.

We got a percolator and tried that. No. We got coffee plungers in a range of sizes. Not right. A machine that sort of dripped hot water through a mesh filter. Closer. Then we bought quite an expensive dipolator machine. This was alright provided you drank the coffee fresh. But it still wasn’t great coffee.

Then, in 1990 I got the job as General Manager of the student’s union at a university, and among other things was responsible for a cafe. I did some training at work and then bought a La Cimbali Domus espresso machine, and a burr grinder.

The results weren’t instantaneous, and at first we thought we may have made an expensive mistake, but with a lot of practice and experimentation – and bad coffees – we got there. I was able to reliably turn out a very pleasant breakfast Flat White.

Trenna and I both loved them, and a few times when we went for a holiday by car we took the La Cimbali with us. (Though it was very heavy!)

This earlier post points to the importance of a morning coffee to Trenna.

Tea

By the time we got together in 1988 I had a long history of buying and trying different leaf teas. I had quite a range at home. Most were Twinings Teas and I had a range of Twinings tin canisters to keep them in.

Trenna took to trying different teas like a duck to water, both leaf and teabag.

Eventually she settled on her favourites.

As mentioned earlier, at breakfast she would have a coffee, but for morning tea she would have a Twinings English Breakfast Tea made with a teabag, jiggled at least 50 times and left for at least 4 minutes, with skim milk and a rounded teaspoon of honey.

With her lunch, and any tea she had in the afternoon, had to be Twinings Earl Grey, again, with skim milk and honey.

It goes without saying that Trenna believed it should be served in fine bone china mugs.

Trenna liked leaf tea made in a teapot but recognised that if properly made and given enough time teabag tea was pretty much on a par.

Both she and I used the microwave oven to heat water for teabag tea. It is fast, efficient and the water temperature doesn’t drop when it is put in a mug or cup.

Water

I can’t really finish a post on Trenna’s drinks without mention of one of her favourites – water. From her early days until about 1990 Trenna had a lot of headaches, which she attributed to musculoskeletal issues. Then she realised that if she drank lots of water the headaches didn’t appear. She advised plenty of people to drink more water.

At one stage she was probably drinking a couple of litres per day, but she realised that was too much and started reducing it.

Eventually when Trenna had heart and lung failure doctors told her to restrict her fluid intake and her discipline allowed her to do that easily.

She kept either a bottle or insulated jug of filtered water on the kitchen bench and anyone who entered the house was instantly offered a drink of water.

Conclusion

I think the final word on this should be from her lifelong friend Helen, who, in Trenna’s Eulogy said:

“Tren was ALWAYS up for a good time in spite of her pain from a young age and yet I cannot recall her complaining about it.  Even enjoying the simple pleasure of a good cup of Earl Grey she would say as she took her first sip – “Awwww Hel this is sooo good, it’s better than sex.””

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