tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62408927458849582932024-03-14T18:06:58.001+11:00The Tao of MeringueUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-67995137101605427152013-07-07T18:15:00.002+10:002013-07-07T18:15:31.160+10:00A SALAD AND TOMATO TARTE TATIN
Hello there. A quick post I’ve had on hold for a couple of months. There’s been time but somehow it just kept leading away from here to the printed page (check out the recommended reads at the side...). So so late, but worth trying this simple tart if tomatoes are in season in your neck of the woods. But first the salad as Blogger is stuffing with the settings and I’m done fighting Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-10649560068561172012013-01-13T17:57:00.000+11:002013-01-13T18:15:42.284+11:00GOING WITH THE SEASON
2012 ended with a whimper, not a bang, in my house. The world didn’t end (for those who planned for it, you have a lot of tinned food to get through and a bunker to spring clean), and the eating, drinking, xmas party fatigue gave way to slothful holiday behaviour.
I did manage to pop one eyelid half open to note that the cherry farmers were banging on about the best cherry season Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-45704951101499924642012-11-01T20:14:00.002+11:002012-11-01T20:14:11.524+11:00SUNDAY MORNING SPECIALS
After visiting New York City last year, I came back completely enamoured with the ritual of Sunday brunch, but so rarely do I stray from the weekend morning routine of a couple of eggs on toast, that it has taken an entire year to build this post... Scrambled eggs and Bloody Mary's just don't look that blog-able, even though they're delicious. However, all that cream and vodka before Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-5543132098133515122012-09-10T22:12:00.000+10:002012-09-10T22:12:34.040+10:00GREEN DAYS
My northern hemisphere friends scoff when I moan about Sydney winters. If it doesn’t snow, then it’s not really cold, and if you haven’t been caught in a blizzard, then you really don’t know what cold is, and I’m just a big girl’s blouse, or something like that. But I guess the thing is, Sydneysiders, come winter, go into denial. We don’t dress for it, heat the house for it, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-82296047144629701342012-07-07T14:01:00.000+10:002012-07-07T14:01:06.214+10:00WINTER WEEKENDS
This is my special place. Killcare, up on the central coast of New South Wales. Surrounded by national park, the beach is still wild and untouched, an Australian beach of yesteryear.
On one side of the escarpment is Putty Beach, the other the serene village of Hardy’s Bay. I’m a dog person so one of the enduring appeals of this place is the four legged are allowed off the leash Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-71078973370486989962012-05-27T14:59:00.000+10:002012-05-27T14:59:27.632+10:00AN ENGLISH MINI-BREAK
Recently, I had four days to kill at the end of a London work trip, and someone recommended the wilds of the north Norfolk coast as the perfect mini-break. Hiring a car, I headed for Cambridge for a dose of uni nostalgia and history,
beer, and a bit of a punt.
I snuck in the back of St John’s College,
to see how it’s really done,
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-45337416628593884702012-04-08T04:10:00.000+10:002012-04-08T04:10:36.432+10:00TOKYO DAYS
Stumbling upon a cherub on the streets of Ginza is very Tokyo. Amid all the cool architecture and sleek design there’s a lot of cute. Or in this instance, whimsy. But back to cute for a minute... pooches never had it so good.
If you can stop for a minute and not be bowled over by the crowds...
...look to the sky.
Around Shinjuku, Ometsando Hills, Shibuya and Ginza, the skyscrapersUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-60793260142848174412012-04-06T15:54:00.000+10:002012-04-06T15:54:55.823+10:00TOKYO NIGHTS
Tokyo deserves more than a 3 day stopover, but if you're only passing through, you can still pack alot in to 72 hours. Easy to navigate, safe, and oh-so-civilised, I find it's not so much lost in translation as found. Its elegant aesthetic, sophisticated design, incredible shopping, to-die-for food and lively arts scene are a compelling mix. First stop, a Book Fair for photography types in Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-24207516812189536622012-02-20T20:37:00.000+11:002012-02-20T20:37:17.335+11:00WAYS TO LOVE AND SAY GOODBYE
A while back, I got to thinking about the times over the years when I’ve cooked as a declaration of love. A couple of times I aced the menu, but didn’t win the guy. One time I tried a chicken and leek bake that was a spectacular crash and burn. Yet, it must have been love, as he ate it anyway, and then stayed for the next 4 years.
I had been planning to do a classic Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-52200897327734898202012-01-09T20:43:00.000+11:002012-01-09T20:43:24.347+11:00HOLIDAY LUNCHI know I should be posting something very healthy in the spirit of New Year, when we’re all promising ourselves we’ll eat better, go to the gym more... So maybe I'll do that next week. Instead I’m including a chocolate cake in the first two weeks of January (avert your eyes if this bothers you). This is a meal I've cooked on Boxing Day for the past two years. Incredibly easy, it's a standby Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-64451921765013964542011-12-23T16:22:00.000+11:002011-12-23T16:22:20.932+11:00EASY XMAS
I don’t know about you, but at this point in the marathon of festivities, I’m ready for a good lie down. So this post will be almost as simple as the meal I made for friends this past Saturday gone. The starter was scallops, the main was salmon, and to round off a fine 2011, I said let there be (more) meringues. It’s hard to go astray when scallops are the first act, and raspberries Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-35701393200978722502011-12-04T10:01:00.030+11:002011-12-04T14:09:37.795+11:00NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
Why, hello. I've been in New York, hence the silence of late. But I wanted to get a post up before the beginning of the Christmas season (yikes).
Above is a view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and this is the park in Dumbo (an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Manhattan was work, Brooklyn Heights was play. Stately brownstones, cobblestone Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-59508623972547263132011-10-16T13:43:00.003+11:002011-10-17T21:34:37.075+11:00SPRING SIMPLE
David Tanis adapts Coco Chanel’s fashion edict: Take a look in the mirror and take one thing off, to the plate. Twenty six years as one of the head chefs at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse in California, two cookbooks later, and now the head New York Times food writer, Tanis is leading the quiet revolution back to simple, sustainable, seasonal. I say quiet, because at Crave, Sydney’s annual Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-34827933530259031422011-09-17T17:30:00.000+10:002011-09-17T17:30:37.818+10:00WINTER'S LAST STAND
Spring has definitely sprung here in Sydney. But the nights are still cold, and some winter classics are still on the menu, for, oh, another week at least.I don’t cook lamb shanks often, partly because I’ve never been able to settle on a favourite version, and because my previous oven used to have a hard time cooking anything to falling off the bone without incinerating it.But all is about to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-21069667905288742792011-08-14T14:24:00.002+10:002011-08-24T21:52:07.953+10:00NOW AND THEN
I made Melting Moments last weekend. If you don’t know what they are, they’re a butter kiss – or kiss of death – in a biscuit, stuck together with lemon butter cream. In this case, though, I used peppermint spiked pink icing, because it’s the way I used to make them as a teenager, bored in the suburbs, just wanting to grow up quickly, please...To pass the time I taught myself to bake. I made Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-22962774718554688092011-07-24T12:10:00.001+10:002011-07-24T12:18:17.257+10:00WINTER COMFORTIt’s at this time of year I start making the gratitude list that gets you through to spring – you know the one. The daily reminder of a small pleasure or small measure of beauty here and there to cheer the soul when a weak sun goes down by 5 in the afternoon, you get caught in a perfect storm and the walls are closing in. This past week in Sydney town the sky has weeped for six days and nights. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-24784577476292024862011-07-03T22:12:00.000+10:002011-07-03T22:12:55.108+10:00HOLY VARANASI
Deep breath and then just let it go. Yes, it’s India, maddening India. Magical one day, appallingly confronting the next. Always pushing your buttons, and asking who you might really become if you’re prepared to go to the limits of your patience, push beyond the fear, and discover in the seething humanity, sensory assault, not to mention violent illness that marks every visit, a passage to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-27376672201887819952011-06-14T18:50:00.000+10:002011-06-14T18:50:39.075+10:00SUNDAY AFTERNOON
This week, a short post for a just past long weekend. It’s freezing cold, sleeting rain, and blowing a gale in my neck of the woods, and the only thing for it is to hide out at home, grab a cup of tea, whip up a cake, retreat to the couch, and bury your nose in a book. This coconut cake from Lynne Mullins is dead simple, and that’s why it’s great if you want to be super indulgent for almostUnknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-34732377938115044032011-06-01T22:38:00.000+10:002011-06-01T22:38:48.163+10:00WEEKDAY VEG
I am not a practising vegetarian and never have been. But over the years I’ve got into the habit of lessening the reliance on meat taking a starring role on the dinner plate – a stark contrast to growing up in a household in an era where Australian dinner was meat and three veg. At first my reasons were budgetary, then habit forming due to an aversion to half a lifetime of lamb chops,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-30607930208575958332011-05-24T23:22:00.002+10:002011-05-25T09:08:04.469+10:00SYDNEY FOOD
This past week, the Sydney Writers’ Festival was taking place. Because I was working I didn’t see a lot of the events (an occupational hazard), but there were authors here that if you ever have the time, are worth reading if you haven’t already: novelists David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) and Michael Cunningham (The Hours), and new literary star Tea Obreht (The Tiger's Wife). Food writers A.A. Gill Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-8467038345887317902011-05-15T00:05:00.000+10:002011-05-15T00:05:59.878+10:00JUST COOK
Not even a soufflé could save me this week. I couldn’t cook. No reason, except the Black Dog was lurking, and while I love dogs (golden retrievers, in particular), this dog is not one I plan to adopt. Better to meditate, then. A meditation teacher once told me that if everyone meditated just 10 minutes a day, it would eradicate most crime. It’s hard to be bitter, aggressive, and prone to fits Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-78787325882188745032011-04-28T23:55:00.002+10:002011-05-03T18:53:19.306+10:00AUTUMN FLAVOURS
Almonds, eggplant, mushrooms, beetroot, pumpkin, fennel, olives, walnuts, pecans, quinces, pears, leeks, spinach, and figs – these are some of the flavours of autumn. In season, now starring at a farmer’s market or greengrocers near you (if you're Down Under).Having access to the global supermarket of choice and convenience, I rarely used to give a second thought to the origins of the produce IUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-60807881089435509302011-04-19T23:00:00.001+10:002011-04-20T21:21:32.281+10:00SAY CHEESE
Easter is nearly upon us, daylight savings is over, and autumn has finally settled in Sydney. It’s that crossover time where tilting toward the comfort food of winter is delayed just a little longer (please) by the last flavours of a nearly forgotten summer. So I’m cracking out the cheese. Light, heavy, hero or bit part, lunch, dinner, starter, side, it’s the great mainstay for all seasons.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-60678012181565709952011-04-12T20:11:00.027+10:002011-04-14T07:46:46.015+10:00I HEART PARIS
I’m having a Paris moment. More specifically a Lunch in Paris moment, crossed with a French Women Don't Get Fat crisis. You see, I’m reading Elizabeth Bard’s delightful ‘an American in Paris’ love story, and it’s stirred up a yearning to return to my favourite city on the planet... and since she’s so thoughtfully provided recipes at the end of every chapter it’s a short Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6240892745884958293.post-75618692564734950022011-04-05T18:35:00.001+10:002011-04-14T07:24:12.042+10:00GORILLAS IN THE WILD
Location: Rwanda. It was early morning, and at 2600 m above sea level, the air was thick with moisture and it felt like it would rain. This gorilla looked cold, and to my (anthropomorphic) mind a bit jaded (what, another bunch of gawking tourists?).
We’d trekked (and slipped and stumbled) two hours up the mountain through ankle deep mud and bamboo rainforest to find this family and then there Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2