eatori

Getting evangelical about pulses- chickpeas

2012-01-30T22:08:00.001+11:00

In case you missed it, I've been getting a little evangelical about pulses lately. I'm trying to escape the crutch of white carbs for dinner (or lunch).

I've covered off red kidney beans. And now it's time to shine a light on chickpeas.

I feel a little sorry for chickpeas. If you were feeling catty, you might call them boring. Plain. Round. A little awkward in their skin.

They're the kind of pulse that if it went to school, it might get bullied.

(And let's be honest, the most shining example of them involves being pulverised and punched up by sesame seeds).

Man cannot live on hummous alone- I know, I've tried. So apart from that paste, they're a pea that often gets overlooked.

They're the khaki pants of the kitchen. Ploddingly useful but not real stars. I find I turn to them when I need to bulk something out.

Sometimes I toss them into slow cooked tagines to help feed a crowd.

I've put them to work with roasted garlic, tomatoes and spinach and some mackerel fillets

But I don't often turn them into the hero.

So this is where things need to change.

This is what I've twigged. This is a pulse that likes to travel. It's got an adventurous soul. They can go Spanish, Indian, Moroccan, or Mediterranean. All they need are some sassier friends to hold their hand and show them the way.

Which is where these four come in handy.

Lemon zest, red chilli, garlic and anchovies. Yes, anchovies. They're key here, don't even think about skipping them, no matter how traumatic the pizzas your parents ordered when you were a child were.

At the end of this dish you can't taste them (The Hungry One hates them more than anything, but didn't even notice they were there). They dissolve right down into the olive oil, leaving an impressive umami saltiness as their shadow. These four add the bells and whistles chickpeas need to shine.

It would be fine to sauté them and serve them straight like that, but to make it into a bit more of a meal I've added some green and texture in the form of parsley, brocollini and almonds.

All in all It's a great one bowl dish. Top it with a splodge of lemon juice, some yogurt, mayonnaise or aiolli, or a poached egg and it's a perfect meal to eat while wearing functional trousers on the couch.

But if you want to make it a little more company friendly, use it as a base for grilled or roasted protein. Lamb fillets, a roast or chops play nicely, as does pan fried or barbecued white fish.

All it takes is a few good friends and even the shyest, plainest of pulse can learn to shine.

Awh.

Chickpeas, brocollini, garlic, chilli and lemon

Serves 1 hungry person as a main meal on its own, or two people with some grilled protein on the side (lamb or white fish both work very well)

Equipment
1 microplane or grater. 2 fry pans (one with a lid), or 1 fry pan, 1 microwave bowl and 1 microwave.

Shopping/foraging

2 tablespoons of olive oil
3 anchovy fillets (in oil, or if salted, then with the salt brushed off)
2 garlic cloves
Half a red chilli, sliced
1 lemon
140 grams (1 large handful) of brocollini (brocolli florets would also work)
1 handful flaked almonds
1 handful flat leaf parsley
1 400 gram tin of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
Optional; aiolli/ mayonnaise or yogurt to drizzle over the top

Here's how we roll

1. Place the olive oil in a wide fry pan and heat over medium until it shimmers lightly. Add the zest of half the lemon, chilli and diced anchovies and allow them to steep in the warm oil for 3 minutes.

2. Chop up the brocollini into pieces the size of the chickpeas.

3. Add the juice of half of the lemon to the brocollini. Either steam in a microwave until just softened or gently cook in a fry pan with a lid on until just softened.

4. Add the garlic, almonds and the other half of the lemon to the chilli, anchovy and lemon oil. Stir to soften the garlic and encourage the anchovies to break down.

5. Turn the heat up to high and add the chickpeas and half of the parsley. Fry until the chickpeas are warm and coated in the oil.

6. Combine the chickpeas and the rest of the contents of that pan with the lemon cooked brocollini. Squeeze the pan burnished lemon half over the top and add the remainder of the fresh parsley.

7. Eat on its own, or with a poached or fried egg, a piece of grilled fish fillet or lamb.

Pod Hotel, Camps Bay, Cape Town

2012-01-27T23:47:00.000+11:00

Because of the turns of the wind, in summer the water at the South African haven of Camps Bay is colder than mid winter

We discover this after we’ve flown to South Africa in search of summer.

Growing up, we spent every summer in a holiday apartment in Shoal Bay on the east coast of Australia. The flats carried a smell of sunscreen in the carpet and the obligatory set of Trivial Pursuit was dimpled from where cards had been clutched by damp hands. The sand was white, water warm and every afternoon at 3.15pm the ice cream van would roll past playing ‘Greensleeves’. My sister and I would streak down the stairs in search of a chocolate dipped soft serve. We’d eat them hopping from one foot to another- a race to see whether the ice cream would first collapse with heat exhaustion all over your hand, or the bitumen would burn the bottom of your feet.

My criteria for a superior beach side destination hails from this. This is what I require to put a smile on my freckled face;

White sand beach. Warm water. To be able to walk to and from a good local spot for dinner. A route by the coast to run or walk along. Somewhere to source ice cream.

After three days at Pod- one of the shiniest new accommodation options in Cape Town’s playground of Camps Bay, I’ve been seduced. Chief Brody may have needed a bigger boat to get what he was after. I’m searching ultimate indulgence. And from now, I’m now going to need a longer list.

Pod is compact, with 15 rooms and it categorises itself as ‘barefoot luxury’. Since it opened it has swiftly found itself on plenty of international ‘hot’ lists. My husband and I arrive early from an overnight flight from Heathrow. Despite the hour we’re shown to our room. It’s a study in rustic elegance; marrying wood, stone, glass and leather. Bedside tables are made from smoothed logs, and the bed base thoughtfully curved to prevent midnight injury to shins. The wifi is lightning fast and there are dvd players so you can borrow from the hotel’s library of favoured films.

Beyond the Charlotte Rhys amenities on the bathroom bench, in the cupboard we find fluffy robes and branded flip flops. At the merest mention of a trip to a beach a basket is packed for us with fresh towels, cold water and staff are dispatched to set up chairs and an umbrella on the sand.

The big red bus tour of Cape Town (which conveniently stops only 200 metres from the front door) tells us in an Afrikaans monotone that Camps Bay is a hot spot for the glamorous. Most mornings of our stay parked beside the infinity edged pool is a fellow guest; a lithe, tanned German in a South American bikini. She’s doing half hearted sit ups while flipping through one of the fashion magazines left around the bar for guests to peruse. On our second day we find a photo shoot underway in the hotel bar. Pod may be a place built for beautiful people- yet the staff are just as kind to us.

Two days into our stay we are upgraded to one of the superior rooms- we’ve traded in our shower and balcony plunge pool for a corner room the size of our London apartment. It boasts a bath large enough for a buffalo; two rainwater shower heads and a spectacular view from the second floor balcony.

A great hotel stands and falls not on the rooms, but on the service. Here, Pod shines. Every morning guests are greeted by name and asked how they slept, what their plans are and if they need any assistance. When the weather turns sour a day is quickly designed for us; we’ll take advantage of the parking available downstairs. A rental car is sourced and a route designed that will take us south, past the Chapman’s Bay scenic drive, onto Cape Point where the Atlantic kisses the Indian Ocean, then back past Boulders Beach to see the penguin colony.

On the other days we can’t tear ourselves away from the bay. They begin with a gentle jog north, past the four beaches of Clifton. Then there’s a coffee collected at Caffe e Vida- you’ll know it by the flock of lycra clad cyclists out the front sipping cappuccinos (cyclists often prove useful trackers of decent coffee). From there we make our way to breakfast at the hotel strawberry juice, a continental buffet and the option of hot dishes cooked to order; including the ‘Pod special’ of scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, avocado and crème fraiche. Any country that endorses the inclusion of avocado in breakfast is a friend of mine.

The day lolls past, itching for the arrival of the golden hour. At Camps Bay the strip of restaurants and bars fronting the beach are purpose built for a tradition of ‘sundowners’. A local Union beer and passionfruit daiquiri at the Mussel Bar is a grand way to start an evening. As for food- it can be argued that South African style pork ribs give the American South a run for their money, and the racks at both the Bayside Cafe and Kove are worth checking out. But the real pick for dinner one block back from the beachfront, at The Codfather. There you’ll find sushi as soft as infant thighs, oysters and tiger prawns the size of bbq tongs.

For me the best beach side desserts come in a cone. Here they are collected at Sinnfull ice cream parlour and eaten while you walk north along the sand. The first night we do this, I take note of a sign on the shore. It’s there to remind swimmers of who else has been known to enjoy this corner of the world.

Each morning on our run the ‘Be Shark Smart’ message smiles at me. The fact that the ocean is too cold for a dip now seems less of a concern.

The happiest moments at Pod come at sunset in the plunge pool on our balcony. From here I can still see the sand, smell the salt and hear the rustle of the waves as they kick up against the shore across the road. The water around my chest is a darn sight warmer than the 13 C of the Atlantic. And better yet, in this body of water I can safely nurse a Campari on ice.

If there’s a better spot for a sundowner in the world, I don’t know it.

All of this might help to explain why a plunge pool has found its way onto my criteria for a superior beach side break. And why Pod has vaulted straight to the top of my personal ‘what’s
hot’ list for 2012.

First published on The Arbuturian

Pod Hotel
3 Argyle Street Cape Town 8005
021 438 8550
www.pod.co.za/

Best things I ate in Sydney- Sopra CBD shaved cabbage salad

2012-01-26T20:21:00.002+11:00

It was always going to be a great night. Take The Hungry One and myself. Add two hilarious beings from our wedding party; one of my brideslaves, conveniently married to one of his groomsmen.

Then put us in one of our collective favourite restaurants (albeit in a new location).

Sopra has been the answer to so many questions. 'Where should I go for a great early lunch?' (Sopra Waterloo, which was conveniently a five minute walk from our old pad in Sydney). 'Where should we celebrate our birthdays?' ( On their private balcony where the four course $60 family style Italian feast would both stuff and delight, every year without fail).

And where should we run to when the going gets a little rough?

I will never, ever forget the kindness of Sopra's Nicole when during some dark days she matched our faces to a piece in the newspaper. As soon as we walked into the crowded Waterloo site she shuttled us into the private room. 'You don't need people around' she said. 'You need some wine. And zucchini flowers. And banoffee'

She was right.

It's that kind of place.

Sopra, and the Italian providore 'Fratelli Fresh' it's attached to has expanded across Sydney; from Waterloo, to Potts Point to Walsh Bay- and now there's an outpost smack bang in the middle of the city on Bridge Street.

It's just as good as the others. It plays host to the the old favourites; the black board menu, the carafes of wine, Campari over ice, antipasti platters, rustic tumble of pastas

There are also new things to like mozzarella bar and wood fired pizzas. And the thing to have alongside is their shaved baby cabbage salad (AUD$18)

It's tall and proud, like a pistachio green Marge Simpson bouffant. The baby cabbage is cut wafer thin with a mandoline, punched up with crumbles of parmesan and slicked with aged balsamic.

It's is the true demonstration of a whole being more than the parts.

But the parts; shoddy cheap supermarket balsamic won't cut it. Neither will insipid cheese or rubbery fat chunks of cabbage; lazy cole slaw style.

It's a twirl and a dip of bitterness and acidity. It's the perfect supporting act for rich pastas and sweet mozzarella glossed pizza.

It might be normally ordered as a side player, but it's a star in its own right.

The four of us fought with our forks to get the last thing. Luckily we're old enough friends to share nicely.

Just one more thing to miss about Sydney, I guess.

(and happy Australia Day to you too)

Cafe Sopra Bridge Street
Ph.82982701
Monday - Friday 12pm - 3pm and 6pm - 10pm
http://www.fratellifresh.com.au/contact_us.asp

La Folie Douce

2012-01-24T05:49:00.001+11:00

There are sentences which should never be said aloud.

'That's the problem with eating foie piste side ' is one of them.

And yes, while the frigid air does cause the terrine to seize up like a laminated shelf, there's nothing about those sentiments that allow it to be uttered without morphing into the worst version of yourself.

To those that heard it, I apologise.

Greetings from Val d'Isere- and more specifically, from La Folie Douce.

Some people gad about in the snow for the adrenalin. Others to learn how to do tricks.

I do it because it's very pretty up there and I get excited about possibly finding a decent place to eat after exerting myself just enough to justify hot carbs and oozing cheese (she says remembering some special meals at Chez Vrony in Zermatt).

It's those memories that get me up in the Alps wearing eight layers of technical clothing and balancing down hills on sticks.

I should say upfront; there are some crud places to eat up the top of Espace Killy in France.

I'm talking about cold quarters of roast chicken and limpid chips seeped in fawn gravy and burgers that collapse from the exertion of merely being picked up. The interior of some of the self service food stations on the mountain is gloomily dark and crammed with sticky pine furniture; the kind you find in holiday rental flats first decorated in 1966.

Which is why La Folie Douce, as ridiculous as some of it is; proves a grand destination.

You'll probably hear it before you see it. From 3pm the music ratchets up.

The complex sits at the top of the Daille chair lift. Above it the tail end of some charming blue and green runs. It's a broad white and dark wood building that's divided into two. On the left is La Fruiterie- the upscale restaurant. To the right is the self service restaurant- and the bar.

The self service

The self service feels like a Euorpean finishing school's canteen.

If you trudge along with a tray clinking with sturdy cutlery you can pick up cheeses and bread, very pretty puddings (the tira misu and chocolate ganache cake are particularly tempting) and fat glasses of wine. One glass helps me ski a little better. Two does not.

The other side of the self service station holds the hot food. Pastry is a good option and a slice of ham and cheese pie appears hot and thick with cured pork, oozing cheese. Another option is the roasts of the day; winners include roast chicken with offal spiked stuffing and a choice of sides that are presented in small cast iron pots. Avoid the chips; they're cold and dry. But trust me when I say if there's anywhere in the world to eat roast chicken with a side of macaroni and cheese; 2600 metres above sea level is it.

The best aspect of the self service are the salads; we soon become fond of a glass canister holding of slightly busted cherry tomatoes, kissing up to bocconcini and dressed with basil puree.

La Fruiterie

Next door to the self service is La Fruiterie. While it shares the altitude and some of the kitchen with La Folie Douce, the experience (and the price) is a little loftier.

If the sun is shining, you'll still want to sit outside, but back from the fence and the blustery wind. If the chill gets a little much, there are all in one khaki quilted doona suits to put on over your ski gear. I'd love to say The Hungry One resisted the temptation to don a onesie at at nice restaurant. But that would be a lie.

It's the kind of place where the wine comes chilling in buckets of snow.

It's also the kind of place that includes foie terrine on the menu.

And as delightful as the spiced peach relish on the side of the plate of fattened liver is, there's no doona suit for the foie; which in the cold remains as difficult to spread as my post skiing calves are to stretch.

Main courses at La Fruiterie provide some bumpy terrain. We're assured by others who visited after us that the black pudding is stellar. Next time, I'll be ordering that. For us veal shank ( €26) arrives as compressed bricks of crumbed flesh, threaded onto a metal stick. A bacon emulsion and pot of du puy lentils bring liquid relief.

A beef steak is written on the menu as XXL and arrives on a wooden platter with pots of mis en place cuddling next to it; fried onions, soft green herbs and a borderlaise sauce.

The meat is threaded with sinew, but provides a good excuse to order a bottle of Bordeaux.

Lastly, a bouillbaisse comes in a tiffin pot seperating out two layers of thinly spiced soup and some grilled pieces of mullet and scallop.

It's a DIY disappointment , with small croutons, wafts of hard cheese and a splodge of saffron mayonnaise on the side. It's a dish where sadly the end result does not bring more than its parts.

Highlights arrive in the form of desserts.

Chocolate profiteroles are exactly what you expect; choux buns, bursting with chocolate creme patisserie and glossed with ganache and cream. It's black run sort of food.

Lemon tart is much more restrained; a trim rectangle of biscuit base, topped with curd and a cylinder of burnished meringue.

Coffees are one way to end a meal. This is another

Complimentary shots of toffee vodka always seem like a good idea at the time.

The bar

By 3pm next door starts to kick off. There's a DJ and a live trumpeter. Like a battle call over the mountain hoards start to descend, planting their skis upright in the snow.

Soon it might seem like a a good idea to pay your bill and slink next door to join them.

Soon you may see your 24 year old chalet host dancing on a table in gold hotpants and ski boots. You'll be drinking beer next to people standing on benches, pounding the air and twirling despite the plastic manacles that are attached to their feet. You may have your hair sprayed with champagne.You may take some very very silly photos.

It's mad stuff. And the maddest thing of all is thinking you could ski down the hill at the end of it all.

There are some sentences that should never be uttered out loud.

And whether or not I joined the throng who skied down the hill after a Wednesday afternoon at La Folie Douce is one of them.

La Folie Douce
Le télécabine de la Daille
73150 Val d'Isère, France

www.lafoliedouce.com/

(Hints and tips- you can catch the cable car up from the La Daille section of town, direct to La Folie Douce. You can also catch it down rather than risk life and limb by skiing down. There are buses that run from La Daille into the centre of town.

Other things I wish I'd known- Wednesday afternoons are the largest, as that's when the seasonaires have their day off. And unless you get a little blue marble from the cash register or your waiter, you'll have to pay for the privilege of using the bathroom)

Snow play

2012-01-21T05:21:00.000+11:00

There's a lot about skiing that is ridiculous. I'm talking about the layers of clothing (today there were nine involved). The manacles of torture that are plastic boots. The way that your lip balm is always in the last pocket that you look in.

And the fact that it's virtually impossible to say that you're off to Val d'Isere without sounding like a pampered princess of the highest order.

But there's a lot that is stupendous. And if you don't hate me too much already, here's a taste.

Exhibit a)

What's not to like about Provencal Rose, chilling in the snow?

Exhibit b)

Is there anywhere else in the world that a Kit Kat tastes as good?

Exhibit c)

The joy of a crepe at the end of a cold day should never be underestimated.

Exhibit d)

Nor should the pleasures of a lunch in the snow, with sunshine with three beautiful men.

And this, this is where the danger starts.

Before you know it you'll be dancing in ski boots and making snow angels in fresh piste.

Suffice to say, life is currently being very kind.

Getting evangelical about pulses- Red kidney bean salad

2012-01-20T04:30:00.004+11:00

This is the first in a series of posts, which apart from being useful, will also act as something of an apology.

Full confession;

It all started with cocktails. Then wine. Too much wine. It was then that I climbed onto my high horse.

I think anyone who's more than a passing visitor to this space will recognise that I appreciate a drink or two. But I don't often consume to excess. And here's why.

I have a tendency to go on a bit.

One morning not too long ago I woke up feeling a touch dusty.

I called a partner in crime from the night before. "How bad was I?" I muttered- washing down two asprin with some pineapple juice (before being whisked off here).

"Hilarious" was her response. "Let's just say .... you got a little evangelical about pulses".

And then it came flooding back. The table was filled with women- some old friends and some new. Over main courses at this hen's night- where safe conversation topics might involve relationships, celebrities, marriage, makeovers and frocks- and any combination of the above- I monopolised the table for a good ten minutes (oh god, perhaps more).

It seems I was banging on about beans. More specifically, the frumpy cans and bags that hide at the back of the pantry. I'm talking about white beans, black beans, red and green lentils. Chickpeas. Kidney beans. I didn't even get onto fangled grains like quinoa or chia seeds. I was mainly raving about what these little nubbins can do for us, and our responsibility to sex them up with spices and crunch. All of this is in aid of escaping the dinner time crutch of white carbs.

You see, for me comfort food finds its form in a mushroom quesadillas, pizza bianca, platters of pane con tomate and gluttonous bowls of pasta. And don't even get me started on what I'll do for a plate of gnocchi (brown butter, sage and parmesan, or baked with meatballs, tomato and mozzarella. Let's just say I'm an equal opportunity lover).

It's taken me some years to realise it; but I now know. As much as I love them- white carbohydrates do not love me.

Or, perhaps they do love me; they just really, really love my chin- enough to want to reproduce with it.

So, in order to not be a slave to the cross trainer and to wear the frocks I want, I've had to get chummy with pulses. And while I apologise for banging on about it (both in person and here)- I'm hoping these recipes will be good enough to act as a bit of an apology- and they'll make some new friends with those of you here.

First up; Red Kidney Beans

I'm going to start with one of the hardest to sell. Red kidney beans.

They don't have a strong pull for many of us. My strongest memory of them is in the sludge and slurry of refried beans, or the dark bits that I tend to leave at the bottom of a four bean mix.

Done badly red kidney beans manage to be both papery and bloated; with a pappy waterlogged texture that reminds me of new potatoes that have been abandoned for hours in a tepid pot.

What they do offer is lots of fibre, protein and an ability to suck up spices- particularly if you head south.

Rather than running from the Tex Mex taintof this bean, this recipe squeezes it close- but brings to the party the kind of acidity and texture the slop is crying for. There's cumin and coriander. There's a smidge of dark chocolate and mandarin zest for additional interest. Playing along are tomatoes, avocado - and for textural punch there are chilli toasted nuts and little pops of citrus.

This mix has one life as a warm salad with chicken threaded through it. In this form it's a complete, one bowl meal best eaten with a fork on the couch. But if you wanted to gussy it up even further just omit the chicken and use the bean salad as a base for grilled piece of fish, chicken or pork and drizzle over some citrus slaked yogurt.

To me, this is a very sexy bowl of beans. And maybe, just maybe- it's a dinner that's worth getting a little evangelical about.

Mexican chicken and bean warm salad

Serves 1 very hungry person, or 2 more moderate appetites.

Equipment
1 microplane. 1 fry pan. 1 strainer.

Shopping/foraging

1 teaspoon of cumin
1teaspoon of coriander
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 cup of shredded cooked chicken (poached, left over roast, or shop bought)
1 400 gram tin of red kidney beans
1 handful of coriander/cilantro
1 small mandarin/clementine
1 handful of cherry tomatoes, cut into halves or thirds - depending on their size
1 square of dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
1 small avocado (or half a large one)
1 handful of spiced pepitas and sesame seeds (toast them in a teaspoon of chilli powder)
1 tablespoon of natural yogurt
Salt to taste

Here's how we roll

1. Heat the olive oil in a pan and toast the cumin and coriander until they smell nutty.

2. Add the shredded chicken and 3/4 of the tomatoes. Cook until the chicken is warmed through and the tomatoes have softened.

3. Add the drained and rinsed kidney beans, zest of the mandarin and the square of chocolate. Cook until the chocolate has melted.

4. Assemble the salad by combining the bean/chicken/tomato mixture with the chopped avocado, coriander leaves, remainder of the chopped tomato and about half of the mandarin segments, cut into thirds.

5. Season with salt, top with the spiced seeds and drizzle with a little natural yogurt just before serving.

Best things I ate in Sydney - Porch and Parlour smashed eggs and avocado

2012-01-17T18:01:00.002+11:00

These are the eggs that brought me back from the brink. One very dusty morning in Sydney I prised open an eye to find The Hungry One chortling at me. 'You were very funny last night'.

I have a history with hen's nights. And not a great one.

I get caught up in the excitement. It's nothing to do with paraphernalia that resembles male appendages or organised activities. I generally detest organised activities. Make me participate in a nude drawing class or Paint Ball and I'll run and hide in a dress up box. No, I'm talking about the glee that comes with a getting a group of great women together. Glee, and far, far too much pink wine.

So, suffice to say, after the hen's that preceded this most fabulous wedding left me a little worse for wear. Which is when The Hungry One shunted me off to Porch and Parlour.

It's a sweet cafe and boutique at the north end of Bondi Beach, over looking the RSL. For those who've known the suburb for a while, it's where the original Brown Sugar was.

There are seats outside (I'm guessing that's the porch) and then cosy communlal seating inside, with the sort of furniture you'd find in a share house of people in their 20's, who have inherited pieces from distant aunts (the parlour).

The coffee is Sacred Grounds. There are fresh juices, housing all of the life affirming must haves of the moment; ginger spirulina and chia seeds all turn up for roll call. You order at the counter from calculatedly casual staff. There are frittatas, full breakfasts and a dense bircher muesli with dates, apple, yogurt and poached pear ($9.50) that could steel you for days.

And then, there are the smashed eggs ($AUD12).

If anything can bring me back from the brink, it's the steadying combination of eggs and avocado. My husband knows this. A nutritionist might be able to explain it better, but for me the appeal lies in the marriage of gentle saltiness and pliable protein.

Here I'm talking about toasted sourdough, an appropriate sized wedge of avocado and two shelled soft boiled eggs, ready rolled in fresh herbs and flakes of salt.

Occasionally the eggs are cold. I'll be honest and say it's much better when they're warm. You then spread the avocado over the toast and then smash the eggs with your fork, so the yolk dribbles across its face, and not yours.

What makes it special is the gentle dusting of green herbs and salt. If I was going to replicate it at home, I might add some lemon zest, or give it whirl with smoked paprika (a little like these eggs back here).

At it's heart, it's a great rendering of a holy Australian trinity; sourdough, eggs and avocado at breakfast.

All that you need to add is a walk on the beach and a second coffee. It's the stuff that will not only bring you back to life, but make it one that's damn worth living.

Porch and Parlour
02 9300 0111
Bondi / Bondi Beach
100 - 102 Brighton Blvd
North Bondi, NSW 2026, Australia
porchandparlour.com.au

Best things I ate in Sydney- Duke Bistro radishes in dashi butter

2012-01-14T19:37:00.005+11:00

As refreshing as a crisp radish is- gently shaved in a salad, slathered with butter and salt and draped on on dark bread- a cooked one is a thing of beauty. Really. Trust me on this. It's something about the way the flesh retains some bite, but relaxes in on itself. Meanwhile the bitterness fades to a murky whisper. But if you're not game to try it at home, then you need to get to Sydney and eat this.

I'm talking about a creche of baby radishes, cleaned and rosy, puddling about in an umami bolstered emulsion of butter and dashi.

Duke Bistro is upstairs from the slightly seamy Flinders Hotel, within spitting distance of Taylor's Square in Surry Hills. For all its efforts in service of the 'Dude Food/ Stoner Cuisine' bewitching Sydney at the moment it's this dish, rather than the chicken wings with coleslaw milk that sticks in my memory now we're back in London.

Duke is a quirky room, with Nana style couches and forrest green walls. It heaves later on in the night with Australian hipster types sipping cold, hard cocktails But if you're made of softer stuff (like me) never fear; earlier in the evening it's much easier to see what's on your plate (and hear what's being said across from you).

The radishes sit near the top of a menu which encourages sharing. It's the brainchild of chef's Thomas Lim (ex-Tetsuya’s) and Mitch Orr (2010 Young Chef Of The Year). It comes in two servings (large and small) with soft and warm rolls on the side.

It's easy to negotiate. Smear a softened radish on some bread, or dunk the bread, or the radish (or a finger) in the pool of salty gold. Close your eyes. Repeat until done.

If I was going to try and repeat this at home I'd try and fashion an emulsion of Japanese dashi stock and butter and then gently poach some cleaned radishes in it.

I'd probably serve it as a side to a banquet of a large roasted whole white fish, maybe with a touch of ginger, and shaved cabbage and raw radish salad on the side- with some grated nashi pear and a few macadamia nuts for crunch.

But if I was in Sydney, I'd get my fix at Dukes. I'd be going both early- and often.

Duke Bistro
Level 1, 63-65 Flinders St, Darlinghurst, (02) 9332 3180,
www.dukebistro.com.au

The chicken pie I wish I had

2012-01-13T05:02:00.003+11:00

Ah, plane food.

Such a constellation of delights. This is a story about one of them.

Granted, I wasn't in the greatest of moods when we started our 28 hour commute from Sydney to London. We travel lots, but I'm yet to master being charming all the time while being squeezed into a metal tube flinging through the sky. That morning I'd managed to pincer in one last swim Bondi and a coffee at Allpress. But I'd also dispensed to my mum, dad and best friends final hugs for quite a stretch.

In case you haven't tweaked; I'm TERRIBLE at good byes.

I had my system for making it through the flight all worked out. Four pm flight, arriving in Abu Dhabi at some godforsaken hour, then onwards to London. I'll stay awake for the first half, watch a terrible film with The Hungry One (Real Steel- Hugh Jackman and boxing robots should give you some idea of the quality). Have a glass of red wine, change out of my jeans into my comfortable yoga pants, contemplate dinner and take a sleeping pill.

I don't normally eat much on planes. But just as I lose my taste in film up in the air (yes, I really did choose to watch What's my number over Drive )- when it came to dinner, I lost my way a bit.

It was the promise of a chicken pie that got me. There it was, written on flimsy piece of DL with our flight plan; 'Chicken pie with peas'.

Most people who know me know my love of a good chicken pie surpasses reason. The kind of reason that would lead a person on solid ground to interrogate how on earth they're going to secure crisp pastry under foil.

Let's keep it brief and say it proved a disappointment.

Fast forward 11 more hours. Arriving into London at 6 am involves a variety of transitions. From plane to customs, night to day, the warmth of the southern hemisphere to the nip of the north. But the greatest change is from the noise of family and friends to the hush of an empty flat; with the front door buttressed shut with dropped mail.

It's disquieting.

So I slip into a familiar routine for settling in ; pop to the shop. Buy a few bits and pieces to pad out the fridge. Make a cup of tea. Put the first load of washing on. Plug in the computer. Put the passports away. Have a shower. And then; roast a chicken.

It's for the warmth and the smell as much as anything. I struggle to think of anything as comforting as the wafting aroma of a bronzing bird.

Except the prospect of using its flesh to make a pie- the kind of pie I really wanted.

Just one more reason why it's nice to be back on solid ground.

Welcome home roast chicken and pea pie

I'd rather one good cap of flaky pastry than suffer the sadness of a soggy bottom- so I use a ramekin as a container. This is a doddle of a cheat's pie. The pastry is frozen and the sauce is just a muddling of liquids with a hint of interest from the mustard, while the peas (also frozen) add a lick of sweetness.

Serves 1

Equipment

1 ramekin. 1 bowl.

Shopping/foraging

1/2 cup of cooked chicken (roasted, poached or bbq that's been bought from a shop) cut into chunks half size of a wine cork
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 tablespoon of creme fraiche or double cream
1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon of toasted nuts (I like almonds and pine nuts)
1 tablespoon of chopped flat leaf parsley
1/3 sheet of frozen puff pastry
Salad leaves to serve

Here's how we roll

1. Preheat the oven to 230 C

2. Combine together the chicken, frozen peas, parsley, creme fraiche, mustard, parsley and toasted nuts.

3. Transfer mixture to a ramekin and season with salt and pepper.

4. Cut out a circle of puff pastry that's 1 cm in diameter larger than your ramekin. Press the pastry over the top, make a novelty shape from the scraps and add two small slits to allow the steam to escape.

5. Brush the top of the pastry with a little milk or cream.

6. Bake the pie for 15 minutes, until the pastry is golden. Serve with a green leaf salad.

7. Stare out the window while you eat and contemplate being back in London.

A good night in Bondi

2012-01-12T01:36:00.000+11:00

There are lots of things to miss about Sydney. But nights like this are chief among them.

Taken at South Bondi at 7 pm on a school night

Bondi Beach is a strange beast. One of the famous stretches of sand in the world can boast the best of times, but if you navigate the strip badly, it can be the pits.

Some of the food by the shore is downright average. The places that are good, fill up quickly. Some of the locals can be wretched posers. And parking is an expensive nightmare. But beyond all that; a swim, and a take away burger from Huricanes eaten on the grass is one way to ensure a solid night. And now here's another, a smidge more civilised.

Bondi Hardware

Hall Street is one of the more heaving thoroughfares of Bondi, bisecting the suburb and leading everyone out of their salt-sticky flats and towards the beach. Once upon a time a fixture of the stretch was the hardware store. It was quirky, chaotic and cramped. It was where you'd go for a plunger when you couldn't be bothered leaving the suburb. Now that space has been transformed into an establishment which ticks all of the boxes for a great beach side bite.

spiced lamb salad

The interior is calculatedly rustic, with exposed wooden beams, greenery and skylights which let in a good dose of Vitamin D.

The crowd is largely young and beautiful, but with less attitude than some other local watering holes (Ping, North Bondi Italian)

The bar is the focal point, and the drinks list is strong; from quirky local ales, wines by the glass (served in proper glasses no less) - and a cavalcade of cocktails- including some elderflower ice pops which sound dangerously good.

We arrive at 5pm, right smack in the middle of peak holiday season. There are bar nibbles of chips and aioli and marinated olives to tide us over until the kitchen opens at 6pm.

The menu aims towards global shared plates; from pizzas to sassy little sliders (my pick of the evening).

Salads come in varying sizes depending on how hungry you are/ how skimpy your swimmers are, the floor staff are busy yet sweet - but here's one of the the best thing; if you don't want to take a chance on snaring a plum table - you can book ahead.

39 Hall Street
Bondi Beach NSW 2026
61 2 9365 7176

http://www.facebook.com/bondibeachhardware

Gelato from Pompei's

It's not a proper trip to Bondi without a gelato from Pompei's. Sure it's not cheap, but one scoop is all you need. Get it in a cup and nurse it while you wander down to the sand.

This is the hazelnut gelato of your dreams, with a slow melting point and a flavour that sings. The Hungry One raves about the dark chocolate gelato and the passionfruit sorbet, but to me, it's all about the nuts. In my book, this is the hazelnut gelato against which all others are judged.

Pompei's
126-130 Roscoe Street (corner Gould Street)
(closed Monday)
Bondi Beach NSW 2026.
http://www.pompeis.com.au/

The most beautiful of feasts

2012-01-09T10:03:00.003+11:00

I love a wedding.

I love the declarations of love and devotion. I love watching the groom's face as the bride walks down the aisle. I love what their choice of music says about their quiet moments together. And I love the details.

We winged our way to Sydney for the wedding of a very special woman.

I'll quote directly from the speech I made before entree;

'I've known her for a third of my life. She's shown me New York, Edinburgh, Cornwall and London. We've shared a 35 course meal together and seen more terrible films than either of us would willingly admit in public. All of which leads me to think, how much better off would I have been if I'd met her earlier?'

It was the most beautiful of days. We all assumed that it was her much loved and recently departed Nan smiling down the sunshine that glinted off the nearby sea.

From 4.30 pm we drank champagne in the back garden of her mother's house. We watched them exchange vows and rings in front of a white canopy of trailing paper that buffeted towards them with the breeze. It was like the air was keen to hug them too.

There was champagne and canapes further down the garden. When it comes to canapes, I'm fairly certain sure you can ever go past a ribbon sandwich of roasted chicken, bound with aioli, shallot and celery and cut the crusts off. Though The Hungry One did make a fair fist of the peking duck rolls and tempura prawns.

As the sun started to dip we made our further down the lawn, its perimeter decorated with over a kilometer of fairy lights.

In a marquee made glorious with bursts of colour we passed around platters of veal meatballs, crispy zucchini flowers, caprese salad and figs that were bursting with blue cheese and wrapped in prosciutto.

There were speeches.

There was red wine.

There was a main course of lamb racks with asparagus, roast potatoes and bursting cherry tomatoes.

There was more red wine and a few happy tears.

And then - by god - there was dancing. On the grass, with shoes kicked off to the corner , under a multitude of moons- the gentle light of dozens of paper lanterns.

The dessert buffet, spilling with macarons, passionfruit bavois, chocolate wedding cake, berries and mini pavlovas was waiting for us at the rear of the marquee. Though it was the memories of sipping from shot glasses of mango sorbet and with soft grass prickling my toes and dancing to 'love shack' (with all of the gestures) that stays with me.

At 1.30 am I found my way to the kitchen and stood eating left over potato salad from one of the caterer's bowls with the siblings of the bride. It was there The Hungry One found me and gently prised me home. I could have stood there forever.

But beyond the details, the sentiments and the tableau's of love, here's what I love best about a wedding.

In ceremony, each one of the traditions; the vows, the cake, the speeches, the cake- carry with them happy memories of weddings prior. And in each of that night's paper lanterns I saw reflected back a multitude of happy days we've born witness to; at the Botanical Gardens, Pittwater, the Rocks, Terry Hills, the Blue Mountains and the beaches of Avoca and Wailea. People in love, surrounded by love.

And best of all, I saw my own- nearly four years ago now.

It was the happiest of nights.

The best way to cut a mango

2012-01-05T13:45:00.001+11:00

There's nothing glamorous about gnawing on a mango while juices trail down to the inside of your elbow. And while scraping the flesh out with your teeth while standing in dripping wet swimmers may have been fine for the seven year old me, these days I'm in search of a better way.

For years I thought the hedgehog technique was best (slice off the cheeks, then cross hatch the flesh with a knife and invert so that little squares stick out like cubic spikes). Except you've still got to get the flesh off the skin- which means either biting into it, or hacking at it with a knife.

And sometimes instead of nuggety squares from the hedgehog you might be after some more elegant slices. Maybe they're destined for a fruit salad with white peaches and mint, or perhaps a slaw (I've recently been having quite a bit of fun with a slaw of white cabbage, radish, coriander, green chilli and mango alongside maple barbecued meats).

On Christmas day I learned the following from my step sister's partner. The technique - like him- is looking like a keeper. All you need is a sharp knife and a big metal spoon (the kind that sits in your third drawer and you use to serve a cous cous salad). As for whether you suck the pip at the end, well that choice is entirely up to you.

Step one. Slice the two cheeks off the mango, close to the pip with a sharp knife.

Step two Use the sharp edge of the side of the spoon to scoop down and across the base of the skin- keep going until you reach the other side.

Step three- invert the domed cheek of mango and repeat on the other side.

Step four- cut off the rest of the skin around the pip and use the knife to fillet off the last bits of flesh.

Barbecued whiskey pineapple with brown sugar creme

2012-01-02T12:23:00.001+11:00

This is less of a recipe and more of an edible postcard.

Greetings from here.

If the adage says that you should start a year the way you wish it to go on, this is not a bad way to do it.

I'm sitting at the solid blonde table in our friends' place at Avoca Beach, an hour and a half north of Sydney.

I'm happy to report that summer in the Southern Hemisphere has well and truly shown her smiling face.

Over my shoulder the water is clear and the sky pure turquoise. In the lounge room next to me some of our oldest friends, puzzling over the day's cryptic crossword. It's a communal effort. On the floor are wee ones wriggling in pastel onesies; one is pink, the other blue.

The air is a little sticky with salt spray from the beach. This morning's excursion to the local shops revealed two things. Firstly, the coffee here could do with a little improvement (#firstworldproblem of a most extreme nature). Secondly, we discovered we can rent surf boards for a reasonable rate. The day's schedule has now been set. This should be interesting.

We drove up to this slice of paradise at lunch time yesterday. The afternoon revolved around swimming, snoozing and prepping a barbecue for dinner.

It was a day of gender divides. So while the sun set and the ladies sipped Campari on the balcony the boys went to work, beers in hand

For dinner; grilled chicken thighs that got smothered before serving in a verdant chimichurri,

There were also cold prawns that got dipped in a fairly aggressive aiolli and a potato salad that went pear shaped after I plum forgot about them ( I may have been delightfully distracted by one of the wee ones, dressed in blue). The waterlogged starches were half way salvaged by some chickpeas and a medley of veg dwindling about in the crisper (green beans, zucchini ribbons and peas. Some of the aiolli and chimichuirri chipped in to help. We ended up calling it 'Russian Salad' in desperation. Everyone was relatively polite about it. NB There were no photographs of that dish for a good reason.

The night came to a close with some home made fireworks, a fierce match of Trivial Pursuit (men against women) and a cracker of an improvised dessert.

It was a simple combination of what was lurking on the bench and in the fridge. Only later did we realise that it was pretty close to the Dark and Stormy cocktails that some of us were drinking.

While we talked about why in the heck we're choosing to live on the other side of the world from this two pineapples were shorn of their spikes and sliced into steaks 2 cm thick.

They then had a bath in three shots of whiskey and some lime zest. After that they spent some time on barbecue spines until one side turned dark with caramel. When we flipped them we sprinkled their faces with a little brown sugar to boost the sweetness.

Just before serving we drizzled the burnished fruit with half a cup of sour cream, half a cup of cream cheese and half a cup of yogurt muddled together with some brown sugar. It could have also been because the combination of tart and rich were exactly what the sticky, booze soaked pineapple cried for. It could have also been because that was what was languishing in tubs in the fridge.

We ate the slices of sticky fruit and cold cream with crushed Christmas ginger cookies -though plain digestives or ginger nuts would have also been fine.

It was a grand end to a winning eve. And not just because the ladies won Trivial Pursuit.

May 2012 bring many, many more nights as good as this.

Barbecued whiskey pineapple with brown sugar creme

Serves 6-8

Equipment
1 knife. 1 tray. 1 barbecue of grill. 1 plastic sandwich bag. 1 rolling pin or empty wine bottle (for crushing biscuits)

Shopping/foraging

2 pineapples, shorn of spines and cut into 2 cm steaks
60 ml of whiskey, brandy or bourbon
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup cream cheese
1/2 cup natural yogurt
4 tablespoons of brown/muscavado sugar
3/4 cup of spice cookies/ ginger nut cookies, crushed.
Zest of half a lime

Here's how we roll

1. Marinate the pineapple slices in the booze and lime zest for 30 minutes.
2. Heat the bbq to medium high and make sure that the grill is very clean (you don't want your dessert to taste like chicken).
3. Lay the pineapple slices on the grill and cook for 5-10 minutes, until there is a good burnish on one side.
4. Flip the pineapple slices and use half of the brown sugar to sprinkle a little over the top of each slice to melt.
5. Grill the other side for 5-10 minutes until there's a good burnish on the other side.
6. Whisk together the cream cheese, yogurt, sour cream and brown sugar until there are no lumps.
7. Serve the slices with the brown sugar creme and trampled cookies.

This is what a good morning in Sydney looks like

2011-12-30T17:55:00.000+11:00

It's a run to Bondi Beach (more like a dragging limp for anyone who's seen me jog) - worth remembering that the Christmas pudding ice cream terrine isn't going to detach itself from my skin.

The Hungry One has learned that the easiest way to bribe me to do exercise is to promise me breakfast out half way through. So when we finally get to Bondi it's a bowl of four fruit bircher with rose water yogurt at Harry's Espresso Bar, one street back from the beach, directly opposite over priced designer caftans at Camilla's (mental note, if the running doesn't work, caftans - the gussied up cousin of a mumu are another solution).

Then it's a wander and a skim latte.

Leaving plenty of time for a quick marvel and a photo to remember how great it is to be so close to one of the most glorious places on earth (pink face and all).

It's nice to be 'home'.

The morning of the night before

2011-12-24T07:02:00.001+11:00

'Twas early on the morning of the night before Christmas.... and all through the house, lots was stirring.

It might have something to do with The Hungry One's 3 am conference call (gee willy whizkins the time difference between Sydney and NYC is a joy). It may have something to do with jet lag from an 11 hour flight from Jo'burg to Sydney which took more than 15, including two and a half spent sitting on the tarmac in Melbourne (not a planned stop off).

- Nb it was all worth it for the time in South Africa- which included a little of this

Some of these...

And some exciting time with these dazzlers

More to come on all of that- I promise.

This early hour may also have something to do with the excitement and anticipation of today. You see, the Brady Bunch extended clan on my mother's side celebrates the holidays on Christmas Eve. Since we first came together 15 years ago it's grown from a boisterous group of four step siblings, my mum, step dad, sister and myself to a feast for 21 people. Some of them are little, and the rest of the family are all contributing- but there's still prep to be done.

Which may explain why two weeks ago I sent a fairly anal shopping list* to my beautiful Mum, divided by where she would need to go in what section of the supermarket/ delis/ fruit shops. This way we can get off to a running start. One thing I've learned. Markets on Christmas Eve in Sydney don't bring out the best in people.

I'm excited. About spending time with my Mum. About having a cup of tea from one of her stout blue and white mugs. About seeing the clan. And about getting back into a kitchen.

I'm currently looking out the window from the gorgeous house we've borrowed from a fantastic old work colleague and the sun is shining. Me and my gang of five are soon about to jump in a car and head over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Suffice to say, there are lots of good reasons to be awake and cheerful. I'm hoping it's the same where you are.

*What an anal shopping list/ email to your mum for Christmas might look like

'Hi Mum,

The below are the ingredients to create the following for Christmas. Do you think you can get them by the morning of Christmas eve so we can get cracking? Can't wait to see you. Love you. xx tor'

starters/nibbles

Berry cocktails/mocktails

Grissini wrapped in prosciutto

pea, mint and feta dip

White bean and artichoke dip

Spiced mixed nuts

Main

Whole bbq fish

Christmas ham

Spiced caponata

Mint yogurt sauce

Herb aiolli

Salad of asparagus, cherries, ricotta salata, pistachios

Dessert

Christmas pudding ice cream terrine with chocolate sauce

WHAT WE NEED AND WHERE TO GET IT

Equipment/ basics

Greaseproof paper
Foil

2 cups of Sunflower oil (for making mayonnaise)
At least 2 cups of olive oil for cooking
1 bottle of better olive oil for dressings
Maldon sea salt
Red wine vinegar
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin of butter beans/cannellini beans
1 jar of marinated artichoke hearts (for the artichoke and white bean dip)
Caster sugar or white sugar
2 tbsp Capers
2tbsp green olives
Grissini (Italian style breadstick crackers)
Bag of mixed nuts
Marmalade (for the ham)
English mustard (for the ham)
Cloves (for the ham)

Sweets/ nuts
50 grams pine nuts
2 tablespoons of currants
50 grams flaked or slivered almonds
2 tablespoons of pistachios
500 gram good quality Christmas pudding (can be larger if there are larger ones)
200 grams Lindt 70 per cent dark chocolate

Dairy
Tub of Greek yogurt
2 cartons double cream
2 eggs
1 packet of unsalted butter
1 packet of Feta cheese

Deli
1 cup of ricotta salata (you should be able to get this from the deli, if not, fresh ricotta from a deli is fine)
200 grams of prosciutto

Drinks
2 bottles of ginger ale- for the mint/berry cocktail/mocktails- we'll blitz the strawberries with the mint, then muddle it through ginger ale and people can pimp with white rum or gin if they like.

1 large Christmas ham to be glazed

2 kg pink fish (ocean trout or salmon) to be stuffed and cooked on bbq

Frozen section of supermarket
1 bag of frozen peas (for the pea, mint and feta dip with prosciutto grissini)
1 bag frozen mixed berries
2 litres of vanilla ice cream

Fruit and vegetables
3 fennel (2 for the fish, 1 for the caponata)
3 lemons
For the caponata- nb this feeds 8-10 as a side- we may want to double it so there’s some for the next day- what do you think?
2 red onions
2 red peppers
2 large aubergines
1 knob of ginger, size of a wine cork
1 head of garlic
1 bunch of basil
2 bunches of flat leaf parsley
2 bunches mint
1 punnet strawberries (for the cocktails)
3 bunches of asparagus
2 zucchini
1 cup of fresh cherries
2 oranges

Let us eat drink and be merry. Lots of love,

Tori

Gordon Ramsay Plane Food

2011-12-21T17:04:00.005+11:00

How do you know a trip has begun?

A wise friend once suggested you know with the hiss of tonic over ice- that first drink when you’re safely tucked onto a plane. She doesn’t drink gin and tonics any other time- she saves their twang as a land mark that tells her that something good is about to begin.

For me, a trip begins with a glass of wine and a meal at the airport.

I like to have something decent to eat before we get on the plane. Those who’ve flown with me know I tend to avoid food in the air. As a general life rule I prefer not to eat out of aluminum foil.

But it goes beyond a desire to sit and eat something. More than anything, I love the smug aftertaste that comes with knowing you’ve got the luxury of time to consume a meal before the plane departs . Coming from the people who made a plane to Reykjavik by 5 minutes earlier this year (after bringing the wrong passport to the airport), it's a meal which now tastes particularly sweet.

At Kingsford Smith in Sydney our favourite spot is Dank Street Depot (but watch- it’s before you go through immigration) standing on the other side, pawing at the glass knowing you've gone too far is a sad start to an endeavour.

Around the world there are other favourites - in Las Vegas, by chance we found a cheerful Mexican where we drank margaritas the size of a bowling bag while a flight to New York was delayed by three hours. And in London, where there a slim pickings, I’m a little partial to Gordon Ramsay’s Plane Food - despite its price tags.

It’s in the gleaming ode to consumerism that is Heathrow Terminal 5. Terminal five is a temple to excess; purpose built for people to buy luxury impulse presents to assuage their guilt of leaving their families again.

Plane Food is where they flock, often in executive clothes, sitting on small white leather chairs that spin attending to their laptops. They shift their gazes from the screens on their laps to one on the which tells them when they need to board the plane.

And sometimes, if we’re really lucky, these folk will forget that they’re not on their own and they’ll bring their families in with them.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen as many harried executive parents struggling with their children as in Gordon Ramsay’s Plane Food during school holidays. There’s nothing quite like the sound track of a plum five year old spinning on his stool, dropping chips on the floor saying ‘But Daddy- I’m BORED’. To which his father will say ‘Shush Henry’ and hurriedly try to finish his burger, glass of Kim Crawford Pinot Noir (£8.25) and check his blackberry.

It’s not a great place for kids. But it is a decent place to drink a glass of pink wine and eat a nifty pairing of chicken liver parfait and pain d’epices- where the sweet gingerbread style loaf offers a twirl of complexity against a pat of organ meat melded with fat.

Later a bowl of orichette with wild mushrooms proves a tactical error; not just for the ballast of having pasta before a long flight. The mushrooms are scarce, while the ear shaped noodles are drenched in cream. There are a few errant scabs of bacon and wafts of brocollini. It's nursery style food that feels out of place in the executive surrounds. Perhaps Henry would have liked it.

What seems universally popular is the burger. It’s a solid thing, the bun sweet and studded with sesame seeds. Lettuce, tomato, pickles and a squat patty, cooked so it blushes pink. Chips are grand; perfectly rectangular, crisp and fluffy.

If you’re feeling particularly smug about how much time you have to burn before your 11 hour flight to Cape Town, then a chocolate brownie with vanilla bean ice cream and an espresso is not a bad way to finish.

It’s also a valiant way to distract your husband while you slip out to pay homage to Duty Free. There were presents to buy for folks in Sydney when we eventually make it home.

If only to assuage our guilt for when we turn around and leave them again.

How do you know a trip has begun? Any solid airport restaurants we should keep our eyes peeled for?

Plane Food
(020) 889-7454
Airport: London Heathrow
Terminal 5 Wellington Rd Map
London Heathrow Airport, UK TW6 2
gordonramsay.com/planefood

All that you can't leave behind

2011-12-16T02:11:00.000+11:00

I'd like to introduce you to the gang of five.

I've been packing. It's for a month on the road- first to South Africa, then home to Sydney for some celebrations, then hopefully to my favourite place in the world for a few days.

A perfect time away includes great people, great music and food. I'm never happier than if my hair is sodden from a swim and I'm barefoot in a kitchen, pulling together food for people who make me laugh.

There are things that can make that time better. And that's where the gang of five comes in.

Making slaws with blunt knives, zesting using a left handed peeler and trying to get batters out from the lip of a bowl with a rigid wooden spoon- these all grate on me to varying degrees.

So while I'd love nothing else to be able to cram a dishwasher, The Hungry One's beloved ECM Giotto espresso machine, my deep blue Le Creuset dutch oven and four ramekins into our suitcase, I'm not a complete ninny.

But I know if I've got these five things with me, good food and great times are never far away.

So these are the five kitchen tools that I just won't go without.

1. My knife

My knife isn't a fancy brand name, nor is it made by descendants of samurais. It's just a big knife that balances well in my hand that I've grown quite fond of. The Hungry One also likes it because unlike the Global knives, it doesn't have a deckled handle (less spots for prep-grime to get encrusted). What can I say? The man has high hygiene standards. It's one of the reasons I love him.

Having a decent knife with you means I'm less likely to cut yourself chopping tomatoes for a caprese salad. This summer I'll probably be using mine to make some versions of Waldorf salad- much like this.

2. A knife sharpener

I love the way this Minosharp Universal glosses up a knife to a safe sharp point from. It's two wet stones, going to work in a cage of their own. It's small, tucks away easily and doesn't require you to brandish sharp things through the air (which is a good thing for anyone that's ever seen me trying to hit a golf ball or play tennis). It works beautifully not just on my big knife, but on most blunt knives that cross my path (I'm deadly serious- has anyone ever been to a holiday house where the knives are sharp?)

3. A speed peeler

This is a little gadget that I make work hard for the money. Making ribbons out of zucchini and fennel are the main things I make it do. But there's every chance I'll be putting it to use making mock carrot noodles to have with morrocan mince, like this.

If you're after a stocking stuffer for someone who spends time in a kitchen, the Jamie Oliver one is pretty nifty.

4. A spatula

This red spatula of mine was the first thing I bought for my 'glory box' when we moved in together. The colour seemed so cheerful. And I loved the way the tip pivoted back and forth. It made me feel frugal and generous, all at the same time. These days I use it for everything; not just cakes and scrambled eggs, it's also my favourite thing to stir risottos, like this one with as well.

5. A microplane

This is a relatively recent addition and I have no idea how I ever lived without it. It's magical for zesting lemon and lime- but also does wonders for spices like nutmeg- and chocolate. This summer if the nights turn a little nippy I'll probably be using mine to bust out roast beetroot with dark chocolate- like this.

What are the kitchen gadgets you can't live without?

(As in, what should I be asking Santa, or whoever pulled me in the family Kris Kringle- to bring me?)

Migraine soup

2011-12-13T19:59:00.002+11:00

This is a dish for special occasions.

If you were to overhear the start of a conversation about why, it has all the hallmarks of an appetising one.

'Coffee, dark, aura, chilli,'... there's every chance these will be muddled in the first sentences.

It's only afterwards if you catch the references to vomiting, pain and staggering to the bathroom in the middle of the night to check that one side of your face hasn't dropped from palsy that you'll click.

This is a conversation between members of a special club.

Migraines are beastly things. Those that get them, get it.

When I was little, we thought chocolate was a trigger. There were four years where Easter was pocked with carob bunnies, bought from the earnest health food store. Over time chocolate was reintroduced, but the blighters would still pop up uninvited. Bright lights, hormonal glitches and dope have also been known to set them up.

Though if I'm going to be honest, stress is my trigger. Not the situation itself; I can trundle through that. The day afterwards when the storm eases -that's when it's like guests have overstayed- and are now trashing the insides of my head.

At the start one eye will get a little blobby. Twirling things, like scabs of not-so-fresh milk that float on the top of your tea dance infront of one eye. Soon the lights get turned out and there's no sight to be seen. Fifteen minutes later, the party really starts.

In that window, I'll try anything to get them to leave. Two asprin and some caffeine can help. If I do that, there's a good chance I won't vomit later on.

But really, getting to somewhere cool, quiet and dark is the priority.

I've read recently that capsaicin, the chemical in chilli can be effective in reducing the onset of pain.
In the past when I've had one descending The Hungry One will ask if there's anything he can do.

Most of the time I whimper 'no' and slink to a spare room.

Next time, I'll ask him to make me this.

Chicken noodle soup may be good for the soul- but coffee and chilli (and the asprin on the side)- these things might be good for my head. And really, when this party comes to town I'll say yes to anything.

Migraine soup; aka noodles with chilli, coffee and coriander

The coffee may sound nuts, but it plays in the same key as coriander and chilli. It's a common inclusion in lots of chilli con carne recipes. Besides the caffeine boost, it adds a murky note that makes this asian chicken broth just a touch more interesting.

Serves 1

Equipment
1 saucepan.

Shopping/foraging
75 grams of egg noodles
1 cup of chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
1/2 red chilli, diced
1/2 teaspoon ground espresso
1 small handful of coriander leaves

Here's how we roll

1. Add the chilli to the stock and bring to the boil. Add the noodles and cook until soft.
2. Serve with the coriander leaves and espresso sprinkled over the top.
3. Retreat to a dark room.

Quail eggs with two salts

2011-12-10T01:59:00.000+11:00

These are good eggs.

Not just because they're small- and small things are indisputably cute (ref; babies, puppies, kittens, nieces, Nemo).

Not because they're a low carb pre dinner nibble that isn't made from pigs or peanuts.

And not because they're a blank canvas that allows you to go crazy with flavoured salts (I haven't got this excited about coloured salts since 1996 when my then boyfriend gave me lavender bath salts for Christmas ).

They're just good eggs.

I'm always a little torn about what to put out for nibbles. I like to have things on the table as soon as people arrive. That and being able to get a drink into someone's hand within a minute of arriving are the harbingers of a good party. If it takes another hour for dinner to get on the table, so be it. At least people have something to play with in the mean time.

I went through a wild phase of the artichokes with coffee aioli. Before that I went a little nuts with the pea, mint and feta dip. Then there were the devils on horseback. And now, I'm all about the quail's eggs.

Particularly, if they're still a little sodden on the inside. Yes, granted a runny yolk makes them a little trickier to peel, but it also makes them three times more exciting to eat. Just be sure to warn your friends who are wearing white tops. Not everybody likes an ejaculating egg.

As for the palaver of peeling them, adding a little bit of bicarb soda to the water that the eggs are boiled in is one little trick that helps the shells shirk away from the skins.

Unlike a chicken egg which requires a good five minutes (and ten seconds if you follow Momofuku's thought process) to get a perfectly oozy centre and set white, these smaller quail's eggs only need 90 seconds in boiling water. Plunge them into cold water and let them stay there until they cool. Them crack the top and bottom against the side of the sink and use a very small stream of running water to help encourage the shell away from the white.

Dry them off gently with paper towel and then serve with any manner of flavoured salts to dip them in. Celery salt is classic, but my current festive favourites include a red and green duo of smoked paprika salt and dried oregano.

That combination takes me straight to Spain, but if I was feeling more adventurous I would go Egyptian with dukkah,, to China with five spice and salt, or Japan with Togarashi. Essentially, I open my spice cupboard and let the eggs and what's there take me somewhere else. It's a holiday on a plate and the meal's only just begun.

I told you these were good eggs.

Soft quail eggs with flavoured salts

Serves 6 as a starter

Equipment

1 sauce pan. 1 bowl with cold water. 1 platter to serve

Shopping/foraging
2 dozen quail eggs, at room temperature
2 tablespoons of maldon salt
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
Boiling water
1 teaspoon of bi carb soda

Here's how we roll

1) Add the bicarb soda to the boiling water.
2) Boil the eggs for 90 seconds.
3) Transfer the eggs to a bowl filled with iced water.
4) Allow the eggs to cool, then crack the tops and bottoms against the edge of the sink
5) Very carefully, under a small trickle of water peel the shells off. Try and get the water in and underneath the membrane of the shell.
6) Mix the paprika with half of the salt and place in a pile on the board. Do the same with the oregano.
7) Serve the eggs with the flavoured salts. Warn your friends that they're still runny in the centre. Or don't- and see what happens next.

Christmas cocktails

2011-12-08T03:15:00.004+11:00

What's Christmas without a cocktail or two?

This week The Hungry One is out at all manner of festive functions. It's a tough life for him, being wined and dined by men in suits, trying to talk business while wearing silly hats.

I had a twinge of jealousy, until I remembered what office Christmas parties were really like.

In my old life they were stained with awkwardness- first the female challenge of transitioning an outfit from 'work to wow' (a terrible phrase picked up from a terrible women's magazine that's stuck). The secret seems to be high heels and a big pair of earrings. Not everyone got that memo.

Then there's the bad music, fried food and standing around for hours making mundane chit chat with the folks from level two. Actually, I lie- most years I was only present and accounted for an hour of the party - we'd arrive late after slaying reams of documents with track changes. The curse of a communications department and its pre-Christmas deadlines.

These days I'm working at home, largely on my own. There's not much fun in a Christmas party for one.

That's one reason I was delighted to be invited as a guest to a festive dinner with the lovely folk at Malmaison in Smithfield.

The Christmas supper the bistro is running is the sort of food you need to gild you against the cold- roast meats and mince pies included. And to start there was a very flirty cocktail.

So let me introduce you to the 'Avant Noël' - a combination of champagne, raspberry liqueur, raspberry vodka, caramel syrup and apple juice. It's cerise, cheerful and goes down terrifyingly easily.

Booze at Christmas can be a sticky cocktail. Too much and the proverbial can hit the fan. Too little and it's hard not to feel like a chump pulling on a cracker and wearing a paper hats.

This week when The Hungry One is out drinking his cups of good cheer, if I'm not in Smithfield downing another 'Avant Noel', I'll be at home, making myself one of these.

Who's in?

Christmas 'champagne' cocktails

If you can afford a great bottle of bubbles, grab it. And don't do anything to it except chill it, then drink it. But if your extra dosh is going on presents, taxis home and flights to the other side of the world to celebrate with family then these are a good way to gussy up a workable bottle of sparkling into something a smudge more special.

Here's some of what you'll need

A nifty trick that might help
Glossing the inside of glass with a sticky fruit puree or jam is a novel way to get a touch of sweetness and fruit into a cocktail. Both marmalade and morello cherry jam work well Just put a little on the back of a teaspoon and twirl it up the sides of the glass so you get a slightly stained glass effect.

Introducing;

The Grinch

I call it this because any more than one on Christmas morning and it will steal your Christmas away. It's slightly bittersweet and also lovely at the end of a long day with a bowl of green olives on ice.

How to:
Gloss the inside of a glass with a teaspoon of good quality marmalade. Add one tablespoon of Campari and fill with sparkling wine

Rudolph

A cosy combination of the juices from a jar of dark cherries and the orange fruitiness of Cointreau. You could substitute pomegranate juice just as easily.

How to:
Gloss the inside of the glass with one teaspoon of black cherry jam. Add one tablespoon of Cointreau or orange liqueur, one tablespoon of cherry juice and fill with sparkling wine

Tinsel

A silvery twirl on a Bellini. It's grated pear with the edelweiss hum of Elderflower cordial. This might be one for the ladies and the menfolk in touch with their sensitive sides.

How to:
Grate one peeled pear on a box grater or microplane. Add a tablespoon of the puree, one tablespoon of Elderflower cordial to a flute and top up with sparkling wine.

The Avant Noel

Mix together 10ml raspberry vodka, 10 ml raspberry liqueur, 10ml apple juice and 5ml of caramel syrup, muddled with 5 mint leaves. Strain into a champagne flute and top up with champagne.

Available at Malmaison London

18-21 Charterhouse Square,
London ECIM 6AH,

Dinner at an Oxford High Table

2011-12-06T01:04:00.006+11:00

It was an invitation we couldn't refuse.

It's only an hour and a bit from London, past nonchalant cows and a few forlorn sheep.

It's the final Sunday of Michaelmas Term when we arrive. This is another world. A place of C.S Lewis and TS Eliot. Of pendulous robes, blonde stone and sparkling minds.

And we're about to discover that like another world, the high tables of Oxford cradle their own customs, vocabulary and charms. Thankfully we have a sound guide.

We've lucked onto the invitation from a brilliant old friend. We met when we were gangling teenagers, harbouring orthodontics and grand dreams for what we'd become. His are well on the way to coming true.

Merton College is his current home. It vies for the claim of the oldest college in Oxford with Balliol and University. It was founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton, Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Rochester. Dinner is in the hall; the oldest surviving college building. It's black tie. Coupled with the visual spectacle of men in dinner jackets, members of the college don academic robes.

High table neatly demonstrates the hierarchy of the dining hall. Literally; it's a table that's raised at the front of the room. In status it's reserved for the fellows, their guests and the warden. Dining together helps the fellows to foster an academic community (and it also encourages them to break free from the shackles of their studies).

At its essence, high table dinner is a combination of ritual, theatre and consumption that helps colleges keep their traditions alive.

To say we're intimidated is an understatement.

Before we came we were asked to send in a small biography so the warden knows who is joining the table. I scrub together some achievements for me and The Hungry One in an email. His list seems much shinier than mine.

'You'll be fine'. This is what I'm told on the night by our PhD-to-be host on our way back from Evensong carols at Balliol chapel.

But of course. There's just a minor chance I'll soon be making small talk with the man who proved Fermat's Last Theorem. I should be combing my brain for natty anecdotes. Yet the frivolous part of me is fretting whether navy silk knee length dress, tights and heels constitutes the 'female equivalent to black tie'

The meal is a journey. It starts in one room; ancient with a smell of well thumbed books and wood polish. There are aperitifs and chatter. There are elegantly small glasses of sherry, wine- and somewhat controversially, gin and tonics (the inclusion of gin and tonics was one of the first reforms care of the newest warden of the college).

It's here that we get the first opportunity to spy the seating chart. It's a busy night at the end of term so we've been allocated spots down on the floor of the dining hall. A little less pressure (and also a greater chance to surreptitiously take photos).

A pattern for the evening commences; drink, chat, wait for an instruction- often in Latin- and then move to another room. More instructions- often in Latin- stand, sit, drink, chat, eat. Another instruction in Latin. Move to another room. Eat, drink, chat and so on.

The only sticky thing is remembering to take your napkin with you.

The opening grace at Merton echoes around the dining room;

Oculi omnium in te respiciunt, Domine. Tu das escam illis tempore opportuno.

Aperis manum tuam, et imples omne animal benedictione tua.

Benedicas nobis, Deus, omnibus donis quae de tua beneficentia accepturi simus.

Per Iesum Christum dominum nostrum, Amen.

We sit. Plates are marked with the college seal. Cutlery carries history with it. My fork is inscribed with '1861' in cursive.

Dinner commences with fish soup- a ballast of cream and fish stock, deckled with shellfish and parsley.

There are generous pours of a Nebbiolo Tretham Estate 2008. Over main courses of a robust chicken and leek pudding I learn that of my fellow diners is an Egyptologist- the other is a theoretical physicist.

It's difficult not to feel frivolous taking photos of your food in this sort of company. Which explains why my focus on the pudding is so feeble.

There are skills I wish I'd perfected before we came. How to serve yourself mash potato with silver spoons from platters balanced in the hands of stewards is one.

This is rib sticking food, perfect for steeling yourself against the cold winds that whip around Oxford's cloistered streets. There aren't many places, bar my late grandmother's kitchen where suet pastry seemed at home. I'll now chalk the great dining halls of Oxford as another.

Dessert is a raspberry syllabub trifle. Trifle conveys the layered construction; not the size of the portion. This syllabub- an English classic that dates to Tudor times- is less curdled cream and more of a cream cheese consistency. It's sweetly rich and a few of us fail to find our way to the bottom (though The Hungry One lives up to his moniker).

And yet this is only the start. Next are the mysteries of 'Second desserts'.

Another grace is said and we stand and move to another room, napkins in tow. There a long table is set with cheese plates, oat cakes, chocolate truffles, dried and fresh fruits.

At second desserts it's custom to sit next to people you haven't previously talked to. Set in front of you are three glasses; one for port, another for sauternes, the other for claret.

Rather than fill all three, it's best to choose a path. You then top your glass and pass the bottles to your left. The bottles may make two or three turns around the table before the evening is done.

From polite conversation over second desserts we move upstairs past the T.S Elliot room for coffee, tea, and digestifs. It's a whiskey for the boys and a Cointreau on ice for me. In my glass there's sweetness and a gentle twang of citrus. It echoes a bittersweet feeling I've nursed most of the night. It comes from an awareness that while tonight we've been party to something precious, this is a world we'll never belong to.

In life there are doors that open and there are doors that close. This is a door that shut for me a long time ago.

When the night draws to an end at 10.45 pm our hearts and stomachs are full knowing we've just tasted a part of history.

There are some invitations you don't turn down.

There are some meals in your life you don't forget.

This is going to be one of them.

A night at the Plaza Athenee, Paris

2011-12-02T03:45:00.002+11:00

"We’ll always have Paris.”

But which Paris? The one where the beds are sized for toy poodles? Where the doorways are tinged with stale smoke? And threads of steak remain laced through your molars hours after a meal, like wayward threads of floss? As hard as we’ve tried, that’s been part of my Paris. Of course there’s been the awe that comes from the tower, pleasures of the Louvre and the gentle cushioning of crepes, but it’s never been anything like this.

It’s 8.15pm when the refrains of ‘As Time Goes By’ tinkle from a piano across Le Relais Plaza, in the Hôtel Plaza Athénée. I’m here with the spouse, aka The Hungry One. His moniker is about to come in handy.

We’ve spent most of the afternoon cosseted in one of the Plaza’s 45 suites. It’s larger than our flat in London. Both the bedroom and the sitting room are blessed with chandeliers. The desk is gilded and worn. The carpet is thick enough to buff a shoe. There’s a pucker of pink tea roses on the table. Cuddling up beside it is a bottle of Alain Ducasse Champagne on ice and a giftwrapped box of pears.

This is a lounge room best suited to brides or those settling affairs of state. Ghost-set into the mirrors are televisions. Embedded inside the televisions is a juke box, programmed with music. We opt for a classical selection to accompany us as we throw open the felt-lined silk taffeta curtains.

And then, there’s the view. Beyond the bustle of Jaguars and Phantoms up Avenue Montaigne, above the hotel’s classic hedge boxes of red geraniums, there’s the most clichéd of Paris sights. Watching the sky around the Eiffel Tower streak pink while you sip Champagne on your private balcony. This is such Paris as wistful sighs are made on.

There are other things to love about a suite like this: the two wash rooms with judiciously clear instructions on how to operate the shower; the white-tea scented toiletries; the most recent issues of Vanity Fair and, believe it or not, a heated toilet seat with a built-in bidet spray.

And then there are the closets. The walk-in wardrobe shames my small carry-on. My dress for dinner is dwarfed by a hanging space large enough to fit an entire summer collection.

It would easy to wile away an afternoon in the suite. Yet there’s much more of this side of Paris to explore. The gym downstairs in the Dior Institute is a destination of choice for The Hungry One (he has to work up his appetite somehow). The prospect of free bicycles to adventure into the neighbourhood is another charming option. If we’d arrived three weeks later then the courtyard would have been transformed into a holiday ice rink . It’s kind of the hotel to create a space beyond the privacy of their suites where adults can twirl in glee.

Instead, I park myself at the bar. Designed by Patrick Jouin, disciple of Philippe Starck, it’s sleek in a way that makes the rest of the hotel feel more ornate than ever. The cocktail list is offered on iPads – the source of some sticky situations if you over indulge in their signature Royal Rose (a blend of raspberry and Champagne). What holds promise for me is the option of a ‘Thierry’s Mind’; after a brief consultation, Thierry Hernandez, the manager of the bar, will create a bespoke cocktail just for you.

The Hungry One and I meet again at dinner. He reports on the gym: “white and shiny; the television is the size of a SMART car, but the weights machines are better suited to pilates-toned lasses” is the pithy summary.

Luckily he’s managed to work up an appetite. This is a good thing. If the Alain Ducasse is the shining gastronomic jewel of the Plaza Athénée, the Relais Plaza is the comforting robe.

It’s refined, but there’s nothing stiff or precious about it. The restaurant boasts an art deco charm and its plush burgundy carpets and fawn leather banquets wouldn’t be out of place on an elegant ocean liner.

Since the restaurant opened in 1936, the staff has perfected the art of polished service with a smile – from wine suggestions right down to filleting sole tableside. The menu traverses French bistro classics. The Relais also has access to the 35,000 bottles in the Athénée’s wine cellar.

While we nurse our half bottle of 2008 Chablis we take note of the crowd. Next to us are eight beautiful young things, remarking on their white Burgundy: “That’s the problem; the new world will never be able to get this kind of complexity in a wine this light.” Welcome to another chapter in #firstworldproblems.

Across from us a gentleman is treating his ageing mother to a meal; she’s the image of Barbara Cartland, sporting a furred Jane Fonda headband. Next to them are senior gentlemen who sincerely like the menu, but what they’d really prefer is a simple roast chicken. Could the chef provide that?

Like everything else here, it’s not a problem.

A parade soon commences across our table, from cheese pastry straws that crackle like autumn leaves to a tasting portion of artichoke velouté that’s a sermon on the gilding qualities of butter and cream. As more and more and more black gold is shaved onto our risotto, I grasp around for the appropriate collective noun for truffles. An ‘embarrassment’ seems apt.

Main courses move from game birds with chestnuts to fillet mignon, cooked so it’s as pink as a pinched cheek. A half bottle of Château La Tour l’Aspic 2003 is a gentle companion, fat with cherries and a whisper of black pepper.

The fireworks return with dessert. The ‘L’Oreade’ is the prize winner from the 2005 Pastry World Cup. It’s a glorious combination of raspberry purée caught in a sugar cylinder, suspended over raspberry and vanilla, praline mousse and chocolate. On top there’s gold leaf. It’s more artwork than edible treat.

Similarly beautiful is the ‘chocolate finger’, combining chocolate mousse and the delicate citrus of yuzu cream. But the showstopper might just be the rum baba. It’s a mound of brioche as pliable as a pillow, a pot of Chantilly cream, speckled with vanilla like a soiled swan and a squat jug of aged rum.

After a meal as steadying as that, sleep comes easily. Particularly when you’re cosseted in a king size bed with Egyptian cotton sheets.

The only difficult thing is leaving. It’s dark when we rise for the train back to London, but there are still lights twinkling near the tower beyond our window.

These are the memories that stay with you.

From now on whenever the husband wistfully says “we’ll always have Paris”, this is what he’ll be talking about. I think we’re ruined for life. In the best sort of way.

Hôtel Plaza Athénée Paris,
25 Avenue De Montaigne, Paris, 75008 France. Tel. +33 1 5367 6665. Website.
First published on The Arbuturian
http://www.arbuturian.com/
(Disclaimer; while writing for The Arbuturian, I was a guest at The Plaza Athenee)

Cinnamon, chocolate and pear pavlova

2011-11-30T19:24:00.000+11:00

Is there anything greater than a pav?

To me it's more Australian than budgie smugglers and pie-with-sauce (though a few Kiwi's I know might raise some arms about this claim).

It's a dessert that screams of childhood parties and celebratory feasts.

For those not familiar, or hungry for waffling description- here we go; imagine a fat cloud of meringue, crackled and imperfect on the outside and marshmallow gooey on the inside.

If you were feeling deep, you could get metaphoric about why Australians see so much of ourselves reflected in the dish.

The standard version (and possibly the most loved) is topped with sweetened collar of white cream and a trifecta of fruits. Passionfruit and strawberries are key. Banana and kiwi fruit are also popular, but may call forth some consternation, depending on who's at the table.

So vital was the pav in my childhood that they formed the strata of my Christmas stocking. Down under we didn't have a clementine at the toe (Australians not having such an issue with scurvy). Instead there was a Pavlova Magic; the edible equivalent of Sea Monkeys. Just add water and let the the fun begin.

But really, you don't need an instant dessert in an egg to have the fun. Making a pavlova is a walk in the park.

There are egg whites.

There's some sugar, acid, and for some extra marshmallow gooeyness there's cornflour.

What follows is not the blonde Australian pavlova of my childhood.

This is a much more wintry, adult interpretation.

In the past I've mucked with my meringues. I've folded ground coffee through it and topped them with figs. I've used brown sugar instead of white. But this time my thoughts turned to cinnamon. And more specifically, a holy trinity of cinnamon, chocolate and pears.

In this version the cinnamon gets folded through the meringue, speckling it like sunspots on a kid who's spent too long shunning the shade. And the taste? Pure comfort; from the crunch and sweetness to the earthy twist of cinnamon.

Pull my leg if it isn't exactly the taste of cinnamon toast.

From there the chocolate and the pears whisk it to a slightly French location. A twirl on a Belle Helene, if you must.

The end result is a mildly elegant, nay, European version of a dessert usually eaten while your swimming cossie is still damp (in my childhood all great parties involved swimming of some sort).

If it wasn't so good, I'd say this bastardisation of a national classic should serve as a red flag that I've been away from home for too long.

Luckily we'll be back in Sydney a few days before Christmas. Let the count down begin.

Cinnamon, chocolate and pear pavlova

This is a squat pavlova, appropriate for 4-6 people. If you want something more buoyant and to really feed a crowd, bump the egg whites to 6 and double the chocolate cream topping.

Equipment
1 bowl. 1 tray lined with baking paper. Electric whisks.

Shopping/foraging

3 egg whites
1 pinch salt
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 cup castor sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Chocolate cream topping
1 cup double cream
2 tablespoons of good quality drinking chocolate
1 pear, finely sliced
Additional dark chocolate, to grate over the top

Here's how we roll

1. Preheat oven to 150 C/ 300 F . Line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. Beath the egg whites in a large bowl on high until soft peaks form. Add 3/4 of the cup of sugar and keep whipping until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add the remaining sugar, cinnamon, conrflour and lemon juice and gently fold in.

3. Build a dome of the meringue on the baking paper. Use the side of your spatula to make slashes upwards around the perimeter, to encourage the meringue to rise.

4. Bake in the oven for 1 hour. Turn off the oven after an hour but leave the pavlova inside for another 30 minutes.

5. Make the chocolate cream by stirring the chocolate powder into the cream and then whipping until you get soft peaks.

6. Top with slices of pear (nb, you can make the base the day before and keep it in the oven. But don't apply the topping until just before serving. Otherwise it will get a little....soggy.)

* For something to do with the extra egg yolks- why don't you think about making some lemon curd? It's pretty great folded through slightly melted vanilla ice cream.

Le Chateaubriand - Paris

2011-11-28T19:16:00.001+11:00

If there was a dish that typified our experience at Le Chateaubriand, this might be it.

Beneath the wafts of radish and turnip is a piece of dorade, cooked so softly that eating it reminds me of nuzzling a baby's neck. The sauce is a twist on the French classic beurre blanc, but with the Spanish accent of Manzanilla sherry. Over the top are scorched walnuts, which play up the bitterness of the radish and turnip .

It's served without much ceremony; quickly dropped on the table with a clatter. There's the loose artistry of the plating. The slight acrid flavours. The raw and the sous vide. The informality. And then there's how quickly it's cleared and the next course arrives. All of these things are hallmarks in my memory of our meal at the highest rated restaurant in France in this year's San Pellegrino Top 100 restaurants list (and number 9 in the world).

From all accounts Chef Iñaki Aizpitarte is somewhat of a maverick. He doesn't really care that much what you think of him.

He was born in Basque country. He learned to cook in Tel Aviv. And he's been running Le Chateaubriand in the 11th arrondissements since 2006. There's a set five course menu that changes daily. The price is democratically set at 55 euro. He wanted somewhere his friends could come and eat.

That's if they can get a table. At 9.45 pm on a Saturday night in November there's a queue of 20 people out the door. We were lucky enough to have a table set aside for us at 7 pm, courtesy of navigating their booking system (three weeks before, at 2 pm you call. Call at exactly that time and you'll be fine). If you can't get through, then there's a second sitting that starts at around 9.30 pm. That's what the people in the queue are waiting for.

This is a different kind of French bistro. The atmosphere is old school, from the wooden chairs and tables to the blackboards that adorn the walls. There are no tablecloths here. There's no music either. The menu for the day comes on a piece of paper. There are four amuse bouches and then five courses to follow. If you want wines then the house wines are five euro a glass. If you want a bottle the list is predominantly made up of natural wines. If you make the same mistake my 6 foot two, ex football playing husband did and try to order a 'Kir Royale' as an aperitif you'll get a sniff and 'non' as a retort. They're ironically cool here, but not that ironically cool.

The pairing of wines by the glass to match each course is 60 euro each. We're celebrating, so we say yes. And then the ride starts.

The menu may change every day, based on seasonality, inspiration and whimsy, but from seeing others reports there seem to be some constants. This is one. Classic gourgeres; choux cheese puffs, here they're encrusted with poppy seeds.

They're like fat glossed clouds. And they're a quick demonstration that this kitchen knows it's technique. It's just going to choose how it's going activate it.

The next is also something of a constant. Small bowls of 'cerviche'. A cold jolt of citrus juice that prickles in your mouth. There's no need for an aperetif when this is on the table.

Floating about in these candy floss coloured bowls is a small 'crouton' of borderline ripe avocado.

Next; a nugget of softly cooked tuna, paired with mushrooms. It's a nifty pairing of textures; the woods and the see ape each other with the same kind of bounce and elasticity.

These dishes have all come and gone quickly. Soon there's bread on the table. Like the gourgeres it's a bold declaration of skill. It's outstandingly good- faintly sour, with a solid crust that feels safe . It doesn't automatically come with butter, so be sure to ask for some. Your waiter may look slightly annoyed, but it's worth it for the yellow half moon that arrives flanked by sea salt. Sometimes a restaurant rises and falls on the little things. And the bread and butter at Le Chateaubriand is.... brilliant.

The final two amouse bouches are a little more curious. Leek with squid ink morphs across the plate like something from a dark lagoon.

Meanwhile a small Japanese style presentation of tandoori spiced broth with coffee bean and cube of foie is a mysterious jangle of cultures and texutres. It's something of an enigma.

The first of the courses proper is what blows me away. It's cubes of blood pudding with purple potato, raspberry vinegar and some tendrils of frisee. The blood pudding is as soft and as rich as foie; but murkier and much, much sexier. Sprayed across the side of plate is a powder made from raspberries. It looks a little like a splatter from a crime scene. It's richness and light, earthy and sprightly. It's gobsmackingly good.

Next is the dorade with turnips and radish; the dish I think that encapsulates it all. From here the sweetness that's underpinned some of the dishes starts to morph towards bitterness. This continues into the final savoury course; a light stew of devastatingly soft veal cheek, paired with root vegetables, radicchio and pottering about in an olive stained broth.

The dish is something of an intellectual exercise; the softest and most gentle of meats paired with bitterness.It's like a riddle that you keep going back with your spoon trying to solve.

For some people the desserts have proved disappointing. For me, they were beautiful in their simplicity. A buttermilk ice is lactic and clean, topped with gently salted herbs and the crunch of pralines.

Then, a puddle of chocolate. It's topped with seeds- the kind you put on yogurt in cafe's adjacent to yoga studios. Hiding beneath are pieces of soft and pliant pear- and; a surprising piece of beetroot.

The meal comes to a close with two pieces of mango, crusted in small candies and fennel.

Coffee is fine, but nothing to write home about.

And then it's 9.40 pm. This is not a place to luxuriate over a meal. On our arrival we were pushed out of the way by a fellow guest, anxious to get to his seat. Courses come and go with amazing alacrity. There's a reason that there's a second seating that starts at around 9.30pm. It's because nearly everyone who came at 7pm is done by then.

There are some curious elements throughout the night, most notably the beverage pairings. While the wine pairings are deft, they're a rollercoaster ride akin to our experience at Momofuku Ko. From champagnes through to bold earthy reds, back to chardonnay to Champagnes and then to prune liqueur. They all support the dishes, but don't provide the sort of considered progression you might expect. Similarly, while the English of the floor staff is deft, the service can be abrupt.

But would I come again? Absolutely.

In a city where a main course at a Michelin star can cost 55 euro, it's amazing value. I'd come. I'd forgo the matching wines and order the house selections by the glass, or one great bottle. I'd bring some friends. We'd love some courses. We'd puzzle over some others. And we'd have a great time.

Which is just as Chef would like, I assume.

Le Chateaubriand
129 Avenue Parmentier
75011 Paris, France
01 43 57 45 95
Hours: Mon, Sun Closed; Tue-Sat 12-11:30pm
Subway: Goncourt

Perfect side; sweet potatoes with brown butter, yogurt and seeds

2011-11-23T23:41:00.005+11:00

Occasionally I wish I was American. And not just for the the ability to casually refer to Autumn as 'fall'. It's mainly for the holidays.

I've only had one Thanksgiving. I was 14 and visiting family friends in Salinas, California with my Dad and sister. I have fond memories of a burnished turkey, cranberry sauce and pies; one pumpkin and one apple. We took long walks beneath the mottled shade of old trees and explored Carmel. It was also a period when I discovered a love for cinnamon raisin bagels (a gateway to many other favoured sweet carbohydrates ).

As much as I love Christmas, the food often feels secondary. There's too much other distraction; lights on the tree, presents to unwrap, and the crummy songs peppered through the otherwise grand Ally McBeal Christmas CD to skip (though if my mother and I had our way we'd keep Robert Downey Jnr's version of 'River' on permanent repeat for the entire of December).

But a holiday which focuses on food, family and friends; all the things that we should be thankful for. That's an event I can get behind.

So next year, I'm going to find some north Americans and colonise them. They're going to come to our flat. We're going to make a turkey. I'll make cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries and a cinnamon quill. I'll make an apple pie. And for sides; I'll make a big platter of these.

Small sweet potatoes, roasted in their skins so they become caramel and soft. There's nothing to it. Put a cross in the top of the Campari hued tubers. Drizzle them with a little olive oil, festoon them with salt and pepper. And then put them in the oven for around an hour.

After that, all they need is something to play against the mushy sweetness. A slick of yogurt (sheep yogurt would be best, but any good natural yogurt is fine). Some toasted nuts and seeds for crunch- I like a combination of black sesame seeds, flaked almonds, sunflower seeds and hazelnuts. And then a gilding of browned butter.

It's sweetly savoury. It's a perfect partner to something blonde and big, like a roasted fowl. It's also plays nicely with a piece of trout, sea bass, or a hunk of steak.

But if you're yet to find the right clan to split the holiday with, then they're just fine all on their own.

(Nb, while we're not officially celebrating Thanksgiving, it's never a bad thing to list a few things that you're thankful for. So here are three of mine today.)

1) The man who chose to squeeze his blackheads in front of the mirror at the gym yesterday at 9.30 am was not there today.
2) I have a husband who, after nine years of being together, still can laugh with me. Even when I spill 3000 sesame seeds all over the clean kitchen floor.
3) I have my health. Which is something I never take for granted.

Hoping there are many things in your lives to be thankful for too.

Roasted sweet potatoes with brown butter, yogurt and seeds

Serves 2 as a side dish

Equipment

1 roasting dish. 1 saucepan.

Shopping/foraging

2 medium sized sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons of sheep yogurt/ natural yogurt
2 tablespoons of mixed nuts and seeds (sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, flaked almonds, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt
Pepper
30 grams of butter, melted in a saucepan until it turns nut brown

Here's how we roll

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350 F
2. Make a cross with a knife in the top of the two sweet potatoes. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.

3. Roast for 45 minutes - an hour, until they're soft in the centre and the skin peels back.

4. Toast the nuts and seeds in a fry pan.

5. Remove the seeds and then melt the butter and heat until it has turned a nut brown.

6. Top the roasted sweet potatoes with the yogurt, seeds, browned butter and a good sprinkling of salt and pepper.Eat them skins and all. The skins are good for you, I'm sure.

District Dining - Sydney

2011-11-22T22:42:00.000+11:00

You’d have to try hard not to eat well in Sydney. There’s a reason Australians are generally cheerful. Silky coffee, made with callused hands. Spanking fresh seafood, eaten within spitting distance of the sand. Thai and Vietnamese dishes spicy enough to call forth childhood traumas. These are just some of the obvious assets. Surry Hills is probably the beating heart of Sydney’s culinary body. On this jaunt home to my motherland I was pleased to find one of the finest additions to the district is smack in the centre of it all.

District Dining is just across the road from Central Station – which is great if you’re the kind of person who likes to watch trains while you sip a cocktail. But if you merely applaud good food colonising what was once a pen of poker machines, or a spot that can couple casual with smart, you’ll probably like it too. District Dining is the baby sister restaurant of Assiette, run by Kiwi, Warren Turnbull.

The first time, I visited with my dad – a spry Australian who likes his bicycles made from carbon fibre and motorcycles painted British racing green. Once an architect, he respects the open plan dining area, large blackboards chalking the specials in neat script and the large windows that let in plenty of natural light.

This is the kind of place where you can choose your own adventure, whether small plates to share and battle with forks, or a more traditional matrix of starter/main/dessert.

This is also a place that respects its booze. This is good, since my pa is a sound man to drink wine with. He likes his pinot noirs somewhere between strident and cheeky. A charming Pike and Joyce is easy to spot on a wine list segmented into categories of “something that sparkles”, “something to sip” and “something red to dine with”.

Beyond an appreciation for red wine and the importance of carrying your own stuff, my parents imparted to me the importance of sharing. So we start with a communal pot of crispy school prawns (AUD $16). It’s a generous serving, which is good (I inherited more than just long toes from him; an ability to eat is another). We eat the shells and all, and the crustaceans’ spindly legs prick like embarrassment on their way down.

Another clear winner is a salad of veal tongue with a nippy salsa verde, cubes of pickled turnips and sautéed almonds. The tongue is burnished around the edges. It feels oddly kinky to be lolling the soft meat of another beast’s tongue around your mouth in front of your dad, yet with a glass of red under my belt, I care less.

Main courses are as elegant and rustic as the wooden boards on which many of them are served. Parmesan gnocchi with veal shoulder and pangrattato arrives as an essay in textures, with pillow soft parcels with threads of meat and strident little pieces of grit from the herbed breadcrumbs. And desserts are a marriage of whimsy and comfort; from sticky date puddings revamped with whiskey ice cream to a mandarin crème brûlée where a citrus that was once a lunch box staple becomes a sexy foil for custard, spiced with cardamom. It’s inspired stuff.

My second visit is at lunch, with ladies. District Dining is as bright during the day as it is moodily dark in the eve. Dad was right about the aspect.

We start with half a dozen crusted quail eggs with tarragon mayonnaise ($14). It’s best to eat these in one bite. Or to have a napkin draped down your front. Let it be known that an ejaculating runny yolk may be both tasty and funny, but it’s a pain to sponge out of silk.

The fact that I’m able to bully the ladies into trying five spice crispy pigs’ ears speaks volumes for both the skill of the kitchen and mine as a negotiator. “Pigs’ ears belong to the dogs” is one response.

These appear twisted like stressed fingers. The inside of each strip has a chewy spine of cartilage and the outside is crisp like a prawn cracker and buzzes with the heat of Szechuan pepper. To which I say: if dogs are eating anything this good, then I want what they’re having.

A carrot salad is more of a sculpture than a plate of food, with thin strips waving across like a Gehry building. Beneath there’s a log of labna and a spiced nut crumble.

And for final sweets it’s lemon cheesecake with blueberries and lemon curd ice-cream. It’s grand – even more so in the daylight.

As you leave you’ll walk past a Mondrianesque graphic of the streets of the district by the door. My dad liked the artistry. The ladies liked their lunch. And I like what the image represents. District Dining is a shining addition to a city that already sparkles.

But it’s also popular. So if you can’t squeeze in when you want, take stock of where you are and wander through the rest of the district. You can always come back.

District Dining
17 Randle Street, Surry Hills,
NSW 2010.
Tel. +61 2 9211 7798
http://www.districtdining.com.au/

First published on http://www.arbuturian.com

Oysters and champagne in Paris

2011-11-19T00:38:00.000+11:00

It's a conundrum. A #firstworldproblem of the greatest order. There you are, fresh off the Eurostar. After you dump your bags, there are two things that you need.

The first, is a glass of champagne. There are probably things to celebrate. For us, a birthday and some good news brewing.

But the fact that you're in Paris should suffice.

The second thing you need is something decent to eat.

But where?

My pick for a first meal in Paris is a strategic one. The next few days carry with them a heavy burden of 'Parisian fantasy meals'; steak frites (for The Hungry One) and roast chicken (for me).

Think of this meal as a gradual introduction for your system. To me oysters, bread and butter are a civilised way to start.

If that sounds ok to you too, then Huiterie Regis is somewhere to put on your next itinerary.

It's just steps away from the Mabillon metro, close to St Germain and a very easy stroll from our charming hotel room at Villa Madame.

It's tiny- inside it seats only 14 and is sparse and white walled. The focus here is what comes nestled on large platters of ice. The wine list comprises mostly Sancerres and Muscadets, but there's also bubbles by the glass.

You can't book and by 9 pm on Friday night the inside is packed full of Parisians, busy gesticulating with tiny forks. Yet the four tables out the front are free. It's cold, but it's not that cold.

We sit, order bubbles and choose our oysters. Jumping out at us are the Les Fines de Claires N°2 (24,00 € for a dozen) and Spéciales de Claires (29,00 € for a dozen).

Not cheap, but then few great things in Paris are. The number after the oyster refers to the size. They're calibrated from 000 and they go up to 6 . The smaller the number, the larger the oyster- the scale goes from 120 grams down to 20 grams.

Fines de Clare come from the in Marennes Oleron Basin. The fines are grown with 20 to the square yard, maturing for two months in the salty marshes.

The Speciales are a little more... special. There are only 10 per square yard and they mature for two months; meaning they get fatter- and we decide- sweeter.

There's bread and butter. There's a bracing collaboration of shallots and red wine vinegar- but to me all these beauties need is a squidge of lemon.

And then there are the locals; including some pretty inebriated characters who keep taking cigarette breaks outside. They insist we have some of their Sancerre. They try and pilfer an oyster or two from our platter, like it was a cocktail party. They offer to take our photo (with the brand new camera) and then won't give it back until we kiss.

It's local, it's charming, and highly entertaining. It's exactly what you need from your first night in Paris.

I promise.

Huitrerie Regis
3 rue de Montfaucon - 75006 Paris
Tel : 01.44.41.10 .07 Horaires d’Ouverture :
Open Tuesday to Sunday
From 12:00 to 15:00 and from 18:30 to 23:00
Metro: Mabillon ou Saint Germain

http://huitrerieregis.com

Soda bread french toast with amaretto prunes

2011-11-17T21:47:00.006+11:00

I'm thinking a lot about Dads today.

As one of my best friends goes through hell and we sit with our hearts in our throats, hoping to heaven that hers will be fine, the first thing I was compelled to do today was call mine.

Like hers, mine is a very good egg. He's dashing and tall, with a lick of Bill Clinton to his profile. He loves his coffee and pinot noir. Also pastries- particularly when consumed after a long cycle or swim. He doesn't really drink beer; he prefers a glass of champagne as an aperetif.

In his child he imparted a dark hued sense of humour, love for the early Beatles and an appreciation of spreadsheets.

He taught me to swim, do algebra, ride a bike, row a single scull and park a car. He let me walk on his feet when I was little. He stood on the side of god knows how many Saturday morning netball games (and let's be honest, the 11 E's weren't doing much of interest).

The first bunch of flowers I was ever sent were from him, to school in celebration of my 13th birthday.

It was a hard act for others to follow.

When someone comments that in many ways The Hungry One is much like my Dad, we both take it as a great compliment.

One other thing my dad taught me was how to make french toast. That - and scrambled eggs are two of his signature dishes.

He's on the other side of an ocean the moment. My breakfast is his dinner. But this morning as I made this sticky, steadying and sweet breakfast to fill a gnawing hole of worry in my stomach, I thought of him . And said a silent toast to great Dads across the world.

Soda bread french toast with amaretto prunes

Serves 2

This could also work with brioche, or just a normal loaf. But I had a loaf of soda bread in the freezer and love the way its nutty flavours play with the richness of the prunes. You could use ice cream or cream instead of yogurt, but I like the way it cuts through the richness. And the little bit of salt? Well, to me at breakfast, just like life, there's always going to be a bit of salt to the sweet.

Equipment
1 sauce pan. 1 frying pan. 1 mixing bowl.

Shopping/foraging

4 slices soda bread
15 prunes
3 tablespoons of amaretto
1 egg, beaten
half a cup of milk
Tablespoon of butter for frying
2 tablespoons of natural yogurt
A pinch of sea salt

Here's how we roll

1. Mix together the milk and the egg in a bowl. Pour over the slices of soda bread and leave to soak for 10 minutes.

2. Put the amaretto and the prunes in a small sauce pan and bring to the boil to boil off the booze. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the prunes are plump and the amaretto has reduced to a sticky caramel sauce.

3. Melt the butter in a fry pan. When it is sizzling, add the slices of eggy soda bread. Cook for 3 minutes, until the bottom is crisp. Turn over and cook the other side for two minutes.

4. Serve the warm french toast with a dollop of natural yogurt, the prunes, sauce and a small sprinkling of sea salt for kick.

Kooka Boora- the best coffee in Paris?

2011-11-15T19:20:00.001+11:00

A great cup of coffee in Paris. It's almost an oxymoron.

We thought it was a fruitless search and had almost given up hope.

And then we found Kooka Boora.

South of Pigalle in the ninth it's a fairly convenient spot if you fancy a trip up to Sacre Coure or Montmarte.

But if not, I still recommend the detour. There's plenty of seating outside on chairs that are the colour of friendly birds from a Disney cartoon. Inside the decor has a touch of IKEA, melding deep couches and some tall benches. The cafe is populated with a combination of locals pottering away on MacBooks, taking advantage of the free wifi, and tourists like us who will do anything for a decent cup to start the day.

When it comes to food there are wraps that can be toasted, quiches, bowls of muesli and cakes.

It's all very antipodean; from the name that bastardises one of Australia's most beloved birds, to the easy smiles of the staff.

When we arrive on a Sunday morning there are two welcoming smells mingling in the air; freshly ground beans and the scones being baked in house.

First up for us; a fat slice of raspberry and pistachio loaf. It comes in sturdy slices and has an easy crumb. If there's anywhere in the world you can justify having cake for breakfast, it's Paris.

But as appealing as the food options are; what most people have come for is caffeine.

It's not cheap, but then not that much that's decent in Paris is. A flat white is €3.50. There are chemex and aeropress options to puddle around in, but it's the espressos and their way with milk that really pleases us.

So often milk coffees in Pairs carries an unpleasant UHT, long life milk tang. It tastes of school camp and hospital cafeterias. It makes me sad.

Here they're using Valpro milk. I grasp around for adjectives. Marshmallow silk is what comes to mind. Both are happy words in my book.

Kooka Boora feels like a small outpost of Sydney, London or Brooklyn plonked down in Paris.

On our honeymoon three years ago we'd tossed around the notion of living in this city of lights (doesn't everyone?)

Despite the fact that neither of us speak French, the true tipping point against a move to Paris was the lack of decent coffee. That was too dark a prospect to contemplate.

So this discovery also comes with a warning. Finding proper coffee in Paris at Kooka Boora is a brilliant thing. But it also could do some very dangerous things to your five year plan.

Kooka Boora
62, rue des Martyrs 75009
Telephone : 01 56 92 12 41
Metro : Pigalle, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette or Anvers
Mon - Fri: 8:45 am - 7:30 pm
Sat - Sun: 9:00 am - 7:30 pm

The taste of Paris- coffee eclairs and mocha tapioca

2011-11-11T20:47:00.003+11:00

What does Paris taste like to you?

To me, it's coffee eclairs. Fat pastry fingers, bloated with caffeinated custard. They're my danger zone. They're one of those things (for the sake of my jeans), that I pretend don't exist. Except when we're in Paris. Then all bets are off.

An eclair was the first things I ate on Rue Mouffetard when The Hungry One and I fled to Paris for our honeymoon. The days were grey and the sky was spitting sleet. The kindly instruction from my mother, after I distractedly ate old bbq chicken five days before the wedding and got scrawny, was to 'got to Paris and fatten up'.

And so I did. For ten days coffee eclairs, steak frites, chocolate croissants and cheeses that lolled across my plate like a boozed teenager in the back of a cab were what made up my meals.

But mostly, I ate eclairs.

It was only half way through my first portion of this tapioca that I realised why I liked it so much. It was because the gentle custard texture and muted coffee flavour aped the filling of my beloved choux buns.

It may look like a frumpy mass of nursery pudding, best eaten in your pyjamas when you've got PMS- but if you add some textural contrast of hazelnut praline and some shards of chocolate it transforms itself into a sleek dessert.

And it's a doddle to make, so long as you don't step away from it for too long. For just as eclairs love to hug to your thighs, this tapioca likes to cling to the bottom of a pan while it cooks.

This weekend we're heading back to Paris. I've got a plum assignment writing up a night in the Plaza Athenee. And The Hungry One is back on his 'quest for the best'- and has a booking at Le Chateaubriand (9th best in the world this year, apparently).

Somehow my 30th birthday has morphed from a day into a festival of extended excess. I have a feeling it's going to be difficult to come back to earth on Monday.

Luckily I'll have some of this tapioca still sitting in the fridge-that way the magic of Paris can linger with us for a little longer; if only on my thighs.

Mocha tapioca with hazelnut praline

Serves 2-4 (depending on how hungry you, or your guests are)

Equipment
1 heavy bottom pot. 1 whisk. 1 spatula

Shopping/foraging

2 and a half cups milk
2 shots of espresso
1/3 cup small pearl tapioca
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup caster sugar
3 tablespoons of drinking chocolate mix

Optional 2 tablespoons of hazelnut praline

Here's how we roll

1. Pour 3/4 of the milk into a medium-sized, thick-bottomed pot. Add the tapioca and soak for 60 minutes.

2. Whisk the egg yolks together.

3. Add to the soaking tapioca and milk to the whisked egg yolks, cooled espresso, cocoa, sugar, and the rest of the milk.

4. Put the pan on a medium heat. Bring it slowly to a boil and keep stirring.

5. Reduce the heat and let the mixture return to a simmer - keep stirring until the tapioca has swelled to twice its size and the outside has become opaque. This should take around 20 minutes.

6. Remove from heat and let cool a bit. This tapioca is best warm, but is also great cold, topped with shards of chocolate and hazelnut praline.

Caravan

2011-11-09T22:25:00.000+11:00

A hangover is a terrible thing. Whether it's the sleep deprivation, thirsty synapses, or bitter swill of your stomach, there are only two things that I know to fix it.

One is a swim in the ocean. The other; a strapping breakfast.

There are no beaches worth mentioning in the spitting distance of London. Which brings us to Caravan.

It's a restaurant, bar and coffee roastery on Exmouth Market. For those going to see a show at Sadler's Wells, it's a good walking distance.

For folks like us, enslaved to the northern line, it's not in a hugely convenient location.

Yet everytime we wake up feeling particularly poisonous- this is where we head.

It's an open space with large windows letting in light on two sides. There's a bar at the front plus seating for 50 or so in a combination of banquettes and square bistro tables. Downstairs is a more private dining room- and the roastery.

The coffee here is good. Very good. In my top four in London good. The beans are single origin, gathered from all around the world. They're done every day in their Probat roaster. Occasionally while eating you'll notice a hum and smell of caramel wafting upstairs. It's a harbinger of a hangover's demise.

Brunch is served on the weekend from 10 am - 4pm. It boasts all the things Australians like. Like avocado. A proper brunch out involves avocado. It might have started with Bill Granger's avocado salsa on his corn fritters. It might be about how well avocado slows an egg yolk when it splits like sunrise. Or it might just be that avocado and toast (with an appropriate amount of salt and pepper) is one of the most life sustaining substances around (see here for further evidence).

At Caravan you can have hunks of toasted sourdough or grain toast with avocado, olive oil and chilli flakes for £4.50. You can also get a swathe of other options propped up on toast; from cheddar and caramelised onion jam to slow roasted tomatoes.

But if you're feeling as dusty as we are (the curses of drinking in a palindrome struck again*) then you're going to want some eggs.

A Caravan fry up of two eggs, bacon, roast tomatoes, mushrooms made salty through soy, becomes more of a salvation with a side of their chilli beans.

My usual order is involves eggs loaning extra ballast to cornbread, transforming it into French toast. It's a jangling combination of cultures; a road trip on a plate- from the South Western twang of corn bread to the Canadian sensibilities of bacon with maple syrup- this then is tweaked further with a hum of smoked paprika.

The avocado on top is a gilding of a very pretty lily.

The Hungry One firmly believes a dessert course at breakfast should be more widely appreciated. I think he's contemplating a campaign to remedy this . And his key image may well be Caravan's coconut bread with lemon curd cream cheese and berries.

Caravan has only been open for 18 months, but it feels like an old timer. The service is swift and charming (though if you come past 10.30 am you may need to queue).

After two courses of breakfast and two or more coffees of this kind of quality, you should be ready to take on anything.

If it was down the road, I'd go every weekend. We probably don't go often enough.

But considering the circumstances driving our visits; - if only for the sake of my liver- maybe we do.

* The perils of drinking in a palindrome; drinking in a sequence that goes forward and then backwards. If you begin with champagne and then move to white wine, returning to champagne is going to hurt. Greater and more painful examples include commencing with martinis, moving to champagne, then red wine, then back to champagne and then closing with a martini. That is the way to the dark side. Theory taught to me by friends much wiser than me.

Caravan
(020) 7833 8115
11-13 Exmouth Market
London, UK EC1R 4
caravanonexmouth.co.uk

A few of your favourite things

2011-11-08T19:57:00.001+11:00

A party for me. Oh my.

A party for others; those I can do. Over the years birthday celebrations for the husband have included surprises at restaurants where he's pondered why 30 of his friends are seated at tables around him. There have been sly trips away and sweet dinners at home. This year his party built around a bespoke black forrest cake that nearly broke me.

It’s not that we don’t celebrate my birthday- but it’s usually a small (and painfully pricey) dinner out. The last time I had a proper party was my twenty first. The next major celebration was our wedding.

But this was an event just for me. I was told we’ll eat what I like, based solely on what my favourite things are. It’s the female food lover’s equivalent of crafting a fantasy baseball team. All of the best players, all together on one field.

Except when the question of favourites was posed I couldn’t name anything. Maria had schnitzel on noodles and crisp apple strudels. The spouse has wheat beers and pork ribs. I sat there at dinner in awkward silence and grasped for things to name. ‘Bread?’ . ‘Salt?’ ‘Pepper?’ I suggested.

‘Stop naming things on the table’ he said.

I rationalised that maybe like a mother to seven children; as someone who works with food to select one or two options above the others would seem cruel.

‘Food has no emotions. Choose’; may have been the response.

And maybe it’s just that I’m not that great at putting myself first. I could name it for my mother. I could do it for my sister, my dad, my husband, all in thirty seconds.

So I started farming for happy memories. They started with people, but I found food in their wake. So that’s how we came up with the following.

Platter of cured meats and soft cheeses. For all the lazy lunches spent eating ham and cheese and bread with my Mum.

Baked gnocchi with tomato, mozzarella and basil. During my first snow in London this was what I cooked when I I trying to make a place so unfamiliar feel like home. It worked.
A big green salad, with fennel and goat’s feta. A table isn’t complete at my sister’s without a large salad as a centrepiece (traditionally served with one from her collection of artistic salad servers).
Apple tart. Sometimes after Saturday swimming club Dad would stop and we’d get a plaited apple and custard tart to share for brunch.

It was rustic sort of feast- and while the dress may have been a little over the top, the crowd was very small. It wasn’t about the food, it was about the people that came forward in every bite

So while my family might not have been here to celebrate my 30th birthday with me, in a sense they were,

And that’s how I found my favourite things.

Next year I’ll get to work on a song to go with it.

Top 10 things I ate this year

2011-11-04T18:54:00.001+11:00

A year ago marked my first birthday in London. We celebrated with a platter of cured meats, pasta with wild mushrooms and some passionfruit souffles that flopped a little bit.

In the 364 days that followed some pretty amazing things have happened. I've seen the Great Pyramids, Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon and Iceland. I started a semi riot on The Huffington Post over the best hot dogs in the world, tried to remember how to surf in Morocco, skied over an international border, seen some of our best friends get married, two others have their first babies, became an aunt again and jaunted to Stockholm and Copenhagen. I've endured minus 18 temperatures in Berlin, eaten churros in Madrid, and tasted the food at the first and second best restaurants in the world.

Suffice to say; it's been a very good year.

What is below is nothing more than navel gazing. Self indulgence squared.

But really, if you can't take a moment in a year to remember all the great stuff that happened in the 12 months prior, then what's the point?

So on the cusp of another birthday (and a biggish one at that), here are ten of the top things I ate in the last year.

1. Truffle pot au feu at El Celler de can Roca

It's not the second best restaurant in the world for nothing. It was tempting to pick the candied olives that came delivered on a bonsai, but it was this is the dish that roundly sticks in my memory. If anything it completely typifies the elegant restraint of the Roca Brothers. It's a zen style sugar bowl . Inside one part that has a base of mesh is a steamed truffled brioche that you eat with your fingers. Beneath it is a lake of ‘pot a feu’ broth. It’s just what you’d want to sip if you were convalescing. You eat the brioche, which is a doughy as a fat man’s palm. By the time you sip the soup the flavour of the truffle is still hanging around, making friends everywhere you turn. It's soothing, rich, light- and brilliant.
http://www.cellercanroca.com/PORTADA/intro.htm

2. Custard tart at Pasteis de Belem

This is no ordinary custard tart. It's believed that pastéis de natas was created before the 18th century by Catholic nuns at the Jerónimos Monastery of Belém, in Lisbon. The Casa Pastéis de Belém in Lisbon was the first place outside the convent that sold the tarts. Since 1837, locals and tourists like us have flocked there to get the tarts pieces of custard goodness straight out of the oven. You can have them covered with cinnamon or powdered sugar- but I prefer them plain. It took us 45 minutes to walk to Belem in 40 degree heat. With one taste of a tart and I knew it was worth it. The crust is twirled in concentric circles, more delicate than a spider web. The custard jiggles like a thigh after winter. And the top is blistered and puffed from the heat of the ovens. I'm not a particularly religious person. But this is a tart worth a pilgrimmage.

www.pasteisdebelem.pt

3. Croque Monsieur Foxcroft and Ginger

Foxcroft and Ginger is one of my best loved places for coffee in London's Soho- particularly on a Sunday if you're feeling a little dusty. The staff are cheerful, there's space downstairs to spread out with a newspaper, novelty pommel horses to lean up against and good wifi. But more than that, it's home to this breakfast sandwich. It's a ham and cheese triple decker french toast sandwich of sheer genius. I'm talking about layers of egg sodden and crisped bread are bound with bechamel. The ham is cut satisfyingly thick. The whole thing is slicked with a sticky honey mustard drizzle. It comes on a brave little wooden board, with a sprinkle of sea salt and ground pepper in the corner. If this doesn't fix a hangover- then you're beyond repair.
www.foxcroftandginger.com/

4. Langoustine and mushrooms at Viajante

It's a bonus course, we think, that was delivered to us after we discovered a mutual friend was working in the kitchen at Viajante in East London. It arrived on warmed rocks- a novelty in itself. Layered above, like good things found at the base of a fire is a buttress of smoked rosemary. Over that is a beautifully sweet section of langoustine tail and a tangle of enoki mushrooms, mysterious as mermaid tresses. Draped over that is a cape of lardo which softly melts. You pick it all up with your finger tips and gobble in one bite. I'm sure cavemen never had it this good. When you eat it the melting pig fat adds a subtle sheen to your lips. It's served with a miniature martini glass of chilled sake and a hot towel. Nuno Mendes does bold things in the kitchen at Viajante.This is one of the best.

5. Crispy pig's ears at District Dining

‘Pigs’ ears belong to the dogs’; is one response when I first suggested ordering these at District Dining in Sydney These appear twisted like stressed fingers. The inside of each strip has a chewy spine of cartilage and the outside is crisp like a prawn cracker and buzzes with the heat of Szechuan pepper. To which I say, if they dogs are eating anything this good, then I want what they’re having.

www.districtdining.com.au/

6. Quail's eggs with celery salt at Brawn

If you make it to Brawn, you don't want to miss the quail's eggs (£4). They're delicately doll sized and soft cooked so the Van Gogh yellow centres dash across your fingertips. Dip them in celery salt and be grateful that someone else has spent the time to shell them for you. Add a a glass of pink wine and dappled sunshine coming through the trees from Columbia Road on a lazy Saturday; all in all it's bliss.

www.brawn.co/

7. Grilled squid at Ammoudi

Below the honeymooner's paradise of Oia in Santorini is the fishing village of Ammoudi. In the middle of the tavernas is Katina. And at Katina there's this squid. It's curled in a way that genetics prevent my tongue from replicating (though my sister is perfectly capable). It's blackened on the edges from the grill and licked with olive oil, lemon and salt. It's the seaside feast I hoped we'd find in the Greek Islands, but almost gave up hope for. And the fact that it's around the corner from one of the best swimming spots on the island is just icing on the cake.

8. Tomato bread at Jose

I think you can tell the quality of a place by how they do the simple things. And the tomato bread at Jose in Bermondsey is stellar. It's the product of José Pizarro, who was the head chef at one of my (and Gwyneth's) favourite spots in London; Brindisa. It's just bread, toasted and charred and smeared with garlic. It's then soused with significant quantity of sweet pulped tomatoes, olive oil and salt. It's the perfect foil for a glass of pink wine. Every time I visit and eat it, I'm happy.

joserestaurant.co.uk/

9. Peaches and yogurt at Matbaren

It came at the close of an accidental feast in Stockholm. We'd planned to just have a couple of bites at Matthias Dalgern's more casual bar and restaurant; Matbaren. We ended up staying for hours. This dessert explains why. It's a combination of white and pink peaches, in segments and sorbets. It's a puddle of tart natural yogurt that's been hung and thickened. Together they would be clean and refreshing. But then there are the bits that make it wild. There's a slick of extra virgin olive oil. A handful of hazelnuts, which have been candied so they shatter like Christmas crackers. And a sprinkling of sea salt. It's a dish so balanced it should teach yoga. It's so good that eating it, I was rendered mute.

www.mathiasdahlgren.co

10. Apple tart from Monmouth (which is actually from Pauls)

If a day is going badly, this is where I head. I get a latte at Monmouth and a piece of apple tart. It's a sublime piece of tart heavy on apple, dusted with almonds and sitting on a crust that cracks like dried autumn leaves. The base is custard like, sweet and comforting. Eating it yanks forward memories of apple danishes I was given as reward for completing in swimming races in a salty, barnacle encrusted harbour pool each Saturday morning as a child. When my mum arrived in London, it was one of the first things I made her eat.

When pressed Monmouth confessed it's just the apple tart from 'Pauls'. But I love it. Which is why when I blow out the candles for my 30th birthday tomorrow, they're going to be squatting in a piece of this.

Here's to another great year.

20 things about the cook

2011-11-03T09:44:00.001+11:00

Hihi

The delightful Laura Hobbs writes a blog that combines two of my favourite things (yoga and pie). She recently asked me to be part of her series; '20 things about the cook' .

It's home to a few confessions from me, from my antisocial obsession with sharks (including the fact that I have a google alert for 'shark attack') to our plans to head to South Africa in December (lions and tigers and bears- oh my!)

Whether or not we'll go shark diving while we're in Cape Town.... well that's a whole other kettle of fish.

You can read the rest at http://pranaandpie.com/ here.

Things are a little crazy at the moment; with some good things on the boil. Promise to return to more regular transmission soon.

x Tori

Fig, pear, oat and ginger loaf

2011-11-01T04:55:00.003+11:00

I've been having a little déjà vu.

I blame Ryan Gosling. More specifically, 'feminist Ryan Gosling'.

It's a blog that's been brightening my mornings for a few weeks now. It tickles my funnies in a way that might be lost on some.

I wasn't sure if my entire undergraduate experience could be encapsulated in an image.

http://feministryangosling.tumblr.com/

It seems it can be.

Reading this, I'm transported back 10 years- to when I was mid way through a politics degree which believe it or not- majored in post structuralist feminism.

I remember writing extended essays on the thinking of Gayatri Spivak. I remember wearing my grandmother's raspberry and rose striped tea cosey semi-ironically as a beanie to tutorials on cold mornings. I remember the smell of the books on the fourth level of the library; musty, like forlorn socks. I remember spending sunny afternoons on the lawn in the front of the library accompanied by a large pile of flimsily photocopied readings and a luke warm latte. I'd use a muffin as a paperweight. I'd sit with a highlighter poised in one hand and pinch the tip of my nose when I was trying to wrap my head around a train of thought.

The muffins were special. They came from the vegetarian store in Badabagan; the food court just near the commerce quadrangle at the University of NSW, in Sydney. Because they were from the vegetarian store, I convinced myself they were healthy.

They tasted more earnest than any of the opinions I touted in my tutorials. They were made with wholemeal flour and had oats in them. They housed seasonal combinations of fruit; sometimes mixed berry, other times apple, pear or dried fruit. There were gentle notes of spice and occasionally an aggressive twang of ginger.

I'd sometimes buy two in a day; one in the morning to to take to my women's studies lectures, and another late in the afternoon to fuel me through my readings. Later, when I'd swing past my best friend and her girlfriend's house where we'd watch Buffy together, I'd still have half dwindling in the bottom of my bag.

This loaf is in memory of the muffins, essays, and the hungry hope I carried that one day I'd find a tall fellow who'd be interested in my opinions (or at least sit on a couch and watch terrible television with Sarah Michelle Geller in it with me).

And this loaf is for the women; those I learned with, I read from, and watched Buffy with (who later introduced me to a second dan black belt from their Tae Kwon Do school- a six foot two blonde fellow who could listen to me blather on for hours; who said I looked cute in winter hats - and would one day become my husband.)

This is not a loaf he enjoys. It's too heavy. Too earnest. It carries too much soft fruit and and spice. He thinks it's trying a bit too hard.

But I don't really care that much.

I like it. So does my next door neighbour-(in the spirit of building communities of supportive women, I dropped half of it over to her).

And I have a feeling that feminist Ryan Gosling would like it as well.

Fig, pear oat and ginger loaf

Makes 1 loaf of 8-10 slices.

Equipment
1 19 cm - 20 cm loaf pan. 2 bowls. 1 electric beater.

Oat Pear and fig and ginger loaf

100 g (1 cup) rolled oats
¾ cup boiling water
150g (5.5oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature, diced
115g (1/2 cup) brown sugar
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups all purpose wholemeal flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 ripe pear, peeled cored and sliced
3 figs , cut
½ cup of dried cranberries, cherries or raisins
1 knob of ginger, wine cork size, cut into slivers.
1 tsp of ground cinnamon

Here's how we roll

1. Preaheat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F. Place the oats, dried fruit and slivers of ginger in a bowl. Pour over the boiling water and put a plate over the top to let it soak in.

2. Combine the butter and sugar in a bowl. Cream with electric beaters (start on the lowest setting and then when combined, increase the speed). Cream until the sugar is dissolving into the butter.

3. Add the eggs, 1 at a time and beat well after you add each one.

4. Sift in the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder and gently combine (try not to overwork the flour).

5. Add the oats and dried fruit and gently mix.

6. Spoon the mixture into a non stick 19x 11 cm loaf pan. Arrange the figs and the pear slices over the top.

7. Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

8. Serve slices on their own, or topped with some ricotta and honey.

Wright Brothers Oyster and Porter House

2011-10-28T20:00:00.000+11:00

It's time to say farewell.

To strawberries and cream and folks lying out on the grass wearing nothing but their underwear.

An English summer is a curious instance. Waiting for it is like playing hide and seek with a rambunctious four year old. It can be plum boring searching for it- and then- just as you're about to call it all off, it emerges out of nowhere and pulls on your hair.

A few weeks ago we had a startling appearance of some Indian summer in London. Balmy nights and days where your fringe sticks heavily to the side of your face.

We couldn't bring ourselves to get a car and trudge to the relative disappointment of the 'seaside' ( see our day trip to Brighton- nb, when it comes to beaches The Hungry One does have an expectations hurdle to overcome care of his years as a lifesaver on Bondi. He now has a strict definition of what constitutes a proper beach). And the lank air meant we couldn't bear to face the tube.

It was a weekend that called for cool carafes of rose coloured wine and bivalves lolling on ice (despite the fact that oysters are at their best in the winter months, we Australians have it bred into us that Christmas calls for celebratory seafood, and that falls smack in the middle of summer).

So on this sunny day I was craving pints of prawns and glossy mayonnaise. And there was only one place we could imagine going.

Luckily the Wright Brothers Oyster and Porterhouse is within a seven minute stroll of our front door.

It's a boisterous place that fronts onto the bustle of Borough markets. On a Thursday, Friday and Saturday it's relatively slammed with revelers crowding around stools and barrels, nudging up against the bar and slurping sturdy porters and oysters.

On an early Sunday lunch, when the rest of the market is abandoned, it's much more civilised.

What Wright Brothers specialises in, is oysters.

Originally one of the UK's most respected wholesalers, there are now three restaurant outposts in the empire; this porterhouse in Borough, the oysterhouse in Soho and the Ferryboat Inn in Cornwall.

If you love oysters, it's divinity. And if you don't enjoy them yet, then this is the place to be converted.

The oysters of the day are written up on blackboards . It's a geography lesson writ in chalk. The ones that sing out are Maldon rocks, Dorset rocks and Speciale de Claire from across the pond. The best way to approach it is to talk to the informed floorstaff, quiz them on what is shining and order a mixed dozen to share. You'll thenget four of three different varieties so you can plot a path through their briney depths. These are quality bivalves and you'll pay appropriately for them, at around £30 for a dozen. Add a slice or two of their malted soda bread, spread thickly with butter and it's heaven.

From there it's hard to go past the sheer novelty of a pint of prawns (£17.50). A pint (or a half pint) glass stuffed full of cold cooked crustaceans, heads, tails and all. They're jammed in like a bloated Christmas stocking. There's a tub of egg heavy mayonnaise for dipping and a finger bowl to bathe your nails in when all your hard work is done.

A special of crispy battered squid is everything it says on the label. A sprightly seasoned crust protecting soft triangles of squid. There are cheeks of lemon, more mayonnaise and a tangle of fresh leaves.

There's Guinness on tap and the Hix Oyster Ale for those who fancy a pint with their prawns, but for us, it's a carafe of pink wine, frosty and clean.

This is a joyfully unpretentious place. And it's one where the experience is made even more charming if the weather is fine and you can nab a seat around one of the barrels out the front and slowly pick your way through cold things from the sea.

Though, now that the weather is turning one of their beef and guinness pies, with oysters on the side for you to gently poach inside is as comforting as time on the couch with a blanket.

Though beware- it can get crowded inside, and the heat of the grill where oysters rockerfeller and razor clams dance can bring a vibrant flush to your cheek. Mind, that might be just the thing you need now that winter has wound its way back.

Wright Brothers Oyster and Porter House
11 Stoney St Map
Camberwell, UK SE1 9AD
(020) 7403 9554
Tube: London Bridge
wrightbros.eu.com/

Amaretti, fig and chocolate cheesecake

2011-10-26T00:55:00.001+11:00

I'm not the kind of lass who watches a lot of sports. And I lucked into marrying a man who's more likely to update his spreadsheet of where to get a decent espresso, than mark a motorcross event into our shared diary.
But the Rugby World Cup is a little bit different. When it rolls around, once every four years, all bets are off.

The last time it was on we watched a good slice of it on the couch at my godson's place. He was little enough then to still be wearing pyjamas with feet attached. We and his parents would watch the recorded matches them while eating roast lamb and drinking stonkingly great red wine from their cellar. Over the course of the evening The Hungry One and his best man move from discussing tactics to why George Gregan (the then Australian Captain)'s coffee stores weren't better. The wives' conversations also flitted towards the game but took occasional deviations into whether the All Blacks' Dan Carter or Richie McCaw were fitter male specimens.

This time around we're on the other side of the world. But the games have been high on the radar. Particularly since my butchers are Kiwi, so purchases of meat have also involved some discussion about Dan Carter's groin.

This time around The Hungry One and I have been watching the games in our lounge room at 9 am on weekend mornings.

Same same, but different.

This time it's us in our sleepwear (though neither of us have feet still attached to our pyjamas).We've been drinking espressos instead of red wine. And instead of getting stuck into roast lamb, we may have had amaretti and fig cheesecake for breakfast.

This is a 'same same but different' sort of cheesecake. It's got all the flavours you might expect, but it's a little different in the textural stakes.

Instead of crumbling biscuits for a base, you quickly bake one giant amaretti cookie (though the mixture also makes enough to make a small batch of cookies to pick at as well).

The amaretti carries a muted almond flavour- both from the meal in the mixture and the booze that kicks it all along. By the time you've layered on some sweetened cream cheese, sliced figs and grated chocolate the base huddles into a comforting marshmallow consistency.

It's a gentle scrum of flavours that works well as a team. It doesn't have to be topped with figs - plums or apricots would also be grand.

It certainly doesn't have to be eaten for breakfast. In fact, it would probably be at its best when consumed after a meal of roast lamb and red wine with some of your closest friends.

But as I said, the world cup only rolls around once every four years.

Which is about as often as one should start a day with a slice of chocolate topped cheesecake.

Amaretti, fig and chocolate cheesecake

Serves 4 -6 (or 2, with leftovers for the next morning)

Equipment
1 baking tray. Baking paper. Electric beaters. Spatula. Bowl.

Shopping/foraging

Amaretti cookies/ biscuit base

340g/12oz ground almonds
340g/12oz caster sugar
4 egg whites
30ml/1fl oz amaretto liquor (though you could substitute for Frangelico or even brandy)

Cheesecake and topping

300 g tub of cream cheese
1/4 cup of icing sugar
Zest and juice of half a lemon
5 figs, sliced
30 grams of dark chocolate, grated

Here's how we roll

Make the amaretti biscuit base
1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3.
2. In a large bowl beat the egg whites until firm.
3. Mix the sugar and the almonds gently into it.

4. Add the amaretto liquor and fold in gently until you have a smooth paste.

5. Place some greaseproof paper on a baking sheet.

6. Use 3/4 of the mixture to make one 20 cm diameter circle of cookie and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch.

(Use the remaining batter to make teaspoon sized cookies placed at least 3 cm apart on a baking sheet lined with baking paper). Bake them for 15- 20 minutes until golden brown.

7. To make the cheesecake filling beat together the icing sugar, cream cheese, lemon zest and lemon juice until smooth.

8. Top the cooled cookie base with the cheesecake filling, chopped figs and grate dark chocolate over the top. Allow to set in the fridge for two hours.

Coffee aioli, with artichokes and jamon

2011-10-21T04:29:00.003+11:00

Good things come from a little bit of effort.

It's a lesson easily learned. Slack off, cut corners and the result might be ok- passable even. But you won't have that shining seam of satisfaction that runs from the tip of your head right down to your second toe. That feeling only comes from putting in some hard yards.

It's elbow grease that explains why some people I know are very proud to show off this most beautiful house.

(which besides being environmentally sensitive and artful is located around the corner from the best coffee in Sydney). If anyone's in the market for a stunning house in one of the best parts of Sydney- do go and buy it.

I'm in awe of the long days and hard nights they've spent building and designing it together. It's a perfect marriage; of his skill and her taste.

It's that sort of work that calls for satisfied popping of champagne corks.

It's a long bow, but the same equation of effort in and rewards reaped applies to this starter.

All it takes is three core elements- but you can't cut corners on any of them.

Firstly; get the best jamon you can afford. Don't go crazy- some of that ham can get into the silly money stakes (acorn fed pigs not coming cheap). But the better the jamon you wrap around your grissini, the better the result.

Secondly; cook your artichoke yourself. It involves nothing more than lopping off some of the stem, hacking off a little of the top to help the leaves open up and then steaming/boiling it for 25 minutes or so in a big pot with hot water, half a lemon and a bay leaf. It's done when the leaves at the base pull away from the stem. There's something languidly satisfying about slowly demolishing your table's centrepiece; bit by bit dunking the leaves into a smokey aioli and dragging them across your lower teeth until you've harvested some sweet flesh.

And then there's the coffee aioli. You should make it yourself. Not just because mayonnaise like this tastes much better than any that you could get from a jar, but because you'll be able to give yourself a smiling pat after convincing an egg yolk that it really can swallow 125 ml of oil.

A few other notes. The garlic in the aioli needs to be freshly grated - no sad pebbles from a jar. The espresso needs to be made with love and care- because you're only going to add two tablespoons of the crema from the top.

And while this may sound like a wild combination; it works. The coffee gives a mysteriously earthy punch to the aioli. But what you can't scrimp on is the salt. A generous pinch really makes it sing and allows the coffee to dance about; masquerading as anchovies and other mysterious elements.

The only thing you shouldn't do yourself, is transfer the espresso over to the carpet where the light is best, to try and take a photo.

Because you might spill it.

Then you will try and try and try, with elbow grease and maybe a few tears to get that stain out of the cream rug. Except no amount of effort is going to do that. And there's nothing satisfying about realising that at all.

But that's a story for another day.

Luckily this combination of artichokes, aioli and jamon is perfect with cava, champagne and prosecco.

And hopefully after a few glasses of bubbles, you might stop talking about whether you'll ever get the bond for the flat back, and start congratulating yourself for making what is a a truly delicious starter.

Artichokes and jamon grissini with coffee aioli

Serves 4 as part of a sharing plate starter

Equipment
1 bowl. 1 whisk. 1 large saucepan. 1 sharp knife.

Shopping/ foraging

1 egg yolk
100 ml mild olive oil (or 50 ml of olive oil and 50 ml of vegetable oil)
3 small garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of espresso
Good pinch of salt

150 grams of good quality jamon
3 grissini per person

1 large artichoke
1 bay leaf
1/2 lemon
Hot water to cover

Here's how we roll

1. To cook the artichoke, first cut off top inch where the leaves are tightly bunched, like a bud. Also trim the stem to just an inch. If the leaves are particularly spiky, you can trim them too (or just be careful while you eat it not to stab yourself).

2. Put the artichoke in a large pot and cover 3/4 of the way up with hot water. Add the bay leaf and half the lemon. Bring the water to the boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for 25 to 45 minutes- until you can easily pull the outer leaves off.

3. Assemble the grissini by snapping them in half and wrapping strips of jamon around the broken ends.

4. Make the aioli. Place a wet tea towel under a clean bowl (this will help make the bowl more stable). Whisk the egg yolk for 30 seconds to help get some air into it.

5. Very slowly trickle a small amount of olive oil down the side of the bowl. Whisk until it is absorbed. Do this again. And again and again. Do not pour freely until you have a good, thick and glossy looking mayonnaise. If you've split the mayonnaise and it won't take the oil, don't throw out what you have. Just get a fresh bowl and crack another egg yolk into it. Now trickle the oil/egg mixture in, bit by bit. When that has turned into a mayonnaise, add the remaining oil.

5. When you're satisfied with your mayonnaise, add the garlic and coffee. Stir. Then season generously with salt. Taste. If you think it needs more, add more.

6. Eat with the grissini, jamon and artichoke leaves. Find something to celebrate.

A Saturday in our 'hood.

2011-10-18T07:36:00.001+11:00

Welcome to Saturday mornings in Borough, London.

My home, for the past year.

When we're in town, this is what a Saturday looks like.

Wake up. Check whether it's sun or sleet out the window.

Grab the canvas shopping bags, sunglasses, empty flagons, wallet, keys, spouse.

Walk down to the markets (sometimes even hand in hand). We like to go first thing in the morning. There are less people and the produce may still boast a sheen of dew.

Some mornings I have to pinch myself . To be within a five minute wander of one of the best markets in the world seems stickily wrong. Perhaps it's how those who were born with perfect teeth feel. Undeservedly blessed.
It's October and there's a slight nip in the air. This means less tourists than high summer.

It means figs and pumpkins, apples and some artichokes.

On a Saturday at the front of the markets there's a stall which serves as a warden for what we should be looking out for. Whatever is discounted here is usually what is in seasonal glut. So this morning figs it shall be. We start to plot. Perhaps a fig cheesecake with amaretti biscuits. Perhaps grilled with prosciutto and goat's curd and hazelnuts. Or maybe just left to wallow in a paper bag on the bench until they burst their skins and ooze with jam and juice.

But the real first agenda is coffee. The queue at Monmouth is bound to be frustratingly long. But the people watching is priceless.

(Read about the Monmouth experience- possibly the best coffee in London- here)

And the snaking line of caffeine desperate souls means that while The Hungry One waits, I can run and grab my breakfast.

For me it's a toasted piadina from Gastronomica ( if you head in from the back and turn right just before the man offering free samples of curry).

Filled with prosciutto, oozing cheese and the green kick of rocket, folded up into a neat hankerchief. A considered combination of squish and bite. Add a latte from Monmouth and plotting for meals for the rest of the week and it's hard not to feel satisfied.

Next task; fill up the wine for the week. This is where the flagons come into action. At Borough Wines we can refill our glass bottles for £5 a litre with highly quaffable table wine from Spain, Italy and France . First we taste from plastic thimbles. Then we choose. This week, it's going to be two litres of a spicy red with a good back twirl of tannin.

And lastly, once we've looked at the breads and cheeses, chosen our dinner (fat lamb chops from The Ginger Pig with bloated Spanish white beans from Brindisa roasted with garlic, green olives and cherry tomatoes), tasted the salamis and spiced nuts, and debated the merits of goat's milk ice cream at 10 am, it's time to find breakfast for The Hungry One.

I can never truly pick what my husband will be drawn to. Some days he can't make it past the chorizo rolls. Others it's relative restraint of a pan e chocolat. But this Saturday he heads straight to the raclette.

In the shadow of Southwark Cathedral there are two hulking curves of cheese, bubbling and burnished. The molten cheese then gets scraped onto potatoes with pickles. The only thing more extreme than the raclette is the toasted cheese sandwich.

It's two slices of Polaine bread and a foolish amount of Montgomery Cheddar. The sandwiches are stacked in the glass display container like the bricks they will become in your gut. Once they've been half toasted they're gilded with onion, leek and garlic for extra bite.

It's a glorious oozy mess. It's a grand way to start a weekend. From here we'll buy the papers, or wander up to the Tate. We might walk to Jose for a late lunch. Or sit by the Thames and watch the river boats float past.

I've read that a home is where you leave part of your heart.

And with each week this place is feeling more and more like ours.

Even if the part of our heart we're leaving here is merely arteries that are blocked by dribbling streams of cheddar.

Borough Markets
London Bridge, London

Chicken soup (with chicken crackling)

2011-10-17T04:49:00.000+11:00

Some nights you just need a bowl of chicken soup.

Not because you're particularly poorly. Not because you've got a gaping whole in your soul that can only be cosseted by poultry fat.

You might have got a parking ticket. You might have accidentally sent a reply all email with something unflattering in it - and clenching your fingers into claws, sniffing through your nose and making a face like you've got stomach cramps isn't making it any better.

You might be hating yourself for watching any of 'Kim's Fairytale Wedding', when you could have been improving yourself. Or you might just be feeling a little - stuck.

Whatever paltry reason, chicken soup is a good thing when you're faltering.

For one it's easy. For two, it looks like you're taking care of yourself. For three; it's an excellent carriage for other well meaning tag alongs; whether snap peas or bits of green (broccoli, peas, asparagus, I'm all looking at you). And for four; it gives you an excuse to make crispy chicken skin crackling as a croutons.

This isn't a thin, clear inspid soup. It's more of a veloute; a blonde roux of muddled butter and flour that gets whisked with chicken stock until it's got a bit more padding. You then gently poach the chicken in the same pot and throw in your greens at the end.

A swirl of pesto over the top helps make it a bit more interesting. Pesto and chicken may not belong together on a pizza, but in a bowl of soup they get along quite well.

When it comes to the crunch you could make a piece of toast. You could make croutons. Or you could take the two pieces of chicken skin that you skimmed off the chicken flesh -in the same way you peel wax from your shins. Stretch them out in a fry pan, sprinkle liberally with sea salt and turn up the heat until they pucker and crunch. Dry the crispy skin on paper towel before floating on the top of a soup.

This is a meal that helps things shift. It helps bring new perspective; not only on how great chicken skin is, but on life. Particularly if you're like me and burn the shizzle out of my index finger on steam when you add too-hot-stock to the roux (steam burns hotter than pans).

But at least a sore finger gave me something else to focus on rather than self indulgent twaddle that was taking up the rest of my head.

Chicken soup with chicken skin croutons

Equipment
1 fry pan (to fry the chicken skin) 1 saucepan. 1 whisk.

Serves 2

Shopping/ foraging

1 chicken breast, cut into thin strips
2 chicken thighs, cut into thin strips
2 pieces of chicken skin (seperated from either the breast or the thigh)
1.5 tablespoon butter
1 cup of sugar snap peas
1.5 tablespoons of plain flour
2 cups of good quality chicken stock (home made is best, but otherwise from a carton. I wouldn't try with a stock cube- it won't taste the same)
2 tablespoons of pesto (blend toasted pine nuts, basil and parmesan cheese with olive oil and some salt- or take from a jar)
Salt and pepper (don't be shy with either)

Here's how we roll

1) Melt the butter in a saucepan. Sift in the flour and stir over a low- medium heat for 5-10 minutes until it has turned a light fawn colour and joined into a ball.

2) Heat the chicken stock in the frypan or in a microwave. Pour the chicken stock into the saucepan (careful, the steam can burn).

3) Whisk the roux and the chicken stock over a low- medium heat until all you have a smooth texture. If you're really in trouble and you can't get the lumps out then you can pass it through a sieve.

4) Start making your chicken skin croutons. Dry the skin with paper towel and then stretch it out in a frypan. Sprinkle with salt.

Turn up the heat to high and let it crisp on one side, then turn to the other. When it is crisp, dry on paper towel.

5) Add the chicken pieces to your soup and keep the heat on a low simmer (don't boil) and allow the chicken to poach for 5-7 minutes until cooked through. Then add the snap peas or the other greens. Put a lid on for 2 minutes. Taste and season generously with salt and pepper.

6) Serve the soup in bowls with a teaspoon of pesto in the centre and the chicken skin croutons.

Tutti frutti clafouti

2011-10-14T03:51:00.000+11:00

Is there a difference between the food boys and girls are drawn to?

(Perhaps we can leave an interrogation about the perils of essentialising gender identities to the end.)

It's a notion that gets bandied around this house quite a bit.

“That’s girl food” is the retort that comes from The Hungry One. It’s usually accompanied by a mildly dismissive sniff. It’s usually when I’m spruiking the merits of tart berries, stone fruit, yogurt or beetroot. And it’s not because of their pinkish hues.

I think it’s something to do with their cheerful tang. It’s the same sort of freshness you get from a good gossip with a friend. Light, but with some tart barbs for entertainment value.

Turns out The Hungry One’s theory isn’t far off. In 2007 a US survey by the Foodborne Disease Active Surveillance Network included some investigation on gendered eating habits. Five per cent more women than men will regularly turn to things like red berries and nuts. Women were also more likely to eat eggs and yogurt. (Shiferaw B, Verrill L, Booth H, Zansky SM, Norton DM, Crim S, Henao OL. Are there gender differences in food consumption? [Abstract]. In: Programs and Abstracts of the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, Atlanta, GA, March 2008)

Those results may help explain why I made this clafouti twice in two days.

A clafouti’s genus lies somewhere between a pancake and a puffed fruit pudding. It’s a French dessert that's classically made with cherries, still carrying their pits. The pits then gift an almond twinge to the batter.

Prizing my dental work, and knowing I had flaked almonds in the cupboard I substituted plums, leaving their frayed stones in a neat pile to one side.

The plum clafouti found a happy audience in me and a bride to be. I’d love to break gender stereotypes and say we drank beer and cheered at a rugby match, but instead we sipped pink wine and watched Tamara Drewe.

We ate the clafouti with vanilla ice cream that puddled and pooled in its airy crevices. The next morning I offered the leftovers to The Hungry One for breakfast. He declined. His loss was my gain. Even cold, with a pile of berries and a slush of yogurt, it was perfect.

Suffice to say, I’ve fallen for this pudding, and hard.

The night before we decided the only thing that could be improved was the name. The potential rhyming novelty of a ‘Tutti fruitti clafouti’ was too good to pass up.

So the second time I made it I reached for a wider bounty. Soon nectarines and cherries, peaches and plums all cuddling together, dotted with butter and dusted with sugar.

It was just as good, if not better. No matter how you feel about fruit-based desserts, a puffed pudding straight from the oven is hard to walk away from. The Hungry One ate half of it before inquiring what it was.

When I told him its name, he raised an eyebrow and sniffed.

“You’d have to be pretty confident in your manhood to order that” he said.

Luckily he is. Which helps explains why we now make it about once a week.

Tutti Frutti Clafouti

Adapted from Stevie Parle's Cherry Clafoutis in the lovely 'My Kitchen, Real Food from Near and Far'

This is an easy dessert to pull together for a small group. It would also be lovely as part of a brunch . It’s best hot, but there’s no reason at all why you can’t eat the leftovers cold, with plenty of yogurt.

Equipment
One 20 cm non stick fry pan, that can go in the oven. 1 mixing bowl. 1 whisk.

Shopping/foraging
80 grams/ 2 1/4 ounces of wholemeal plain flour (you can use normal, but I prefer the nutty flavour of wholemeal)
200 ml of milk
2 beaten large eggs
4 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp unsalted butter
500 grams/ 1.1 pounds of a mixture of stone fruit- plums, peaches, nectarines apricots, cherries
1 handful of flaked almonds

Here's how we roll

1) Preheat oven to 200 C/ 400 F.

2) Whisk the flour and sugar into the milk and beaten eggs until you have a smooth batter.

3) Slice the fruit into half moons or chunks if they're large peaches or nectarines. Place in the non stick fry pan and dot with butter and scatter half the sugar over the top. Bake for 10 minutes.

4) Pour the batter over the top of the fruit. Scatter almonds over the top. Bake for 20 minutes.

5) Eat warm, with ice cream. Or cold, for breakfast, with yogurt.

Eating through Prague

2011-10-12T18:31:00.002+11:00

There are beautiful things in Prague. Castles. Bridges. The old town. The astronomical clock. Funny how not that many people mention the food.

I’ll say it upfront. Not everything we ate in Prague was great. There was a good portion of stodge and some squeamish slabs of salted meats during our time there. There were knuckles of pork where the fat and cartilage wrinkled like flight support stockings. There was fried cheese and other courses which called heartily for the digestive qualities of plum brandy. On the flight on the way home I napped- and was visited by visions of twirling green vegetables.

But here it is, in a nutshell. One full day of good eating in Prague (we whittled it down from three to find one). It can be done.

Please, benefit from our experience. And if you find other winning spots, report back. Nobody else needs to spend their holiday eating a pork schnitzel with chest hairs stuck through it.

Breakfast:

Bakeshop

On a wide corner of the old town, near the Jewish quarter and about six minutes stroll away from the Town Square is the Bakeshop. There are gluttonous displays of pastries, fresh baked muffins, cookies and bagels. At lunch there are bowls of fresh salads and dips to choose from. The window is filled with celebratory cakes. It's not the cheapest place in town, but it's well priced compared to London bakeries (Ottolenghi, I'm looking at you). The staff are largely cheerful and there are spots to sit in the window. The coffee isn't bad.

My advice; go to the juice cabinet and fetch a portion of of their natural yogurt studded with cherries, with a separate canister of granola for a cap. Eat the yogurt. Then share a few rugelach. When the rest of your day is going to consist of meat and starches, it’s not a bad way to start.

Bakeshop
Kozí 918/1
110 00 Prague 1-Old Town, Czech Republic
222 316 823

Lunch (or dinner):

Kolkovna

Not far from breakfast, not far from the centre of the old town and not far from the action. Kolkovna is what you imagined a Czech dining experience to be when you first plotted your trip. The inside is gilded with artefacts from beer brewing, capturing the history of Pilsner Urquell (the most popular of Czech beers). There are tall tables and stools by the window where you can nurse a beer, or a glass of local pink wine. If you're in the mood for something heartier, it's worth heading to the restaurant downstairs, the benefit of it being; it's a non smoking area.

You'll find most of the Czech classics on the menu; from pork knuckle, through to 1/2 roast duck, served with bread dumplings and potato dumplings, white and red sauerkraut.

For just under 300 KC (around £10) you'll get half a duck and sides. It could happily feed two. The cabbage is nicely piquant, the skin of the duck spotted with fennel seeds and the dumplings a comforting muddle of heft and lift. The pitcher of clarified butter may have been extraneous.

We had no troubles walking in without a reservation. Though walking out after consuming that quantity of food, proved more of a challenge.

Kolkovna
V Kolkovně 8, 110 00 Praha 1-Staré Město
Prague
224 819 701
Open every day from 11:00 to 24:00.

Sunset drink:

U Prince Hotel, terrace.

If you've walked up to the castle and across the Charles Bridge and you're hankering for somewhere to sit, watch the sunset and have a tipple before dinner, this is where you want to go.

The U Prince Hotel is on the Old Town Square. Go inside and turn right, go up in the lift and you'll come out at the Terrace bar.

From here there's a view of the skyline, the square, the castles and the clock. There are outdoor heaters and blankets if the weather is nippy and awnings to protect from the elements. The food seems pricey for the quality, but it's a grand spot for a drink. There are speakers hidden in the stone borders of the bar and the music (of the easy listening variety).

For a true Prague experience try a cocktail that mixes Becherovka and tonic. Becherovka is a local herbal bitters mixing anise,cinnamon, and 32 other herbs. It has a faint echo of Christmas to it.

Hotel U Prince
Old Town Square 29
Praha 1, 110 00

Dinner:

Cestr

Cestr is both the name of the restaurant and the abbreviation for the black and white breed of cows historically bred by Czechs. Beef is celebrated here; from the overlarge prints on the wall of butchery cuts, to the hanging room where the beef is being dry aged, through to the jug in the shape of a cow which will dispense the milk for your macchiato

It’s an open space of a restaurant, with large windows and blonde wood furnishings. Tucked near the Museum station, it proved trickier to find than anticipated.

Once we were in, we were glad. Cestr belongs to the same breed as St John in London or Matbaren in Stockholm.

It’s good food, polished service, but without the fuss. There’s no problem walking in from the cold wearing boots and jeans. On the Saturday night we arrived there was a relatively mild bucks part of nine gentlemen behind us. There was a toddler gnawing on steak at the table to the side. In front, on the foor, was someone’s sleeping dog.

We opt for the three course menu for CK 548 (around £20), which includes a starter, main, and a portion of grams of your chosen style of with a sauce, side dishes. It also includes an appetiser that sets the tone for the meal; It’s soldiers of bread, topped with thick butter, slices of radish and salt. Both rustic, and refined.

Other winning dishes were a starter of Talián; home made beef and pork sausages, boiled in beef broth with a horseradish cream. The sausage has chew and heft, but the broth and the cream are ethereally light.

Our other entree of aged cheese from Olomouc, fried with bacon and homemade mayonnaise may looked like dainty crescents, but they'll sit in your stomach like only fried cheese can.

Then we move to a goulash style presentation of beef neck, cut with a sauce of peppers and a hearty thwack of sour cream.

Both mains and the subsequent steaks come with sides; copper pots of mashed potato (which could have done with a touch more seasoning) and potato dumplings- small hugs of warm starch.

Portions of steak are restrained; as they should be, coming at the close of two other courses. A 125 gram serving of one of eight different cuts of beef allow you taste and appreciate the meat, without groaning from the heft.

Frites and a leaf salad are solid choices for sides, and while there’s plenty of beer to be drunk the wine list traverses across all of Europe. We elect to stay local and a Moravian red is gutsily tannic and brings enough berry fruit to contrast such a meat heavy menu.

And then there's dessert. Make sure you save some room, because the beer ice cream with slivers of plum and malted crumble is something you probably don’t want to miss.

Cestr
Legerova 75/57, 110 00 Praha 1
+420 222 727 851
e-mail: cestr@ambi.cz

The best meatball sandwich

2011-10-10T21:37:00.002+11:00

I believe this is potentially the best sandwich in the world.

(Read more about why on The Huffington Post here)

The inspiration for it comes from Sonoma, in Sydney.

It holds meatballs - plump like a cherub’s cheek. They’re a mix of ground pork and veal, fluffed with ricotta and cheerfully studded with pine nuts and toasted fennel seeds. These are married with a chunky tomato sauce. Bedding down with them both is a blanket of provolone and the peppery kick of rocket.

But what this sandwich really needs is some proper bread to hold it all together.

If you're in Sydney, that's easy. Get hold of some of Sonoma's miche. Or better yet, get along to one of their cafe's and have the real thing- they also conveniently make some of the best coffees in Sydney.

But if you're on the other side of the world and just craving a stellar sandwich- (or some great meatballs) then this isn't a bad way to go. Just make sure you get hold of the best sourdough bread you can find and don't be shy about the cheese.

But to really get the full experience you need to make your way to Sydney, be served with a friendly smile and plot a day that includes a walk near a big body of water

(and potentially have one of their brownies for dessert).

Meatball Sourdough Sandwich

Makes 4 sandwiches

Equipment
1 roasting tin, 1 mixing bowl, 1 fry pan, 1 sandwich toaster

Shopping/ foraging

Meatballs

2/3 pound (300 g) ground pork
2/3 pound (300 grams) ground veal
2/3 cup ricotta cheese, drained
3 tablespoons tablespoons of toasted pine nuts
1 teaspoon dried oregano,
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, toasted and ground
½ teaspoon of ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of pepper

Tomato Sauce
Two 14 ounce/ 400 gram tins of peeled tomatoes, crushed
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 teaspoons of sugar
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon of ground oregano

Rest of sandwich
8 slices of Provolone cheese (2 per sandwich)
2 large handfuls of arugula/ rocket
8 slices of the best sourdough you can get your hands on.

Here's how we roll

1. Preheat the oven to 400°/ 200c. Toast the pine nuts and the fennel seeds in a dry fry pan until brown and nutty.

2. Mix the pork, veal, ricotta, , oregano, fennel seeds, pine nuts, salt and pepper. Mix well.

3. Shape into meatballs, using about 1-2 teaspoons of the mixture for each. Transfer the meatballs to an oiled roasting pan (you may need two- I had to- below contains just half the mixture).

3. Roast the meatballs in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, or brown and firm.

4. Make the tomato sauce. Gently sauté the crushed garlic in olive oil. Add the tomatoes, bay leaf, sugar, salt and oregano. Cook in a pan on a high heat for 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaf.

5. Add the warm tomato sauce to the meatballs.

6. Assemble the sandwiches. Layer the cheese against the bottom slice of bread, then add meatballs, sauce, rocket/arugula and the top slice of bread. Toast in a sandwich toaster until the bread is crisp and the cheese is oozing.

For other 'best of' in the world, consider;

Is the best hot dog in the world in Iceland?

Is this the best high tea in London?

Are these the best pancakes in Amsterdam?

For more 'best of' both at home and away you can subscribe to Eat-Tori and have it delivered to your inbox, or like us on Facebook, here.

Ducksoup - Soho

2011-10-08T01:40:00.002+11:00

Like Surry Hills in Sydney, or the Lower East Side in NYC; if you’re bouncing about London’s Soho, you won't be hurting for good places to eat.

In the past if you were in the mood for a 'no booking, roll up, have a glass of wine and nibble on some charcuterie and small plates'; then you had the nearby options of Fernandez and Wells, Foxcroft and Ginger, and Spuntino to sort through. Now the casual small plates/winebar Ducksoup has joined the throng of eating spots on Dean Street. It nudges up next to the solid Vietnamese spot; Cay Tre. It bats its eyes at the comfort classics (and prickly prices) of the Dean Street Townhouse - and further along the street you can find the all you can eat cheese room at Bistro du Vin.

Like a shy guest at a party there’s currently little signage to advertise its presence. Inside there’s a long bar boasting a large bowl of chilled wines bottles of wine and a half carved jamon. There are small tables hugging up against the wall, or one out the front on the street that can seat up to six.

Here are some things to like about it.

It’s the product of chef Julian Biggs, with Clare Lattin and Rory McCoy. All three have worked with Mark Hix. When it comes to good produce, minimally mucked about with, they know their stuff.

To drink there's Vedett, a Belgian lager on tap- and the beer by the bottle is a 'Fucking Hell' pilsner. Cue an embarrassed flush if you're ordering that in front of your Nan. But if she hasn't joined the party, or has a sharp tongue, then go right ahead. Live large. Get two.

The wine list is written up on white tiles, both by the bottle and the glass (a naturally sparkling Loire rosé de sable proves perfect for a freakish 28 degree Saturday). Come winter, it would be very easy to tuck in with a bottle of gutsy red and watch the crowds stream past.

On to food. The menu changes daily and for the moment is hand written on paper.

Bar nibbles will set you back around £3.50, starters are £7 and mains at £14.

Tomatoes with bread (£3.50) wasn't actually the Spanish tomato puree on griddled bread we expected- instead it's more stew like in consistency, a slurry of bread sopped in fresh tomato puree.

It's comforting, but not the most elegant thing to eat or share.

Saucisson sec is a good accompaniment, with muted spices and solid speckles of fat. Bellota ham (£16 for a plate) is a generous portion of meaty shards to rake your teeth across and chase after sweet threads of fat.

After those we order a slab of artery clogging brilliance in brillat savarin (£4.50) coupled with girolles. This is another dish that surprises. Rather than coming oozing and melted on bread, the mushrooms are cold and zesty with acidity. It's an interesting pairing that plays nicely when smeared on rustic hunks of bread.

Some dishes prove a little unwieldy to eat. A frito misto (£14) of artichokes, sea bass, scallops and lemon has a light and gentle crust and a thick splodge of saffron infused aioli.

There's a lot of unwrapping required to get to the meaty palatable bits of the artichoke. And while the scallops are sweetly cooked to perfection, the sea bass lost some of its structural integrity in the frying. It slips out of its case when raised to your mouth, causing a cascading dribble of fish flesh.

Here are some more things I like about Ducksoup. They serve wine in proper glasses, rather than shabby tumblers, which make me feel like someone who can't be trusted at the party with proper glassware.

And there's their BYO vinyl policy. By the door there are turntables and a collection which includes both Nina Simone and vintage Fleetwood Mac.

A glass of sparkling pink, cured meat and nostalgic tunes... all in all; a solid addition to an area where you're already spoiled for choice.

But who ever said they didn't like to be spoiled?

Ducksoup
(020) 7287 4599
40-41 Dean Street, Soho
London, Gre W1D 4
ducksoupsoho.co.uk
Open Noon-10.30pm Monday-Saturday. 1-6pm Sunday

An apple for Steve

2011-10-06T22:14:00.003+11:00

Today seems as good as any day to make this cake again.

It's funny. Of course I never knew Steve Jobs, but I do remember the gum bearing grin I wore when Dad showed us our first Macintosh computer. It was squat and square, yet had the same sort of impish quality as my favoured R2D2.

Dad and I would stay up late, playing Tetris against each other.

So many of my milestones took place over pieces of hardware. Essays toiled over, connections made. Unlike some friends, I wasn't proposed to over a powerpoint presentation, but these days my iPhone is the thing that links me to the people I love the most. It's where I take my photos for this blog. And I feel ok about it being the first thing I look at in the morning (mainly because the screensaver is a picture of the spouse still sleeping soundly beside me).

So today, I'm thinking about Steve and his family. And I guess this is one small way of saying thank you for dreaming so large.

(even if The Hungry One is more of PC man).

#appleforsteve

Favourite Apple Cake

Equipment
1 circular cake tin. Baking paper to line it. 1 mixing bowl. 1 vegetable peeler. 1 knife.

Shopping/foraging

225g (or 8 ounces) cooking apples- peeled , cored and chopped
225g (or 8 ounces) plain flour
1 and a half tsp baking powder
115g (or 4 ounces) butter diced
165g (or 5.8 ounces) raw or demerara sugar
1 egg beaten
2-3tbsp milk
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Creme fraiche or double cream to serve (optional)

Here's how we roll

1. Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius. Grease and line a 7inch round cake tin.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder together. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mix resembles breadcrumbs.

3. Peel, core and cut the apple into rough chunks.

4. Stir 115g of the sugar, three quarters of the apple and the egg into the flour and butter mixture. Mix well, adding a little of the milk at a time to make a soft doughy mix.

5. Transfer the mix into your tin.

6. Decorate the top of the cake with the remaining pieces of apple. Sprinkle the top of them with the remaining sugar and cinnamon.

7. Bake for 45-50mins.

8. Leave to cool in the tin for 10minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

9. Serve warm with creme fraiche or double cream. Or cool and take to a picnic in a park somewhere

Devils on horseback

2011-10-03T21:05:00.000+11:00

I’ve got lost, circa 1977.

I’ve become mislaid in a moment that I know just bits about.

It’s before I was even a twinkle in my father’s eye. It’s before my sister was born. Before The Empire Strikes Back.

I think it’s about then that devils on horseback had their hay day.

These days it’s a phrase just as likely to convey deadly deviants in Darfur (it's what Janjaweed directly translates to).

But as much as my Mum might like me to return to the days when I spent my time musing about intricacies of international politics (yes, I really was once National Vice President of the United Nations Youth Association in Australia - possibly one of the geekiest things around), right now I’m talking about food; more specifically; prunes, wrapped in bacon.

There’s some speculation about where the dark title for this salty sweet bite comes from.

Some suggest it stems from Cornwall, where at the turn of the first century Norman raiders would protect themselves with rashers of bacon. It made for grotesque suits of armour that would frighten villagers (and once the spot was appropriately sacked, the bacon could conveniently be cooked for tea).

Somehow wrapping in bacon became known as being on horseback. Hence oysters wrapped in salted pig became angels on horseback and their surlier (yet much sweeter) cousins on the hors deoveurs platters became devils. Prunes were stuffed with mango chutney before wrapped in streaky bacon and grilled. Sometimes people went rogue with the richness and added stilton cheese to the prune's bellies (gilding a lily if ever I’ve heard it). They were traditionally served as snacks with drinks, probably at cocktail parties where people weren't quite sure what to do with their car keys.

I invited them around on a midweek night. I stuffed some soft prunes with smoked and salted almonds and wrapped them in the best streaky bacon my money could buy (from my lovely Kiwi butcher Scot, down at The Ginger Pig).

I grilled them and let their aggressive two-step of salt plus sweet dance with a plate of pork medallions and a puddle of carrot puree. A few coriander leaves gave a nod to the spicing of the mango chutney- and a few drops of Pedro Ximenez vinegar pulled the sweetness back from a sticky edge.

Devils on horseback might be reserved as a dish that ironic nod and a wink to the past- like fondue pots or taking one too many nips of cooking sherry while making a celebratory trifle.

But just how the strains of Simon meld with Garfunkel, or the way flares balance out a wider derrière, some good things remain good, no matter when they’re served.

I think it's time these sweet devils were brought back.

Are you with me?

Devils on horseback (with spiced carrot and pork medallions)

Serves 2

Equipment
8 toothpicks (or, if like me, you haven’t got toothpicks, use long matches, but be sure to lop off the flammable end). 1 fry pan. 1 baking tray. 1 stick blender for the carrot puree. 1 mandolin or grater.

Shopping/ foraging

8 large prunes, pitted (if the prunes are unyielding, soak them in sherry or tepid water for 30 minutes before constructing)
4 slices of the best quality streaky smoked bacon you can buy, halved horizontally.
8 smoked almonds, or 8 almonds, toasted
Drizzle of Pedro Ximenex vinegar or Sherry Vinegar

Pork medallions and carrot puree
300 grams of pork fillet, sliced into medallions
3 large carrots, grated
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 heaped teaspoon of ground cumin
1/2 cup of orange juice
1 handful of coriander leaves

Here’s how we roll

1. Preheat oven to 200 C or 400 degrees F . Place the toothpicks in a small bowl filled with water; let soak for 5-10 minutes.

2. Prep the prunes. Halve prunes lengthwise being careful not to cut all the way through. Take out their seeds. Place an almond in their bellies. Wrap a piece of bacon around each. Secure bacon with a toothpick.

3. Make the carrot puree. Sautee the onion in a tablespoon of olive oil until translucent. Add the grated carrot, cumin and sautee for 5 minutes. Add the orange juice and put a lid on, allowing the carrot to cook through for 5 more minutes. Check the seasoning, add a little salt and blitz with a stick blender.

3. Cook the pork and the prunes. Season and brown the pork medallions in a fry pan. If the fry pan can go in the oven, add the bacon prunes around the edges of the pan and transfer to the oven. Otherwise transfer both the prunes and the pork to a baking dish and bake for 15-20 minutes. You want the pork to still be slightly pink in the centre and the bacon to be cooked through.

4. Plate up. Dot coriander leaves around the plate. Put the warm carrot puree in the centre of the plate. Add the cooked pork and the pigs in blankets around the edge. Drizzle with Pedro Ximenex or sherry vinegar (or balsamic if you have neither).

Brawn

2011-09-30T19:46:00.000+10:00

At first, I thought it was the company.

I was having such a lovely time- perhaps one of the loveliest- it had to be about the company.

There I was on Columbia Road in East London, a late summer's evening, with sunlight slanting through broad windows. Flanking me were three spectacular male specimens. One, I'm lucky enough to be married to. The other two have become surrogate family in London.

Seven years ago one of them lived with my sister when she had her turn over here. Three years ago, they both flew to Sydney to help capture our wedding. Since then they helped convince us to move to London. They've been ready participants in Oscars festivals and helped us ski over borders. They're equal parts brilliant and dashing.

In fact they're so dashing that I spend more time getting ready for an engagement with them than for date-night with The Hungry One ( I think this hurts his feelings a little, but he copes).

But there's another reason I was having a lovely time.

It's because of the food.

Brawn is the cousin of one of my favoured spots in London; Terroir. It has been my go to for carafes of natural wine, platters of charcuterie and catch ups.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like Brawn any better. I was wrong.

Whereas downstairs at Terroir can feel somewhat claustrophobic, sealed off from the surrounds of Charring Cross, here at Brawn you're at one with the hubbub of Columbia Road (and even more so on a Sunday, when the flower markets are in full swing).

There are still lovely natural wines by the glass, carafe and bottle. And if you're The Hungry One, there are also champagne sized bottles of Normandy cider, made with more than twenty different types of apple.

This is food for sharing across a table, with many hands battling for the lion's share of the good stuff. Luckily there's lots of it.

The menu is seasonally inspired and divided into the novelty categories of Taste Ticklers, Pig, Cold, Hot, Puddings and Cheese.

You don't want to miss the quail's eggs (£4), soft cooked so the Van Gogh yellow centres dash across your fingertips. Dip them in celery salt and be grateful that someone else has spent the time to shell them for you.

If the season is right there are chunky slabs of heirloom tomatoes; it's a colour wheel yellow, green, red and orange all come out to play.

There are orbs of burrata- solid around the outside and flooding a plate with cream from the centre. Some punchy olive oil and a shower of lemon zest make the stretch mass of dairy dance in your mouth.

Much of what is grand about Brawn arrives on or with bread. Rustically chopped Tuscan beef may hail from Italy, but the presentation is French. Transferred onto toast it's the most manly serving of steak tartare I've found.

Then there's the stupendously great field mushrooms, baked with bone marrow and topped with an Oysters Rockerfeller esque green moss of parsley and Alsace Bacon (£7). The marrow makes the mushrooms meatier, the bacon adds extra punch. It's a cracker of a dish that jumps with a robust glass of red (though it would also make exceptional hangover fodder).

Then there's the charcuterie selection. Made in house it's a quenelle of pork rillettes, melding threads of meat with a blanket of soft fat. There's a thick and rustic terrine, thin slips of salumi and a pot of cornichons for piquancy. All that for £12, with almost bottomless basket of bread. It's great value.

The only failure of a dish I've had there was a serving of snails, bacon and garlic, which under the tendrils of frisee lettuce were over seasoned to the point of unpleasant saltiness.

Chocolate mousse is my pick of the desserts that filled our table, as dark and sexy as a smirk from Clark Gable.

We had such a lovely time that The Hungry One and I returned to Brawn on our first weekend back in London. We were trying to console ourselves that even though we were thousands of miles away from our family, it was ok to be back in Blighty.

And who should walk in- but one of our boys. We smiled and chastised each other for cheating on each other with Brawn. But we could hardly blame each other for trying to replicate the good times.

Sometimes beautiful nights come from the boys you're with. Sometimes it's comes from what's on the plate. And sometimes, you can be lucky enough to have both.

If you haven't got enough good brawn in your life- this is your chance to change it.

Brawn
(020) 7729 5692

Bethnal Green
49 Columbia Road
London, E2 7

A good egg, greens and and a salsa with a kick

2011-09-28T19:44:00.002+10:00

This is about my need for green.

The last few weeks have included some capital 'I' indulgences.

So when my body starts muttering about broccoli, I have the sense to know it's time to listen.

The muttering comes from the voice of reason inside. It has its own barometer. At the moment it's whispering; 'walk away from the quesadillas; made at 3 am while one hand is clutching a Campari and the other is hunting over your shoulder for the wayward strap of your bridesmaid dress'.

'Walk away from lunches of crispy pig's ears, crumbed quail's eggs and tarragon mayonnaise, wagyu burgers and parmesan and truffle fries'.

'Walk away from the treats- and yes I know it was lovely on the flight home when lost in the international date line and watching back to back episodes of 'The Kennedys' over the Mongolian desert the stewardess brought you a Snickers bar- but that time has now come to a close.

The voice has spoken. It's soft but insistent- like a sweet piano instructor you're a little bit terrified of.

So this week if I'm going to be eating nuts, they're not going to be coated in caramel and chocolate (no matter how much that really satisfies). They're going to give my body a kick along with some chilli and greens. The same goes for eggs. And yes, I think can have a perfectly set outside and runny yolk without the need for a deep fried crust (those crumbed eggs with tarragon mayonnaise really were terribly good).

This is how this meal was born. And I think it's a keeper.

The vegetables at the base are interchangeable- green is good, but a medley of chickpeas and corn sautéed with some lemon zest and olive oil are also pleasant guests at the party. But what makes it come alive is this salsa.

I've read in a few vegan blogs about using blitzed cashews as a mock cream. They give body without bloated bulk. So a handful of their blonde curved bodies went into the little blender with some basil, mint and garlic for a light trill. For the chilli hit my body needed, I turned to the big red bottle of Sriracha.

Sriracha is sometimes a dirty word in our house.

It's a Thai hot sauce made of chilli, vinegar, garlic, sugar and salt. It brings a good slap of piquancy and heat. It's great on Asian seafood. It's fun on trashy diner food. And it's good for waking up any dishes that are shy or flailing.

So you can understand that when The Hungry One pulls it out and starts squirting it over dinners that weren't designed for it; well- let's just say that sometimes feelings can get hurt.

But here it was just the thing I wanted.

The eggs were perfectly nursery soft- solid whites with yolks oozing like sordid memories from a boozy night.

On the plate there were some fresh herbs for life and toasted almonds for crunch.

But mostly it was about the greens and the chilli. It was simple, clean and sprightly.

After eating it, for a time, I felt much more like me.

It's a good egg of a dish.

Eggs with broccolini, and a mint, cashew, and Sriracha salsa

Serves 2

Equipment
1 small blender. 1 fry pan. 1 bowl filled with iced water (for the eggs). 1 saucepan.

Shopping/ foraging

For the salsa
20 mint leaves
15 basil leaves
3/4 cup of cashews
1- 2 teaspoons of Sriracha chilli sauce (depending on how much kick you like)
1-2 cloves of garlic (depending on how much grunt you want)
3 tablespoons of water
1 tablespoon of olive oil
pinch of salt

For the salad
7 broccolini stems per person (you can also add fresh corn, chickpeas, peas or any other type of vegetable)
Zest of a quarter of a lemon
One or two eggs per person
One teaspoon of baking powder (to add to the water you cook the eggs in)
A few extra basil and mint leaves.
A handful of toasted almond flakes

Here's how we roll

1. Add your eggs to a saucepan half filled with boiling water and a teaspoon of baking powder. The baking powder helps alter the pH so the whites shirk away from the shells once they've cooked, making them easier to shell. Boil them for 5 minutes and 10 seconds (This is David Chang's timing- the man knows what he's talking about). Then plunge them into a bowl full of iced water. Leave them there to cool. Then crack the shells gently against a table and shell them under a small trickle of running water (you can do this ahead of time and then gently warm them in warm water later if you want).

2. Make the salsa. Add the cashews, mint, basil, olive oil, garlic and water into a small blender. Blitz until smooth.

3. Sauté your vegetables until just cooked in a few drops of olive oil and the zest of a quarter of a lemon. You can add a tablespoon or two of the salsa at this point if you want to coat your vegetables.

4. Assemble your salad, adding a few extra mint and basil leaves, a tablespoon of toasted almond flakes and a few extra drops of Sriracha sauce around the plate. Place some of the salsa around and over the vegetables. Leave the eggs for people to puncture themselves. Watching the yolk run out over the plate is half the fun.

Don Campos - the best coffee in Sydney?

2011-09-27T21:54:00.000+10:00

Anointing a best coffee in Sydney is like choosing a favoured friend. In truth, I’m mighty fond of most.

That’s one of the greatest selling points about my birth city. You’ve got as good a chance of getting a decent cup of caffeine as you do getting a smile if you trip over your shoelaces (the Australian sense of humour can be a little dark).

But if I had to choose a superior specimen; this is it.

Don Campos is the Sydney headquarters of Campos. Campos make serious coffee.

The brainchild of Will Young, originating in in a Newtown warehouse in 2002, Campos provide beans to a carefully curated (and ever growing) list of Sydney cafes. There’s even an app these days which can tell you how close you are to something to sip from one of their pea green cups.

In 2006 the New York times posed that a visit to Campos was worth the 22-hour flight from New York alone. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a cup of joe; particularly when you’re hard pressed to twirl in the small space of their Newtown store. These days they’ve got a big shiny new headquarters in Alexandria.

Here are some reasons why I love Don Campos.

It’s not just because it’s around the corner from my sister’s house, and after a morning helping shuffle three under four out the door I would probably suck caffeine from a muddy foot print if it helped me move a little faster.

It’s not only because one morning I walked in wearing a track suit and promptly dropped my take away flat white on the floor outside while trying to answer my phone and take a sip at the same time. When I returned to order another, the kindly staff refused to let me pay. “It looks like your day is crummy enough already” they joked.

Lesson learned not to take coffee away. At the Alexandria outpost of Campos there’s plenty of room to sit, both inside and out. Inside they’re the sole occupants in an cordoned off section of an airy warehouse complex. Outside there are stools and small tables that catch the sun (and space for local cyclists to park their carbon fiber pride and joys).

Unlike Newtown, in Alexandria there’s room to park a car (even if it’s just sneakily in the open air carpark of the Dan Murphys liquor mart across the street).

Their baristas are stampingly good, communicating to each other in a sly sign language of cup position and teaspoon arrangements what kind of coffee is up next. Here they’re working on a shiny Slayer espresso machine. And Campos’ commitment to sourcing quality green beans and nurturing them all the way from the roast to the grind is pretty much second to none.

There are daily made muffins, danishes and macarons. There are daily blends of beans. There are flat whites, macchiatos; your choice of milk (with bonsoy for soy), affogatos and even their signature ‘sparkling long black’ – combining sparkling water with a long black.

So go. Go often. And let me get a taste of the good stuff vicariously through you.

Don Campos
21 Fountain Street, Alexandria NSW 2015
http://www.camposcoffee.com

Ten best things I ate in Sydney - part 2

2011-09-26T06:16:00.002+10:00

Read part one here

King Prawn Curry at Flying Fish

We popped into the bar at Flying Fish on a whim. It was Father's Day. The fact that neither me, nor my step dad (the man who introduced me to spices in the first place) had sampled Peter Kuruvita’s signature king prawn curry was something that needed to be remedied.

This is a deconstructed sort of curry. The rice, pickles and sauce all come to the side. There's a snapper croquette for extra squish and crunch. But it's mostly about the sauce; a squat caramel pot in which turmeric, coriander and ginger sing loudly.

It's by no means a cheap dish. But staring at the Harbour Bridge above a fat tower of prawns curling around in a Karma Sutra embrace make it seem a more swallowable extravagance. Then there's the sound of boats clanking up against the pontoon and the sight of people you adore across the table. It's the kind of place, and dish that makes you very happy to be back in Sydney.

Flying Fish
Jones Bay Wharf, 19-21 Pirrama Rd
Pyrmont NSW 2009
+61 295186677

Crispy Pigs' Ears in Szechuan Pepper at District Dining

District Dining is my new darling destination in Sydney. The first week I was back home I was treated to dinner there by my dad and step mum. My dad and I made our way through a very cheeky bottle of pinot noir, slow cooked beef cheeks and veal tongue salads, and we shared a clementine crème brulee and a novel twist on a sticky date pudding.

I had such a grand time I was compelled to pay the pleasure forward. Five days later I returned for lunch with my godson's doting mum. Her eyes immediately went to the mushroom risotto with marscapone and truffle on the menu. I meanly told her she could eat mushroom risotto any night of the week and bullied her into sharing crispy pig's ears with me. Luckily we’ve got that kind of relationship. The fact that she tried them -after first stating that pigs' ears really belong to the dogs- speaks volumes of her devotion.

They're twisted like stressed fingers and the inside of each strip has a chewy spine of cartilage. The outside is crisp like a prawn cracker and buzzes with the heat of Szechuan pepper. There are many reasons you should go here. These are just one.

District Dining
17 Randle St
Surry Hills NSW 2010, Australia
+61 2 9211 7798
http://www.districtdining.com.au/

Churros and Chocolate at The Carrington

I’d always maintained that the best churros in the word are at Chocolateria San Gines, in Madrid. They probably still are, but these give them a damn good run for their money.

The Carrington once was a surly pub in Surry Hills where we’d sip gin and tonics while waiting for a table at Il Baretto. What a difference a year makes. It's kept its name, but now morphed into a sexy Spanish bar turning out pintxos-style snacks and sturdy sharing plates. The paella onigiri isa fun multicultural twirl - a slab of spiced rice cake topped with unruly tendrils of calamari- but it's this dessert that really sticks in my memory. A churro is a streaming star of cinnamon swirled donut, designed for dipping in pots of chocolate sauce. I dare you not to swipe a finger or two in the sticky pot as the night wears on. If you can restrain yourself, you're a better person than me.

The Carrington
565 Bourke Street, Surry Hills, NSW
+61 2 9360 4714

Crumbed olives stuffed with confit garlic and a Spritz at Berta

Both Vini and its younger city-side sister Berta now share top billing for my favourite moody Italian escapes in Sydney. The interiors of both are sleek and underplayed, the focus is on buzz word bingo of good food; fresh, seasonal, simple stuff on a plate.

But simple doesn’t mean plain. When you order a plate of olives stuffed with confit garlic, that’s exactly what you get. The olives are green and fat, swaddled in an armor of blistered crumbs. In their bellies is a gentle mush of softly cooked garlic, with the flavour meter turned to 10. We picked at them while nursing spritzes, with their twang of aperol and prosecco while gently kicking ourselves for missing a year of good times like this.

Berta
17 - 19 Alberta St, Sydney, 2000
+61 2 9264 6133
www.berta.com.au

Chicken tarragon, mint and walnut sandwich at Sonoma

It's everything you dreamed a chicken sandwich could be, with the added benefit of being enroute to the airport. It comes from the shiny new Sonoma Headquarters in Alexandria. They're still turning out some of the best coffee in Sydney; made from a custom Single Origin Roasters blend. And then there's the bread. The sandwiches are made with thin slices of Sonoma's famed Miche; chewy crust and crumb as dark as a tan after a long day on the sand.

But onto the sandwich; the chicken is poached and shredded, bound with tarragon mayonnaise and punctuated by walnuts. When toasted the lettuce in the sandwich goes a little flaccid, but it's worth it for how the crust crunches and the innards ooze. Any sandwich that can make you forget the prospect of being squeezed in economy for the next 24 hours (and having to give your Dad a goodbye hug) is a bloody good one indeed. I can't wait to have one on our way home from the airport next time.

Sydney; I miss you already.

Sonoma Alexandria
32-44 Birmingham St Alexandria NSW 2015
+61 2 9690 2060