Neil Perry's examples of what we eat
"Whatever is modern Australian food." Neil Perry I suspect that Neil Perry doesn't do that much restaurant cooking these days. He's more of a businessman I would think. I may be wrong of course, and he certainly keeps on putting out new cookbooks. This one is actually not that new - 2016 - which is doubtless why it turned up on Readings bargain table. I bought it because although I, of course, know of Neil Perry and how much he is admired by the foodie community, I do no
Apr 30
A farewell with finger sandwiches and dainty teacups
Two days ago I went to a funeral of this lovely lady here. Her name is Shell and she was a member of my 'old ladies book group'. I hope they do not mind the name but we are indeed all old. Shell was one of the oldest - she was I think 94 when she died. This is her on her ninetieth birthday I believe. This is the book group I joined, maybe a year after we arrived in Australia, maybe 1970 - before children for us all. Of course the members have changed over the years. She
Apr 29
Making a mark
I have a folder on my computer desktop supposedly full of ideas for blog posts, which I look at occasionally. Uninspired again - today is one of those days - I opened the folder marked 'moments in time' and found this - a patch of cacti, somewhere near St. Tropez I seem to recall, on which people have engraved their names or initials, mostly representing a moment of love. Whether those moments endured into the future of their making is, of course, unknown. It reminded me of
Apr 26
Korean? noodle pancakes
"misused words generate misleading thoughts." Herbert Spencer The April Woolworths Fresh Ideas Magazine popped up yesterday, and so I took one and flicked through it. I confess I've gone off the Woolworths magazine in recent times - it's recipes seem less interesting and less well presented than the Coles equivalent. Not that Coles is a goldmine of recipes I should add. But it is indeed always interesting to browse both magazines for all sorts of reasons other than lookin
Apr 25
Frikadellen - an almost forgotten project
"A good Frikadelle is not supposed to be flashy. It should be well seasoned, browned on the outside, juicy inside, and substantial enough to feel like proper comfort food." the Sausage Haus A long time ago now - post Christmas - I 'reviewed' this book - a present from my son - and I also talked about the meatballs I made from it. I'm not absolutely certain which ones they were but I think they were koofteh berenji from Persia - made with yellow split peas and rice and they
Apr 24
Spanakorizo - Greek comfort food
“a little rice for a mountain of spinach” Tessa Kiros Having now investigated this Greek bit of home cooking, I have come to the realisation that when one explores a dish like this, and finds lots of variations of course, one ends up by thinking that the very first one that inspired you to write the post is of course the correct way to do it. Never mind everybody else doing it differently to a greater or lesser degree - the first is the truly authentic one. In this case it
Apr 23
David Chang's fresh kimchi(s)
"Kimchi … you know you can just buy it, don’t you?" Zoe Williams/The Guardian And yes I do know that you can buy kimchi - indeed I bought some a little while ago to add to something I was making. It was in the recipe. I can't remember what the recipe was, and nor, to be honest can I remember tasting the kimchi. I do remember eating some in one of the dishes served to us at Ho-chi Mama in the city a long time ago - and that was delicious. It's one of those ingredients lik
Apr 22
Drops
Drop: "single globule of liquid; small amount of anything" They can be fruit drops too - it doesn't have to be just a liquid. It's funny how almost any of the words I have chosen for these oddments posts have some kind of foodie connection. In this case many - a drop of any kind of liquid you might add to what you are cooking, which might be as vague as a little bit, or as in the case of something really strong like tabasco, or food colouring - literally just a drop - or tw
Apr 21
Feasting on fish
"It can be impressive to serve fewer dishes, but in larger quantitites - it provides a great sense of abundance." Guy Grossi It's lucky dip time, and this is the dish in question - Pesce arrosto - and you won't find this particular recipe online because it's a Guy Grossi recipe and there are very few of them online. It's curious is it not how many cooks are happy to publicise their recipes even if they come from books they want to sell, and others are not? At one end of th
Apr 20
Whipped feta
"The Best Whipped Feta Contains Feta and Nothing Else" Claire Lower/ Lifehacker Australia I'm not a member/subscriber to TikTok, Facebook, Instagram et al. and so I am not immediately aware of foodie trends. Only when they filter into recipe books and newsletters. So I'm always behind. This one seems to have begun around 2019 - but a recent 2025 study by Datassential maintains that it's only at the Adoption stage - the other stages being Inception - then Adoption - Proli
Apr 18
Everything bagel
"a doughnut with rigor mortis (alias chewy and dense and just a bit hard)" Claudia Roden/Nami-Nami I thought I was just going to be writing about a particular spice mix sold in Coles, but find, that I am indeed going to dip into 'everything bagel'. I emphasise dip. There are many more learned articles out there from Wikipedia's bagel page to J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats' The good bagel manifesto . The picture here is of one website's - Tasting Table - pick of the b
Apr 17
In search of the perfect cucumber salad
"A plain cucumber salad with no dressing at all other than a few drops each of olive oil and tarragon vinegar is equally delicious." Elizabeth David Those words were a footnote to an Elizabeth David recipe for Cucumber and chive salad from her book Summer Food. This is not it, in the picture, but it's a very similar recipe, but the link is to the recipe on Elizabeth Peddey's website. I am using this very simple cucumber salad, as my starting point, because I have now spe
Apr 16
The sounds of silence
"a clear, definitive sound connected to your past can bring back details you might never have remembered again." Danny Wallace/The Guardian Yes I know - this painting by Giorgio de Chirico has absolutely nothing to do with kitchens and sounds. But it started me out on this particular post, and introduced me to a series of paintings by an artist I knew little about. And honestly I don't really like his paintings, but they are arresting. I really felt I should say something
Apr 15
Does it matter how good the food is?
"Hell, it's only food. Just enjoy it." Jill Dupleix This is my family - well most of them - on holiday four years ago, I have no idea what we were eating - probably some kind of barbecued meat and I'm sure it was at least good if not absolutely delicious. But really it wasn't what we are eating that was important, no matter how much thought and skill went into it. It was the pleasure of eating it together, chatting about this and that. Although, of course, that can some
Apr 14
Cabbage and the vagaries of memory
“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were." Marcel Proust This was going to be a relatively straightforward post inspired by the idea that 2026 is the year of the cabbage - which I I have been mulling over for a while - which would then be an occasion to talk about my favourite recipe for cabbage and finally being nudged into action about these things by Ottolenghi's latest newsletter which talked about all things cabbage. However,
Apr 12
Torta Pasqualina - an Easter tradition
"The quintessential spring dish." Stefano Arturi I have now been trawling the net for examples of this Italian - no - Ligurian - Easter dish - a pie filled with cheese and greens and eggs. I now have a large number of examples and a few things to say about it but didn't know which example to use as my header picture - so in the end I decided to go for the very first one I looked at from a website called Marcella in Cucina - after all, she's Italian and it looks pretty goo
Apr 10
Poppies - and their seeds
"Poppy seeds dance the line between decoration and spice." Pam Corbin/River Cottage A-Z Above another photo from the past, now for a brief period, my computer's desktop background. Inspiration for today. I love the fields of poppies that you see everywhere in France. Such a beautiful but fragile flower. So bright and glossy in the sunlight - the Ancient Sumerians called them the 'joy plant' - and yet - today anyway - a symbol of death. And its connection with death goes
Apr 9
Why does this lady blog?
The lady in question is called Jennifer Raffle, who comes from Manchester in the UK, although now I think she lives in Altrincham in Cheshire. She has a husband and two sons and in her About section tells us: "I decided to start my blog in July 2009 after leaving my investment management job to set up my own consulting business helping small technology companies run their finances more smoothly. This was meant to leave me with more time to pursue other interests but I’m sti
Apr 8
Deliciously bland?
"you need to be proper greedy to do leftovers well." Jay Rayner I know this photograph of yesterday's soup - now cold, contrived from the leftovers in my fridge, doesn't look that appetising, but David said I should write the recipe down because it was so delicious. He almost sort of went 'wow' when he took his first sip which was flattering - and honestly I'm not at all sure it was that good. Good, comforting, surprisingly tasty. But also unrepeatable, because of the way
Apr 7
A post mortem of sorts
"Time is an illusion. Lunch time doubly so." Douglas Adams As usual I forgot to take any pictures of yesterday's lunch, and no that is not our debris, but I just wanted something to show that lunch was a success and this picture inside the back cover of Ixta Belfrage's book Meczla sort of says it all really. A good time was had by all. So I thought that for once I would give a rundown of the various dishes I had chosen - and written about in my previous post - and how they
Apr 4