Spanish-style - well any '-style'
If you have read yesterday's post, you will know that this is one of two dishes that I am currently considering for our lunch on Saturday. It's from the delicious. book More Please, by Valli Little, and for some reason I assumed that it was a Spanish dish. And so today, I was going to 'research' this Spanish dish and do one of my kind of analyses of a traditional dish. However, when I checked my Spanish cookbooks - Claudia Roden and Robert Carrier being the authors - and al
1 day ago
Tinned tomatoes & pasta from the supermarket
This is really a bit of a cheat post in that I'm just reporting on some reviews I found of those basics of just about every kitchen - tinned tomatoes and pasta. How did I even come to be looking at them? Well I think I had recently bought a packet of Cucina Matese pasta from Coles and since I had heard from somewhere that this was actually a Coles brand, rather, than an Italian brand I decided to look into it and somehow - first came across this Australian supermarket tinne
6 days ago
Friday pastry fun
"There is never enough crust." Nigel Slater Somehow or other it is now almost a tradition that Friday is for pastry - usually a quiche. It is also true that by Friday I am using up leftovers, or even leftovers of leftovers. Like today. Pastry and leftovers offer an infinity of possibilities, and a fun challenge. Behold today's challenge. What absolutely has to be used is the tiny bit of leftover vegetable toad-in-the-hole in the front. Actually the vegetables only cons
May 22
Getting going
"The morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness." William Shakespeare The quote and the painting were featured on my art desk calendar this morning, which sort of coincided with the thoughts I had been previously been having about the routines we go through in the morning, so I thought I would begin with it. The painting is by Charles-François Daubigny and it's called Morning by the Lake painted in 1858. I am dimly aware of the artist's name, but do not know this p
May 21
Travel
"Travel is the story you tell yourself about yourself." David Prior Once a year the Australian Financial Review puts out a seriously glossy Fin! Travel magazine - inserted into their AFR Weekend edition. This weekend is that weekend. Normally I flick through it in about five minutes - even less sometimes - and discard because it's full of ads for expensive watches, cruises and hotels with articles about holiday experiences which are - well - just decadent and out of my reac
May 17
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
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
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
Favouritism, preference, bias ...
"people usually see what they're already looking for, that's all.” Veronica Roth I have spent a large chunk of today and a bit of yesterday trying to decide what to cook for a lunch with our friends on Friday. (Actually on Tuesday and Wednesday - it's now Thursday. To me this is a pleasure, but it's also increasingly difficult. I mean where to begin? As you know I have masses of cookbooks, there are the supermarket magazines once a month and there is, of course, always the
Apr 2
Pretentious or sublime? - musings
“I'm tired of 'pretentious' just being used as an excuse to dismiss anything that fucking expects you to have a brain.” T.J. Kirk Please excuse the language in the above quote, but it was the one quote that I found that kind of expressed the same feeling I get occasionally - most recently and most specifically after seeing Paolo Sorrentino's latest film, La Grazia . last Thursday. I saw the film with my friend Clare in the city. There were a mere half dozen people in one o
Mar 29
Does disappointment trump joy?
"I see no point in putting pen to paper to preserve anything negative, sad or painful." Nigel Slater Well so says Nigel. To be fair he did go on to say that there was more than enough misery around, and probably in his life too. I doubt there is anyone happy all the time. He was simply saying he did not want to write about the bad things. The things that go wrong. However, I want to consider this in writing after my Sunday birthday party which was overall a joyous experi
Mar 24
Why am I doing this?
"These diminutive pleasures are there if we care to look for them, little joys illuminating an increasingly darkening world. They feed the soul and nourish the spirit. Or at least they do mine." Nigel Slater Every now and then, I go through a phase of wondering why I keep writing this blog, particularly at the times when I am somewhat uninspired - like now, and so I was interested to read an article highlighted by Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman, in The New Yorker. The wr
Mar 20
Still a demon dish
They almost look alright don't they as they sit on our dinner table ready to be eaten last night? Even almost pretty good. But reader - alas - I failed yet again. Pizza is still my demon dish - perhaps I should say top demon dish - I have others. They look almost as good as the Smitten Kitchen version but obviously a long way away from the real deal on the right. But then I was never expecting to reach those heights. And actually, now that I look at all three, I'm wond
Mar 10
Demon dishes - mine is pizza
"Raise your hand if you never get pizza right when you make it at home" Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen Those words began one of Deb Perelman's recipes on her website Smitten Kitchen - a recipe for Lazy pizza dough and favourite Margherita pizza . She had me hooked right there, because that's me. On the left is her finished Margherita for that post, above is a world-beating pizza from Anatica Pizzeria Port'Alba in Naples, so I don't think many of us are going to taste that
Mar 8
Fish finger sandwiches
"the UK equivalent of Mexican fish tacos or West African fish rolls" Felicity Cloake/The Guardian Although this particular post began with Rick Stein - possibly the British king of fish - at least in a commercial way - I'm beginning with Jamie Oliver, who has said of the fish finger sandwich - a peculiarly British institution: "As a chef I always feel I shouldn't be eating something like a fish finger buttie – but you know what, I think that makes it taste even better." T
Mar 3
Food delivery - a sort of boy kibble postscript
"Australians are now spending billions of dollars every year on food delivery apps." Australian Financial Review There were a couple of kind of related items in yesterday's AFR weekend and they both sort of connected to the boy kibble thing - and in addition, coincidentally, an item in my Happy Foodie (Penguin's cookbook publishing) newsletter this morning also fed into the whole thing. So herewith a few rambles around GenZ and Millenials, their eating habits and the way of
Mar 1
'Yada yada' or indeed blah, blah, blah?
"I found page after page after page celebrating the passion the purveyors of ingredients have for their product … before finally finding a recipe." Lisa Hill/ANZ LitLovers Time to tackle this book which has been sitting around for me to (a) read and then (b) sort of review. I thought it was just me in not recognising how wonderful it is - and it is in a way that I shall come to - but honestly most of the food did not really appeal - but that I think is just me - as I am not
Feb 15
Vadouvan - will 2026 be its time?
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness." [not] Oscar Wilde I'll begin with an aside - the quote above. First I just used the first half of it which I had a feeling was by Oscar Wilde, then I found Terence Eden's Blog which first reminded me that there was a second part of it and then told me in great detail why it wasn't Oscar Wilde who said it - the conclusion being it might have been a now defunct magazine - My Family Magazine
Jan 30
Chicken Kiev - or Kyiv, or something else altogether?
"the only thing that really matters with a kiev is that when you cut into that crisp shell, you're rewarded with an eruption of vivid green, garlicky butter. And that's a pleasure that will never go out of fashion." Felicity Cloake Only beware, because if you cut into it too rapidly that hot butter could spurt out and all over anything that is nearby - the tablecloth, your clothes, your fingers. And it will be hot. The trick is to get it to ooze - as shown here in Nagi Mae
Jan 29