Harry Trotter is snorting and his bristled face is caked with mud as he ambles up to rare-breed farmer William Marshall. ”Good pig,” Marshall says to the animal and gives him a pat.
Trotter is a Large Black, one of 27 breeds of rare animals Marshall painstakingly raises on Kangaroo Island in an effort to save them from extinction and bring new flavours to the plates of Australia.
I’m the Indiana Jones of rare breeds,” Marshall says of his ability to track down pigs, cattle, sheep and poultry either facing extinction or being inter-bred with other strains of animal that will threaten their future as pure breeds.
[ FULL STORY here: 8 February 2011, The Sydney Morning Herald]
The laneways, little nooks and spots of urban funkyness that make Sydney totally jealous of Melbourne has been well reported on. So Sydney ups the ante, opening new bars and cafes in the few laneways it does have, and then Melbourne just blows all the effort away with some brand new, uber creative culinary post. Like this one.
Freestyle Espresso has been open for six weeks and for those in South Melbourne who have already found it (despite local council’s determination to disallow any on-street signage), it’s become a reliable little local. The walls are painted black, but a terrazzo speckled floor and flecks of turquoise blue throughout give it a bright happiness. There are just two comfortable little armchairs for paper reading and caffeine hitting, or plate balancing, but meals are best had at the tables.
Carolyn, who owns the new little Freestyle Espresso, does a wicked Croque Monsieur, with grilled cheese, leg ham, mustard and bechamel sauce, which she toasts to a crisp while it’s still saucy inside. A Breakfast Cassoulet, a large serve, comes with a firm mustard and basil sausage and three types of beans (chickpeas, flageolet and berlotti), crispy bacon (and, refreshingly, you don’t have to ask for it to be done this way..), and is topped with a soft fried egg.
The Dench breads (a local favourite) come with homemade date, vanilla and orange butter. We love the introduction of a Breakfast Bloody Mary, all lemony with Tabasco, Worstershire and celery. The Bircher Muesli is creamy and laden with grated apple and yoghurt, and is topped with passionfruit curd and scattered with toasted almond flakes.
For lunch, a poached chicken salad is tossed with parsley mayo, apple coleslaw and served with a side of crispy herbed potatoes. Or, oh so Melbourne, a pappardelle pasta comes with beef, tomato, red wine and sage ragu. The ball is officially in Sydney’s court.
All pics by Kate Gibbs. Freestyle Espresso: 6 Union Street South Melbourne (03) 9696 4396.www.freestyle-espresso.com.au
A Sicilian will tell you cannoli has to be filled with sheep’s-milk ricotta and they must be eaten the day they are made. There may be chocolate-cream filled, custard loaded, coffee creme varieties sold in Australia but a real cannolo, Sicily’s most famous pastry, is something quite different.
In Sicily, crisp-fried pastry shells are filled with a not-too-sweet mixture of dense and creamy sheep’s-milk ricotta – either plain or laden with candied citrus, usually blood orange – a pinch of cinnamon, crushed pistachios, a few drops of orange blossom water and bittersweet chocolate chips.
“I like cooking because it’s fun, and you can make the hugest mess you want…” Australia’s most adorable chefs hit televisions last night in the first Junior MasterChef. An international challenge was the first undertaking for the little chefs, who turned out poached chicken Vietnamese salads, Italian ricotta gnocchi, and french-inspired truffled poached eggs on smashed potatoes.
Last week Good Living launched its new Kitchen Cadets column, in which I tap up a recipe every week for kids to cook. Last week we did Bacon and Corn Muffins and coming up tomorrow is a simple Asian soy chicken wings served on steamed rice. Can’t wait to get more inspiration from Junior MasterChef, where these talented little people cook some really complex and beautifully presented things. Size, it seems, doesn’t matter one bit.
A couple of articles published in The Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Living today for its special coffee issue. Here is one!
Trickle-down effect: Entrepreneurs are taking advantage of our coffee mania, writes Kate Gibbs.
“A coffee-flavoured condom was released in Ethiopia aimed at encouraging safer sex – a move considered to be a resounding success and attributed to the popularity of coffee.
As coffee-geek culture percolates across the globe, a new breed of inventor is jumping on the coffee wagon. Syrups and liquors, cupcake flavours and sweets, even stout and lager are getting an injection of the most socially acceptable drug…”
This story appears in the NY Times. Amazing and personal tale about food developments in New Orleans, post Katrina.
EVERY morning Leah Chase hobbles out of her FEMA trailer and crosses the street to check on the tortuous effort to rebuild her historic restaurant, Dooky Chase.
Mrs. Chase, 83, is the nation’s most revered Creole chef. Since Hurricane Katrina soaked her restaurant with five feet of water, people with the best intentions have held gumbo fund-raisers for her. Volunteers from Viking, the stove company, sanitized every pot and spoon. Insurance checks, such as they were, have been cashed…
There are some lovely post-Katrina food developments. Chefs are cooking with a new dedication and using more local products. The city has its first taco trucks, set up to feed workers from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America who are in town to help rebuild it…
With “real, wit and truth” in her bag, as Mario Batali described her, the New York Times journalist Kim Severson has released a new book on how eight cooks saved her life. A former alcoholic, Severson has written Spoon Fed (which I’ve just ordered from the Book Depository) as a sort of run-down on her culinary mentors, dishing out life lessons and recipes as well.
“Whether hiding chicken nuggets from slow-food guru Alice Waters or obsessing about Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl ‘in a Single White Female kind of way,’ NY Times food writer has certainly been under the influence of cooking’s grand dames. Luckily for us, she got past her Lucy Ricardo moments—and plenty that weren’t so funny—to produce this delightful memoir, a combo platter of life lessons, dishy profiles of her mentors and gustatory edification (with recipes!).” - (Ellen Shapiro, People Magazine, 17 May, 2010)
Yesterday in 1812 was the birthday of the English writer famous for his nonsense verse, especially The Owl and the Pussycat, Edward Lear. Lear contributed several recipes to the Nonsense Gazette, and today I bring you, in honour of his birthday, his recipe for cutlets.
To Make Crumbobblious Cutlets
Procure some strips of beef, and having cut them into the smallest possible slices, proceed to cut them still smaller, eight or perhaps nine times.
When the whole is thus minced, brush it up hastily with a new clothes-brush, and stir round rapidly and capriciously with a salt-spoon or a soup ladle.
Place the whole in a saucepan, and remove it to a sunny place – say the roof of the house if free from sparrows or other birds – and leave it there for about a week.
At the end of that time add a little lavender, some oil of almonds, and a few herring-bones; and cover the whole with 4 gallons of clarified crumbobblious sauce, when it will be ready for use.
Cut it into the shape of ordinary cutlets, and serve it up in a clean tablecloth or dinner-napkin.
Dean & Deluca, Momofuku Bar, and the Mandarin Oriental have been serving up Pain d’Avignon loaves for years, but now New Yorkers can go right to the source. The bakery now has a shop front doling out cranberry and pecan loaves, ficelle, baguettes and brioche on the lower east side, and more than 50 types [...]
Want to know where Sydney’s top restaurants buy their fish? Well like some sort of food sleuth, I stumbled upon these boxes, each heading to Sydney’s Pier, Claude’s, Bathers at Balmoral, and Lotus, to name a few. Martins Seafood, in Balmain, is providing daily fresh fish to these restaurants, and now to me. On the [...]
Delia Smith, the venerable British cooking queen bee, has caused a stir by making the country run out of rhubarb. In a newly released advert, Delia recommends people make her rhubarb and ginger brulee. Apparently what Delia says, Britain does, and the supermarkets are now out of stock. Waitrose has come under fire from rhubarb [...]
The Kitchen Inc. blog is written and edited by Kate Gibbs - a journalist, author and cook.
Food, travel, design >> How, when entwined together, these things inspire our daily culinary experience >> The Kitchen Inc. covers food, kitchen-based inspiration, and workable design as it impacts our dining, eating, cooking lives.
Kate Gibbs writes a weekly column for Sunday Life in The Sun Herald called The Perfect... She is a regular contributor to the SMH on food and travel. She writes food features for The Wall Street Journal.
Kate writes for The Foodies Guide to Sydney, The SMH Good Cafe Guide and SMH Everyday Eats. Kate has 11 years' journalism experience and has written for Russh, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Frankie and others. The interest in journalism began at London's The Evening Standard newspaper. Her first cookbook, The Thrifty Kitchen, was published by Penguin in 2009. Kate's grandmother Margaret Fulton is also in the food business.
In The Kitchen Inc, Kate writes restaurant, bar and cafe reviews, and shows the most interesting and inspiring places to eat and gastro-explore. Kate reviews new food-relevant design and books, she writes about new trends in cooking, how different ingredients are being used by our top chefs and cooks, and how to use these ideas at home.
