Loved interviewing six women – Yumi Stynes, Sandra Sully, Margaret Pomeranz, Fleur Wood, Margaret Fulton and Nicole Trunfio – for the Sunday Life cover story on the weekend.
Having fun in your 20s, rearing a family in your 30s or getting wise in your 60s – at what age do women feel most fulfilled? Kate Gibbs talks to Yumi Stynes and others about the best years of their lives.
Yumi Stynes, 35, refuses to dye her hair. She confesses she’s lied about her age in the past, “partly a female thing and partly a vanity thing”, but will not budge on the tell-tale long grey streak running through her almost black hair. “This shows I am a warrior! This is an indication of the life I have lived, of the scars I have acquired. Why would I deny myself those symbols? I am proud of who I am and what I have done.”
by Kate on October 17, 2010
Simon Marnie compared broccoli with snot, and there was general discussion about how to get children to eat, and cook, their vegetables. Much fun this morning on ABC 702.
Two of Sydney’s passionate food writers who love helping kids develop their skills in the kitchen - Sheridan Rogers, author of “mini-chef” and Kate Gibbs (granddaughter of Margaret Fulton and daughter of Suzanne Gibbs), who also writes The Sydney Morning Herald’s Kitchen Cadets column, joined Simon in the studio this morning in an effort to encourage kids into the kitchen and discuss the complex question of how we get our children to like their veggies.
Listen to the full interview here.
by Kate on October 16, 2010
Ahh …. The English seaside in the late 1960s … fairgrounds and pebbled beaches, long piers that have since burned to ashes, and stalls selling pots of shrimp and jellied eel from tiny cups. This picture is of my mum Suzanne Gibbs, also a food writer (we wrote The Thrifty Kitchen together). I love her long heavy tweed skirt with the white shirt tucked in, and the cute little pointed and booted toe. She’s bought the jellied eel, something that was still a little out there even back then, an unusual choice compared to the much more common prawn cocktails, scampi, cockles and crabs. But the ever-adventurous foodie went for something I still have never dared try. But she regretted it hours later. The eel made her “the sickest I have ever been”, she tells me now, and the story has become family folklore. “Remember that time with the jellied eels…”
This was the BBC Australian Good Food magazine’s stall at the Good Food and Wine Festival in Sydney this weekend. Got backstage and had the incredible privilege of chatting to Kylie Kwong about her new sustainable cookbook, and Masterchef’s Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris, all of whom contribute to the magazine as well. But it was on stage in the food demonstrations that the really really cool things were happening. Here’s a glimpse…
George Calombaris’ wonderful, at times amusing (especially when he impersonated the Masterchef contestants my pretending to burst into tears about his love and passion for the dish he had made) demo included a Barramundi with Calamari Coleslaw (pic above, recipe below), which is essentially poached and finely sliced calamari with very finely sliced fennel salad. The sustainable barramundi is one of the jewels of our oceans. Get the non-farmed variety, it tastes so much better and it’s not overfished. George’s recipe (below) serves six.
2 limes, sliced
1 lemon, sliced, plus 2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp sea salt
400g cleaned calamari
6 x 180g barramundi fillets, skin on
2 tbsp olive oil, plus 2 tbsp extra
20g butter
1 fennel bulb, trimmed, very finely sliced
2 eschalots, peeled, very finely sliced
1 cup flat leaf parsley
herb sprigs and flowers, to serve
1. Heat lime, lemon slices and 4 cups water in a large pan on high. Bring to boil. Add salt and reduce heat to low. When simmering, cook calamari for 1 min, until opaque. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a tray. Refrigerate until cold.
2. Use a small, sharp knife to score skin of fish. Season well. Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan on high. Cook fish skin side down, basting with oil occasionally, for 3 minutes, until crisp and golden. Turn fish and add butter to pan. Cook for another 1 min, until cooked through.
3. Meanwhile, finely slice calamari into long strips. Toss with fennel, eschalot, parsley leaves, lemon juice and extra oil until well combined.
4. Divide salad and fish between serving plates. Serve with herb sprigs and flowers, if using.
Pics by Kate Gibbs
Masterchefs George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan (top), as well as demos by Kylie Kwong and Suzanne Gibbs (second from top) and Margaret Fulton. Calombaris cooked a barramundi with calamari “coleslaw” and semolina custard pastries (pic above). Calombaris with The Press Club head chef TravisMcAuley (pic above), and the kitchen the chefs used…
More on Kylie Kwong’s fried rice, soft boiled eggs and dried fried beans with miso and sesame in an upcoming post.
From frozen pastry to Gravox and ready-to-go pouring custard, the modern Aussie woman may have returned to the kitchen, but is certainly not cooking like mum used to.
Cooking like mum is lost art: Article featured in the Sunday Telegraph.
Me and the wonderful MF, cooking up some things in her kitchen.
I’m all about cherries since I got back from New York. Why, for heavens sake, do we not eat more of this gorgeous fruit? Not actually muffins these, they’re more like luxurious cherry butter drops. Don’t eat these every morning thinking all you had for breakfast was a muffin so you can eat a big lunch. Having said that, they’re so lovely you may just have want for nothing else. I made these this morning and invited Grandma Fulton over. She was shocked by the amount of butter, but before I told her how much was in there, she thought they were pretty great. For velvety cherry flavour, they get full marks though.
Makes 12 large muffins
2 2/3 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
250g (1 pack) butter
2 cups buttermilk
3 eggs
300g (1 pack) frozen cherries
raw sugar, for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 180C. Line 12 large hole muffin tins with paper cases or squares of parchment paper. Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a large bowl, add sugars and combine.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat, then remove from heat and stir in the buttermilk and whisk in the eggs using a fork.
Gradually add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture, mixing to combine. Don’t worry about lumps, they will disappear in cooking. Add the cherries and fold through the mixture, then spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tins. Sprinkle with raw sugar, then place in oven and bake for 30-35 minutes.
Test whether the muffins are cooked by pressing their tops lightly with your finger. It should be firm and the bottom should have browned slightly. Pop in for another 5 minutes if they’re not quite done. Remove from oven and leave to cool for 15 minutes before removing from tins to cool completely. Serve with a good newspaper and a strong coffee…
by Kate on March 24, 2010
Christine Manfield of Universal fame last night created an incredible menu in her restaurant pulled from and inspired by my book The Thrifty Kitchen. Meatloaf at Universal? Yes! Check out the menu below.. Thank you Chris, what an incredible evening. Absolutely humbling.
The meatloaf with green beans was nothing like they dreamed up in the ’50s. The meatloaf’s curry flavours, served with crisp beans in a wasabi dressing made this simple dish truly modern. As Chris herself said last night – she’s never served meatloaf at Universal before, she’d be more likely to play Meatloaf. Thanks too to my mumsie, who let me, encouraged me, to write this book with her. x
by Kate on March 21, 2010
In China Town, Sydney, there is this little backstreet place called Chinese Noodles that do just that. They make them fresh to serve and you can watch the extravaganza through a window into the kitchen. It’s like the circus for foodies.
We had egg and chive dumplings, which you have with Chinese vinegar, Ms Fulton had a hot and sour soup with dumplings, and then we shared a braised eggplant dish that was sticky and vinegary. Next door you can choose individual little plates to share, like some sort of super spicy Chinese tapas buffet.
by Kate on December 6, 2009
The Thrifty Kitchen, my cookbook with Penguin, is now on the shelves (horray!). Written with my mother Suzanne Gibbs, the book is an offering to those who want to be more economical in the kitchen, but still eat supremely well. We write about how to entertain on a budget, while still maintaining an elegance, serving up gorgeous offerings that don’t leave you scrimping for weeks afterwards.
You can buy The Thrifty Kitchen here on Cookbooks.com.au or in any good book store.
by Kate on April 24, 2008
Published article in The Sydney Morning Herald’s Essential section last week (April 17). `Emotional Rescue‘, by Kate Gibbs and Meg Mason: “Thoughtful gifts of food at times of loss or upheaval can be the best form of support for a grieving relative or new mother.”
“It doesn’t often matter that we Australians have so few traditions surrounding big life events such as births, marriages and deaths. That is, until someone we know experiences a bereavement and we have absolutely no idea what to do…”
