Is that the time? For heavens sake the weeks and days and, yes, months have flown by. Japan, the sprawling city of explorable gastronomic nooks, was of course amazing, and Christmas too. Oh dear. Back on track and planted at my desk, I’ll start posting on the various skiing, food and travelling adventures. Meanwhile, thank you so much to blogger extraordinaries Jeroxie and Simon Food Favourites and Noodlies and Food, Booze and Shoes for their time and energy last weekend while I rambled about various food tips and made us lunch. We went along to the new Concrete Blonde in Kings Cross, where my healthy lunch was totally upstaged by a whole roasting lamb on the spit, and chatted about food styling and photography. I made three simple dishes – a tuna nicoise crostini, a beetroot and broad bean salad and mussels in a cream and speck sauce – and then we shot them. Me being an ambassador for Philadelphia, the gist of the day was to include the Cream for Cooking and cream cheese products into the day. I mainly just loved hanging out with the bloggers, using the incredible kitchen at Concrete Blonde, and sharing cooking and photography tips between some very clever people.
Jeroxie took a little video of me picking through a bunch of beetroot in search of some decent soft little leaves to add to our salad.
And this is Noodlies’, or Thang Ngo’s, much longer video of me making the mussels. Thanks for posting you two! I realise now why you were holding your phones and cameras so still – those pesky video cameras! I hope it makes sense, and hope it didn’t feel quite so rambly on the day.
Meanwhile, I’ll post the recipe for the mussels here post haste!
Just love the light, airy, nordic style of photographer Ditte Isager, who hails from Copenhagen, Denmark. Inspiration comes from the Dutch Masters, storytelling, and the effects from motion pictures. The photographer shows that overhead food photography can be completely wonderful, and the use of soft linens and minimalist style is rich with texture.
I found the wonderful Ditte Isager via my friend, photographer Kristin Hove, whose Norway-based blog is a constant inspiration.
Just love this photo documentary by Jennifer Causey, who’s The Makers project involves photographing people who make things. She says of her undertaking “I soon realised I was also photographing people who make things happen”. As the project evolves, so does the adventure and pleasure of documenting the people behind the products, she says: to learn what inspires them, what keeps them going, and their thoughts on the city where they live and work. She features a food stylist, a potter, a mixologist (pictured here), a perfumer, and others. A totally inspiring, gorgeous little project from a clever photographer devoted to people and their crafts.
Oh spare us the unrelenting, delicious cool. This gorgeous line of vintage products is designed for the rugged, yet sophisticated gentleman. “If Steve McQueen carried a beat-up leather duffle bag on the back of his motorcycle; what would be in it and how would the products look?” Well, like this.
Incredible installation at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane. Real finches flock in a hanging knotted scramble of metal coat hangers. The exhibition, 21st Century: Art in the First Decade, opens tomorrow and lasts until 26th April next year.
The ambitious exhibition will occupy the entire Gallery of Modern Art and focus exclusively on works created between 2000 and 2010. It will showcase more than 200 works and feature over 140 artists and artist collaborative groups – senior, mid-career and emerging – from more than 40 countries.
Recent acquisitions being unveiled for the first time include a work in neon by Tracey Emin (England), sculptures and photographs by Romuald Hazoumè (Benin), playful sculptures of camp dogs by Arukun artists including Arthur Pambegan Jr and Craig Koomeeta (Australia), powerful photographs by Mitra Tabrizian (Iran), Guy Tillim (South Africa) and Olaf Breuning (Switzerland), a suite of drawings by Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (Ivory Coast), and striking video works by SUPERFLE X (Denmark) and Sharif Waked (Palestine). See the website and new blog here.
There is this excellent invention our New Zealand counterparts call The Bach, pronounced The Batch. It’s a small little dinky thing that you traipse to for weekends from Auckland and Wellington and wherever else you live. But then your Bach is your showpiece, as well. City-dwellers take great pride in the Bach, and it’s often more attractive, cleaner, more creative, just better, than the actual city home. But another thing about the Bach (and in this way it’s not like Australians’ “weekender”), is that they often start out small, and then are built on and extended, and attached to, so in the end it’s a sprawling thing made up of all these parts and rooms. This is the quirk of the Bach.
The Boatshed, a luxury boutique hotel on Waiheke Island just 40 minutes boat ride from Auckland (we saw whales on the way back!), is the best possible version of the Bach. The white-painted, wood-panelled abode, on the top of a hill overlooking Oneroa Beach and the world, started out as a family holiday cottage of designer David Scott. It’s now run by his son Jonathan, whose immaculate taste has turned a cottage into a showpiece, a bach into a luxurious and unique hotel.
In true bach style, The Boatshed has been added to and built on, so there are now a series of little boatshed rooms looking out to sea, an attached two-storey lighthouse that has its own dumb waiter so guests don’t have to bother coming down if they don’t want to, and a main cottage.
All rooms are different, but all maintain a sort of beachy boaty holiday moodiness. The interiors are light and sun-drenched, with polished concrete floors inside and sprawling decks outside. At night dozens of candles are lit, and a communal dining area sparkles as Jonathan, always the host, brings five-course meals and matching local wines to the table.
A house icecream is made from fresh chopped mint from The Boatshed’s own garden (another post, soon), and the Asian chicken ball starter is fresh and fragrant, with a lemongrass hint and water chestnut crunchiness. Breakfasts are made to order, including a perfect Hollandaise sauce with poached eggs and herbs from the garden, and includes local fruit toast, muesli and yoghurt to prepare guests for an active day ahead, if they choose to leave the hotel.
Borrow some bikes from The Boatshed and power up and down the roller coaster hills of Waiheke. Cycling on Waiheke turns the adage that what goes up must come down on its head. Instead, what goes downhill must soon go back up, and the minute you feel the wind in your hair as you whooooop downhill, there is going to be some wheerr-err-ahh-ooowwws when you have to climb the next hill. But getting to the top is always worth it. Pain, gain.
Coffee at Spice and lunch at Stoneyridge Vineyard. Mudbrick Vineyard and Restaurant offers possibly the island’s best dining outside The Boatshed itself. Oneroa village’s Waiheke Fruit and Veg sells organic beers and local wine, artisan bread, local cheese and Italian hams.
One fashion and food enthusiast is bringing the drama into photography. Luxirare writes about Macarons and Scorpions, edible Crayons and turquoise blue parfait, even Egg Nog. But it’s the photography that leaves us spinning.
Her post on Sushi Handrolls is awesome. Sure the use of dry ice may be a bit over the top, but too often do I serve my quail egg topped salmon egg rolls just straight on a plate. Now I’ll think twice about that.
Want Apple Napoleon to actually incite awe and a drumroll as if Napoleon himself were about to march? Well then check out these pictures. Think nobody could ever make girlscout cookies interesting? Well you’re downright wrong. I’ve never seen food photography like this. And nor, I’d wager, have you.
The “Manifesto” explaining what Luxirare actually does is bordering on confusing. You really need to concentrate. Talking about using the internet and blogging for their purposes, Luxirare says “The power of the internet to swallow so much into obsolescence is usually considered detrimental. The point here is to use the greatest invention of the 20th century, the internet and the obsolescence associated with it, as an advantage.”
In explaining the cuisine and fashion link, the blogger says:
“The Luxury and Rarity lenses zero in on the parallel worlds of clothes and cuisine. The pattern of consumption concerning the two are parallel, both operating on a devotion to hedonism, both running on the constant reinvention or update of current trends. Both require intimacy; food is consumed by the mouth and clothing must touch the body. The pattern of creation concerning both fields are distinctly similar; both require strong cutting techniques which eventually lead to new creations. Luxirare is committed to bring together these elements that inform both fields through a singular vision.”
This reminds me of the beginning of Heston Blumenthal’s opening sequence to In Search of Perfection. Dry ice, drama, a bit of a sense of humour. And completely beautiful shots in which food is no longer just something we eat, it’s the creation of beauty, in which food, art and even chemistry is truly intertwined. This is no piling stacks of eggplant, mozzarella and tomato on a plate and calling it art. Too often a drizzling of some fluorescent oil on a plate, sprinkled with cubes of some savoury jelly, is not particularly appealing. This photography conjures the urge of eating, playing with food’s natural beauty. The question remains, though, do you actually want to eat it? Hell yes.
Seen food photography that inspires you to cook (or paint!), let me know!
As six year old Ava wisely pointed out, maybe the word gorge comes from gorgeous. This is Mossman Gorge, where the rivers in the ancient Daintree forest pour over bolders and where barramundi swim wild. And it’s where we swam on a little morning trip from Port Douglas.
You have to drive through Mossman town to get there, where Queenslander homes – painted white wood on stilts – are bordered by vast fields of cane.
In sunny, rainy, humid and tropical Port Douglas, in far north Queensland, with my best buddy. We came here when we were nineteen, and now again with her two girls and the chap Drewy. Days so far by the pool, drinking icey banana soy smoothies as the main staple. Book stores on the main Macrossan Street, and hiding in the shade of our villa come the afternoon temperature and exhaustion boil over. The main choices of the day.. Mossman gorge for a swim, one of the local lagoons for a swim, which icecream flavour, another coffee? What for dinner? Last night I used some perfect coral trout fillets, wrapped them in very finely sliced pancetta, and pan fried them until the pancetta was crispy and the fish just cooked. Served on a white bean puree with green beans and a bottle of rose. Perfect Port Douglas meal. Dessert: A packet of Green & Blacks organic chocolate between three very relaxed adults.
New York. I found my photos from my recent trip there this morning while a friend and I were looking through my pics for some midday amusement. A trip to New York in January this year was invigorating and renewing. Did a culinary course in downtown Manhattan, and in the short hours before and after, [...]
Todd Selby is a London-based fashion, portrait and interiors photographer whose project The Selby, offers an insider’s view of creative individuals in their personal spaces. The project has been so successful that he’s done photo shoots and ad campaigns for Habitat, Architectural Digest France and Vogue Paris, among others. Check out his site here or buy [...]
I love waking up somewhere new. Spent the weekend with friends in the Blue Mountains, just outside Sydney, in the tiny Art Deco town Katoomba. Arrived in the afternoon, and straight away to a long walk after a long drive, along roads edged with autumny trees. This is the best time of year in Sydney, [...]
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 experiences >> 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 Good Living in The Sydney Morning Herald on cooking with kids: Kitchen Cadets. She is the restaurant reviewer for Sunday Life magazine in the Sun Herald. She is a regular contributor to the SMH on food and travel.
Kate is a co-author of The Foodies Guide to Sydney 2011 and 2012 and is a contributor to SMH Everyday Eats 2011 and 2012 and Good Cafe Guide 2012. Kate has 10 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 in 2009. Kate's mother Suzanne Gibbs and grandmother Margaret Fulton are 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.
