Food

Well, puck me with a fitchfork. The F-word is apparently an acceptable part of Australian speech.

That’s the only conclusion you can draw after the trade mark examiner gave two thucking fumbs up to a soon-to-be-released product called “Nuckin Futs”.

After the initial trade mark application was rejected, a savvy lawyer argued that the f-bomb is an everyday part of Australian speech. And he won. The product is on its way, with the only caveat being it can’t be marketed to minors.

Continue reading "No wuckin forries. These nuckin futs are tuckin fops" »

Wildlife harvesting advocate Professor Mike Archer AM has been geeing up the anti-vegetarian ork armies with an article putting the boot in for ‘hypocrisy’ over mice. The pesky little critters erupt into sizable plagues in grain growing areas every few years and Archer thereby accused vegetarians of having the “worst possible” diet in terms of suffering and sustainability.

What not to do when it comes to a sustainable diet

During the robust online debate following his article, Archer produced the following visionary statement on Australia’s food production future:

“In fact (sorry to sound insensitive), but we should not be consuming Australia unsustainably as we are now to feed 50 million people overseas in addition to the rapidly expanding Australian population. It’s a great short-term strategy to make more money and feel we done [sic] our bit to feed the starving millions overseas, but it makes us contributors to the exacerbating global problem of overpopulation rather than part of the solution. If we could just manage Australia sustainably, that would be the beginning of a rational approach to land-use and set a good example for the rest of the world.”

Continue reading "The ethics of feeding off the fat of the land" »

Seedless watermelon is great. You’ve taken the bad element of the watermelon out - but can someone please explain why we can’t take the bad things out of everything?

For example, social engagements without the small talk. Or Katherine Heigl movies without Katherine Heigl. If they could take the seed out of men, I’d probably indulge in a lot more of them too.

Visiting my local supermarket this morning, I noted that watermelon is currently on special, so if you happen to be out of town, you have chosen the wrong time of the year to be away, my friend.

Continue reading "Sweet, sweet, watermelon" »

What do women want? This question has vexed philosophers, feminists and talk show hosts since time immemorial (or at least since Mel Gibson started making bad romantic comedies).

The good news is that we now have a definitive answer – and it doesn’t involve equal pay, housework help or a nude frolic on a Northern Territory balcony.

As it turns out, nothing brings a woman more pleasure, euphoria or knee-trembling jouissance than… (anticipation-enhancing trumpet flurry)… chowing down solo on a salad.

Continue reading "You don’t win friends with salad. Unless they’re women" »

A few weeks ago Greenpeace turned its “greenmail” forces on national franchise chain Bakers Delight, telling customers they soon would be eating bread made from genetically modified wheat.

There was no justification for the claim, and no thorough examination of the merits or otherwise of GM crops.

Said Greenpeace on Facebook: This week we are suggesting that Bakers Delight change its well-publicised motto: “Bakers Delight bakers use real ingredients to bake unreal bread”. To the less snappy motto: “Bakers Delight bakers use risky genetically modified ingredients to bake unreal bread”.

Continue reading "Not a grain of truth in sneaky Greenpeace tactics" »

The woman booked a table for 10 at 7pm, Thursday, at the hip Bentley Bar and Restaurant in Sydney’s Surry Hills.

Owner Nick Hildebrand had to turn away four couples trying their spontaneous luck because his 50-seater was fully booked, but by 7.45pm, that big table still hadn’t arrived so he called them and was told they were on the way.

It sat empty for another 30 minutes, so he called again but this time, she didn’t answer. They never arrived.

Continue reading "Restaurant no-shows should plate up or shut up" »

Puns abounded after a PR stunt involving goldfish went totally belly up this week. Advantage SA sent 55 live goldfish to clients around the country, urging them to “test the water and be the big fish in a small pond” in Adelaide. But, Mumbrella reported, at least some of the fish were DOA.

It’s the sort of story that will probably end up in marketing textbooks. Someone probably got their arse kicked. CEO Karen Raffen sounded genuinely apologetic on radio.  No one was insensitive enough to crack jokes about Adelaide as the murder capital of the world, but that’s just a matter of time.

Advantage SA’s mea culpa included the promise of donations to the Animal Welfare League and the RSPCA to make amends for any distress caused to the fish. Begging the question: Since when did we, as a society, care about fish?

Continue reading "I love goldfish, but I couldn’t eat a live one" »

“Cream the butter and sugar until pale,” it says in her cursive writing. “Soak the fruit in a cup of sherry.” This little notebook must be nearly a century old. It’s penned in pounds and ounces and smudged with the syrupy stains of hundreds of cakes.

I don’t remember the lady who owned it, my great-grandmother, who died when I was two. But her name, Rachel, is threaded like a tacking stitch through our family, and her recipes for rock cakes and neenish tarts are still filling lunch boxes five generations later.

Like my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, I bake. A lot. Cakes, slices, more scones than seems appropriate for a woman two decades short of 60. I bake when I’m stressed and when I’m happy. Mostly, I do it when I want to make other people happy.

Continue reading "Happiness has only one yummy ingredient: baking!" »

Society is seized by an obsession with cuisine. The Masterchef empire and the cult of the celebrity chef are facets of this fixation. All over the nation citizens rush to microwave their dinner in time to watch their favourite buff chef or pre-teen whip up something magic.

This increased interest in food, and particularly food preparation, could produce concrete improvements in the way we cook and thereby enhance our everyday quality of life.

Yet so much of what we are offered as culinary inspiration seems more liable to produce culinary intimidation, by virtue of its sheer complexity. And culinary intimidation is completely unnecessary since the secret of successful food preparation is to do as little as possible to it.

Continue reading "The best chefs cook naked" »

If you’re anything like me, then you’re occasionally susceptible to wild fits of buying stuff that has eco-certification logos all over it.

Fair Trade, carbon neutral, Flipper-friendly - essentially if it’s round, has an acronym, and is preferably some shade of green, then I’ll buy the item it’s endorsing. (Pictures of stupidly smiling animals on the packet don’t hurt, either.)

“Organic” is one such trend I’ve recently been fixated on. It’s a term with an underlying philosophy - products made naturally without the use of modern synthetic inputs - that has been around for quite some time now. The concept has been around since the beginning of time.

Continue reading "The great organic swindle" »

There’s an awful lot of hand-wringing these days over the binge drinking epidemic. Well, here’s a really obvious thought. Maybe all those teenagers and 20-somethings are only living up to the example we’ve set them on all kinds of fronts.

Think about it. Society today is full of bingers. We’re all bingers. We consume anything and everything in ever-increasing proportions, usually to the point of excess and often to the point of vulgarity.

Forget the obvious cases of food and booze for a minute. Take entertainment. Remember the days when you’d passively sit back and wait for your weekly instalment of TV drama? That is sooo 2005.

Continue reading "FOOI #13: Young drinkers aren’t the only bingers" »

Gaddafi’s dead. Good. We got Osama and now we got this creep. As The Sun in Britain said: “That’s for Lockerbie”. And as I myself often say: “begeeeeerrrrk”.

While the world is rightly celebrating the death of the tyrant Gaddafi today, here in the chicken coop the mood is more sombre. Across the world, millions of my fellow hens continue to be slaughtered daily in the name of another colonel.

These two colonels lived different lives, on different continents, in different eras. But the hens and I had a scratch around in the dirt today, and we came up with a few similarities. Begeeeeerrrrk!

Continue reading "Gaddafi vs Sanders: a comparison of colonels" »

It takes a man to stand tall and call his a small. Especially when he’s been a normal all his life. For centuries, it was sufficient to just order a coffee. But increasingly if you want that self-same beverage you will need to specify that you want “a small”. 

Perhaps that’s no big deal. Perhaps what was once a normal coffee is too small for the modern condition. Most of us are fatter, and have no work life balance, so it may be we need the extra milk to maintain our new weight and the extra caffeine to keep the machine spinning smoothly. 

And after all, it’s not just the coffee that’s getting bigger, everything’s getting bigger: Chinese swimmers, the gap between female US news presenters’ eyes, wine lists, teenage girls’ breasts – it’s the way of the world.

Continue reading "Listen up, blokes, there’s nothing wrong with small" »

Guillaume Brahimi makes the World’s Best Mashed Potato in his posh restaurant, Guillaume at Bennelong, at the Sydney Opera House. It costs $14. I could go there for dinner and happily eat nothing but the Paris mash.

Why’s it so good? Well, you try tossing an entire packet of butter in with four potatoes next time you’re making mash to serve with snags. You’ll win Masterchef in no time too.

Quay at Sydney’s Circular Quay is regarded as one of the world’s best restaurants (ranked No. 26). Yes, chef Peter Gilmore is clever, but I reckon brushing almost everything with butter before it leaves the kitchen is part of that genius. You show me a delicious meal and I’ll show you a restaurant with a big block of churned milk.

Continue reading "Festival of Obvious Ideas #7: Pig out when you eat out" »

The Australian Greens may well be a sanctimonious blight on the national political landscape but I don’t see why they should be teased for eating lentils or tofu.

There is nothing wrong with lentils at all. They’re terrific. Dhal rocks, as does lentil salad with mint, peas, red onion and feta, and stewed lentils make the perfect base for a grilled sausage.

Anyone who doesn’t like tofu should try the kick-arse Chinese dish mapo tofu, which is fresh tofu served with spring onions, minced pork and heaps of chilli. If that still doesn’t work they should get along to a little place called Barbecue City in Adelaide’s Chinatown and order the tofu with broad beans and pickled cabbage. While there is nothing smart or clever about vegetarianism there is also nothing wrong with eating vegetables, and this vegetable dish is one of the best going around.

Continue reading "Tofu-munching Greens are cooking up a big fat tax" »

Teenage mums in Adelaide’s northern suburbs will soon lose their welfare payments if they don’t go back to school.

Local federal MP Nick Champion asked for his electorate to be included in the Federal Government’s tough-love trial. As he says: “We are not doing anyone any favours if we do not help teen mothers finish school.”

I’m sure many of you are nodding in agreement. It’s hard to argue with a program designed to empower kids with knowledge and skills, instead of cursing them to a life of welfare dependency in the blind belief that they’ll rise up from entrenched disadvantage when they’re good and ready. But if conditional welfare is acceptable for white girls in the northern suburbs, why is the State Government so squeamish about the issue in SA’s Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands?

Continue reading "They’re not faring well and the answer’s not welfare" »

Here’s a new way to think about what you’re eating every day.

Next time you’re standing in front of the fridge, pull out the most processed item you own and make a call to the manufacturing company that produce it. Ask them if you can come around and take a look at the factory, and see how they do things.

If they agree, prepare to be horrified, says Jonathan Safran Foer.

Continue reading "Flexitarian: it’s vegetarianism for meat eaters" »

A recent survey by an international health insurer, which involved 13,000 people from 12 countries, found Australians are world leaders in self denial when it comes to being fat.

Despite 76 per cent of the Australians surveyed believing it is the individual’s responsibility to adopt preventive health measures, the results demonstrated that 60 per cent of those Australians surveyed were overweight or obese.

Continue reading "We’re getting too fat for our coffins" »

Just another night in suburban Australia and the natives are hungry.

What’s on the menu? Stir fry, spaghetti bolognese, meat and three veg. Repeat.

For a nation of smug, telly-watching food obsessives, we’re sure doing a bad job of actually cooking the stuff.

Continue reading "Taking Spag Bog beyond the bog standard" »

Bee Wilson stood transfixed in the fridge aisle; so many choices, so little time. 

Did she want the ice and water combo or the stainless steel double door? And would either one go better with the splashback they’d chosen?

If that scenario sounds familiar, you are not alone. The British food blogger who fell in love with her fridge, is just a product of a new generation.

Continue reading "My gleaming, stainless steel little room of joy" »

BBQs are an excuse to feast on too much flesh. But sometimes, the carnivorous offerings at said gatherings are less than they might be.

There really is nothing worse than turning up at a barbie to find cardboard sausages from Woolies, boring old chops and no condiment other than tomato sauce.

This is not to subscribe to the growing cult of food wankerism. It’s just to say that a BBQ should be an excuse to blacken some quality meat cuts, rather than an event where the worst meat imaginable is cooked outdoors. There’s more to it than that.

Continue reading "Friday dilemma: is it rude to take my own meat to a BBQ?" »

Every morning I attempt to do well by the countless articles relevant to maintaining a healthy balanced diet. By the afternoon, all my good intention swirls down the throne due to a momentary lapse in judgment.

Processed sugar, the supposed poison, became something I habitually consumed to remedy the three-thirtyitis. Fine occasionally, but when I needed it every day, I began to think I had a problem.

At first I blamed boredom and a juiced up sweet tooth for my daily indulgence. This erroneous conclusion was purely based on the fact that I am one of those sorry sods who head to the gym at lunchtime to feel better about my dietary choices. And then make a bad choice because I went to the gym.

Continue reading "Confessions of a sugar junkie" »

Tailgating a fussy grocery shopper is a bit like watching porn. All that squeezing, rubbing and sniffing of the stone fruit and the long, fawning glances at the root vegetables.  It’s enough to make you grow your own. Or shop at midnight.

Unfortunately for those of us put off by “touch-feely shoppers”, things are about to get worse. Cue Woolworths new “try before you buy” policy on fresh produce, with Coles expected to followed suit.

Woolworths says their policy is aimed at boosting the “quality of their fresh foods”, but to the shopping weary it’s just another chapter in the “great Australian supermarket wars”. A tiresome battle between our major food suppliers with scant regard for what we actually want from our grocery chains.

Continue reading "Shelve cheap imports, Aussie shoppers want home grown" »

Like anyone else, Australians are keen to pick up a bargain.

Our grocery aisles are filled with premium brand products alongside their cheaper cousins. We like to get the best deal when we’re buying an appliance, building our homes or fuelling our cars.

And let’s face it, while we all like to buy Australian made, we mostly consider the origin of products after we’ve checked the price tag. Who can blame us? We’ve all got families to feed and bills to pay. And a dollar only goes so far.

Continue reading "Don’t dump on the govt for protecting Aussie industry" »

I’m chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch and some other stuff that is way too scary to list here. I come in a can with a ring-pull lid. I was born in south eastern Minnesota (USA) in 1937. Every second, 3.8 cans of me are gobbled up by hungry people with no tastebuds. What am I?

It’s Tuesday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.

Grub Street is a snappy little food blog that follows restaurants and food trends in New York. This week they hit on a subject that’s starting to grate on the nerves of anybody lucky enough to spend a bit of time “dining out” - people who take photos of their food. Apparently the trend has become so widespread among New Yorkers that some restaurants have been forced to adopt a “no cameras allowed” policy.

So now over to you guys. Do any Punchers take photos of their food when dining out in fancy, and not so fancy places? And if so, what drives you to do that? And did you read Emma Jane’s Punch piece on the phenomenon?

Everyone else, feel free to talk amongst yourselves and post your thoughts below. Oh, and TGIF!

According to Bob Katter on ABC’s Q&A last Monday night, stopping the live export of cattle to Indonesia would add three million people to the 80 million Indonesians who currently go to bed hungry. According to Katter, stopping the trade was cutting off the protein food supply to three million people. Nobody disputed this.

Katter blamed Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) for not fixing the cruelty problem. He asserted that the cattle producers who had phoned and abused him didn’t know their animals were being treated this way.

It’s a pity we don’t have the equivalent of a driving test for politicians. Something to verify that they have basic numeracy skills before they can stand for Parliament. I’m not too concerned about literasy, what harm duz a few misspelled wurds do anyway? But get the numbers wrong and all kinds of stupid decisions are made.

Continue reading "Katter can’t count, but there are meatier issues at stake" »

It is a sunny Saturday in Sydney and an immaculately-attired family of five are standing as one to photograph their lunches in a posh seafood restaurant.

Mother is inspired by a spray of fluorescent caviar over curled cucumber slices. Father is attempting to frame the table’s human subjects as well as its plates (quite a feat when everyone is hovering and squinting behind their smartphones).

Daughters one, two and three, meanwhile, are less impressed with the beauty of the haute cuisine than with the digital tricks permitted by their phones’ extensive collection of photo manipulation software. They are amused (understandably) at their ability to digitally decapitate their parents and replace their heads with spanner crabs.

Continue reading "Zen and the art of managing technology" »

Did nuclear power kill any Germans prior to the announcement last week of their plans to phase out nuclear power? No.

But Germans are dying now and it’s a safe bet that the cause will not be phased out. It probably won’t even be identified in a generic way, let alone named and shamed and prosecuted. Is it cucumbers? Or cabbage or lettuce or bean sprouts?

“Death toll from E-coli cucumber outbreak reaches 16.” shouted the Sydney Morning Herald over a picture of goats chomping on a mountain of dumped cucumber.

Continue reading "A raw deal for cucumbers" »

McDonalds has bent like the proverbial river weed in the current of coffee snobbery sweeping through Australia.

No longer content to swill International Roast, cheap-a-cinos or the brown-coloured water that percolates through thrice-used grounds, Australians today demand proper coffee.

Where once it was a privilege to sup a cup of creamy latte made from beans harvested from the strained foecal matter of the rare jungle-dwelling civet, now it is a human right without which we are debased.

Continue reading "Would you like a McCivet poo coffee with that?" »

A delegation of Australian MPs has been given permission to inspect the New Zealand apple industry - as long as they don’t go near any apple trees.

Instead, they have been invited to tour New Zealand dairy farms, according to the chairman of a parliamentary committee.

The restrictions are the latest flare-up in the battle over fire blight, an agricultural disease which could destroy entire orchards.

Continue reading "Kiwis and apples: Something is rotten at the core" »

The whole airline business is built on insanely small margins. So it’s hardly a surprise to learn overnight that Jetstar makes its pittance of a profit not from ticket sales but from the sale of muffins and other “food” on board.

Note the inverted commas around the word food. As American satirist Dave Barry once said: “Airline food is not intended for human consumption. It’s intended as a form of in-flight entertainment, wherein the object is to guess what it is, starting with broad categories such as ‘mineral’ and ‘linoleum’.”

Overpriced food aside, Australian budget airlines are not all that bad. Sure, Jetstar’s a bit bogan and Virgin Blue’s a bit like a branch of the Church of the Almighty Cult of His Supreme Hipness Richard Branson. But mostly, they’re OK.

Continue reading "Money for muffins and your tix for free" »

Good morning everybody. Lots of important things happened on this day in history, none moreso than the introduction of Campbells SpaghettiOs, in 1965. That pic makes you want to eat some right now with buttery toast, doesn’t it?

Do you have a favourite tinned food product? Are todays’ politicians effectively playing tinned politics, or there is someone out there with ideas as fresh and crisp as iceberg lettuce? What else is on your mind? You know the drill. Share it here.

Koreans make it salty, Mexicans like it spicy and Thais do an easily-digestible, boiled rice-style soup.

The British inhale beans on toast, a full English breakfast (hold the sausage, thanks) or a deliciously greasy bacon buttie;  the Turks, a generous plate of organ meat. Organ meat? Yes, really, organ meat.

Personally, it’s a toss up between peanut butter on toast, or a packet of plain Smiths crinkle cut chips. It must be crinkle cut. All washed down with a gallon of soda water and several peppermint teas.  Coffee is an absolute no, no and hair of the dog is acceptable from about midday.

We’ve shared a few more of our faves below. Please add yours in too. There are mornings when we’ll need to try them, believe us!

Continue reading "Pass the bacon milkshake: our foolproof hangover cures" »

Everyone should have a favourite cookbook. Mine are almost entirely from the 1980s (not forgetting the Women’s Weekly birthday cake book), and obviously a reminder of my parents’ flair for entertaining when I was growing up.

Epicurean, Vogue Entertaining and the Women’s Weekly dinner party series inspired many nights of cheese soufflé, poached chicken with white sauce and hand-rolled chocolate truffles. All washed down with endless glasses of chardonnay in the 1980s.

But cookbooks from the 1970s have an appeal all of their own.

Continue reading "Lost but not forgotten: top ten retro food fads" »

Stoners Australia-wide may have got excited by the idea that the Government is considering legalising dope cookies, but most people realised they were not going to get a Home Brand high.

Food Standards Australia and New Zealand is looking at whether ‘hemp foods’ should become part of the national diet. They’d have negligible amounts of THC, but plenty of other good stuff. Like boring old protein, Omega 3s and dietary fibre.

But Andrew Southcott, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Parliamentary Healthcare, immediately touched base with his inner wowser.

Continue reading "Oh Mr Southcott - what a dope!" »

First things first. Let us pause to salute the salty goodness of crispy rashers a-fryin’ in the pan. As my naughty Jewish friends no doubt say before hoeing into their bacon and eggs, “Mmmm… sacrilicious.”

Second point of order. Let’s recognise Australian Bacon Week, and in particular the push by Australian Pork Limited for us all to consume more of the Aussie stuff. Did you know that 80 per cent of our bacon is imported? Or that some iconic Aussie bacon brands have that sneaky “made from imported and local ingredients” label on the side which MP Amanda Rishworth wrote about so eloquently on The Punch last week?

The answer, according to APL, is to make sure you buy pork products with their somewhat unimaginative pink square logo. This will ensure you are not buying imported pork, most of which comes from the EU, and most of which is Danish. APL say that the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service does not test imported pork for chemical residues and other nasties. The EU also has some pretty dodgy pig farms. And while it is is one of several worldwide jurisdictions phasing out inhumane treatment of farmed pigs, conditions at many Danish farms are still far from pleasant, as this disturbing video shows. The question is: are things much different in Australia?

Continue reading "A sizzling, crispy salute to bacon, without the porkies" »

If the internet is to be believed — and I see no good reason why we shouldn’t believe everything we read on the internet — Facebook has become essential to staging a revolution. As the Web 2.0 (or are we up to 3.0?) commentators keep telling us, if you’re planning on toppling a dictatorial regime, then best first spruce up your Facebook profile.

But we in the West who already inhabit the sunny uplands of democracy haven’t been slouches when it comes to using Facebook to effect large scale social change. A case in point: I recently came across a Facebook group set up to fight the good fight against noisy children in restaurants.

I hadn’t previously noticed this scourge, but apparently restaurants across the nation have been overrun by parents. Even worse, these parents, many of whom would have you believe are responsible and upstanding members of society, have been thoughtlessly taking their children along with them.

Continue reading "Families have dined out on the public long enough" »

Walking down the aisle of the average supermarket, the local shopper is bombarded with labels claiming a whole range of virtues including the Australian-ness of their product.

“Manufactured in Australia”, “Made in Australia from local and imported ingredients” and “Australian Owned” are just some of the catchcries that food manufactures use to get our attention and convince us to buy their product. This is an effective marketing tool, evidenced by explosions of claims on labels that line our supermarket shelves. But as always the devil is in the detail. Or - when it comes to food labelling - the devil is in the definition.

Australian consumers want to buy Australian-grown food not only to support Australian farmers but also because they have confidence in the standard and quality of food products grown and packaged in their own backyard. Often the Australian-ness catchcries touted on food labels are not clear and can be extremely misleading, making it difficult for the consumer to determine which part, if any, of the product was indeed grown in Australia.

Continue reading "“Made in Australia” should mean made in Australia" »

Politics has been bad for my waistline. My weight gain would have been less severe had I landed a job as a taster for Cadbury.

The public’s need to feed a politician is insatiable. Don’t get me wrong: I really appreciate it. But if politicians are in the vicinity then cakes, sandwiches and bickies are all on offer. Morning teas, openings, receptions and dinners combine to achieve death by hospitality.

This phenomenon has never been more pronounced than in my current role as the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs.

Continue reading "Chewing the fat is a dangerous occupation" »

Here at The Punch, we pride ourselves on bringing you the big issues. This is not one of them.

That said, Punchie Ant Sharwood has been bugging me all week with this dilemma. Over to you, Ant.

So I’m sitting outside the mall with a tray of cheap takeaway sushi the other day. Two boofy tradesmen sit next to me and light up a B&H each. And I can’t bring myself to eat my sushi in front of them. I just can’t. It just feels way too… effeminate or something.

To be honest, I don’t even know why I bought the sushi in the first place. Normally I’m a laksa kinda dude if I’m having cheap mall Asian takeaway. Pretty sure I felt like something healthy that day, but I wish I’d just stuck to my culinary guns. I hate sushi. It’s clammy. Bleah.

By the way, the sushi joint was full of women. It was like an episode of Sex and the City in there. Subliminally, I think they were telling me something.

Look, I have no need to affirm my masculinity through food, or through anything really. But I just can’t help thinking that if you’re not Japanese, then sushi is fare that should be reserved for the fairer sex. Am I right or am I right?

At a California university right now, you’ll find find one poor soul standing at a kitchen bench, peeling a ton of onions.

Well it may not be onions; it could just as easily be root vegetables, a cheap cut of meat and probably a whole lot of curry paste.

But whatever it is, it must be enough to feed 400 hungry mouths as part of a new university co-op- initiative that gets students cooking, cleaning and generally sharing the load, in exchange for cheaper weekly rent. 

And the whole idea fills me with dread. 

Continue reading "Absent forks and other office kitchen nightmares" »

Cookie diets, lemon detox diets, juice fasts, vegan weeks, the master cleanse.

Magazines are full of them, friends bang on about them, and every celebrity worth their size zero britches will happily rave about their benefits.

Is there anything more frustrating, galling, idiotic, and yet somehow tempting than a detox?

Continue reading "Faddish, foolish and futile: why detox diets don’t work" »

I am not a vegetarian. But I’m trying to be one because the killing of animals bothers me.

As a city-bred child the first time I saw an animal being slaughtered was while seeing the film Apocalypse Now, and I had trouble coping with watching something die. “At what exact point did its life end?”, I remember thinking.

It was the final scene in the Cambodian jungle, the setting for insanity and hell, when the poor cow was hacked gradually to death by a slight man with a machete. The initial impact was a mere tap. The cow wobbles a little, its legs faltering. The second and third strikes open up the back of its neck revealing the spine and a translucent red, and the legs give way to the huge dying mass above them.

Continue reading "WARNING: This could turn you vegetarian" »

This massive billboard for McDonald’s Yass is the funniest sign on the Australian highway network. Imagine the word “kiss” in front of it and you’ll soon see what I mean.

But there’s nothing funny about the roadside dining options on Australia’s highways, which generally range from gross to inedible to botulism-inducing.

I did plenty of driving over Christmas, in a loop of SE NSW that included a south coast beach holiday and three days camping in the Snowy Mountains. Kilometres covered: about 1,200. Memorable road meals: zero.

Continue reading "Desperate for a decent feed on a hungry highway to hell" »

Recently I was out for dinner with friends and the bread basket duly arrived. It was a cracker: lovely thick slices of sourdough – some studded with olives, others with caramelised garlic. Next to it was a generous slab of butter and a bowl of gorgeous, grassy olive oil.

But here’s the thing – no one touched it. Even the men. Like me, my companions were all famished, but that innocuous wicker basket may as well have been a nuclear reactor, such was the contempt and suspicion that greeted it.

When did bread get such a bad rap?

Continue reading "The rise and fall of bread" »

Nothing gets foodies more excited than the discovery of a new food, for example the cheese-and-bacon-stuffed pizza burger, except perhaps a jolly good debate about whether restaurant critics should be anonymous.

Just before Christmas, LA Times critic, S Irene Virbila, was outed after 15 years of relative visual obscurity as she waited outside a new Asian restaurant.

The restaurant’s owners fronted Virbila after she’d been left waiting for 45 minutes, photographed her without her permission, refused to serve her and then posted the photo online. It was obnoxious behaviour regardless of who was involved.

Continue reading "Secret life of a food critic" »

I have a challenge for the foodies of Australia.

Yes, you - the ones out there who’ve been glued to Masterchef, thrilling the neighbours with your medallions of immature ovine, steeped in a garcon’s thimble of the reduced subcutaneous oleaginous lipids of the common or garden canard, garnished with a frisson of cresson.

I think it’s time we stepped it up a notch. You may think you are adventurous, perhaps even original. 

Continue reading "A sustainable foodie future - let them eat bugs" »

I like the name ‘Nestlé’.

You can say it softly (nestle) or with that European flamboyance (Nestlé!).

And there’s just something about the logo that gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Continue reading "The day Nestlé gobbled Jenny Craig all up" »

At least once a week, when I open the newspaper there seems to be some fresh new panic about the tsunami of childhood obesity that is crashing on our golden sandy beaches which a generation or two ago were filled with healthy bronzed young men and women who were either training for the next Olympic Games or about to pull on a pair of battered Dunlop Volley sandshoes, borrow a beaten up old wooden racquet and fly off to win Wimbledon.

Yep, every time a politician opens his or her mouth (usually on the way to a four course five star lunch at a taxpayer funded Parliamentary Dining Room) they sadly shake their heads, wobble their double chins and lament the rise of the TV obsessed Generation XXL.

If you ask most people who they blame for this sad decline, they would nominate a man who might be best described as Richard Nixon, Colonel Sanders and Hannibal Lector all rolled into one. I’m talking of course about Ronald McDonald. He’s there, supersizing our kids against their better judgement till their belts burst open.

Continue reading "There’s no such thing as junk food, only junk diets" »

The other day I was at a pub, which is not unusual in itself. The pub also had a $10 steak menu, which is also not uncommon. Incredibly, I decided to have a steak.

The woman behind the counter dutifully took the order and then asked what sauce I would like with it.

“I’ll just have gravy,” I said.

Continue reading "Why doesn’t anyone just eat normal food any more?" »

Does travel broaden the mind or is it a merely a generally pleasant meandering about in search of the least untrustworthy taxi driver?

While preparing to return home from a 7-month round-the-world trip spanning 21 countries and five continents I have been pondering this question.

I would be loathe to press the case that touristic travel bestows anything more than a passport full of visa ink and a credit card more overworked than Ian Thorpe’s personal stylist.

Continue reading "Travel lessons: a broader view on fat dumb Americans" »

Butter is made by the simple act of churning cream.

Margarine is a fake food that originated in a laboratory as a result of food science. It commonly contains a lengthy list of ingredients, like hydrogenated vegetable oil and artificial colours and flavours, to control its taste, texture and colour. In fact, margarine is pumped full of artificial colouring agents so it looks yellow like butter (we’re so easily fooled).

There were once laws against dying artificial foods to look like natural foods. These days our governments are rarely bothered by chemically altered concoctions posing as food. We trust science now.

Continue reading "I can’t believe it’s not splutter" »

So people are forking out up to $50,000 so that the likes of Matt Moran, Neil Perry and Peter Gilmore can come over to their house and knock up dinner.

I’d like to see them try it at my place. If Peter Gilmore can find a way of turning a six-pack of Boags Draught, a couple of bananas, some bacon rashers and a jar of jalapenos into a snow egg, he’s welcome to the entire contents of my bank account.

Presumably the deal is that the chefs bring their own food with them, and all your fancy friends get to ooh and ahh as it is assembled. It’s all the go now among Sydney’s charity set, where the richest people in town bid obscene amounts of cash for what the marketing department likes to call “money-can’t-buy” opportunities.

Continue reading "Power parenting turning our food experience sour" »

The National Health and Medical Research Council might know a fair bit about health, but they don’t know anything about cooking.

The NHMRC last week released the innocuous sounding Assessing Cost-Effectiveness in Prevention report. The document is the result of five years of research by people who take carrots, nuts and celery into work in plastic lunch boxes, and think the rest of us should do the same.

The report has at its centre some fairly predictable calls for smokers to be taxed out of existence with an immediate 5 per cent increase in tobacco taxes (on top of the 25 per cent increase in April this year), a 10 per cent increase in the tax on spirits, and an increase in the legal drinking age from 18 to 21.

Continue reading "In defence of salt" »

People are discovering that food costs are soaring, electricity and government charges including water charges are on the increase and many families are needing to find savings in the family budget.

If recent reports by the United Nations are any indication then the savings can come from this unexpected phenomenon.

The worlwide non-profit initiative to promote Meatless Mondays and Fishless Fridays is encouraging the voluntary rationing of certain foods. This is not new as rationing was common practice during both World Wars. 

Continue reading "Enough with all the meat eating all ready" »

If you’re sick of swallowing all the political chatter from Jules and Tony take a break and chew on something meaningful out of America. And it’s not President Obama’s eloquent speech at the White House Ramadan dinner, where he defended plans for a mosque at Ground Zero. Rather, meet Paula Deen, the self-described ‘Queen of Southern Cooking’.

A woman that makes burgers using donuts as buns, lasagna sandwiches and single handedly butchers food to the point that she induces dry retching. The video above involving frozen cheesecake and a large pot of boiling oil should give you a sufficient introduction to Deen’s world.

As she says: “Just when you thought you couldn’t make cheesecake any better!”

Continue reading "US celebrity chef captures hearts, may also stop them" »

Since becoming Prime Minister, Gillard has been work-shopping the phrase ‘Sustainable Australia’. Like Kevin 07’s, ‘working families’ no-one really has a clue what it means, but the faces behind the PM on the six o’clock news all nod diligently whenever she mentions it. It is almost like they are too embarrassed to admit they have no idea what she is talking about.

I bet that every one of those ALP candidates who nod eagerly whenever the word ‘sustainable Australia’ is mentioned would love it if the Prime Minister could explain what the difference is between a ‘sustainable’ Australia and a ‘big’ Australia if you don’t cut the current immigration rate, or increase the death rate or decrease the birth rate.

It is telling the only actual policy Ms Gillard has delivered in her first four weeks as Prime Minister was to change the Minister for Population’s title to the Minister for ‘Sustainable’ Population. Every other policy she has announced will be delivered sometime in the never never or - never, ever.

Continue reading "No sustainability without food security" »

Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick, but from my limited knowledge of parenting (based solely on the experiences of friends and acquaintances), I thought it was parents who bribed their children with McDonalds. But apparently that’s just not the case.

At least, not in America, where according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington D.C based consumer advocacy group, kids are forcing their parents to take them to McDonalds and being “lured” into “childhood obesity” by their “unfair” and “deceptive” marketing strategies. And they’ve threatened to sue the restaurant chain if they fail to stop including toys in their Happy Meals within the next 30 days.

“McDonald’s marketing has the effect of conscripting America’s children into an unpaid drone army of word-of-mouth marketers, causing them to nag their parents to bring them to McDonald’s,” group director Stephen Gardner told Telegraph.co.uk. 

“[They’re like] the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children. It’s a creepy and predatory practice that warrants an injunction.”

But what about those of you raising kids in Australia, when it comes to feeding them McDonalds. Is the Happy Meal really a symbol of evil, or just a quick and easy alternative to cooking after a busy day?

While she may be terrified of snakes (see video below), when it comes to smaller members of the animal kingdom, Salma Hayek just loves to eat them.

During an appearance on the David Letterman show in the US on Monday night, the Mexican born actress said “grasshoppers”, “fried ants” and “worms” are among her favourite bugs to munch.

“Ants fried are amazing – with a little guacamole. And the worms … there are many different recipes for those. The little grasshoppers have a smoky flavor to them. It’s the way they cook them, and it’s really good,” she said.

Mmmm, just in time for lunch. Hungry, anyone?

Everyone matches wine to food, but what about matching wine to other things in life? Here are 12 classic drops to go with 12 classic movies.

Silence of the Lambs with Chianti
A thrilling and scary movie about a psychotic Dr Hannibal Lecter toying with the young but intelligent FBI agent Clarice Starling. The movie won 5 Oscars and included numerous famous quotes, but none better than, “a census taker once tried to test me, I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” So grab some pizza and your favourite Chianti Classico and bring a new dimension to your enjoyment of this thriller.

Back to the Future with Mateus Rose
Such an 80’s flick, quality usually isn’t mentioned in connection with this movie but everyone has watched it at some time. If my old’s are anything to go by Mateus Rose travels in the same boat, easily one of the biggest selling wines of all time but who admits to drinking it. Hey go back to the future and try a little rose with this classy movie.

Continue reading "A nice chianti: wines to match 12 classic movies" »

All those arguing over which version of history should be contained in the national curriculum might want to think about a subject that could mean our current generation lives long enough to achieve some level of appreciation of that history.

Food is on our minds this week, with the return of MasterChef, which last year many commentators hailed as the saviour of real food in our homes. It’s not you know.

On Friday we were told obesity has overtaken smoking as the leading cause of premature death and illness in Australia. Someone who’s never been taught to boil an egg is hardly about to rush out and snap up the ingredients for a batch of Poh’s dumplings.

Continue reading "Bring back compulsory cooking classes at school" »

While television has many examples of extreme stupidity – need I remind you of the TV executives who felt that Neighbours and MasterChef had no future on their commercial network – seldom is silliness really embraced with the level of glee suitable for an industry that’s basically just designed to fill in the gaps between the ads.

If today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s chip wrapping then today TV is – poufff – gone as soon as it’s transmitted. Well, unless you set the IQ correctly, and have managed to stop the rest of your family erasing your recording to make space on the hard drive for all of that “Come Dine With Me” marathon.

Thank heavens then for this year’s Logies. Usually TV’s night of nights is an august occasion but this year the organizers have rather let themselves down by allowing a 48 year old man whose sole claims to fame are that he a) wears a rag round his neck; and b) like to eat food and doesn’t mind if people watch, to be nominated for the Logie for best new talent.

Continue reading "A smorgasbord of stars at the tastiest Logies ever" »

Further to last week’s column about the McGriddle – the maple syrup-injected breakfast atrocity which is mercifully only available at Maccas in the US – Australia should brace itself for the arrival of another rogue foodstuff which makes the McGriddle look like an iceberg lettuce.

A group of culinary perverts in the employ of KFC has developed a truly astonishing “sandwich” called the Double Down. It has no bread. Instead, it’s two original recipe chicken breast fillets, with bacon, two types of cheese and the sinister-sounding “colonel’s sauce” sandwiched in between.

The only nice thing you can say about this atrocity is that at least it’s gluten-free. Other than that it’s merely the latest bit of comestible one-upmanship from a fast food industry which through its actions is really inviting government intervention of the most draconian kind.

Continue reading "Bite me" »

Last Saturday, while having lunch on the balcony at my favourite cheap pasta joint in the city, I saw a large man emerging from a large black Mercedes. Watching this guy cross the road with two little boys, I had one of those celebrity spotting moments when you think “that bloke kinda looks like Russell Crowe”, only to discover on closer inspection that it actually was Russell Crowe.

Things became more interesting when Rusty and the boys came up in and sat down at the table across from me at Bill and Tony’s.

Bill and Tony’s is the kind of cheap standard Italian restaurant that you can’t find in inner-city Sydney much anymore. Gaudy maps of Italy and red and white chequered table cloths have been replaced by stark aluminium interiors and names like Il Ruccola del Fuccula.

Continue reading "Rusty and the boys like a good spag bol" »

It’s finally happened. I never thought I would encounter a form of junk food which repulsed me. But on a holiday to the US last month I was confronted by a foodstuff so disgusting, so evil both in design and execution, so incredibly, inedibly putrid that my entire value system has been shocked to its core.

Despite generally having a healthy diet, and spending hours flitting about the kitchen knocking up all sorts of effeminate dishes, such as a deeply suss saffron risotto with home-made chicken stock, or pesto with basil gathered from the garden in a poncy basket, I’ve long held a perverse enthusiasm for eating crap.

The crapper the better. Dodgy kebabs, late-night chiko rolls, shallow-fried at home out of the box hidden in the back of the freezer, even those mysterious Hot Pizza Heroes from the local servo, turbo-charged before microwaving with the addition of extra cheese and half a handful of jalapeños.

Continue reading "Breakfast from hell on the highway to heart disease" »

Be afraid, be very afraid. The food Nazis are on the hunt through suburban school lunch boxes. Food is no longer a private matter in our educational institutions; parents are quaking in their shoes, terrified that they will be judged on the efficacy of their social responsibility and parenting skills by the contents of the humble pail. 

The fallout of which means becoming social pariahs based on white bread, or the inclusion of a Tim Tam.

Teachers peer beneath the lids of the not so humble receptacles (very seldom now a simple plastic box – they’re now themed, decorated, iced, chilled, heated, layered, compartmentalised and sheathed) and “tut tut”, or shake their heads at a child’s humble peanut butter sandwich or limp carrot.

Continue reading "Food allergy fascists make peanuts of us all" »

Imagine my excitement when I discovered that a food and film festival was coming to the very suburb I live in.

Not merely a food festival. Or a film festival. But a food and film festival.

What’s more it wasn’t simply coming to my suburb. It was coming to a specific area in my suburb. According to the large glossy ad on the bus shelter it was coming to a place known to us locals as The Spot.

Continue reading "Marketing trick #253: hold an event, call it a festival" »

Much discussion has been had recently – mostly media engineered discussion to coincide with Australia Day and the launch of News Ltd’s new nationally syndicated Taste section – on the subject of Australia’s national dish.

In years past dinner meant a slab of charcoaled fatty steak and three kinds of over-microwaved veg. Food was once the subject of much inattention and is now our newest obsessive interest. However, no one is sure exactly what Australia’s national dish is – or if we even have one – and there has been an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing about it.

Traditionally lacking in a food culture to call our own that doesn’t involve a well-done steak (and with the majority of the Australian population having little knowledge of indigenous eating habits beyond the witchetty grub) generations of immigrants to our shores have introduced stir-fries, pastas, curries and many more culinary masterpieces that make up the wonderful multicultural cuisines eaten across Australia.

Continue reading "Our national dish: a big pile of meat" »

The signature dish at the Prairie Hotel , in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges, is its Road Kill Grill ($30), a mix of kangaroo and emu fillet on mash, with a camel sausage tossed in for good measure.

I can recommend the kangaroo tail soup too.

Reflecting on what it means to be Australian inevitably leads to a debate about our national dish. The Daily Telegraph asked the question on Australia Day, with Masterchef’s Poh Ling Yeow telling the Tele salt-and-pepper squid has taken over from fish and chips as our top tucker. It follows on from a major survey in The Sunday Telegraph where people said Australia’s national dish is the meat pie (37 per cent), followed by roast lamb (28 per cent), lamingtons (12 per cent) and pavlova (11 per cent).

Continue reading "For a truly Australian dish, first insert tinnie in bum" »

We live in a society where almost everything can be purchased single serve, individually wrapped and stuffed with enough preservatives to last a life-time – a very short life-time for most of us if we don’t pick up some slack.

A simple fact of life is that some things just come in packets. Bread, even from a bakery, comes in a plastic bag. We don’t go the butcher to be handed a handful of mince meat, and a carton of milk wouldn’t be much chop without the carton.

Beyond that simple carton of milk, it is easy to cut corners with pre-packaged ingredients: garlic from a jar, powdered stock, instant noodles, canned vegetables and packet mixes. I too am guilty of pre-prepared ingredients in times of need. It seems easy to buy a packet mix, add meat and pre-chopped vegetables and microwave some pre-boiled vacuum packed rice than cook from scratch – but it’s not real food. We are sacrificing our health, and the environment, to eat food that brings instant gratification but no satisfaction - the idea that it takes a long time to make something from scratch is a myth.

Continue reading "The nine biggest sins of packaged food" »

It was one of the more disgusting experiences of my life and one which could only have been approached with the support of strong liquor to dull the palate and senses.

About 10 years ago while working as a journalist in Indonesia I spent a largely blissful week in the city of Manado, the capital of the strange, starfish-shaped island of Sulawesi.

Manado is about the closest thing to paradise on earth. It’s surrounded by pristine ocean, a haven for snorkelers and divers, populated by beautiful fish of every hue, and the air is scented with vanilla and clove from the trees that grow everywhere in this part of the spice islands. Manado, however, is let down badly by its restaurants.

Continue reading "Weird stuff I’ve eaten" »

If the legislation for the Orwellian­-sounding Australian National Preventive Health Agency passes, then expect an avalanche of make­-work exercises by the Agency all for the cause of making us healthier.

Armed with a budget of $133 million of your money over four years, the agency would get to work advising commonwealth and state health ministers about health issues surrounding alcohol and tobacco consumption and obesity.

It will look to create new policies about interventions in settings such as schools, workplaces and communities.

Continue reading "The perils of a fat tax" »

The gourmet burger is now mainstream.

Even Hungry Jacks has its own salt and fat packed version dragging down the reputation of Angus beef.

It’s the latest trend in food, knowing the provenance of your ingredients - with Maccas being the first mainstream brand to name Angus beef as a selling point back in August.

Continue reading "Building the ultimate burger" »

To avoid some traps for young players I feel compelled to offer some advice observed from way too many hours in the rough and tumble of professional kitchens. Call it Chefs, and how to spot them in their natural habitat.

Points are given (out of ten) for each species that you may have inhabiting your kitchen, a low score is excellent, a high score should have the alarm bells ringing.

The Pedigreed Slouch, also known as the Know–all, or Mr Europe: First thing that you notice is its casual air of superiority. Its CV is long and littered with all the right names. Once working it makes repeated and ill-timed references to previous methods in other, better kitchens. Like some sort of defense mechanism, the Slouch will, when under the pump, start a frenzied monologue of how things were done at Le Manoir Quat Saisons whilst getting deeper and deeper in the shit. Usually this ends with the Slouch being rescued by an apprentice and then promptly walking out shamefaced.
Score 8

Continue reading "A field companion to various species of chef" »

With struggling Aussie families paying consistently more for their food and groceries than other developed countries we need to take a long hard look at what’s causing the problem.

First, compare Australia to other OECD countries and there is one fact that jumps out. Australia has one of the most highly concentrated grocery sectors in the developed world.

Just two players – Coles and Woolworths – control 87% of supermarkets over 2000 square metres. They are increasing their share of fresh food, liquor, petrol and now hardware. Their tentacles spread to mobile phones, banking services and electronics. They own enough poker machines to put Las Vegas Casinos to shame.

Continue reading "We need action not excuses from the supermarket duopoly" »

The journey started a few years back when a tomato and pumpkin self seeded in the mulch in our backyard.

And it’s culminated now with me doing my best to avoid the supermarket for fruit, vegetables and meat by producing my own.

And in between - while I profess no inside knowledge about trends in food shopping - I have concluded that when blokes like me start talking about self sufficiency, the retail supermarket giants have to lift their game.

Continue reading "My goats say a lot about supermarkets" »

It’s easy to lay the blame of rising food prices at the feet of the large retailers and it also makes for a sexy, albeit misguided, headline. The easy target is often the large target, but if you strip the emotion out of this debate and look at the facts, its clear there isn’t much of a story in it at all.

It is true food costs more than it did 10 years ago. Like other products and services including education, healthcare, the cost of living increases over time, but so do wages. Australian private sector earnings have risen by nearly 51 per cent since 2000.

Australia’s real growth in wages is the second highest of 10 developed nations. But you won’t see critics talk about this when they talk about food prices. It ruins the hot headline.

Continue reading "The real facts about food prices spoil a good yarn" »

David Penberthy’s health sandwich is laden with a generous helping of cynicism and a pinch of exaggeration.

By calling for a reduction of the harmful fats in our food, Bob Carr is not seeking to ban fast food outlets. Instead, he is highlighting how easy it would be to make our takeaway foods substantially healthier.

Australians love to eat out - nearly one in three of us do so almost every day, which adds up to a massive 3.8 billion meals eaten out every year.

Continue reading "Big fat exaggeration" »

Our supposedly classless society is showing signs of being divided into two camps where people’s private choices as individuals and their behaviour as families are regulated on the basis of their affluence.

And it’s in the area of nutrition, preventative health and exercise where the working class, for want of a better term, is increasingly being treated like a bunch of babies, while the more affluent members of society continue to live as they please.

It’s only a small thing but it’s a signifier for the times, a demonstration of a mindset which holds that working class people are unable to modify their behaviour, while the gentry can be trusted to keep its conduct in check. But get along to the SCG, that great people’s arena, where our knockabout, egalitarian society lets the members drink as much full-strength beer as they want and limits the great unwashed to light beer.

Continue reading "A bourgeois recipe for working class palates" »

Beach house barbecues are risky business. Apparently, tucking into a bit of medium-rare Angus rump while watching the tide roll away could lead to your little coastal retreat collapsing into the sea in the not-too-distant future.

After a parliamentary report issued some depressing warnings about the effects of climate change-driven sea level rises on Australian coasts, one of the world’s leading environmental economists has now declared vegetarianism the way to go to save the planet.

It’s enough to make you cry into your T-bone.

Continue reading "Run for the hills, or at least become a vegetarian" »

Only the other night gazing out at the opera house from Quay restaurant in Sydney I had the good fortune to sit at dinner with the new, improved, much, much larger than life Matt Preston. Not only was I subject to his advice on all things Myf Warhurst, his pony skin R.M. Williams boots and dressing-up box chic but his stagey sexy looks.

The look that stuck in my mind is when his sultry eyes gaze towards what should be a camera and while he sucked A-list chocolate off his index finger. What I can only imagine is a lot of practice in the mirror had paid off. Although I can’t say the earth moved for me, Matt later may have retired for a cigarette.

And it made me realise how we got to this point that food isn’t food on TV without some sort of sexual imagery. Two decades (and more) ago food writing and TV was left to the stuffy, recipe writers and cookbook authors, dry enough to pucker the mouth up like a plain Carrs Water biscuit.

Continue reading "Finger-licking good: a brief history of food sex" »

This week parliament will debate a bill to establish a national Preventive Health Agency, reminding of that classic Mark Twain observation: nobody is safe while the legislature is in session.

On The Punch Federal health minister Nicola Roxon insisted that she was no nanny statist, and that the purpose of the Agency was about saving lives and reducing health costs.

Most modern governments understand the follies of outright bans, such as the failed US Prohibition movement from 1919 to 1933. However, the Agency plans what it sees as the next best thing.

Continue reading "Counterpunch: The nanny state will nag you to death" »

My parents never taught me how to cook, they just taught me how not to.

My 50-something father still burns fish fingers, and has done since I was three. Probably earlier.

My mother micro-waved all of the nutrients out of anything I ever ate.

Continue reading "The way to good cooking may be learning what not to do" »

Next week Parliament is set to consider legislation that is another first from the Rudd Government – Australia’s first agency dedicated to Preventative Health. 

Currently the media abounds with stories about our obesity epidemic, rising rates of chronic disease and problems with alcohol and tobacco.  This Agency will help us do something about those problems. 

As much as some media outlets find the labels irresistible, this isn’t about creating a nanny state, or nagging people into being ‘good’.  This Agency will be staffed with experts who will work hard to find the best possible ways to help us be healthier – and reduce our health bill as a result.

Continue reading "I’m no nanny, it’s about saving lives and the system" »

The Gourmet Top 100, the Weekend Australian’s Top 50 Restaurants, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Guide.

If this year’s restaurant awards silly season illuminated anything, it was the fact that dining standards are on the up, and that the general public has a high level of awareness about what constitutes a quality dining experience.

How could we not, with the media (figuratively) pushing food down our throats every day?

Continue reading "The What Waiters Really Think Of You Awards 2009" »

Restaurant award season is finally over. But I’m wondering if anybody really cares outside those who won gongs from the Sydney Morning Good Food Guide this week, The Age version last week and Gourmet Traveller the week before.

Certainly, there has barely been a blip in the blogger or Twitter sphere.

Once again, the old-media appointed arbiters of taste have taken one for the team by eating the finest foods known to Aussies with the usual predictable conclusions: plenty of excellent but very very expensive restaurants in Sydney; only two of these in Melbourne plus lots of very good moderately priced restaurants; not much else in Australia. Forget Tasmania.

Continue reading "Restaurant awards are the nation’s silliest private party" »

Queensland is many ways a much more reasonable facsimile of civilisation than it used to be.

However I recently discovered a glaring deficiency that rubbed away all veneer of cosmopolitan credit.

The coffee was bad. Sometimes it was bad multiplied by awful.

Continue reading "Beautiful one day, decaffeinated the next" »

MasterChef has a lot to answer for, and not just because my work colleagues have been spending their weekends at home teaching their 10-year-olds how to make croquembouche.

And it’s not over yet. The MasterChef season two cattle-call is closing this week, so it’s only a matter of time before it all starts again.

Now, while I missed out on watching the first season of MasterChef (it’s a long story) what I did watch was the rest of Australia watching MasterChef. And you all went a little crazy.

Continue reading "MasterChef created a nation of know-nothing food tossers" »

Fine dining fans will be thrilled to hear that the world’s most famous restaurant – McDonalds – has just made a bold pitch for the haute cuisine end of the market with the release of two new burgers made with prime export-quality Australian Angus beef.

“Served on a sourdough bun and with gourmet trimmings for $6.45 and $6.75 respectively, the burgers represent a premium option for cost-conscious diners” a Maccas spokesman said this week.

Many people will think this latest marketing ploy is a disgrace. And I agree with them.

Continue reading "Take your kids to Maccas with pride" »

OK, so the headline’s a bit cruel - you wouldn’t use this material in the front bar unless you enjoy a public humiliation, but it’s a good potted guide to beer tasting and matching a brew with steak.

It comes from BigThink.com and springs off Obama’s beer summit, offering advice on etiquette next time you’re settling a major national issue over a drink. Enjoy.

If you’re a beer enthusiast, check out our own Matt Kirkegaard, The Punch’s resident lager-and-stout expert.

Julie and Poh know what to do with century eggs, tempered chocolate and rabbit hindquarters, but even they might struggle with these ingredients: 1 x 425g tin of crushed pineapple, 1 cup of coconut and 1 x 250g container of sour cream.

Do you know what it makes?  Here’s a hint: ‘Mix together and leave for a couple of hours.  Serve on lettuce leaves.’

If you answered ‘Pineapple Salad’, then perhaps your childhood, like mine, included neighbourhood pool parties at which the adults downed shandies and Coolabah cask wine while nibbling on devils-on-horseback (prunes wrapped in bacon). 

Continue reading "Well read-head: Julie and Poh inspire a cookbook trip" »

As a farmer it is my duty to let backyard chook fanciers in on a secret. No chook ever died in credit. That’s why the only chooks that have ever been on our farm have been dead, plucked and ready to cook.

Chooks as pets are the flavour of the month. They are small, they eat leftovers and the eggs they lay are delicious, making them ideal pets for inner-city backyards.

But if you look at the economics, each egg will cost many times more than the amount you pay for a barn-laid dozen and food producers don’t provide homes for poultry or livestock that doesn’t earn its keep.

Continue reading "Chooks lull us into false sense of food security" »

Last night was a let down.

The cupboards were bare, the kitchen bereft of yummy smells and for the first time in two months no-one really cared who had the remote at 7pm.

Sunday night’s MasterChef finale celebrations were a distant memory, and all we were left with was an empty feeling.

Continue reading "How to cope with post-MasterChef depression" »

There’s a simple reason why some three million Australians watched the Masterchef final last night - instead of making heroes out of people you would do anything to avoid, it celebrated people you’d be happy to have as friends, or proud to have as part of your family.

On paper it was merely the latest phase in the reality television format, another game-based cooking program, similar in theory to so many others which now infect the Lifestyle Food channel, not even an original idea but the re-heated antipodean version of the British program of the same name.

As such, many Australians were slow to respond to the program, assuming it was formulaic fluff, cooked up by the marketing people in a cynical bid for ratings and targeted advertising.

Continue reading "Australia’s best TV show of all time?" »

Julie Goodwin was crowned the winner of the first series of the highly popular MasterChef Australia. She comprehensively beat South Australian artist Poh Ling Yeow after completing the three challenges they had been set.

It was a slightly controversial win of the ‘home cook’ beating the more inventive Poh who was prepared to take risks to produce some unusual and well plated dishes mainly based on her Malaysian heritage. However Julie’s cooking would probably appeal more to the masses, as she was renowned for her roast lamb and comfort food style.
MasterChef Australia has been massively successful for Channel Ten, who will be following it with a Celebrity version in October, and applications are already open for series two which will be screened next year. So what did we learn from this show?

Continue reading "Six things I learnt watching MasterChef" »

“You girls are in the final of Australia’s first Masterchef,” exclaimed Judge George. Hooray! It was an unexpected result as Julie’s unfinished offerings didn’t look a chance against the polished presentation of Chris and Poh.

Of course, the problem with a Chris / Poh playoff was that their cooking joie de vivre appeals to a niche market – a fabulous, colourful, creative and sometimes crazy place – but still a niche market.

Two million viewers probably won’t cook stinky century eggs or glutinous pigs trotters. It’s a bit like chicken feet, which while delicious, are usually left on the yum cha trolley, at least by most non-Asian diners.

Continue reading "Masterchef: I told you the girls were going to win" »

My name is Yvette and I am a Masterchef addict. Not since Charlene married Scott on Neighbours have I looked forward so eagerly to my nightly fix of commercial TV.

Masterchef has been a revelation. With gripping culinary challenges, genuine emotion and insightful tips on cooking techniques it has become must watch TV. The prospect of its conclusion on Sunday night fills me with despair.

The show has also changed my mind about the culinary industry which up ‘til now I believed was full of offensive, egotistical, sexist chefs who thought it was OK for women to cook as long as they weren’t paid for it.

Continue reading "Macho-man chefs are now stuffed and skewered" »

I have always had a fair deal of respect for nutritionist Rosemary Stanton but realised yesterday that this is only because I haven’t been paying attention.

Not sure if the rest of you caught it, but Mrs Stanton has launched a pretty out-there tirade against Bindy Irwin’s new commercial deal as the public face of a particularly sinister company.

Not Union Carbide or Exxon or British Aerospace but the baking products conglomerate Greens General Foods, one of the shadiest players in the evil cake trade.

Continue reading "Kiddies everywhere at risk from Bindi’s cake habit" »

Restaurants are defensive of their hygene in the same way that newspapers are defensive of the accuracy of their reporting. Phone up and complain and the last thing either will do is admit liability. And nowadays when people are treated shabbily they turn to the internet. Or me.

What surprises me is the number of emails and comments that come my way from diners who’ve returned home from some of Australia’s top restaurants only to fall ill. I have become, you might say, shit-central - and vomit-central - of the blog world.

The truth is for what I see is there is a good chance you may become ill eating out although not always is it the restaurant’s fault.

Apart from the food authorities in NSW, the food inspection Stasi can’t really be bothered to help diners.

Continue reading "Eaaaarggh…what really made you sick last night" »