Mint Tea and Me

Hello Sunday Morning

2011-07-04T17:45:00.000+10:00

When I started writing full time, I decided to take a little break from blogging. I'm hoping to start up again, with a slightly different focus away from what I cover at work.

My big challenge at the moment is taking part in Hello Sunday Morning - a three month challenge to give up alcohol and blog about changes you notice as a result.

My official start day was last Thursday (June 29), and now it's Monday.

I made it through the weekend without drinking. First thoughts: in your face to all my friends that said I would last ten minutes, and, well done self!

Living in a super-social share house, Thursday night beers are a pretty common occurrence. I distracted myself upstairs despite mutual friends gathering in the living room. Come 4pm Friday, however, the after-work drink cravings kicked in.

I met with a friend (also a new HSMer) for pre-dinner drinks. The bartender at Tartufo knocked us up some pretty stellar mocktails – basil smash (basil, lemon, simple syrup, soda – sans gin). The mocktail theme continued through the night; an iced tea with dinner at Byblos and berry number at Shadow Lounge before the sweetness became all too much and I stuck to water for the rest of the night.

Come Saturday night, I found that I didn’t even need an alcohol- substitute. Waters and a single red bull saw me through whereas I’d normally have a couple of gin and tonics. Sunday night I normally have a glass of red wine with dinner but again, water was enough. Hydration, yo.

While I did enjoy a lazy Sunday, I ate a much healthier breakfast (poached eggs, avocado and goats’ cheese with mint - no cravings for greasy bacon) and managed to get all of my chores done.

Come today, I checked my bank balance and was shocked to see that I had barely touched my account over the weekend. While I had definitely splurged on a few ‘nice’ drinks (the one at Shadow Lounge was $9. Yikes.) I had spent much less over-all. Writing this also made me realise I generally consume way, way more alcoholic units that recommended by health experts. Also thinking about the sugar content of the three mocktails is scary – but I imagine that it would be less than the sugar content of three alcoholic drinks.

To be clear, I don’t usually drink so much that I’m hung-over every weekend, but I do definitely suffer from a certain fogginess after a few drinks and late-night.

Positives: Less foggy, more money and healthier diet.

Negatives: Not so bad, but pressure for friends, missing my expensive red wine and sick of explaining to everyone my motivations for not drinking.

Stay tuned for some pretty rad mocktail recipes.

Recent Happenings

2010-10-25T12:52:00.000+10:00

The last few months have been super hectic for me - for anyone that's stumbled across Mint Tea, thank you so much for reading and thanks even more for the comments - always lovely to know someone has cared enough to leave one.

Things that I've been up to lately:

- I've started writing for www.brisbanenews.com.au - I feel so lucky to write for such a great publication and everyone in the office is extraordinarily lovely.

- Having a ball taking the Kids Cooking Classes at James St Cooking School. I’ve been so impressed by the abilities and enthusiasm of the kids involved. So much fun to take.

- Cooking up a storm with Adam Liaw for the Green Heart Sustainabilty Fair for Brisbane City council. My demonstration focused on sustainable fish species – I did two dishes: grill fresh sardines with gremolata and toasted ciabatta and sesame crusted whiting with a chilli, coriander and cucumber relish. Thanks to Pip from Totally Wild for MCing with me!

- Working with QUT for Kids Nutrition Week. QUT’s health faculty hosted workshops for over 80 kids of how to have a balanced lunch box. For my workshop, we made Chocolate Fudge Balls – the recipe uses dates, raw cacao and pecans to create a lunchbox treat with no added sugars and fat. Can’t wait to do it again next year.

- Filming with Totally Wild – Pip and I filmed a few little cooking segments earlier in the year – tune in on November 3rd and 10th if you’re interested.

- Teaming up with the Red Cross to contribute to their ‘Looking at $5’ cookbook. It’s a short collaboration of recipes that cost under $5 to make. In Australia, five out of every 100 Australian’s can’t find money for food – the book is designed to help out those struggling to make ends meet. For more information check out http://www.redcross.org.au/.

- Teaming up with Skye for the launch of Mental Health Week – we competed in teams to create the tastiest smoothie. I was lucky enough to work with three time Olympic Medallist John Konrads who shared a little of his own battle with bipolar with the crowd. Very inspiring stuff.

I’m also finishing my law degree part time so it’s been full on. Thanks again to everyone that’s sent me a supportive message on twitter or stopped by to read my blog. I appreciate it so much and it always blows me away how nice people out there can be!

Happy cooking!

Sharnee

Trendatarians

2010-10-25T12:29:00.002+10:00

Food and eating trends are just like fashion –constantly changing and there are clear seasonal trends. To me personally, food trends are a little easier to spot and seem to have a much more solid, extended impact on the market.

And as much as I’m talking about gourmet onion rings, pork belly and the Spanish influx, I’m also talking about diets and a eating habits – are you really vegan, or are you just a trendatarian?

Trendatarian loosely translates as someone that’s embraced a particular food style without looking into the background of it – while it’s great to go all organic, or stop eating pork, do you know why? Have you properly researched why organic food is better for you, why chemicals are harmful and how to shop for it properly? Have you looked into the facts about animal cruelty and breeding conditions before committing to that lifestyle? I’m not saying it’s wrong at all, I just think it’s important to be informed about lifestyle choices before using corresponding labels.

I’ve eaten as a vegetarian most of my life (partly because I just feel more healthy consuming less meat), but if a meat dish looks particularly exciting I’ll eat it – partly because I need to extend my food education, and partly because it looks downright delicious.

That’s why I ditched the label a long time ago. It’s not fair to real vegetarians to call myself that because it creates confusion and a sense of fakeness around the term and I know way too many people that have been offered fish or seafood as a vego alternative as a result.

I’m as guilty as everyone else as jumping on the trend train – I often switch between croquettes with my foodie friends and organic tofu with my uni friends, but the biggest difference was when I did the raw food diet for a month – not a ‘diet’ so to speak, but just as an experiment to change how I ate – both to challenge my cooking skills and to see how my body reacted.

While I felt awesome and healthier, and was frequently challenged to be more creative – the biggest change was in how my friends perceived my new eating habits. I ate a cooked meal in front of them and was questioned about it not being raw. Without realising, I had given myself a label and if I ate outside of that label, it was perceived as going off the wagon. That felafel was my shot of tequila.

After watching a particularly compelling food movie, one of my friends went from committed carnivore to full on vegetarian. She confessed that now if she eats meat, she feels like a failure.

I think just like anything else in life, giving yourself a label isn’t always the best approach to starting something new. Embracing trends will always be part of our culture but committing to changing your eating habits is a long process. Ditch the label and if you really, really want a burger, be kind to yourself and don’t spend the next few days stressing over it.

***Originally published by the Courier Mail

Angry Gen Y Rant

2010-10-25T12:27:00.002+10:00

I’M FED up with Gen Y being labelled as the ‘lazy’ generation and reading constant media reports that we work less, expect more, stay at home latter and just generally bludge a whole lot more.

Recent reports say that Gen Y has mastered the art of work/life balance and we spend less time at our desks than other older generations – but the report didn’t touch so much on how much more time we spend connected to our phones, email accounts and lap top computers at home. Gen Y’s are better at utilising technology to work smarter and to work from different locations – but not necessarily to work less.

For some stupid reason, I have my phone set up so it beeps when I get a new email. I thought it would be handy – and it is, especially because I’m juggling quite a few jobs and email tends to be the preferred method of communication between most parties. But as I result, I’m thinking about work when I check my phone in the morning, just before bed, at coffee with friends and so on. It’s definitely not a case of leave your desk, and switching off from your job these days.

Many of us have graduated from uni degrees into a recession, or at least a recession scarred environment. Nearly all the Gen Y’s I know work full time with at least one side job or business, if not part time study as well, or alternatively study full time, work part time plus undertake some form of unpaid work experience to help secure graduate job opportunities.

As for the lazy tag we’ve been struggling to escape – a University of South Australia study demonstrated the same level of desire to work less between all age groups and generations – proving that Gen Y’s have the same view as the Gen X and Baby Boomers in their approach to hours.

I gave my dad a call about this – mainly because as I was growing he was always working ridiculously hard. He actually agreed with the research – when he was 21, he was doing about 42 hours per week, whereas now his apprentices are more likely to do around 38 hours. But he was quick to point out that there’s driven high achievers and less motivated bludgers in every generation, which in my mind is a really valid point.

A few years ago there’s was overwhelming reports on executive stress levels, work related anxiety and how we were working ourselves into the ground – maybe it’s a good thing that Gen Y is apparently leading the race on the work/life balance issue. But that doesn’t change how unfair this hype and label throwing is to our generation – women don’t like being categorised as bad drivers, old people don’t want to be seen as needy, I’m fairly sure there’s some men out there that are fully capable of asking for directions and not all teenagers constantly wear i-pods. So why would we characterise an entire generations of people as lazy?

***Originally published by the Courier Mail

Music Industry v The Internet

2010-10-25T12:26:00.000+10:00

So I'm very aware that the idea of the internet damaging the music industry has been widely talked about and is getting a little old. But the recent lists put out by My Space just seemed so ridiculous, I couldn't help writing a column on it for Radar. It's a little old now but I thought I'd post it anyway.

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Forget the ARIAS, MTV or the Billboard charts - it seems like social networking is stepping up as the leading authority on what makes the cut in the music world. With record lows of CD sales combined with increases in digital media services and torrent downloading –it’s a well recognised fact that the music industry is suffering a painful beating at the hands of the internet.

My Space has come out with a series of ‘Top Music of All Time’ lists – covering best bands, video clips and leading female and male artists. Sadly, while AC/DC, Nirvana and Red Hot Chilli Peppers made the top three bands of all time, the Rolling Stones didn’t even place and the Beatles only came in fourth – despite the hugely contentious ‘Stones or Beatles’ for best band of all time question. Equally disturbing was the fact that the Baha Men ranked at No. 4 under the banner of best One Hit Wonders for their god-awful ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’.

Internet bullying isn’t limited to school kids – some Weezer hating dude has set up a website to try and raise $10 million dollars to pay the popular US band to break up. Even though he only managed to raise $172, his campaign received heaps of publicity, and managed to reach the band themselves. Drummer Patrick Wilson responded via twitter, offering to do a ‘deluxe break-up’ if they could make it to $20 million.

In 2009, on a world wide scale the music industry made less than half of what is made in 1999. American reports also show that people spend 32% on music in 2009 than they did in 2008 – largely as a result of online file sharing and torrent downloading.

But the music industry is trying hard to make friends with the internet – most artists and bands have fully embraced social networking culture to connect with fans and promote albums and tours. Kanye West also uses it to share his caps-locked rants of how much he loves wearing fur, hates people with fake twitter accounts and admires Taylor Swift’s lyrical talents.

In what could be interpreted as a ‘pro internet move’ Radiohead offered their album “In Rainbows’ as an online download last year for whatever price fans wanted to pay, despite their massive following and potential for huge CD sales. Starting from around $1USD for credit card fees, it proved massively popular with fans – gaining them respect and offering a cheap alternative to buying music without resorting to online file sharing.

Teeny bopper Justin Bieber garnered attention from Usher and Justin Timberlake after his mum posted video’s of his school talent show online – resulting in massive record label deals and worldwide ‘Bieber fever’ for the mop haired 16 year old. I’ll leave the question of whether or not that was a win for the music industry up to you.

***Originally published by the Courier Mail

The Old Share-house Blues...

2010-09-21T20:12:00.000+10:00

Spammers have become part of our culture these day – beginning with the Russian mail-order bride type scenarios, then moving to offers from the Bank of Kenya, claims that you have millions of dollars you’ve never known about...now they’ve even moved onto the share house market.

Not only targeting the desperate and dateless, nor the less financially savvy anymore, my flatmates and I are currently searching for a new housemate while the couple we live with are abroad for six months. Enter Stacey – we received an email from her detailing her trip to Brisbane from South Africa to research for her cosmetics company employer. She enjoys swimming, getting to know new people and generally being perfect. And she attached two professional-quality photos of her leggy, blonde self.

My male house mate was stoked – thought she looked perfect. But then we started getting emails asking for personal and banking details, so she could transfer the ‘security deposit’ before we even agreed to have her move in. A few name searches – no facebook, twitter, photos, anything. We smell spam.

Finding the perfect housemate is already tough enough. I’ve had over 22 housemates in my 6 years living out of home. I’ll always remember my first share house fondly. First year uni student, no Centrelink, minimal savings – so I opted to share a room with a friend for cheaper rent. There was six of us in the house in total. One was a painfully shy international student who would only venture out of his room when we were all hidden or in bed. He’d literally scuttle away if any of us came into the room. Another student was from Japan and extremely politically correct – often giving us lectures on the evils of illegal online downloading. Then there was Al - it was his first time out of the Middle East and he spent some time discovering the new variety of substances on offer in Australia – many times at 2am we would hear him running around upstairs, flicking the lights on and off, then moving onto the next room and doing the same. Ah, memories. It was actually a great introduction to the real world, getting to know different personalities and cultures after being somewhat sheltered on the Sunshine Coast.

A few years forward and I have more share house stories than I care to admit – living with an obsessive compulsive, a kleptomanic who would often come home with bar mats and house numbers, a chef that hated to cook, a stranded Russian girl we let sleep on the couch, best friends, boyfriends, ultra cool art students, bunking with a friends wonderful family (thank you so much Smiths) and now – living with some of the coolest people I’ve met.

Share houses become your home away from home, like a small, temporary and often partially insane family. Whoever we get to move in is going to have big shoes to fill.

**Originally published by the Courier Mail 21 Sept 2010

Lessons in life from little people

2010-09-21T20:10:00.002+10:00

Most of my life, I’ve been harboring under the assumption that all children are basically mini adults – quiet, rational, practical little things that just haven’t grown quite tall enough yet. We’re introducing kids cooking classes at James Street, which meant this week I got to spend an afternoon with our head chef John and a bunch of 4-6 year olds in a trial class, teaching them how to make rice paper rolls. I think I might have actually learnt more than any of them in our couple of hours together.

Thinking back to primary school, we utilized the ‘hands up’ move to get their attention – which worked, for about 10 seconds. That was lesson number one – you have to work for their attention. In a room of full of young child wonders, unless you are holding a delicious treat or a shiny DS console or have an extremely loud voice, you are going to have get creative in order to hold their attention. Or bribe them with fresh strawberries.

Some of our trial victims were a little younger than our usual class participants and rolling the rice paper rolls was a bit of a challenge. This was lesson number two - they are smart. You can’t get anything past 6 sets of eager eyes watching your every move. They will question you and won’t be afraid to tell you if they think you’re wrong. They know you’re trying to fix their rice paper creation even if you tell them you’re just ‘moving it over here’. They’ll also be pretty quick to tell you your singing is pretty terrible.

Lesson number three - they know what they like, and they definitely know what they don’t like. They know that natural yoghurt is not ‘just like cream’ but they might just be more willing to try it if you grate some chocolate over the top. It’s great to get them involved in making the food– even if they claim not to like a core ingredient, once they’ve invested effort into making a dish, there’s no way they’re not going to try the end result – even if it does have vegetables.

Be prepared - lesson four – the energizer bunny ain’t got nothing on them. Even if I had four consecutive shots of espresso and a bag of red snakes, I’m fairly confident these kids would still have more energy than me. If there was some way of harnessing their combined energy, we’d have the ultimate green energy source and enough power for all the lights in Brisbane.

The final lesson of the day was be prepared to get a little messy. I’ve always consider myself quite skilled at making mess in the kitchen, but these guys are pros. When rolling pastry, it seems essential that the amount of flour on the bench is in direct proportion to the amount of flour on your face. At the end of the day if you haven’t made a mess, you haven’t worked hard enough.

***Originally published by the Courier Mail, 14 Sept 2010

Food festivals - When some are harder to stomach than others...

2010-09-21T20:07:00.000+10:00

Last week Serbia played host to the 7^th Annual World Testicle Cooking Championship – the little town of Ozrem packed out with locals and international gonad enthusiasts to celebrate the cooking and eating of what they like to call ‘white kidneys’. A popular variant this year was kangaroo testicle, joining the already impressive line up of ostrich, camel, bull and boar balls.

The festival organiser said the day was about “fun, food and bravery” and if you fancy a side dish, there is roasted pig or lamb to go along side your testicle moussaka, testicle goulash or pizza. They even hand out ‘most ballsy’ awards – this year honouring Barack Obama in his role as US President.

It makes us look down right tame in comparison. We have a lovely little range of festivals in Queensland for apples and strawberries and seafood. The Greek festival is a brilliant one too – especially when you get to watch one of your best mates get walloped by an 11 year girl on stage in front of hundreds of people in a honey puff eating competition (nice work Samuel).

Noche De Rabones is held in annually in Oaxaca City, Mexio – Night of the Radishes. It dates back to 1897 and still attracts thousands – with farmers beginning special preparations months in advance. It’s a festival for radishes, obviously, where growers painstakingly carve out all kinds of figures and scenes from the root vegetable. I think there’s awesome potential there for a horror movie plot.

Hawaii has it’s annual Waikiki Spam Jam. It’s an entire street festival devoted to spam – as in the pink meat in a can. It honours the seven million cans of spam consumed per year in Hawaii alone – making it the state with the highest spam per person ratio in the whole USA. All the local restaurants put on spam –based specials – the Greek place even makes ‘spamakopita’.

Unsuprisingly, Spam Jam isn’t the only American-based, junk-food related festival – there’s the ‘Cola and Moonpie’ festival in Tennesse and a few others going around – tipping the scale more towards crazy there’s the Annual Road Kill cook off in West Virginia. It basically requires budding chefs to turn potential road kill meats like raccoon, possum and deer into tasty treats. Past dishes have included squirrel gravy over biscuits, teriyaki marinated bear and deer sausages.

The Winter Festival of Thorrablot occurs in Iceland every year and features a huge feast that is famous for featuring unusual foods – items like puffin, pureed sheeps head (‘head cheese’), seal flippers and poison ice shark (which must be rotted and dried before consumption) are just a few dishes that can be sampled.

The Annual World Testicle Cooking Championship was so popular this year, they’re expecting even more international crowds next year and are planning to make the event bigger and better. Watch out Skippy.

***Published by the Courier Mail, 7th Sept 2010

Channel Ten Program Launch

2010-09-16T23:47:00.001+10:00

Channel Ten had it's 2011 Program Launch on Tuesday night - it was great to see a sneak peak of shows to come, catch up with some old MasterChef friends and meet some of the real celebrities!

Also after doing numerous phone interviews for MC elimination it was cool to meet some other journalists and put faces to names.

Tim from Nova, Callum, me and the Bondi Vet!

Dr. Chris Brown (aka the Bondi Vet) - what is your kryptonite? He is way too down to earth and just generally lovely - even with Alvin ribbing him about being a non-vegetarian vet.

The food at Sono Portside was really impressive for a large scale function - my stand out canapé for the evening had to be the freshly shucked oysters done three ways - raspberry, lemon and rice vinegar with grated radish was amazing. Lots of lovely croquettes, seared tuna pieces, salmon tartare, duck and cucumber rolls and sushi also kept us going.

The best part was that Alvin, Callum and Marion all flew into town for the event to join the locals - Devon, Skye and I.

Though Devon did seemed stoked with meeting Carrie Bickmore...

Some other big news for me - I've started at Brisbane News this week! I'm still freelancing for the Courier and Taste section but having lots of fun with the team at BN as well. Keep an eye out for my articles next week - including a fantastic silverbeet recipe from Jason at the Gunshop cafe.

One final plug - our kids classes are starting at James Street Cooking School!! Monday 20 September kicks off our first one after a series of trial class. If you have any little ones in your life (brother, sister, niece, nephew, son, daughter, grandkids) bring them along. The class are $75 per pair and include lunch prepared by our chefs.

So I'd love to hear - which Channel 10 celebrity would you love to meet?

Planet Cake

2010-09-03T13:20:00.001+10:00

As a foodie wanna-be/baking enthusiast, if someone tells you that they're going to let you loose in the Planet Cake design studio, you don't think twice.

But then what if the requirement was you had to start a cake at 10pm...to be ready at 10am...that normally takes three days to make? Oh and it's all recorded.

You end up in a sugar-coated world of pain. This challenge was easily my biggest highlight on Masterchef. I loved creating the cake with Carrie and the people at Planet Cake were super amazing. Even if we were a little delirious by 3am.

It's hard to see the detail but we made it all from scratch - including the little figurine - using a little pen to put the ruffles in her skirt layers.

Obviously, it's got nothing on a cake made by the Planet Cake team - their work is absolutely amazing.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have worked with them!

http://www.planetcake.com.au/couturecakes/childrens.php

Movies for Foodies

2010-09-02T13:26:00.000+10:00

I’m not the biggest film buff, but movies with good food credentials are the most likely to hook me in. A good food film will make you leave the cinema craving whatever had just graced the screen. My biggest pet peeves when watching TV and movies are in restaurant scenes: just as the food arrives, disaster or something similar strikes and characters seem to inevitably leave the restaurant – food untouched.

I’m not sure why it annoys me so much: maybe it’s because it’s so unrealistic. Maybe it’s just because I wanted to know what the ordered, or if it was good.

Some films do bother to pay attention to the food though:

Eat, Pray, Love is set to be released in Australia soon – as part of her journey, Julia Roberts goes on a carb-a-thon in Italy indulging in pizza, pasta, gelato, friend artichokes and lots of wine. I’m going to ignore the whole woman-frees-herself-from-carb-restricting cliché, as I’d rather focus on how good that plate of pasta looked.

While it’s set to be the chick flick of the year, the preview should be enough to draw foodies in too. Last year it was Julie and Julia, a film about the beginning of icon Julia Child’s food career. The lack of focus on the food was a tad disappointing - Meryl Strep delivered a far stronger performance that any of the dishes in the movie- though it was entertaining to watch characters struggling to cook a whole lobster.

A great food film is Waitress – set in a country town, a waitress (Kerry Russell) with a crappy husband creates inventive pies for a diner – ‘I hate my husband’ pie is filled with bittersweet chocolate, then drowned in caramel. ‘I don’t want Earl’s baby’ pie is egg and brie with a smoked ham centre. Other specialities of hers are a chocolate crust with smashed raspberries and blackberries, and a New York style cheesecake with a bourbon glaze, nutmeg and pecans.

Food Inc doesn’t make you as hungry as much as it’s makes you think about what you’re eating – the film provides a fantastic insight into corporate farming and industrial production in the USA. It’s in a similar vein as Supersize Me – the film that investigated the health impacts of surviving on an all MacDonald’s diet.

Chocolat is sensual in its food scenes, pouring pure hot chocolate from long necked silver jugs. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory thrills in the same way - candy bearing trees, fruit flavoured wall paper and three course flavoured gum tempting kids and adults alike.

Piranha’s 3D is coming out soon – audiences aren’t so much lusting after the food as they’re hoping not to become it. Classic 70’s movie Soylent Green is set in the then-distant future of 2020, where food is scarce and character get excited over the sight of limp celery - food of the masses is Soylent Green – made out of similar food source to what the piranha’s seem to enjoy.

Ratatouille takes the cake as my favourite though: it’s cute and fun, and the food will still have you salivating, despite being prepared by an unlikely little chef.

So I know I've missed out on a lot of classics here, so what are your favourite food related movies?

PS. Sorry for getting carried away with the pictures for this one!!

**Originally published by the Courier Mail 31 August 2010 - Radar - On The Side

Your Kitchen Arsenal

2010-08-27T10:51:00.000+10:00

Useless kitchen gadgets. Everyone has at least one, quietly lurking away in some kitchen drawer, or maybe even proudly displayed on a bench. If you haven’t been sucked in to buying one, chances are you’ve at least been gifted one in the past.

An upmarket Brisbane home wares store are currently advertising giant pancake pens – basically a large squeezie bottle that you load up with batter and then squirt into your hot frying pan. Having a gift voucher burning a hole in my pocket, I caught myself wondering how handy they would be to have...before giving myself a big mental slap over the back of the head. A squeezie bottle? For batter? I probably make pancakes about once a year. And yet...I still kind of want one.

The kitchen gadget trap is particularly good at sucking you in... There’s something for everyone: how could a handy man turn into a full blown home chef, if not for his faux-leather BBQ tool belt, complete with egg flip and tongs? If you’ve ever listened to Jens Lekman, you’d be well aware of the perils of avocado slicing, so why not let an avocado slicer do the work for you? If you ever feel that you’ve dispelled unnecessary amounts of energy grinding salt and pepper? Fear not – push button electric salt and pepper grinders are now readily available; some even with an inbuilt LED light for pin-point accuracy when seasoning.

Joining the useless kitchen items list we have ‘banana hangers’, ‘cheese domes’, ‘mushroom brushes’ and baby tongs. And as much as I detest them, way too many people seem enamoured by their garlic peelers for me to judge too harshly.

Another gadget that seemed to have a strong run in the late 90’s was the beloved pie maker. Take last night’s left over Bolognese, some puff pastry and boom –ready to go little pies. No drive to the servo required. Never mind that you could just fold the edges on the puff and pop them in the oven for the same result....

My grandfather was an avid lover of the pie maker. We would often be treated to a three course pie extravaganza – maybe left-over Mornay to begin, followed by a mince concoction and then a fruity variation on tinned pie apple to finish. I think the pie-happy craze finished up good seven or eight years ago, but the little machine is still sitting tight somewhere, just in case.

Come to think of it, out of my little foodie circle of friends, I don’t think there is one person I know that hasn’t been enamoured by one particular useless item at one point or another. There’s no way I could throw out my beloved penguin-shaped waffle maker. In four years of owning it, I’ve used it three times. The waffles have a little dent in the penguin’s stomach for ice cream. As useless, ridiculous and potentially embarrassing as it is, I really love that damn machine.

Tutti Fruity

2010-08-27T10:48:00.000+10:00

One of my favourite things about living in Queensland how we have access to such a huge variety of fruits, throughout so much of the year – as lovely as fruit bowl favourite such as bananas, apples and oranges are, I don’t think we take enough advantage of the massive range of tropical delicacies available. There’s so much range past the standard tropical favourites mangoes and lychees.

This is slightly embarrassing to admit but I only tried cumquats for the first time last week – my friend gave me an enormous bag from their farm. A quick google search revealed you could eat them whole – probably the best way actually, as the skin has a wonderful sweetness that offsets the super tart, sour juicy centre.

I tried to convince my housemates to try them – none of them had ever seen a cumquat before and they thought I was having them on about eating the rind. Mark tried one and described it as being like ‘little sour candies’. They’re slightly addictive and all my plans for jams and marmalade when out the window as we demolished half the bag between us.

As we get older, it’s rare to encounter tastes that are totally new to us – flavours become familiar and while we keep trying different combinations of foods, you generally will have an idea of how something is going to taste before it hits your tongue. For me, trying new, raw flavours for the first time is so exciting. It’s kind of like being a kid again. Tropical fruits are the best because they often have very distinctive tastes and strong, punchy flavours.

Mangosteen is known as the ‘Queen of Fruit’ in South East Asian countries, it’s available at most major supermarkets and remains one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten – yet 4/5 people in my random office survey didn’t know what it was.

Feijoa is another great fruit to try– the flavour is very unique and can be eaten just like a kiwi fruit. There’s an argument to try dragon fruit based on appearance alone - anything that’s hot pink with green spikes has to be worth a try. Persimmons, pomegranate, custard apple, soursop and bitter melon are all well worth trying and if you’re feeling brave enough – venture forth to the king of all fruits – durian. Just beware it’s known for being epically stinky, so much so that it’s banned from most hostels and hotels in South East Asia.

How often is it when trying something new that we ask ‘what does it taste like?’ – you want to know the flavour before it goes in your mouth. It’s bizarre how strong our natural aversion is to taking a gamble on a flavour we may not like. But that one little patch of unfamiliar territory is definitely worth braving in order to broaden your culinary horizons.

Eating Out Anxiety

2010-08-13T17:49:00.000+10:00

I LOVE eating out. Restaurants with great service will immediately make you feel comfortable and the last thing on your mind will be which fork to use with which course.

Eating in Lygon St, Melbourne, one night, a friend and I ordered an extravagant seafood pasta dish for two. As well as standard cutlery, the wait staff started assembling an arsenal of tools either side of us - crab claw crackers, little hammers, tongs, picks for extracting flesh. It was as much of a range as a standard Bunnings aisle.

Then came little finger bowls, moist towels, condiments of chilli, parmesan, olive oil . . .

Our table was heaving before the main course had even graced us with its presence.

We looked across the table at each other. Little trickles of anxiety set in: where do we start; how do we use these tools; but, mainly, how the hell do we get through this?

The restaurant staff, as well as being lovely and friendly, gave us a quick guided tour of how to best tackle the plate.

A few bites in and our anxiety was quickly drowned by a wave of fresh napolitana sauce.

Looking back, I can imagine that situation having easily gone a different way had the staff been a little pretentious or judgmental of young dinners.

Feeling uncomfortable in a restaurant has the potential to ruin your night, no matter how amazing the menu is. It's not unusual to come across people who often feel intimidated ordering and navigating their way through dinner - it's a common social anxiety.

As a dedicated food geek, I'll nearly always peruse the menu of my dining destination before I head there to eat. I've even been guilty of asking friends in advance how to pronounce ``charcuterie'' or googling what something is.

I've contemplated settling for a glass of something local because requesting ``Bellussi Prosecco di Valdobbiadene'' had seemed like too much of a mouthful.

For those with eating-out anxieties, tapas-style dining can be the most panic-inducing of all because the well-known structure of entree, followed by main and then dessert is flung out the window and you fend for yourself in terms of ordering your meal.

My family didn't eat out a great deal, so moving to Brisbane and discovering the fine dining scene was a new experience for me not so many years ago. It was slightly intimidating walking into a beautiful place and not being entirely au fait with dining etiquette. I quickly learnt that while certain etiquette exists, it's silly to be intimidated by it.

Now, as much as I can appreciate suave staff and tasteful decor, there isn't a great deal that will distract me once the plates are set down on the table.

*Published by the Courier Mail TUE 03 AUG 2010

Masterchef Finale

2010-08-13T17:44:00.000+10:00

This comes a little late now - but this was my column from after the MC finale.

WHAT did everyone get up to Sunday night? If you happened to spend half the evening tuned into Channel 10, I don't think you would have been alone. The juggernaut that was MasterChef season 2 is done and dusted and I actually feel a little sad.

It was June last year, in the middle of a particularly heinous exam block, that I decided to put in my application. Auditions were in October - and then, in what has seemed like a blink of an eye, the show has wrapped.

It was such a fantastic program to be involved with. It's been said half a million times but everyone involved, from cast to crew to executive producers, are all down-to-earth, lovely people.

For me, the best moments all happened off-camera. Put 24 big personalities in a house together and things are bound to get interesting. Some of my highlights were: all of us letting off steam by dancing to the Katy Perry theme song one night; neighbours that threatened to call not the police but The Herald Sun newspaper with their noise complaints; our opulent Chinese New Year feast prepared together under instruction from Adam, Alvin and Marion; Jake having midnight barbecues; and Jimmy making a big batch of his amazing chai tea for everyone at night.

Moving back into my share house now, my old housemates can't believe how clean I am. I'd contribute at least 50 per cent of that improvement to Jono for always getting up Callum, Matt and I about our mess (we still love him though).

Heading back for the finale felt like a big family reunion.

Adam made a great point last week about MasterChef being about more than cooking. For the contestants, there's a huge personal development side to the competition as well. Being away from your home environment and having so much down time on set can turn into a bit of a luxury.

It's true time out from your own little world can afford you enormous amounts of perspective.

It's such a thrill when people tell me that MasterChef has made them cook more or, even better, it's made their children excited about food. Children these days are 10 times better at cooking than I was - which in turn makes me extremely excited about Australia's future food scene.

I feel incredibly lucky to have been involved with the show and can't wait to see next year's batch go through. How the producers will make it bigger than this season, I have no idea.

Huge congratulations to Adam. Both he and Callum are fantastic cooks and were deserving contenders for the title.

I think it's clear they both have promising food careers ahead of them.

So, if you were a MasterChef fan, I hope we've all entertained you. Thank you for tuning in and I'm sorry about all the tears - we tried to hold them back. Or at least we did most of the time. I'm off to bake a croquembouche to celebrate.

*Published by Courier Mail, TUE 27 JUL 2010, Page 026

Foodie Thrills

2010-08-13T17:34:00.000+10:00

My very first column for Radar -

Extreme sports have always held a certain allure when travelling overseas but a new trend is emerging - extreme eating.

And I don't mean all-you-can-eat-style contests. From offal to insects, things that can sometimes make your stomach turn are making their way on to the plates of some of the nation's top foodies.

Just as thrill-seekers are drawn to bungee jumping and other death-defying acts, culinary junkies spend their time looking for the next weird taste thrill. If brains, hooves and all the bits in between make your stomach turn, maybe now's the time to tune out. The concept of using a whole beast definitely isn't something new - offal dishes in particular have become hugely popular on restaurant menus. A Perth butcher recently took it up another notch by getting permission from the West Australian Government to supply horse meat to the public.

MasterChef managed to turn me from non-meat eater into an offal enthusiast - a necessary transformation when asked to prepare fresh lamb's testicles for work experience at a traditional Turkish restaurant.

For the more extreme foodie thrills, head overseas.

South-East Asia remains a rewarding destination - shots of warm snake blood, fertilised duck eggs with little beaks poking through and carts full of grasshoppers and crickets.

And then there's one of the world's most fascinating menu items, the Japanese specialty fugu - poisonous pufferfish that can be deadly if prepared incorrectly.

A friend recently hit Peru for its national dish of whole roasted guinea pig, served head, paws and all.

There's a smattering of cable TV programs devoted to uncovering the strangest menu items across the world. But do these programs help or hinder cities that have earned reputations as food-lover destinations?

When I was backpacking in Cambodia, the family I was staying with took me out to dinner. Our first course came out - a big plate of glistening, black, deep-fried tarantula. I closed my eyes and bit into the big, juicy abdomen. It was horrible. I could feel the little hairy legs tickling my throat. Noticing my struggle, my host family was much more amused than offended. They explained that the reason insects became popular fare in Cambodia went back to when the Khmer Rouge was in power and many families were forced to flee and live in the forests where food was scare. Insects were collected for protein out of necessity. They're now regarded as a national delicacy.

It made me realise how important the history behind food can be when it comes to appreciating the more unusual aspects of a cuisine.

I don't know if I would classify myself as an extreme foodie just yet, but I definitely have the urge to try more of the weird and wonderful - and to find out the reasons behind it.

*Published in the Courier Mail - 18th July 2010

Regional Flavours 2010

2010-07-29T21:43:00.000+10:00

This comes a little late but Southbank played host to Regional Flavour this past weekend - an event show-casing 80 local producers from South East Queensland. There was tons of awesome cheese and wine available as well as all kinds of other goodies.

I was lucky enough to team up with Skye to do some demo's on the main stage. She did a great demo of her signature Chocolate Avocado Mousse dish and I did a little Zucchini Flower with Goats Curd and Panzanella entree.

Best part of the day was seeing so many kids get excited about cooking and their willingness to try new flavours - I was pretty impressed they were willing to try the zucchini dish!

The team at South Bank are trying to hold it as an annual event - stay tuned for next years!

Thanks to http://www.loveisaroundtheworld.com/ for the great picture.

Yuzusco!

2010-07-29T16:43:00.000+10:00

This little bottle of green sauce has been my latest obsession - it's so good! I don't know if I missed the boat on it earlier or where it's been hiding - but I've gone through half a bottle in less than a week. It's basically a version of Tabasco sauce made out of green chillis, vinegar and yuzu - a little Japanese citrus fruit.

It works with pretty much anything and adds an awesome tangy, citrus kick.

Masterchef Junior

2010-07-27T10:21:00.000+10:00

I think I've said it a few times now; but I'm so excited about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRhTIOXgbAM

I've been chatting to some of the producers on board with it and it sounds like these kids are unbelievable!

Bring on Junior!

Congratulations Adam!

2010-07-26T23:10:00.000+10:00

Masterchef has wrapped for 2010 and I couldn't be more happy with the result - Callum and Adam were both totally deserving of their spots in the top 2 and I was stoked to see Adam walk away with the title. I can't wait to buy his cookbook!

The MC experience has pretty much been my life for close to a year now - I'm a little sad to see it come to an end but very excited to see where we all move forward with this.

This time last year, I was in a complete rut - not loving uni, unmotivated about the future and just unhappy in general. I feel like a whole new person now - I'm still studying but I feel like I have genuine options on the table and I can go anywhere I like with my future.

I get to spend most of my time doing things I love - prepping food and helping out at James St Cooking School, asking the chefs endless questions and learning all the time, working with the crew from the Courier Mail and researching and writing about food and working on lots of little projects that pop up around the place as well.

I've been absolutely blown away by all of the support and positive messages I've had through out the show - I'm incredibly lucky to have so many brilliant people in my life. For anyone that's come up and said hello - thank you all for being so friendly and positive!