Long live the cook!

Found time last week to sit down and watch the last episode of ‘The Cook and the Chef’. Whilst not entirely a Simon Bryant fan – you can only hear him say ‘I love it’ so many times – Maggie Beer’s enthusiasm for food is intoxicating. And how inspiring to see a real person cooking food in what at least appears to be a real domestic kitchen. Obituaries and tributes to Keith Floyd made reference to the way he reduced the distance between the ‘chef’ and his audience. In Floyd’s case it usually involved him consuming large quantities of alcohol resulting in what the Guardian described as ‘cheerful mayhem’. All of which led me to think that what we need, and not just on television, is more cook and less chef. Although that would seem to be out of step with what is actually happening with a series of ‘Celebrity Masterchef' about to be foisted upon us.
Thanks to a friend I have just finished reading through The Food Life. Inside the world of food with the grocer extraordinaire at Fairway by Steven Jenkins – the grocer extraordinaire.(Harper Collins, New York, 2008) .Fairway ("Like no other Market") for those who don’t know is a grocery store, well now five stores, in New York which claims to be the busiest food store in the world. Jenkins is a food enthusiast extraordinaire with the motto that ‘no edible is so precious that it should be cloistered as if one needs an appointment to regard it’. His whole adult life has been devoted to sourcing wonderful ingredients starting with cheese and working through just about everything else in the deli section. He believes we should spend less time and money in restaurants and more time entertaining at home using the old tools and the old recipes. He is against food fads and believes that ‘the more somebody messes with a foodstuff, refines and improves it, the less good its going to be. The recipes in his book are provided by Mitchel London who runs restaurants of his own and for Fairway. His motto is ‘very simple, very fresh and very delicious'. How soon can I be on a plane to New York?
Which brings me to the programme for the Sydney International Food Festival due to roll out next month. The number and range of events is very impressive and there should be something here for anyone with even a passing interest in food and eating. What concerns me a little is that there is a big emphasis on eating out with restaurant dinners of one sort or another and brunch and lunch deals (which do represent very good value and the opportunity to eat at places you might not be able to afford otherwise). The highlight of the month is the World Chef Showcase which is meant to ‘give serious food lovers an insight into the best from the global food scene’. I am prepared to be proved wrong but it sounds more like this event will give serious restaurant goers insights into the global restaurant scene and what chefs think we should be eating. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t very much like to hear what Fuchsia Dunlop and Sergi Arola and Sebastien Bras might have to say I just can’t justify spending $285 for the day and risk being disappointed.
I had hoped to go to the Food Blogger’ Secret Dinner but that was booked out before you could blink! With luck we will get to the 100 mile meal at Mamre Homestead and I have booked myself in to hear Stephanie Alexander talk about her new book Kitchen Garden Companion. My putative vegetable garden is still a pile of rubble which covers the area between the back door and the garage but one day it will be, well, at least productive. My inspiration is Lolo Houbein’s One Magic Square (Wakefield Press, Kent Town, 2008) – no one could read this and not want to rush out and grab a shovel. And I was interested to read extracts from Nigel Slater’s new book Tender: A cook and his vegetable garden - can’t wait to actually be growing something again rather than just reading bout it!

A Supermarket-free week

One of the great joys of moving house is that I am now within walking distance of a terrific local shopping ‘village’. We are also in easy reach of two farmer’s markets which run every Saturday rather than the second Saturday of every month with an ‘r’ in it or some such other complicated formula which means that you both forget when it’s on and you can’t possibly survive without having to top up the fruit and veg. supply in between times. So I can record that I have gone for a whole week without setting foot in either a Coles or a Woolworths supermarket. I have had to make a few trips to the local IGA for t-bags and milk and the like but surely that doesn’t really count as a trip to the supermarket? At the IGA on the corner you can actually speak to the owner and the staff are cheerful and friendly and know you by sight if not by name. At the local Coles or Woolworths you can do all your shopping, go through the self-help check out and never have to talk to a soul – if indeed there were any souls with whom to converse.
These fabulous mushrooms were at the Everleigh Markets last weekend – how could you resist?

　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

Month in Review - August 2009

If a blog is supposed to be an on-line diary then it isn't much use unless there are regular entries. Nothing is more frustrating than following someones blog where nothing happens for weeks at a time. That is of course unless they have a good excuse.
Well my excuse is that we have been moving house. In fact we have been on the move since the middle of May. Three months camping in other people's houses with one saucepan and a rice cooker and far more boxes of 'essentials' than we really needed have finally come to an end.
Although still surrounded by unopened boxes, with no door to, nor shower screen in, the bathroom and a potential vegetable garden which is a wasteland I am at least using the 'perfect' kitchen which we spent so many hours designing.There probably isn't a perfect kitchen - there can never be enough bench or cupboard space. And by the time you factor in all the limitations of size, plumbing, electricity and gas connections, and then add up the cost most ideals of perfection suffer a fair degree of modification. Nonetheless I am thrilled with the result and especially my new stove.
My criteria for the perfect stove were simple

• gas cook top with plenty of burners and room for big saucepans


• electric oven - preferably two ovens so that it would be possible to cook a roast dinner and a sponge cake simultaneously (this is not something I plan to do often but I need to know that I could)


• a separate grill! What has happened to the separate grill? I still fondly remember my mother's eye-level grill on our gas stove at home. And even my Early Kooka had a separate grill.


• something which looked attractive - practical but not too agricultural - and was easy to keep clean


• and of course something which would fit the space we had available. It needed to be reasonably compact - I didn't want to take up valuable cupboard space to get an extra oven and I couldn't afford to give up bench space for extra burners.

Believe it or not there is such a gem - a Falcon Toledo 90! It is gorgeous- looks fabulous, has the best simmer settings ever and works like a dream.

But the news this month isn't all good. I had had my heart set on doing a postgraduate diploma in Gastronomy at the University of Adelaide but because of all the house moving I had put this on hold until next year. So it was very disappointing to discover that the course has been discontinued. Lack of interest? Lack of financing? Who knows but they are not accepting any more enrolments and I am on the lookout for some other intellectual stimulation.