We’ve all got to eat so it might as well be good! I’ve been a restaurant critic for almost 20 years, and have been writing a weekly restaurant column in Melbourne’s Sunday Age since 2006.
My approach is to always take a restaurant on its own terms: there’s no point slamming a burger joint because it doesn’t have white tablecloths. I try to be constructive in my criticism and I’ve always got the diner in mind: there are many places you could choose to go. Why should it be here?
This week's radio chat was about chestnuts and other foods that are a bit of a hassle but entirely worth it
This week's radio chat was all about apples: the which, why and how of eating, cooking and generally appreciating this wonderful and versatile fruit
I'm a keen camper and an even keener camp eater. I love cooking and eating outdoors and I also appreciate the challenges: no power, no fridges, goannas that want to eat your apples, total fire bans...you name it, we've encountered it!
How is chocolate made, what distinguishes good chocolate from bad and are white chocolate and raw chocolate really chocolate at all? Yes, we're asking the big questions in today's radio chat
Sometimes duck is just duck: bird on a plate. But when chef Joe Grbac is cooking duck it's a shrewd but tender honouring of produce, a showcase of flavour matches and a sensitive mastery of cooking techniques that ensure the bird is conversation-haltingly delicious.
Chocolate maker Debb Makin has a storied past. As a zoologist in Kenya, she gave baboons vasectomies and, in Texas, trained rhinos to accept life-saving injections.
Passover is a Jewish festival that commemorates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt; I chatted Passover food traditions on Jewish radio in preparation for cooking matzo balls at a Jewish food festival
Have you ever been served eggs benedict in a bank? Well, you can make it happen now. Just go to Riddik, an all-day restaurant that's transformed the old ANZ bank building in Templestowe's shopping hub into a big, bright, eager-to-please hangout.
It was the camel milk that did it. Jim Karabagias was already feeling a bit jaded by a decade of serving breakfast at his Greek-skewed cafe – so much smashing of avocados, and they're not even slightly Hellenic.
