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?
Have you got an hour? Ask a Middle Eastern person about their favourite hummus and be ready to listen long and hard! Hummus is an everyday traditional food all the way from Yemen to Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey but there are as many variations as there are eaters! At its simplest, hummus combines chickpeas and tahini, then there's the potential addition of salt, pepper, spices, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and water. Plus, there's the question of texture. Should it be smooth or sturdy? We dig in...
In mid-March, not long before Australia went into lockdown, I visited Peter Gunn's IDES restaurant to talk to him about his signature Black Box dessert. This is an incredible dish - mystery giving way to intricate layers of taste, revealed through an act of sunny, sanctioned violence. For me, the Black Box is the thread which allows us to explore other themes. I love what the dessert says about the chef who created it and the restaurant he owns and runs. It's a tale of creativity, persistence, leadership, teamwork and the importance of fun.
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When you're invited to morning tea with cooking legend Stephanie Alexander and chef Curtis Stone, you say 'Yes!' The purpose of the event was to launch a partnership between Coles and Stephanie's Kitchen Garden program but I grabbed Curtis and Stephanie for a broader chat about healthy and diverse eating. I hope you enjoy my little video above! One of my main takeaways is that good cooking doesn't need to be complicated, and it's fine to rely on great ingredients to make a meal satisfying. I plundered my own recipe archives to find some recipes that reinforce these messages.
Lunar New Year (or Chinese New Year) is one of the world's great annual celebrations. How big? Well, in China people are expected to take around three billion journeys as they travel to join family for festivities. The shebang begins on Saturday January 25 with the Year of the Rat starting the following day, and celebrations continuing for 23 days. Special 'lucky' foods are eaten during this period, sometimes because of their colour (red is lucky) and often because their name is a homonym for words such as 'luck', 'prosperity', 'wealth'.
Malaysian cookbook author Annie Xavier shares tips and insights as she discusses her approach to Chinese-Malaysian cooking
Radio chat: Well, there's no denying it. The countdown to Christmas is on! I always know it's coming when my mother-in-law's annual parcel of Christmas decorations arrives from England...and, indeed, it was on my doorstep yesterday. As though by magic, I've got my "ho-ho-ho" happening and my bells are jingling. Every couple of weeks, I drop into ABC Radio Melbourne to chat food. This time, we talked Christmas desserts.
Radio chat: This time I was just back from India so we talked about all the great things I ate (and ate and ate) while I was there. My trip wasn't long and I only went to Mumbai - it's actually kind of crazy to go to somewhere as big and diverse as India for just a week, but it was totally worth it. I dove in and made the most of every moment (and morsel).
Hummus makes the world go around! Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration but it is very important! I drop into ABC Radio Melbourne every couple of weeks to chat food. This week, I just had to talk about hummus. I've been obsessing about it - making it every which way, eating it, talking about it, and looking forward to eating it some more.
I dropped into 3RRR's weekly Eat It show to talk about dinner parties - if we have them, how do we do them, and if we don't, what's stopping us? This is a pretty big topic that I'm diving into with great interest. We also preview my new Signature Dish Series, exclusive behind-the-scenes events in top restaurants.
