JENNIFER SUSANTO-LEE

The West Australian: December 2011

2012-01-11T01:46:00.000-08:00

Photo: Stuart Scott

Making His Marque

From working on the mines of Western Australia to becoming one of the most feted and sought-after chefs in the country, Marque restaurant’s Mark Best has come a long way, baby.

Best was in Perth recently to promote his new cookbook ‘Marque: A Culinary Adventure’, where he took time out from his schedule for a chat about gold, submarines and grief. The book, his first, is a collaborative effort with Marque’s head chef of seven years, Pasi Petanen.

“I like writing,” says Best.

“I’ve written pieces and submitted articles for Gourmet Traveller and I’ve enjoyed the process of being interviewed over the years. So to actually sit down and put it into a cohesive and interesting package was a real process. You understand that chatting like we are now is very different to putting things into words, and writing 6,000-7,000 words is quite difficult. But once I got into it I actually found it a cathartic process. As I mention in the book, my sister was killed when she was seventeen. Long time ago now, but there were memories such as these that came up which made writing a very, very emotional experience. You have to really analyse things, and I loved that part of it.”

Marque has always been a favourite with the critics, and in recent years it has won a slew of accolades, including Gourmet Traveller’s Restaurant of the Year 2012 and listing 70^th in S Pellegrino’s World’s 100 Best Restaurants, arguably making Marque one of Australia’s most illustrious and important restaurants. And after twelve years in the game, it was high time to put pen to paper.

“I think it was about building up a body of work that you could write about,” says Best.

“In 2010 I was really gagging to write a book, but it took Hardie Grant (the book’s publisher) to have the balls to say ‘just do whatever you want and we’ll provide the resources’. Before that, everyone wanted to change what we wanted to do, to dumb down the recipes or make them home-style recipes, which I didn’t want to do. To say a keen home cook can make the recipes when it takes seven of us days to produce a recipe is silly. So the recipes are quantified as working recipes from Marque restaurant, and you can take what you want out of that. People will be able to glean lots from it, particularly about the process of cooking at Marque.”

Things weren’t always so rosy for the self-confessed late-bloomer. Back in the 80s Best was not a particularly happy camper. After re-locating West with his family from the lush farming fields of Murray Bridge in South Australia to the somewhat harsher climes of Norseman, he began the hard slog as an electrical apprentice on the North-West gold mines.

“Sparkies are considered the intellectual trade,” says Best with a wry laugh.

“Working on the mines was hard graft back then, and it was a very basic apprentice wage. I remember spending most of my wage at the pub every fortnight because that’s what everybody else did.”

With feet itching, Best moved to Sydney to re-fit submarines on Cockatoo Island for the Australian military. But still something was amiss, and it was during a stint working at a friend’s restaurant at the ripe age of twenty-five that Best finally found his calling.

“It really struck a chord with me,” he says.

“I mean, people see me as some sort of life-change guru, but it was reasonably haphazard with a bit of design. I sort of got pushed towards cooking and found I had an aptitude for it. And I loved the whole French thing.”

By this stage Best had already met his future wife Valerie and a whirlwind romance ensued. The pair decided to make a go of hospitality and opened a modern French eatery. But despite the restaurant enjoying early critical success, Best felt frustrated by his lack of culinary knowledge and went to work in France. He worked at the legendary ‘L’Arpége’ in Paris, followed by a stint at ‘Le Manoir Aux Quatre Saisons’ in the UK. On his return he and Valerie opened Marque, and the rest is hospitality folklore.

“We are coming into our thirteenth year at Marque now,” says Best.

“And the difference from when we first opened is like night and day. At first you’re your own boss with immature talent, so you start emulating your heroes and gradually, if you’re lucky, you are able to start to define your own style and create a language with what you do. I think we hit our straps in 2004-05 – that was when things started happening. We started to win accolades and we were able to get more staff and became busier. There was a momentum, and we were able to create something unique.”

‘Marque: A Culinary Adventure’ by Hardie Grant is available bookstores now, RRP$79.95.

Marque Restaurant is at 4/5 355 Crown Street, Surry Hills in Sydney.

Mark Best’s new eatery, Pei Modern, will open in Melbourne in February 2012.

The West Australian: October 2011

2011-10-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

Photo: Jennifer Susanto-Lee

Like a Fish to Water in Subiaco

It seems that Olympic swimming hero and all-round nice guy Eamon Sullivan can do no wrong these days.

His new cafe in Subiaco, Louis Baxters, is going gangbusters and he has just released his first book - a cookbook called Eamon's Kitchen.

Oh, and he was crowned 2011 Cleo Bachelor of the Year in April.

The just-turned 26-year-old is flitting between Sydney for training commitments and Perth to cosset his new venture - with swimming taking precedence at the moment.

"The London Olympics are next August and that's what it's all about for now," he says. "The trials are in March, so I've got around six months."

That's not to say swimming will always be his number one priority. Sullivan is passionate about cooking and won Celebrity MasterChef in 2009, wowing judges and fans with his culinary prowess.

Not only was he a popular contestant but he also made a few friends along the way, including his cafe business partner, Laki Baker.

"We met on the set of MasterChef. She was my producer," Sullivan says.

"She was filming on my bench so I got quite accustomed to spending time with her. She's a lovely girl, really easy to get on with.

"We were both born in Perth and she was in Sydney for 16 years before moving back here with her husband. So we kept catching up and then she got a French bulldog and I'd been trying to find a breeder, so that's how I got mine.

"And we'd have doggy playdates and discuss what we were going to do and it went from there."

Oh yes, the bulldogs. In fact, so enamoured are the pair with their canine buddies that they decided to name the cafe after them - Louis-Pierre is Laki's dog and Baxter is Sullivan's.

"We really wanted it to be about us and to give it a funky name with a bit of a story behind it," he says.

His first cooking spark began while watching his mum, who was a baker for New Norcia Bakery, and helping her out in the kitchen.

As swimming took off during his high-school years, a gruelling daily schedule of training and school (starting at 5am and finishing at 7pm) left him a very hungry boy. Home economics saved him from certain starvation and left an indelible impression.

"I was quite a fussy eater and home economics sort of forced me to try different things. I remember the first time I tried beef stroganoff, and as soon as I tried it - well, it just all happened from there really," he says.

As Sullivan's hunger for food grew, so too did his thirst for knowledge.

"I just read and read. Every time I was in a physio room or waiting for a doctor I would read Woman's Day, and when I'd get to the recipe section I'd discreetly rip it out to try it out," he says.

"I read whatever I could and experimented at home. I'm amazed by the Heston Blumenthal thing and molecular gastronomy, that side of cooking. I like the science behind it. I guess I like the theatre of that sort of food.

"Then there were the cooking shows. I was watching Floyd with my parents when I was growing up and the Two Fat Ladies, and Jamie Oliver, and then the whole food and lifestyle thing took off and I'd be glued to the Food Channel on Foxtel. I pretty much preferred watching that to anything else."

As if training for the Olympics and launching a trendy new eatery wasn't enough, Sullivan also decided to write a cookbook with many of the recipes that feature in the cafe.

The book is not so much about healthy low-fat food - more along the lines of simple dishes he enjoys cooking.

"There's no whiz-bang sous vide machines involved or anything like that," he says.

"It's just about bringing together really nice, fresh ingredients that you're able to cook at home.

"I guess when I was growing up as a teenager, boys didn't really cook at all and this is good for the guys who don't know how to cook but want to attempt something a bit different.

"It's a good way to impress girlfriends or if the girlfriends want the boys to cook for them. I've tried to approach the book from every way. For example, if somebody's scared of cooking for a group of people, then I've put some menus in so they don't have to think about preparing.

"It just takes the stress out of it. Even a slight shift in techniques and approaches can make all the difference."

With his ongoing affair with all things food, it comes as no surprise that Sullivan has future plans with a culinary bent that look set on remaining local.

"I honestly love the eatery and that side of things and would love to get more involved," he says.

"I'd like to open another one in a couple of years with a bit of a wine bar and an a la carte menu. Somewhere where you'd spend some time and enjoy a glass of wine. I'm quite into wines, when I'm able.

"It was hard to move to Sydney as Perth was all I'd ever known. Family and friends are here, and that's something I really can't replace after spending 20 years of being in Perth. I love this city."

Louis Baxters is at Shop 2, 50 Subiaco Square, Subiaco (opposite train station). 'Eamon's Kitchen' by Penguin is out now.

Click here for the Fresh article.

The West Australian: September 2011

2011-10-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

Photo: Emma Lee

Willie Takes Chocolate Obsession to Sydney

Anybody who has even a passing interest in chocolate will have heard of Willie Harcourt-Cooze, the British eccentric whose obsession with top-notch chocolate has been documented in various television series and books.

He will be one of the top drawcards at the Crave Sydney International Food Festival next month, where he will be sharing his passion for chocolate.

"I can't wait to bring the fine flavours of chocolate and the culinary delights of cacao to the Australian kitchen," says Harcourt-Cooze.

He has visited our shores before. In fact, he came to live and work here in WA as a teenager for six months, following the death of his father in England.

"My most memorable time of being in Australia was when I was 18," he says.

"I worked on a couple of different sheep ranches outside Bridgetown, and in Kojonup. It was some of the hardest and most enjoyable work I've ever done.

"There's nothing I'd love more than to go back and see the people I worked with again, but it's not going to be on this trip unfortunately."

Harcourt-Cooze's future plans include the launch of a new fruit chocolate range that features Cuban Orange, Sierra Leone Ginger and Lime and Peruvian Fruit and Nut.

"The new range will deliver classic flavours paired with fine beans to the heart of all chocolate lovers," he says.

"And, of course, I'll continue to spread the love of chocolate."

His cacao chocolate is available in Australia from Jones the Grocer. His books Willie's Chocolate Factory Cookbook and Willie's Chocolate Bible are available from book stores now.

The Crave Sydney International Food Festival will run throughout October. For more information, head to cravesydney.com.

Click here for the Fresh article.

The West Australian: July 2011

2011-08-01T05:28:00.001-07:00

Photo: Rob Duncan/WA News

Alain Shows Pioneering Spirit

Alain Fabregues is a happy man. Run off his feet, but happy.

Two weeks ago, he unearthed the first West Australian truffle in history found outside the traditional truffle-growing regions of Manjimup and Pemberton, on his property in Toodyay.

As ever, the award-winning chef and owner of The Loose Box restaurant is evoking the WA pioneering spirit and breaking new ground.

"Well, I planted 1600 oak trees on my land in Toodyay seven years ago. I was there with my dog a couple of weeks ago and that was when we found it," he chuckles.

"And Toodyay is about 500km due north from Manjimup, so it is quite a significant find."

Significant indeed.

Fabregues, whose accolades have included two French knighthoods and a prestigious Meilleur Ouvrier de France, has been cooking since the age of six.

He began by making pates with his grandmother and his culinary pedigree dates back to Napoleonic days, when his great-great-great grandmother cooked for Napoleon's army during its Italian campaign.

At 15, he went on to be an apprentice in Bordeaux and trained under late chef Jean Delaveyne, a proponent of nouvelle cuisine.

The production of truffles in WA has increased significantly over the years, from only a few in Manjimup in 2003 to nearly two tonnes last year.

It has surpassed production in Tasmania and, with more truffieres being established in the area, looks set to be a major export commodity. In the meantime, Fabregues has set his sights on another trophy - the elusive and extremely expensive white truffle.

"Yes, as if I am not busy enough," he laughs.

"I planted for white truffles last September, so now we have the long wait of seven years to see if our gamble has paid off. It is hard yakka growing truffles, conditions have to be perfect."

This year at the Mundaring Truffle Festival - which was his brainchild - Fabregues will be run off his feet.

"I am very, very busy preparing everything leading up to the festival," he says.

"And then at the truffle festival itself, I will be running the masterclass, which will be Philippe Mouchel from Melbourne, Emmanuel Mollois from Choux Cafe and myself. So it will be like a French affair.

"We are three French chefs and we are going to show people how to use truffles. So I will be cooking a chicken dish with truffle and Philippe Mouchel will be cooking a lamb dish with truffle and Emmanuel Mollois will be doing a dessert with truffle.

"I will also be running the VIP room, for our sponsors and government people, as well as the long lunch with the boys. So for the long lunch, there will be Nigel Harvey (from Voyager Estate), Peter Manifis (from Incontro and Beluga) and Hadleigh Troy (from Restaurant Amuse). And I will be doing the dessert, which will be a truffle pannacotta.

"And then of course, we'll be running The Loose Box stand that we run every year. So we have to make all of the food that we are going to sell to the people, which will be 12,000 portions. These will include a leek and truffle soup, duck rillettes with truffle and an apple tart and truffle.

"As well as all that, on the Friday and Saturday nights at the restaurant we will be having two truffle gala dinners, and then on the Sunday we will be shut so we can work at the restaurant."

Click here for the Fresh article.

The West Australian: March 2011

2011-03-23T20:34:00.000-07:00

Photo: Daniel Mahon

Quite Nigella

She’s arguably the domestic goddess of our time and can turn the seemingly innocuous task of hulling a punnet of strawberries into, well, something a little more alluring. She’s Nigella Lawson – journalist, critic, author, cook, mother and ardent foodie.

“When I was 16 or so, I went to Paris – more because of the travel rather than food really - and I was fascinated in how the French cooked,” Ms Lawson says of her first independent foray into food.

“I remember I was taken out to eat at Galeries Lafayette and I tasted their fromage bleu, which was so simple and delicious. And I saw this world that was just fantastic. Then when I went to live in Italy, I started getting interested in reading about food because even though my mother cooked a lot, there were never any cookery books. So I began to read cookery books and the whole subject became interesting to me.”

Born into a refined family – her father is a baron and was chancellor of the exchequer to Margaret Thatcher while her mother was heiress to a business empire – Nigella had a somewhat conflicted relationship with food while growing up.

“Well, I will say something that will give a lot of encouragement to parents with children who don’t eat,” she says.

“I had not only no interest in food as a small child, but I really hated mealtimes and I didn’t eat at all. So when people say to me, ‘my children won’t eat’ I say ‘Well, look at me, it can change!’.

“I come from a family who are intensely involved in food, and when I was very young I wasn’t interested, but that was probably because I was brought up very strictly. It was ‘you will eat this and if you don’t finish it you will sit there until it’s cold and it will be brought back the next day’. It was that sort of way. There was no food-hiding – my mother had complete laser-vision. But I did get interested in food, and I had no idea it would become my life.”

In Australia for a quick stint at the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival last weekend, Ms Lawson is excited to be back in the country.

“I’ve previously been to Sydney as well as to Queensland, where I went on a boat through the Whitsundays with the kids. But I haven’t been to Melbourne before”, she says.

And would she like to come to Western Australia? We have truffles..

“I would love to. Why I’m not traveling much on this visit is because I’ve left the kids at home, so I’ve kept it short. But they loved Australia, and I’d love to do more traveling. The thing is, it’s such a huge country so you’ve got to have time. I love the huge sky of Australia, and the light. So you call it WA over there, then, and not Western Australia? You’re going to have to map me out an itinerary and tell me when’s the best time to go. I don’t like intense heat. I would have to wear a hat and a sunscreen factor of one hundred. Oh god, I can’t wait. Go on, fire away, I’m too busy planning my holiday now.”

Nigella has sold millions of cookbooks and her many television series are broadcast in countries all over the world. Now, she feels, it’s time to re-stock.

“I’m not working as hard in terms of filming and writing books at the moment so I can go away,” she says.

“If I did a book and a series every year, I’d have to be re-introduced to my children and I wouldn’t have a proper life. And the whole point of what I do is because it’s part of my life. My books come out of how I live my life, so if I make it all about the work, then that would make me feel it was the wrong way round. So it’s nice for me to be at home, cooking. And at the moment I’ve got other things to do. And no doubt I’ll go back inspired by some of the food I’ve eaten here in Australia, and that’s how recipes come about, by cooking meals that I don’t know. And just revelling in the luck that I can be pottering about the kitchen and pretend it’s work.”

Ms Lawson was the headlining act of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival last week. She shared some kitchen bench space with Western Australia’s own seductive cook, Anna Gare.

SPICE magazine, Summer 2010

2010-12-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

Photo: Jennifer Susanto-Lee

Little Fish, Big Pool

Neil Perry, that doyenne of chefdom, TV cooking show favourite and Iron Chef contender, is poorly. He blames his kids.

“They’re always sick,” he says with a wry smile.

“In the mornings I no longer give them a kiss. I put out my hand and they get to kiss that instead. I just can’t afford to be ill these days.”

Too right. With a string of eateries spreading along the Eastern seaboard, television appearances and a long list of books, Neil Perry needs all the strength he can muster.

And, of course, he’s coming to Perth. Ever since the June announcement that he would be opening a Rockpool Bar & Grill at the Burswood complex in early 2011, there has been a buzz that is only gaining in intensity as this year draws to a close.

“When you first land in Perth, you really notice that the light is very different over here,” says Neil.

“It’s really quite beautiful, and when you go down to the South-West it’s just an extraordinary place. And I haven’t been up North before so I look forward to traveling up there.”

Neil has visited Western Australia before, but never so much as he has over the past few months, when he’s been sourcing local staff and suppliers for the new eatery. Despite some of Neil’s mainstay menu items, such as his much-feted wagyu burger, being sourced from the Eastern states, much of what the Perth kitchen will be sending out will be local.

“Out of the entire menu we’ll bring over our 36 month grass-fed beef from Tasmania, and David Blackmore’s wagyu beef (in Victoria) because we buy whole bodies and they really are quite unique to the Rockpool Bar & Grill brand,” says Neil.

“But we will be sourcing our yearling out of the South-West here in Western Australia from Della Gola Farm, and we are really excited about that. We tasted some of it and we thought it was great. We’ll be dry-ageing that for about forty to fifty days and we’ll be doing ribs and T-bones and sirloin from them. And that will complete the three – we only ever carry three types of beef.”

When hunting down a good yearling producer, Neil’s top priorities were that the animals had to be grass-fed and that the taste of the meat when dry-aged met Neil’s exacting standards. Family-run, Della Gola Farm came highly recommended by Neil’s good buddy Vince Garreffa from Mondo Butchers, and when put to the test the meat did not disappoint, with Neil describing it as being sweet and tender with the long clean flavour of grass.

As for the restaurant’s lamb and pork, that continues to be a work-in-progress.

“We’re speaking to (Margaret River farmer) David Hohnen at the moment and looking at his lamb and his pork, and the difficulty there is just getting the volume because he’s such a small producer. So we’ve sort of talked him around and I think he’s going to do it with us, so we’ll buy his pigs and his lamb. And we’re really excited about both those products, they’re fantastic. All grass-fed and all free-range. The pork is just incredible.”

As with all of Perry’s produce, freshness and sustainability is paramount. And despite being better known as a steakhouse, the Rockpool chain has received a string of accolades for their seafood in recent months. The plan is that the fish on the Perth menu will be sourced locally, dry filleted daily and flat-packed, then stored in custom-made service fridges.

“We’re a big supporter of sustainability and line-catching,” says Neil.

“So we’ll have a chat to some small fishermen and Government bodies over here and see what fish are currently sustainable. There’s a few local fishermen, such as Jim Mendolia, who have shown interest in hand-lining some fish direct for us because we have our own fish filleting. And also with the complete understanding that we’re really quite keen to take whatever they catch, rather than ask them to target certain species. We need to utilise every kilo of fish that comes up over the side, not only that typical attractive white-fleshed, mild-tasting fish that we’re all kind of addicted to. And we love octopus and squid, so if that’s in abundance over here we’ll certainly be using it.”

Western Australian wine producers will naturally get a look-in, with many local wineries such as Leeuwin, Cullen, Moss Wood and Xanadu already featuring on the wine lists in the Sydney and Melbourne restaurants.

“We’ll focus really strongly on local Western Australian wines because we recognise that you guys are great producers of wine”, says Neil.

The restaurant itself is going to be big – a 200-plus seater that will incorporate a bar with private dining facilities that will live where the former food court in the Burswood complex used to be. Construction is currently underway.

“Regarding the design, we reflected on the beautiful light and the naturalness of Perth,” he said.

“So there’s a really raw kind of feel to the restaurant. Some of the curtains are made of raw hessian and there are beautiful timber floors and a wonderful nickel canopy that runs along the whole kitchen and bar side of the restaurant. And then when you look into the open kitchen it will be quite extraordinary. It’s the best kitchen that I’ve got actually because it’s all on one level. And at one end is the chef’s desk, and on top of that is our communication tool that we use for all of the Bar & Grills. So whether I’m here or in Melbourne or in Sydney I’ll be able to see the pass in Perth and all the food coming up and being run out. I actually get to see all the restaurants and how they run.”

But not everything will be locally produced.

“All our restaurants have the same chairs, because we’ve got the greatest chairs to sit on,” Neil says with a laugh.

“So why would we change that?

“I think what will be most significant about the Perth restaurant is the focus on Western Australian wines and produce. I also think people will recognise that we’ve done a bar and grill that very much belongs to Perth and isn’t a cookie-cutter of Melbourne or Sydney”.

Rockpool Bar & Grill will open at the Burswood Entertainment complex in January 2011.

The West Australian, Nov 2010: Upscale Restaurant Grows its Own

2010-12-07T16:29:00.000-08:00

Fresh, seasonal produce is the latest catch-cry for many chefs these days, but only a handful would be able to proclaim they grow their own fruit and veg. The team at upscale restaurant and bar 1907 do just that, and have raised the sustainability stakes just that little bit higher by going the organic, heirloom route and buying a farm to do it all on.

“The property is up in Toodyay and it’s quite big,” says 1907’s executive chef Nick French.

“It’s around 550 acres, and the vegetable farm itself has six large beds which are about five metres by ten metres, which we’ll use on a rotational basis.”

The farm property, called ‘The Range’, is an historic homestead and ballroom built in 1897 that is currently being restored. Over the years, it has produced prize-winning cattle, sheep, wool and thoroughbred horses.

The farm was originally the brainchild of the owner of 1907, who bought the property after being inspired by the ‘paddock to plate’ philosophy used in so many restaurants around the world. The rest of the eatery’s staff quickly locked onto the idea and now it involves everybody, both in front and back of house. As Nick points out, however, it still has a ways to go.

“It’s still early days for us, with a lot of trial and error - trying to see what works with environmental conditions and soil and that kind of thing. Because obviously some things will do better than others. But we have quite a reasonable amount of success with pretty much everything we’ve tried.”

To date, there are over 200 different types of fruit and vegetables grown on the farm, with a particular focus on heirloom varieties. A dedicated father and son team, Brian and Todd Gilsenan, work on the farm to produce as many ingredients as possible.

“We’ve got all sorts – spinach, kale, tomatoes, chillies, all our herbs, broad beans, broccolini, potatoes and little courgettes, much of what features on our new menu” says Nick.

Olive groves, vineyards and orchards are currently being planted, and from all the produce grown 1907 will only use a small percentage. Future plans include selling more of the farm produce to farmers markets, food bank charities and other like-minded restaurants.

“In the future, we are basically looking to expand. We will be putting in some nice organic fruit trees, such as apples and citrus. And we’re also going to move towards chickens as well once we’ve got established so we’ll have eggs. It’s very exciting, and so much better than opening boxes of produce.”

In 2011, the restaurant intends to host a number of long-table field lunches and dinners in order to highlight the farm’s fresh, seasonal produce and are currently working on sourcing local suppliers so that all other produce comes from within a 50km range.

1907 Restaurant and Bar is at 26 Queen Street, Perth.

For on-line article, go to Fresh

SPICE magazine, Spring: Giving a Fig

2010-09-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

Genesis in the Hills is a vegetarian hideaway hotspot doing brisk trade in Roleystone. It sits on the same road that leads into Araluen, and lots of pretty adjectives spring to mind while following its path: tranquil, natural, healthy, abundant. All the same words, really, that apply to the eatery. Genesis literally translates to mean ‘coming into being’ or, as Rivka Cohen - one half of Genesis - puts it, “the infinity of possibility”.

“We chose the name Genesis because it is from the Hebrew language, and ‘Genesis’ in Hebrew means ‘the beginning of creative potential’,” she says.

“It’s the beginning of things, where potential is brought to life. It is a very, very big word in Hebrew.”

Ably commandeered by Rivka, Genesis’s cook, and her musically gifted big sister Ita Goldberger-Amran, the restaurant has been running since September 2007 and proved to be a massive hit with locals. But the rest of Perth is quickly catching on.

“We have people coming from everywhere now, from Fremantle to Joondalup,” says Ita.

Formerly an artist’s dwelling, the gorgeous nine acre site caught the sisters’ eye in December 2003 and they decided to escape the city to embark on a tree-change journey. It took two years to plan and store the property. They renovated the house, which Ita had been living in, into a restaurant, and then built another house, being were ever-mindful to retain the peace and tranquility of the area.

“We decided to move to Roleystone because it is extremely pretty,” says Rivka.

“There’s lots of nature, lots of orchards and also a strong sense of community, which I really missed in City Beach, where I was living before. And I wanted to have contact with people. There is lots of variety – artists, creative people, just a beautiful mixture of people. Roleystone is the right place for us”.

The sisters moved from Israel to Perth ten years ago after the sisters were at a personal crossroads, and they emigrated to Australia in search of peace and a better quality of life. Rivka decided that it was more than just her address that needed a tweak.

“I was once an economist, and then I was a Maths teacher for a while,” she says.

“But I always had a great passion for cooking and baking, and then when we came to Australia I thought it was time for a change. So I opened a little vegetarian restaurant in Subiaco, which was called Bay Tree Café. I ran it for two and a half years, and it was actually quite successful. Then I sold it because I wanted to change my life again, to make it more peaceful. I bought my piece of land in Roleystone, where I could grow my own stuff. We’re basically really alive with nature now.”

Growing up in a semi-rural village in Israel, where their father ran a vineyard, the two women were privy to enormous cultural influences from their family. They had a Turkish grandfather, a Spanish grandmother, and their mother was born in Bulgaria. Their father was a baker from central Europe, with a Hungarian and Czechoslovakian background. The family table was a place for lively discussion, with languages jumping between Bulgarian, Jewish-Spanish-Latino, Hungarian, Russian and Yiddish.

“And outside in the street it was Hebrew,” recalls Ita.

“The neighbours were all Holocaust survivors who ended up in Israel after the war, so everybody spoke another language, and the children were all in and out of each other’s houses influencing each other.”

With such an eclectic history, it was only natural that the sisters would go on to be profoundly affected by their upbringing. But it is the food they were raised on as children that they seem to remember most fondly.

“Oh gosh, the food we ate as a child!” laughs Ita.

“My favourite dishes from my mother were her different aubergine dishes that she got from Bulgaria. People call it baba ganoush. And her cakes, of course. Her cakes were notorious. Everybody came to eat them. School was only two hundred metres from where we lived, so everybody would ask, ‘Oh, can we come to your house to see what cakes your mother has baked?’ So during the breaks we would all go to my mother’s kitchen, eat her cake and then go back to school. It was so wonderful.”

“My food influences definitely come from my family, and I do Mediterranean and lots of Arab cooking,” says Rivka.

“Lots of my influences come from the use of tahini and hommus, which are Arab ingredients, and broad beans and spices and herbs. And with Mediterranean cooking, it’s all about using a lot of fresh seasonal ingredients. You can’t compromise it, really.

“My Mum is a beautiful cook, she actually just celebrated her 80th birthday. She immigrated with our families here. Mum is from the Balkan area in Bulgaria, and there are lots of things I’ve learned from her. She is very much into what is called the philosophy of how you work, what you do, and how you cook. She showed me how to work locally, work with local produce, and work seasonally. Trying to make food as fresh and as healthy as you can”.

Food is abundant in this neck of the woods, with the property being home to a good-sized herb garden and an orchard of around sixty fruit trees. There is an impressive chicken pen containing forty laying hens, who are all very grateful for the restaurant’s leftovers. And what the property does not provide, the local community does.

“With the produce that we have access to, the possibilities and the flavours of vegetarian food are just as endless as non-vegetarian food,” says Rivka.

“For example, I’ve got a huge amount of figs in the area. So in the times of the figs I do millions of things with them. I stuff them with cheese. I make cakes. I make pies. I make jams. There is a local Italian lady who takes them, cuts them in the middle and dries them, and they are the most delicious figs ever. And then we have a beautiful orchard of chestnuts. So I make chestnut cakes and chestnut cream. It’s really important to explain the contribution of these things to the flavours of dishes. We work very much by what we actually find in the season, the seasons completely inspire me. Many people don’t know what to do with produce such as figs, quince and pomegranates. So they just bring it in. So we have a lot of cooperation with the local people. For me, Genesis is not just a business. It’s a way of life.”

The neighborhood is of paramount importance to the pair, who believe Genesis is less of a restaurant than a haven for the community. Rivka sources much of the restaurant’s produce from the surrounding area, such as oils, bread, milk, cheese and coffee. Local art exhibitions are held at the property once a month, as are jazz nights featuring local musicians.

“We buy locally, we share, we give the place to local people to sell their produce,” says Rivka.
“We sell honey, we sell flowers, and all kinds of food without taking any commission. In a way it’s symmetry. The community aspect of Genesis is very important to me.”

However, what you notice most about the remarkable duo is their passion, which seems to drive everything that they do. The beautiful aspect of their property, which they also live on with their families, the warm reception they have received from the residents of Roleystone and their deeply-held set of beliefs are what keep these two women motivated.

“I believe it’s a very natural way of growing up, with neighbors and community that are very, very close to each other,” says Ita.

“And that’s how we feel in Roleystone. We are very involved with the community, not only in food, but our place has become a meeting place for people to come and talk. It’s a way of living. That it’s not only about you and your family, but that there is a bigger picture. That’s how we grew up, so that’s who we are.”

“It’s all about living consciously,” emphasises Rivka.

“You try to make your life worth living, not only in the sense that you live but with what contribution you’ve made. I feel I’ve contributed by producing good food, which I’m happy with.”
Genesis in the Hills is at 124 Croyden Road Roleystone. For bookings and more information, telephone 9397 7799 or go to www.genesisinthehills.com.au.

Scoop Magazine Spring: Moveable Feasts

2010-09-03T19:57:00.000-07:00

It’s pretty tough to find anybody who has anything even remotely left-of-centre to say about Amelia Park supreme-o, Peter Walsh. Not that anyone would want to. The former farmer is at the top of his game these days and shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. Having just returned from one of many overseas trips, the spry fifty-something year old is the proud owner of one of the fastest-growing enterprises in the State.

Born in 2002, Amelia Park is a fairly recent arrival to the business scene, but the land on which it sits has been in the Walsh family since 1957. Back then, the farm was essentially a beef and lamb meat processing plant, but under the helmsmanship of Peter and brother Greg the company has re-packaged itself into Amelia Park. The business has invested heavily in another passion of the Walsh family – horse racing - and the property houses state-of-the-art horse facilities, including a lakeside training track, horse adjisting, syndicates, a breeding program and a horse swimming pool. It also provides top-notch beef and lamb to some of the best-known restaurants and hotels in the country and exports to a good part of the world as well.

Really, you think that would be enough for even the most manic among us. But Peter’s not exactly the kind of guy to sit back and put his feet up.

“We don’t just want to stick to producing meat any more,” he admits.

“We want to get into other products that will complement our meat. And we plan on bringing the best together.”

The best indeed. Enter multi-award winning chef Neal Jackson, head honcho of one of Perth’s most respected restaurants, Jackson’s. The pair met up twelve years ago when Neal established the now-famed eatery and Peter became a silent partner. And now Neal’s about to return the favour.

“Neal will be joining the team as our flavour consultant,” says Peter.

“He’s a real perfectionist and is going to make up all the flavours that will match our lamb and beef, such as sauces and marinades. We’re sending him off to China this week, right out to the Mongolian border, where there are a lot of lambs with different tastes and flavours and cuts. And he will be studying all that to see if we can relate it back to what we’re doing here. Then we’ll start looking into olive oil with him. And, down the track, there will also be chocolate. Neal’s a multiple award winner, and we are keen to go to the next level with him.”

Meanwhile, Neal is packing his bags for Inner Mongolia. He’s been to China before, he says, but not exactly to study the cut and thrust of the Chinese lamb industry.

“It’s just like Peter to be thinking outside the square,” he chuckles.

“He’s definitely a visionary. He never sits still and is always looking forward. It’s quite exciting to be getting involved.”

Creative thinking, it seems, is what maketh the man. Peter has been wheeling and dealing with China for nearly twenty years, in lamb and beef as well as sheepskin for the fashion trade, way before anybody else was doing it. He already has an office in Beijing.

“There’s a lot of talk these days about business expanding into China, but Peter’s been doing business with them since he first visited China around 18 years ago,” says Daniela Gordon, part-owner of Amelia Park Wines.

“So he’s been doing that kind of thing before anyone really thought about doing business with China. He’s always looking at new ways of doing things. He’s really visionary in his approach.

There’s that word again. And oh yes, did we mention Peter has also started producing wine? Daniela just happens to be married to winemaker Jeremy Gordon, recent winner of the esteemed Jimmy Watson trophy and former co-owner and founder of Flametree in Margaret River. Amelia Park Wines has now launched, with their varieties including a cabernet merlot, a shiraz and a sauvignon blanc semillon. The label is now in the process of going global, with many Sydney hotels and restaurants stocking their wines and exports already underway to China, Mauritius and the UK. When Amelia Park launches in September, Jeremy and Daniella will be winging their way over to the UK to spruik their wines in London. According to Peter, people are buying it without even tasting because they know of Jeremy’s excellent reputation in the industry.

“I think one of the reasons we decided to go into business with Peter was because he is such a straight shooter,” says Daniela.

“He’s very down-to-earth. I think probably one of his biggest assets is that he communicates with all types of people, from a top-level businessperson to somebody working on his farm. He treats everyone with respect.”

Most recently, Peter has had his sights on Africa, and not just for the World Cup either. Wait for it - he wants to branch out into smallgoods.

“We’ve just recruited a top smallgoods manager from South Africa, who will be arriving here in around September,” he enthuses.

“South Africans are very big on meat and barbecues. They do a lot of aged meats, as well as sauces and marinades. They always serve up their meats with some kind of condiment. It’s absolutely beautiful.

“And then we’ll be going to the next stage. We’ll start out with making sausages and burgers, and then we want to advance to other smallgoods, such as cold meats. All our machines are ready to go, so it’s just a matter of time.”

At this stage however, it is the quality of Amelia Park’s lamb and beef products that is making the most noise. With strict quality assurance in place, a mere 30% of the meat received from breeders passes the tight selection criteria. And it’s all West Australian.

“They’ve got a very good product and regardless of the fact that I’m involved I would be using their lamb anyway,” says Neal.

“It’s just great lamb. We always have it on the menu in at least one or two dishes.”

Greg Ryan from Ryan’s Quality Meats is the exclusive distributor for Amelia Park beef, and is proud as punch to be working with such a high-end product.

“It’s beef from South-West Western Australia that is selected from probably four of the best farmers in that area,” he says.

“They’ve got their feeding regime correct, so it’s a very clean product. And the quality is second-to-none. There is a selection criteria that it has to fit into. We start at the top, and the criteria works back from there. So our beef carcass ranges from 220kg to 280kg bodies. There has to be a fat depth of no more than 8mm, which is very good. Then there’s the meat colour criteria and the fat colour critiera. And that’s only selected from the top 30% of the beef every day. So we’re getting the best of the best. And that’s the body that suits what we want to do. We want to produce the best beef in Australia.”

Greg also isn’t one to mince words when it comes to his new business partner.

“Amelia Park is an amazing place. It’s just fantastic what Peter’s done down there. It’s like heaven on Earth for horses and humans. He was a very hard worker when he was younger and he’s still working just as hard now. He’s a very entrepreneurial person.”

But at the end of the day, it is Peter’s love for the industry he was born into that has him looking to the horizon.

“We have been in this industry for a long time and want to continue being in it for a long time,” he reflects.

“And we just want to keep being motivated. Being surrounded by top people really helps keep up that motivation. We believe having multi-award winners around us who believe in perfection and have the passion that we do, that is our next step.”

And what could possibly be next, one might wonder. A day spa, perhaps? A private resort in Bali? No, really.

The West Australian: Go the Poh

2010-07-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

Poh Ling Yeow is a woman on the run. She has just finished writing her as-yet untitled new book, which will be on the shelves in November and is based on her hugely successful television series, ‘Poh’s Kitchen”, which she is currently taping. The popular MasterChef runner-up will be winging her way over to Perth this week to take part in the Mundaring Truffle Festival.

“It’s just crazy these days,” she laughs down the phone line from her hometown of Adelaide.

“I barely know what day of the week it is any more.”

But despite all the accolades, the television show and the book, Poh says she still has a lot to learn about food and, at the moment, she is wanting to learn all about truffles.

“I know nothing about truffles whatsoever”, she admits.

“So it’s going to be a really interesting visit. I’m really excited about it, actually. I’m certainly not going to the festival as an expert. I’ll just be there as a novice to learn about and explore truffles. They have fascinated me for some time but they’re also very hard to get a-hold of. So I’m sure it’s going to be an amazing experience to be around so much of it. I’m just going to come over and learn and absorb and basically be a sponge”

Poh is not a newcomer to Perth, having visited once before when she was taping ‘Poh’s Kitchen’ with Perth-based French chef, author and Choux Café owner, Emmanuel Mollois.

“Perth looks like a beautiful city, so I can’t wait to see it. The last time I was here I didn’t really spend much time in it other than to visit Emmanuel’s café. When I’m taping a show there’s not any time to do sight-seeing and on that last visit we filmed two episodes. My schedule is jam-packed. Right from morning to night we are filming, so it’s really intense. You just have a break for lunch and dinner, then you’re exhausted at night. And we have really early starts too. So unfortunately during filming we don’t really get much of a chance to see anything.”

On this visit, however, there will only be one segment filmed for the show. So she is planning on taking a little more time to see the sights of Western Australia – as long as it revolves around truffles.

“On this visit I really just want to focus on the truffle thing, so I’m going to go truffle hunting down south in Manjimup,” she says.

“I’ll also be doing some cooking events with Emmanuel and Alain (Fabrègues)(ok) at the truffle festival, and I’ll be going to Alain’s restaurant, The Loose Box, for a truffle degustation meal, which will be unbelievable. It’s always fantastic to learn new things and, with all the French guys at the festival, I’m sure I’ll be learning a lot of new techniques just by hanging around them. So I’m really, really excited about that.”

Truffles aside, Poh is also excited to being reunited with Emmanuel. The pair became good friends while taping ‘Poh’s Kitchen’ and she is looking forward to working with the Frenchman again.

“I always learn so much from Emmanuel,” she enthuses.

“It’s interesting how we come from such different disciplines but we’re always cross-pollinating and are really excited about teaching each other.”

So, what does Emmanuel think of her then?

“He often gets really freaked out by me,” she chuckles.

“I’m a little bit naughty like that, I suppose. Like many other cultures, the French have a very strong sense of identity. Often their experience of food usually comes from within their culture. So it’s really fun to shock him with weird ingredients. I think the durian fruit was the worst. That was one of the funniest and slightly concerning moments on the show ever. Emmanuel ate it and I thought he was going to throw up. It was so funny.”

Poh will be hosting the signature event of the festival, the Truffle Masterclass, featuring Perth chefs Alain Fabregues, Emmanuel Mollois and Hadleigh Troy on Saturday 31 July, which is now sold out.

She will also be appearing with Emmanuel Mollois in a cooking demonstration at the festival on Saturday, 31 July at 4pm at the Cooking Zone.

Link to article in Fresh, The West Australian

The West Austn: Kids in the Kitchen

2010-04-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

It all started with Play School. Presenters would bake gingerbread men and serve up plates of rubbery spaghetti for Big Ted and Jemima, and children from all over Australia would turn to their parents and say "Can we make that?"

Nowadays, there is a plethora of children's cooking courses, television shows and child-sized kitchen gadgetry.

(Follow link to article)

Fresh, The West Australian, April 2010

The West Austrn: Restaurant Review-Il Cibo

2010-04-05T02:57:00.000-07:00

A four-month-young cafe in the hub of Fremantle, Il Cibo seems to be enjoying brisk trade thanks largely, I'd imagine, to the nous of its matriarch Donatella Niedda.

No stranger to the industry, Donatella was formerly at the helm of Beaches Cafe, Toscanini's and Capodonna before hanging up her apron a few years back. Now she's come out of retirement to run the Market Street corner eatery with her daughter, Jessica Thomas. It's a big, warehouse-style space filled with an eclectic, very Freo mix of retro furniture. The outdoor dining area sprawls out onto the pavement while the interior of the cafe, made up of three different rooms, includes a play corner for the kids while Mum and Dad enjoy their lattes.

On the day we visited, the breakfast crowd was just trickling out as we made our way in for an early lunch. Rumour has it there are plans to segue into dinner down the track because of high demand.

Meaning 'the food' in Italian, Il Cibo has a surfeit of healthy, organic fare on offer from behind two massive display cabinets. All of the dishes (bar the bikkies) are made in-house and the lunch menu features cafe classics such as quiches, frittatas and salads, as well as a steak sandwich ($17.50) and chicken and continental paninis ($11.50) coming from the semi-closed kitchen.

We decided on three of the more interesting-looking dishes from behind the glass, which went into the middle of the table to be shared among the group.

A continental 'frizza' ($12.50), a hybrid of pizza and frittata, had a smooth omelette base of herbs, Parmesan, cream and egg with a topping of sliced sausage, olives and shredded spinach. It was a good, solid dish that would have gone down just as well for brekky.

A tasting platter for one ($25) arrived in a fabulous black paella pan. The offerings - which apparently change frequently according to the whims of the kitchen - comprised generous chunks of chorizo, grilled mushrooms, spinach quiche, marinated octopus and a more-ish tomato passata that was begging for some chunks of crusty bread. There was also a wild rice salad with an odd mix of coriander and red currants that didn't quite seem to work.

Spinach and ricotta crepes ($9.50 or $17.50 with salad) were big and hearty and ticked all the boxes, although, like all the dishes we shared, the serving side was on the small side.

Which of course meant more room for dessert. We stuck with the sharing theme and ordered two desserts for the table. Flourless chocolate cake ($6) came up trumps, with a wicked chocolate crust housing a moist, soft centre and served with light-as-cloud whipped cream. Rolled berry pavlova ($6) was good, though the presentation could have been better - it look more like Eton mess on a plate.

The wine list had gone astray so we went with the recommendation of a Flametree sauvignon blanc semillon 2009 ($32), which was a nice crisp drop for a lunchtime date.

A good, healthy way to welcome in the weekend.

13/20

The Westn Austn: Insider's Guide to authentic Asian

2010-04-05T02:33:00.000-07:00

Love Asian cooking but lost in translation when it comes to all those exotic ingredients? To help you separate the shao hsing from the tom yum, we've demystified some of the unusual items in the Asian pantry.

Mirin

A Japanese rice wine best known as one of the main ingredients used to make sushi rice. It is very sweet in flavour and is used for cooking only. It can be added to seafood to mask 'fishy' aromas.
USE IT: Mix with soy sauce, sugar, garlic and ginger for a delicious teriyaki sauce.

Palm Sugar

A sugar made from the sweet sap of palm trees (most commonly date and palymra palms), palm sugar has a molasses-like texture and is widely used in cooking throughout South-Est Asia. It is largely unprocessed and therefore has a coarser, grainier consistency than other sugars.
USE IT: For a sweeter, more syrupy flavour, add it to a rice pudding made with coconut milk.

Tom Yum Paste

Tom yum paste is best known for its distinctive hot and sour flavours. Most frequently used in Thailand and Laos, its ingredient base includes lemongrass, kaffir lime, galangal, fish sauce and chilli, which are all either crushed in a mortar and pestle or pureed in a food processor to form a paste.
USE IT: Give chicken or prawn soup that authentic Thai flavour by adding tom yum paste to your stock and sprinkling with coriander leaves.

Panch Phora

An Indian version of five-spice, panch phora is a spice mixture made up of various seeds - mustard, nigella, cumin, fennel and fenugreek - which can either be used as is or pounded down into a powder. Oil can also be added to make a paste.
USE IT: Add a teaspoonful or two to a meat or vegetable curry dish to give it some extra zing.

Pomegranate Molasses

A thick, syrupy condiment that has its origins in the Middle East. The result is a highly acidic syrup which can be tempered with olive oil or honey. It can be used to add extra tang to sauces, soups and other savoury dishes.
USE IT: Add a dollop to vinaigrettes to give vegetables and salads some punch.

Shao Hsing (or Shaoxing)

A Chinese rice wine that is known to be one of the finest of its ilk, shao hsing is full of flavour and extremely dry, with a flavour not unlike sherry. It is made with fermented rice that has been steeped in the lake waters of Shao Hsing province in eastern China.
USE IT: Add a splash to the wok next time you're cooking up a Chinese stir-fry.

Wasabi

Not just that fiery green dollop that comes with your sushi, wasabi is a potent Japanese condiment similar to the horseradish root. It comes in many forms including dried, powdered and as a paste.
USE IT: Mix wit soy sauce, sugar and rice wine vinegar for a salad dressing with bite.

Rice Bran Oil

Similar to vegetable oil, rice bran oil - made by extracting oil from the germ and husk of a rice grain - is known to be one of the healthiest edible oils around. It has a mild flavour and a high tolerance to heat, making it perfect for deep-frying.
USE IT: Add a glug to your next stir-fry to add a delicate flavour and lower your cholesterol.

Scoop Magazine: Farmers' Markets

2010-03-14T05:51:00.001-07:00

While visiting a local farmers’ market for the first time recently, it occurred to me that I might have slipped into another dimension by accident. Stallholders and customers were deep in conversation. People were stopping for a chat and a laugh with one another. Supermarket trolleys had made way for recycling bags. Welcome to the wonderful world of the farmers’ market.

Farmers’ markets are, quite literally, just that. They sell market produce that is often hours - not weeks – old, delivered fresh from the farm. In order to run a stall, vendors generally must grow, catch, bake or preserve all their own wares. Prices are normally cheaper, as the middle-man is cut out and the customer is essentially buying wholesale. Much of the produce is organic, seasonal, local and in as natural a state as possible. In other words, the way it used to be.

If ever there was a sign that we want to slow down and eat better, then surely the surge in popularity of farmers’ markets is it. In the US, the number of farmers’ markets grew exponentially from 1,755 in 1994 to 5,274 in 2009 as the country grappled with its need to reduce its junk food intake. In the UK, their popularity has never really waned thanks to a strong village culture. The benefits of buying fresh, local produce are nothing new to developing countries however, who have been doing it for eons. Happily, it’s our turn and, thanks to the trend of embracing all things community, we’ve jumped on the hay wagon with gusto.

Here is a round-up of local markets with the freshest food around.

Fremantle Markets

The Fremantle Markets have been around for over one hundred years and draw an eclectic crowd, from tourists to tie-dye devotees. Already attracting 40,000 visitors per week to its 150 stalls, the markets are in the middle of an overhaul.

“Over the past year, our markets have been on a push to alter everything,” says its business development manager and ‘Food Hour’ radio presenter Ann Meyer.

“Our main emphasis is to get rid of the middle-man, concentrate on the local producer and make sure everything’s grown direct.

“We’ve got Abhis Bakery making fresh bread on the premises with local organic flours to make the Yard as organic bio-dynamic as possible. We’ve also just secured one of WA’s best organic farmers, Shuan Lamb. You can’t get his produce anywhere else, it will just be at the Fremantle Markets.”

Open all day Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Cnr Henderson St & South Terrace, Fremantle.

Mt Claremont Farmers Market

After their humble beginnings in 2007 with eight stalls, this market now boasts over 50 stall holders and attracts nearly 3,000 customers a week. It is a community-based project that sells all manner of things, from organic cheeses, yoghurts and produce to gourmet chorizo sausages, hand-made chocolate, fresh coffee and French pastries. Just make sure you get there early.

“Our lettuce truck is what really sets us apart,” laughs Natasha Atkinson, the market’s manager.

“It pulls in, the side opens and there are crates of lettuce that people queue for. And I’m talking 30 to 40 people in a queue. At our recent night market, we had a queue from one end of the basketball court to the other. It’s super fresh - they pick the lettuce that morning. I did the ten day fresh test, and it lasted the full ten days in the fridge.”

Bring your dog, grab a coffee and buy the paper while you’re there.

Saturdays, 7:30am-11:30am.
Mt Claremont Primary School, 103 Alfred Road, Mt Claremont.

Perth City Farm Organic Growers’ Market

For the past six years, a small green sanctuary has been blooming in the heart of Perth’s concrete jungle. These markets are a little different to the others around town in that every vendor is a bona-fide certified organic grower.

“What we wanted to do was to educate the public on how necessary it is to support organic and bio-dynamic farmers,” explains director Rosanne Scott.

“All the products that people trade in our market building have to be certified organic bio-dynamic. People can’t just go and buy from someone else and sell here. The only retailer at our market is ourselves, City Farm, and everything we use is certified organic.”

As would be expected, the stallholders also represent the environment.

“We have Environment House who sell environmentally-friendly products, books and worm farms,” says Rosanne.

“And there’s chooks, ducks, geese, guinea pigs and rabbits for the kids to enjoy. People can get an organic coffee, where not only the coffee is certified organic but the milk and sugar as well. We try really hard to keep that ethical line and be vigilant.”

Saturdays, 8am-12pm.
1 City Place, East Perth.

Subiaco Farmers Market

Having just unfurled their banner recently, new-kid-on-the block Subiaco Market has already attracted a strong following, despite the heat.

“We started with 37 stalls, and we opened when it was 37 degrees,” recalls founder Sally Lewis.

“We’ve had great support from the community since then. There’s a really nice village atmosphere going on, where friends can gather and have a coffee while the kids have a play.

As a trained nutritionist, it was only natural that quality would be a priority.

“My focus is on getting top quality produce, with minimal spray, that is picked as close to market day as possible”, says Sally

“For example, our flowers are picked at 5am that morning. Our lettuce, spinach and greens are all picked on the Friday. Same with our fruit, such raspberries, cherries and apples. It was really important to me to sell produce that actually lasts.”

Autumn is also set to be a bumper crop, with home-made stock on the menu and a new stall that makes its own pasta.

“A lady from Vergones’ Fresh Produce has ordered a 200kg pasta machine from Italy and will be making gorgeous home-made pasta,” says Sally.

Open Sat 8am-12pm.
Subiaco Primary School, 271 Bagot Road, Subiaco

Other farmers markets to check out:

SATURDAY MORNINGS
· Albany – Collie Street
· Gascoyne – Carnarvon Civic Centre
· Geraldton – cnr Maitland Street and Cathedral Avenue
· Manjimup – The Shed, Rose Street (every 3rd Sat)
· Manning – Clontarf Aboriginal College, Manning Road
· Margaret River – Community Centre, Tunbridge Street (every 4th Sat)
· Mondo’s - 824 Beaufort Street, Inglewood
· Peel – Pinjarra Civic Centre, Pinjarra
· York – 83 Avon Terrace

SUNDAY MORNINGS
· Armadale – Council carpark, Jull Street
· Boyanup Memorial Park, South-Western Hwy (every 4th Sun)
· Eaton (near Bunbury) – Recreation Drive
· Kalamunda – Central Mall
· Mandurah Peel – Western Foreshore
· Midland – the Crescent
· Western – cnr High & Montreal Streets, Fremantle

The Westn Austn: Say Cheese

2010-03-14T05:42:00.000-07:00

Ah, cheese. It can be the ultimate savoury dessert or, as in some parts of Europe, a course unto itself. Cheese can be light, bitey, runny and, in some cases, just plain smelly. Maître fromagers pay top dollar for a good wedge and debate which cheese variety will be the Next Big Thing. And, of course, what food should accompany it.

“Fresh fruit, especially figs, grapes, pears and muscatels, are really popular with cheese at the moment,” suggests Rosemary Atwell, owner of The Mousetrap Gourmet Cheese Shop at the Fremantle Markets.

“The fruit pastes, such as the Maggie Beer range that come in flavours of quince, fig and cabernet, are also very good.”

As with accompaniments, cheese favourites come and go and, at the moment, it seems goat’s cheese is galloping ahead of the pack.

“Goat’s cheese is very much in fashion right now, especially the local Western Australian varieties,” says Yvette Donald, owner of Deli Divine.

Rosemary agrees.

“These days, a lot of people have an intolerance to cow’s milk, so they have turned to sheep or goat’s milk as an alternative”, she says.

“The goat’s milk also tends to be lower in fat, so I think that those people who are more health-conscious feel happier eating goat’s cheese.”

“We are also finding that many people, particularly our French customers, are requesting unpasteurised cheese such as Roquefort because they feel unpasteurisisation gives the cheese a completely different flavour.”

Meanwhile Bree Colussi, from Margaret River Cheese, believes club cheddars will be the stand-out during 2010.

“Club cheddars typify the way cooking and entertaining at home has evolved and the more adventurous palate of today,” she says.

“It’s a wonderful cheese. The waxed coating prevents the cheddar from drying out and enhances the flavour. Club cheddars are often softer and more crumbly in texture and can be enhanced with added flavours, such as smoked, port and sweet chilli.”

And it seems that with the current penchant for local fare, Western Australian cheeses are enjoying a surge in popularity.

“We’re finding that the local cheese industry is much, much stronger than it used to be,” says Rosemary.

“People are really interested in sampling local cheese. The main ones seem to be made around Margaret River or Denmark, Albany and in the Perth Hills.”

And thanks to the explosion in cooking shows, cheese is being enjoyed at home more as well.

“Because of the recent economic climate, people are entertaining more at home and choosing more specialty cheeses, particularly camembert, brie and flavoured cheddars,” says Bree.

"They are allowing themselves little indulgences by purchasing the higher quality, premium products.

“We’re finding that as a result of the huge success of cooking shows such as MasterChef, people are experimenting a lot more with different cheeses within cooking. For instance, they might bake a brie or camembert in the oven and serve it hot with a range of accompaniments such as honey, cranberry, pears, figs, hazelnuts and walnuts.”

Rosemary agrees.

“People see television cooks and chefs cooking with cheeses they would never have thought of, or even heard of, before. Then they visit a cheese shop to try them out and decide which ones they like.”

So, at the end of a slap-up dinner, what makes for the perfect cheese platter to round off the meal?

“Perhaps a gorgonzola for your nice creamy blue”, suggests Pierre Ichallalene, owner of French restaurant, Chez Pierre.

“And a Roquefort too. A goat cheese, a creamy brie-style cheese such as La Buche d’Affinois is nice and a cheddar style such as Le Caviste de Scey. They would be my picks”.

Top Ten Cheeses:

Manchego d.o – Spanish hard ewe’s milk cheese

Bresse Blue – French blue mould cow’s milk cheese

Tarago River Shadow of Blue – blue mould cow’s milk cheese from Gippsland, Victoria

Roquefort – Roquefort- sur-soulzon, France. Raw ewe’s milk cheese

Shaw River Buffalo mozzarella from – SW Victoria – buffalo milk cheese

Healy’s pyengana cheddar – from NE Tasmania – cow’s milk – 4^th generation cheesemakers

Quickes farmhouse cheddar from Devon, England – cow’s milk

Pont L’Eveque AOC, Normandy, France – cow’s milk, washed rind

Lincet Brillat Savarin – Il de France – cow’s milk, triple cream

Ringwould goat’s cheeses, Albany

Link to Fresh article, The West Australian, March 2010

SPICE magazine: Autumn 2010. One for the Kids

2010-03-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

John Martin and his wife Miriam are on a personal mission that spans more than twenty years. The couple are passionate about self-sustainability and have applied the principles of permaculture to nurture and build their Swan Valley property, Caprino Goat Farm, literally from the ground up.

"We moved to the farm in 1986 and back then it was pretty much a bare, useless piece of ground,” recalls John.

"The neighbours all laughed at us when we said we were going to run a goat dairy here. They didn’t know how we were going to survive on this particular block as it wouldn’t grow anything. The land was basically wasteland when we bought it. It was desolate, a desert. We brought three cows, twelve goats and some chickens with us when we moved in. A week after we arrived we were down to two goats, no cows and no chickens. We brought in loads of organic matter and introduced it to the soil. It was a lot of hard work. It has now reached a point where it’s absolutely self-sustaining. It just seemed like the right way, to feed the soil rather than to fight against it.”

But for the couple, the farm wasn’t just about going green. It was also borne out of love for their children who, at a young age, were afflicted with asthma and terrible allergies due to their intolerance to cow’s milk.

“The farm all started from our personal experience,” says John.

“I’m lactose intolerant, and so are our two children. They would have an asthma attack if they had any cow’s milk products. That’s how we started it”.

It wasn’t too long before the word had spread about the healing benefits of their goat’s milk.

"Parents started to knock on our doors asking for the goat’s products because they had children who suffered from asthma, eczema and other allergy problems because they couldn’t tolerate cow’s milk products. But we simply couldn’t sell it to them. We had to say no as it was illegal for us to sell back in those days. But then they’d come back with their children, who were covered in red, itchy sores. It was heartbreaking because I knew I could make it go away. So it was pretty much impossible to say no.

“Then the health department showed up to test our products, which tested safe. So now we stick to their testing regime and we can sell legally.”

Nowadays, the farm is home to around forty beautiful white Saanen milking goats, as well as an Anglo Nubian and a British Alpine. John is hoping to introduce a Toggenburg into the fold this year to make up his dairy goat quadrella. There are also six bucks and twenty cute kids. But having 60-plus goats roaming his property hasn’t stopped John from naming them all. Where to start?

“There is an Australian branding code that is released each year, and each year there’s a different code,” explains John.

”So we use that code to name all our goats. For instance, last year the code for 2009 started with ‘E’, so all the goats’ names started with ‘E’. That lets us know the year the goat was born.”

Goat milk is arguably one of the most consumed milks in the world. An estimated 4.8 million tonne of goat milk is produced worldwide.

“Goats are probably the oldest domesticated animal in the world,” says John.

“If you go back in the Bible, it makes mention of them back in Genesis. The ancient Egyptians used them for milk as well. It just shows you how long they’ve been around with man.”

As well as being widely consumed, goat’s milk is also known as being the closest to breast milk than any other food. Recent studies have suggested it can help prevent anaemia and bone demineralisation. It’s also easier to digest than cow’s milk, making it suitable for some lactose-intolerant groups.

“There’s zero cholesterol in goat’s milk and it doesn’t need to be homogenised because there are no fat globules, they don’t need to be broken down. It’s already digestible.

The farm sell their goat’s milk and natural yoghurt direct from the farm to the public, as well as to small suppliers, such as The Greenhouse restaurant in Perth.

Matt Stone, head chef at The Greenhouse, makes curd out of the milk he buys from Caprino’s, and he’s soon to enlist John to teach his kitchen how to make cheese.

“We use John’s milk to make yoghurt, and once we eventually get a Pacojet we’ll be making goat’s milk ice-cream and sorbets,” says Matt.

“After we’ve done the cheese-making course we’ll use the goat’s cheese on pizzas and in salads.”

For John and Miriam however, it’s all about the kids.

“Because we are a very small operator, we try to keep our prices low so that the people who need them can afford to buy them. Our focus has always been on young children who need it as opposed to people who buy it as a lifestyle choice. It’s not about the money. It’s not about making a million dollars. It’s about supplying a product that children out there need and their parents can afford. That’s what it’s always been for us.”

SPICE magazine: Autumn 2010. Kid-friendly eateries

2010-03-14T05:26:00.000-07:00

In these halcyon days of fine dining, sometimes us parents get a little lost in all the swank. But having kids doesn’t necessarily mean you have to eat at home for the next twenty years. Fast-food outlets aside, there are a number of family-friendly restaurants around town that make eating out with the kids less of a hassle. Heck, you might even start to enjoy yourself.

Walter’s River Café

This is such a beautiful spot. Nab yourself a table next to the playground, which includes a separate kids’ access ramp, and sit back to enjoy the view. No, not of the kids, of the river. The children’s lunch menu is excellent, with nary a frozen chicken nugget in sight. There’s mini bacon and egg pies, roast tomato noodle soup with toast stars, chicken salad and kids’ bagels (all $12). Coloured pencils and paper add to the fun. There’s even homemade lemonade.

Typically however, our young brood went with what they knew. The kids’ fish and chips were excellent, with a ‘proper’ fish fillet that had been fried in clean oil and a terrific tartare sauce made in-house. The burger was good, although more suited to a teenager than a pre-schooler in its enormity.

Grown-up food included a rather bland special of prosciutto-wrapped salmon on a bed of chickpeas ($30), a ripper tagliatelle with scallops, chorizo, tomato and spinach ($26) and a generous club sandwich with chips ($24).

A special mention goes to the young waiters who responded to our chaos with smiles and patience.

Point Walter Reserve (off Honor Avenue or Burke Drive), Bicton. Tel: 9330 9330

Ninniku Jip

Ninniku Jip is one of those little suburban joints that has collected a whole lot of different ideas, thrown them into the pot and served them up without tasting the results first. The adult menu included such combinations as mussels Kilpatrick ($12.30), kimchi spaghetti bolognese ($21.50) and Japanese rice with fried egg and Napoletana sauce ($16.60). So we played it safe and opted for a very fresh seafood kway teow ($15.80) and generous beef fried rice ($13.60).

The kids’ menu had the obligatory chicken nuggets, which were served with either rice or chips. There was also fried rice and stir-fried egg noodles with chicken. Our little one opted for the excellent honey soy chicken with rice, which was scoffed down in a few minutes flat, although the veggies were shunted disapprovingly aside. All of the kids’ dishes are $7.50, or $10 with ice-cream, and child-sized crockery and cutlery are provided.

The best bit about this place is that it has a sizeable indoor playground. There’s a playgym, a big plasma telly screening children’s popular movies and an X-box and PlayStation for the older kids. They can run and scream their little hearts out, then settle down for a nice meal with the family. Well, I’m sure that’s the idea anyway.

Ninniku Jip, 867 Albany Highway, East Victoria Park. Tel 9355 1988

Cater 4 Kids - The Como

Cater 4 Kids is a free children’s entertainment service that calls on various restaurants around town every day of the week, giving Mum and Dad a chance to actually enjoy their meal. It was The Como’s turn on Tuesday, so we gave it a burl.

While we marveled at our ability to finish a conversation, two friendly young girls supervised our little one in a corner of the room while he painted, glued and drew his way into craft heaven. Also on offer was face and hand painting, jigsaw puzzles, books and computer games for the older kids. And all for free.

The Como kids’ menu is fairly run-of-the-mill, although the kids’ nuggets were shaped as little Aussie icons and there was a good-looking steak with whipped potatoes and jus. Meals are all $9.50, including a (gasp) soft drink. The little man opted for the macaroni cheese, which he nibbled at before bolting back to the art table. Hmm. No matter, he returned after we’d finished our meals and inhaled the rest of it.

The adult menu has a definite bush theme. Although greatly tempted by the Yakkajirri lamb salad ($25.90), in the end I couldn’t say no to the wattleseed kangaroo served with crème fraiche and parsnip whipped potatoes, enoki mushrooms and bush tomato chutney ($26.50). The menu is much improved from the last time we visited.

At the end of the night, our little one was happy to leave with his swag of artwork and two painted hands. Good times all round.

The Como, 241 Canning Highway, Canning. Tel 9367 6666

Also worth a stop..

The Boatshed, South Perth

Zephyr Café, East Fremantle

More family frolics..

Coffee + kids + playground: http://www.acoffeeinthepark.com/south-perth-foreshore

Dinner + kids + activities: http://cater4kids.com.au/category/restaurants/1

The West Austn: Slow Food for Children

2010-03-04T05:42:00.000-08:00

We live in a fast-paced world, where everyone seems to be chronically time-poor and our food travels as fast as we do, served up in all its processed glory. So it’s refreshing to happen upon a book that advises us to slow down and take the time to buy, prepare and cook our food thoughtfully.

Having been around for over two decades, the slow food movement is nothing new. But Jude Blereau’s latest book offering, ‘Wholefood for Children’, hits us where it hurts: our kids.

“The book came about because I was seeing not only a large number of adults who didn’t understand how to nourish themselves, but a large proportion of unnourished and unhappy children as well,” says Jude.

“It was really brought home to me by my doctor, who said ‘I see so many kids in my surgery, and I just look at them and think ‘No nutrients’’. And this is in a wealthy Western suburb.”

As a mother herself, Jude knows what she’s talking about. She is a natural foods expert who has worked in the organic and wholefoods industry for nearly twenty years. She is also a cooking teacher and a self-styled food warrior. It is that passion and dedication for ‘real’ food that has brought her to this juncture, and has her wanting to share her expertise with other parents.

“My basic training was as a kindergarten teacher. So I’ve always been interested in young children – it’s an area that’s close to my heart. Nowadays, we’ve almost got a lost generation of malnourished children who are hungry in their soul and bodies. They might be eating lots of food, but they’re not getting any nutrients.

“I think children nowadays are mainly missing out on fats. Saturated fat is a critical, critical thing for growing children, and I talk about this in the book. If you look at traditional cultures, foods for children always included egg yolks, offal and fish eggs, which have a very high fat content. Vegetables came a bit later, and even then they were cooked. It was all about easily digestible fat and broken-down protein.

“These days, we have conventional wisdoms that tell us what foods are good for us. And that’s fine for adults. But that’s been taken down to our children as well. Children have very specific limitations that need to be taken into account, such as their digestive and immune systems are not fully developed. They are also building a body, which includes their organs, bones, nerves, skin and muscles. I think people just forget that children need more help than to just run and play.”

The book itself is a 336 page tome, divided into two parts: information and recipes. The first section provides answers to practically every question a parent might have about good, nourishing food for their children and a run-down of required items for the wholefood kitchen. The second section gets stuck into recipes, which range from baby food to older children.

“These days, the question is ‘What is good food for my growing child?.’ And that is seen to be rice crackers, hommus, low-fat commercial sugar-laden yoghurts, and lots of raw vegetables and raw fruit. But every time you refine, process or manipulate food, you make it less compatible with the human body. Children’s immature digestive systems will have no chance, and I think it causes a lot of our children’s problems today, such as allergies and intolerances.

“I’m hoping that in my very small and humble way, my book can help with this.”

Wholefood for Children by Jude Blereau ($45, paperback) is published by Murdoch Books.

Link to article in Fresh, The West Australian, March 2010

The West Austn: Chef's recipe for success

2010-03-04T05:32:00.000-08:00

Chef virtuoso Luke Mangan is a busy man. Looking spry despite having just flown into Perth from Tokyo, he counts off the next round of engagements on his fingers.

“Tonight I’ve got a dinner to cook at (Fraser’s executive chef) Chris Taylor’s other restaurant, Indiana Teahouse, for a corporate group. Then I fly to Adelaide tomorrow, where I’ve got another corporate dinner. Then it’s on to Melbourne for another corporate dinner. Then I fly to Brisbane for the same thing. Then I fly to Sydney, where I do a corporate lunch. So there’s a bit on this week,” he says with a wry smile.

And it’s this sort of globe-trotting lifestyle that Luke is keen to share with Australia’s up-and-coming chefs in this year’s Electrolux Appetite for Excellence Awards, a national competition that promotes and rewards emerging hospitality professionals. Along with last year’s Young Chef winner Matt Dempsey and Young Waiter runner-up Fleur Savage, Luke is currently in town to deliver an industry talk to Perth’s young hospitality hopefuls. And, as co-founder of the awards that he helped establish in 2005, it’s a subject close to his heart.

“I want to show these kids that there is a big future out there in cooking, and that you can travel the world. You can meet amazing people and eat different things. It’s about encouraging them in that and getting awareness from this award. We’re getting lots of kids out of Sydney and Melbourne entering the awards. But there are great young chefs here in WA as well, so we need to get that awareness out here too.”

But Luke is quick to point out it’s not all foie gras and frequent flyer miles.

“I didn’t enjoy my apprenticeship. It was all peeling potatoes and washing dishes. But the message is, is that although I have been lucky and reasonably successful, you have to stick at it. I came back from London and three restaurants in a row that I worked in all closed down. They all went broke. So you’ve got to be persistent. And that’s what we’re trying to tell the kids, that it’s not just an overnight thing. You’ve got to work hard to get that luck and be good at what you do.”

Luke practices what he preaches. At fifteen years old he was kicked out of school and went on to chase, and secure, an apprenticeship at the legendary Two Faces in Melbourne. After completing his training, he looked to England and began to enquire after employment at three-Michelin starred restaurant The Waterside Inn.

“I was told there was a two year waiting list,” he laughs. “I thought ‘stuff that’ and went over to London anyway. When I fronted up, I was told the same thing. So I offered to work for free for a month, on the proviso that if they liked me, they’d give me a job. And they said ‘can you start in two weeks?’”

It is this sort of dogged determination that has paid off. Luke is now an international culinary force, with restaurants in Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo and San Francisco, and on P&O. He has written four cookbooks, launched a product range and has been a personal caterer to everyone from Sir Richard Branson to Danish royalty. Perseverance is a trait he’s keen to foster, along with a healthy dose of reality.

“You get young chefs coming to us who say ‘I want to be a chef. I want to write a cookbook and I want to be on TV’. But they don’t realise that, well, I started cooking when I was 15 and I’m now 39. It’s probably only been in the last ten years that I’ve developed as a restaurant person and a chef and got recognition for it. Then they actually find out the work is too hard and throw it in. I mean, the drop-out rate for apprentices before they finish their apprenticeship is over 50%, so that’s not a good sign for the future.

“I think with this award, what we’re trying to do is encourage the people who have done the apprenticeship and give them opportunities they can’t otherwise get. Because there’s no awards program like this in the country. The winner of this award gets the opportunity to go cook in Venice in the San Pellegrino cook-off against chefs from around the world. We had a young girl from Adelaide who won our award a few years ago. She then went to Venice and won. I mean, she beat Michellin-starred chefs. We would like to see more applicants from Western Australia come through because we know there are so many great restaurants and so much great produce here.”

Applications for the Electrolux Appetite for Excellence Awards can be found at http://www.appetiteforexcellence.com/ .

Link to article in Fresh, The West Australian, February 2010

The West Austn: Shoppers head for the great outdoors

2010-02-02T04:58:00.000-08:00

There is a quiet movement shaping the way West Australians shop. People are trading their supermarket trolleys in for the great outdoors as they head to their local farmers' market at the weekend for their fresh fruit and veg, bread, meat, fish, cheese and eggs.

Local jewellery designer Robin Wells is one such person who has made the switch.

"Generally the prices are similar or cheaper than what you would pay in the supermarket, but everything tastes so much better," Ms Wells says.

"I bought some apricots from the Manning farmers' market the other day and they were just like the ones you used to pick off the tree when you were a kid. They had so much flavour and were so sweet. I suppose that's what you get when fruit is left to ripen on the tree for a little bit longer and is not put into storage."

According to industry research giant IBISWorld, Australia is on the brink of an organic farming boom, which is tipped to be one of the top two growth industries this year. And it looks as though farmers' markets are set to benefit.

"The major movement away from supermarkets has been over the last five years, more particularly in the last two," says Australian Farmers' Markets Association chairwoman Jane Adams.

"And that has been for several reasons. The first is local versus global.

"Living in a globalised world, people are starting to feel as though they have lost control of their lives.

"They want to retrieve that sense of control, so they are wanting to know where their food comes from and who grew it, or just get into the ethos of eating fresh and much closer to the source.

"Another reason is reconnecting with one another. Not just with the farmer, but with the people standing next to them at the farmers' market. You have conversations with other customers standing waiting to buy food.

"People want to shop in an environment that has a community feel. They can shop as a family as well and, really, who has a conversation at a supermarket? If you're supermarket shopping with children, it's usually 'No, you can't have that pink fizzy drink', but at a farmers' market, children can choose the food they want to eat. Everybody engages as a family and with one another.

"From a shoppers' point of view, farmers' markets get a tick for all these reasons".

Ms Wells agrees.

"Because the farmers' markets are open on a weekend, you get to do the shopping with the whole family, in a more social atmosphere. Usually there will be samples to taste, which is an opportunity you don't get in the supermarket.

"It's a fun thing to do and it's so kid friendly. Shopping isn't a chore any more.

"When you've got kids, you really take into consideration what they're eating. So if you can guarantee it's fresh, then you know it can only be a good thing.

"At home, we generally cook with more whole foods now instead of processed food so I'm finding I don't need to buy as many things at the supermarket. My trolley is getting less and less filled every time I visit.

"I think people are becoming more aware of good quality fresh produce."

Link to article in Fresh, The West Australian, January 2010

The West Austn: Newest little bar has big following

2010-01-14T23:42:00.000-08:00

The latest addition to the Beaufort Street strip, Clarence's is a little bar that's garnered a big following since its appearance last month.

"We wanted to keep things low-key," says co-owner Jeremy Prus, a former sommelier at Leederville's Duende and good buddy of the Cantina 663 boys up the road.

"We didn't have a big opening or anything, we just unlocked the front doors when were were ready. There's not even a proper sign out the front."

Prus says Clarence's is the culmination of two years of hard work and, thanks to his passion for a good drop, he plans to operate it as a small wine bar with old and new-world influences.

The menu reflects this, with light food designed to be shared. It ranges from chips and steak burgers downstairs to more delicate fare such as potted rabbit and cured salmon upstairs.

The West Australian: Things of Stone & Wood

2009-12-17T03:56:00.000-08:00

Strawberry walls: Chef Matt Stone from Greenhouse

The restaurant's outside walls are covered in 4,000 drip-fed strawberry plants. A working garden borders the rooftop level, which doubles as the bar area. It is hoped native sting-free bees will soon be hard at work pollinating the plants and making honey for the freshly baked bread. And the worm farm that will live in the ceiling should be kept happy thanks to the kitchen's food scraps.

Welcome to the wild world of Greenhouse, which prides itself on being a sustainable restaurant.

Dreamed up by designer wunderkind Joost Bakker, who first came to prominence with his temporary Greenhouse installation-cum-cafe in Melbourne's Federation Square earlier this year, Greenhouse has been built using only recycled materials. Hay bales, beer bottles, road signs and old tyres have a found a new lease of life in the eatery.

According to head chef Matt Stone, everything about the restaurant is recycled, aside from the painting by (Australian artist) David Bromley.

Even the crockery?

I've been making platters out of scrap corrugated iron," he says.

"There were also off-cuts from the kitchen benchtops and timber walls that we cut into random shapes and sizes to serve as platters as well. There's not a lot that's going to be the same. We do have some standard crockery that we will use but as we evolve I'd like to keep making our own bits and pieces.

"The cutlery is bought, as the resin handles from the set we had originally made melted in the dishwasher."

Recycling feats aside, Stone also plans to make Greenhouse as renowned for its fresh food as for its sustainability.

The rooftop garden is already well underway, with much of the crop harvested for the kitchen.

"Because of the style of the menu, we're relying on fresh local produce," he says.

"We can grow all sorts of different things in the rooftop garden that aren't readily available in fresh markets and supermarkets.

"At the moment we are growing most herbs, heirloom carrots, baby beetroot and capsicums.

"There's also nasturtiums, which we'll use for garnishing, and apple, lemon and kaffir lime trees. And strawberries, of course. I'd also like to get in some heirloom tomatoes. Our grow lights should be going up shortly. Once they're installed the garden will go nuts, so we'll be able to turn out vegetables really fast."

Several of the dishes the restaurant will produce will be sourced entirely from the rooftop.

"I'll probably base two or three dishes from the menu around things that I can source from my garden. For example, we might have purple, orange and white carrots that can be used in a salad or for a roast baby carrot dish."

The artisan bread will also be made in-house.

"We'll be doing all our own breads. It's a full-day process. Yesterday we did our first batch. We started at 8am and were eating it by 10pm last night. It was a pretty long process.

"And we're wood-firing the bread too, so that's a learning curve in itself. There's no yeast at all, it's 100 per cent sourdough. We're also milling our own flour, which is pretty cool. You don't buy ground coffee beans, do you? It's essentially the same process. It's easy and the flavour is so amazing."

So the big question is, where are the now-famous bees?

"That idea has been put on the backburner for now while we get set up," Stone laughs.

"But definitely in the new year we will get the beehives. I plan to use the honey in ice-cream, on our bread and in salad dressings."

Harvey beef skirt, green mango, cashew & fragrant herb salad

Link to Fresh, the West Australian, December 2009

Buzz Now: Jus Burgers Subiaco Review

2009-12-14T19:13:00.000-08:00

Lounging around under the palm trees having lunch at this new burger bar somehow had me feeling I was anywhere but in Subiaco: this place is begging to be beachside. It's casually hip, with Day-glo orange furniture and graffiti art adorning the walls. The staff are cool and laid-back, and there is a nifty outdoor window for takeaway orders, which adds to the relaxed vibe. I felt I was back in St Kilda, Melbourne.

As is fitting with funky eateries these days, practically all of the ingredients are locally sourced, seasonal and organic, and there are gluten-free options too. Most of the drinks and juices are made on-site, and much of the fit-out uses recycled products.

The cheeseburger I ordered was the most real burger I have eaten in a long, long time and had me wondering how so many other places can get it so wrong. The presentation was great and has become their signature: burger perched on a wooden chopping board with a steak knife plunged through the centre.

The first thing I noticed was that the burger had very little grease, just the chargrilled smokey goodness from the beef pattie and burger bun. Secondly, the ingredients were super fresh - whole Swiss mushrooms, lettuce that didn't wilt, cheese that wasn't plastic and a Harvey beef pattie that actually tasted of meat. Added to that condiments of fresh tomato relish and a creamy aioli that are made in-house and I was in burger nirvana.

Buzz Now: Galileo review

2009-12-12T22:31:00.000-08:00

Sequestered away in the leafy streets of Shenton Park is Galileo Buona Cucina, a rustic Italian trattoria that has been servicing its well-heeled locals for the past five years. The eatery does tradition with a capital T, with old-style washed yellow walls, uncomplicated table settings and flagged stone-look flooring.

Stepping into Galileo feels slightly voyeuristic at first because the space feels so personal. There are three small dining areas that are inter-connected: I felt like I was trespassing on an Italian family at mealtime. And so to the food. In true provincial style the serves were gargantuan and, from what I could see, taking home the leftovers was a common practice. The bruschetta was delicious and the kitchen was generous with the fresh Roma tomato topping. The special of roast duck in a reduced red wine jus was served without fanfare on a bed of mash. It had been slow-cooked in the wood-fired oven on a rotisserie for two hours, deboned, then returned to the oven to crisp up. It was sensational.

The main size serve of sagnette all' Aquilana (home-made pasta with pancetta, garlic, tomatoes and chilli in a napoletana sauce) was monstrous and, in retrospect, I should have respected the dish as a primi piatti and chosen a meat dish for my main instead.

The black and white-clad waitstaff were friendly, unobtrusive and more than accommodating. It was nice to see a good number of people on the floor.

The wine list is to be expanded shortly, with an additional fifty Italian wines being added from various regions of Italy.

Galileo magnifico.

SPICE magazine: Summer 2009

2009-12-07T03:43:00.000-08:00

Restaurant Reviews: New Order

It's always tough to know how long a new restaurant might take to iron out the wrinkles. Some take a week, or two, some a couple of months. Some never do. Not one to enjoy throwing good money away at bad food, I prayed the new crop had hit its straps by the time I paid them a visit.

The Silver Spoon

Stepping into The Silver Spoon is like entering a giant glittering Christmas bauble - it's a very shiny space to be in. With the bi-fold doors wide open on a chilly Spring evening, we went for the warm and hearty sounding charcuterie sharing plate ($26) for a starter. It was generous and beautifully presented - dollops of olive tapenade and apple chutney balanced the assorted meat parfaits and rillettes out nicely, although the terrine needed more zing. Fortified by a protein overload, we soldiered on with mains. The crab with squid ink linguini ($26) was, according to my BFF, "mushy", but my Asian-influenced snapper in a tomato, chilli and lime broth ($35) hit the mark with its much-needed shot of warmth. To round it all off we went with a delicate white chocolate pannacotta and peach compote ($10), and a solid brick of date and pecan pudding with toffee sauce ($10) for dessert, which were both good. The prices are reasonable, the wine list is long and, judging by the crowd, the up-market presence is much appreciated in this neck of the woods.

The Cabin Winebar & Bistro

Much ado has been made about The Cabin since it opened its doors earlier this year, and fair enough too. It's a chic little fit-out that has the look and feel of a snowed-in hunting lodge, with modern touches added to prevent it from becoming too kitsch. The lunch menu is small and meaty, and beef cheeks aside, I couldn't go past a duck three-way ($18). The pate was excellent, and so fine it could practically have been re-listed as a duck dip if it had not held its form so well. I was ever-grateful for the carrot batons presented to me in lieu of baked goods thanks to my pesky new gluten intolerance. the slow-roasted duck was meltingly tender, although the pan-fried duck was a little on the dry side. The suggested side of Welsh rarebit and portobello mushrooms ($7) went swimmingly well with the whole ensemble. The wine list is a round-the-world experience, with a dazzling variety of wines by the glass. A return visit in the evening will be in order, if only to try the game-laden 'Hunter' tasting platter on the tapas menu.

Azure Restaurant

Azure has such a calm, cleansing feel about it that I felt I should be donning a robe in preparation for a massage. It is an oasis of tranquility. The menu has an Italian base and the enormous display of desserts is made entirely in-house. We had a small person in tow so could not meld into the experience entirely, but the kitchen took stock of our situation and plated up in short order. The porcini mushroom risotto ($34 for main) was a generous serve with good bite, although the baby chargrilled octopus in the salad ($19.50 tasted undercooked. Pork belly with alternating morsels of scallop and swooshes of pear dressing and jus ($32.50) was excellent - the pork was soft and tender, with layers of fat and crackling perfectly cooked. For dessert we shared a spectacular chocolate Black Forest dome ($12.50) that housed a rich mousse of white chocolate and cherries, all perched in a chocolate basket. Nyom.

Palais 85

Formerly The Oyster Bar, Palais 85 has been turned into a beautiful, opulent space with padded flocked chairs and sofas, chandeliers and vast swathes of silk suspended from the ceiling. Perfect for an intimate soiree. I was surprised that, on a Saturday night, it wasn't busier. Our group started with large, creamy oysters served with a piquant marsala aioli ($16 for half a dozen). Marron salad with tabouli $28) was neither here nor there, as was the goat's cheese salad ($28.50). The venison on potato cake ($38.50), served medium rare, was exquisitely tender, although the pile of accompanying chopped raw onion was completely bewildering. Desserts consisted of a delicious tasting plate of rich chocolate mousse, Indian pistachio kulfi ice cream and flourless orange cake ($18), while the pannacotta ($13) was a bit of a let-down with no evidence of the promised vanilla bean. Despite having to wait forever for somebody to notice our empty glasses, the service was professional and knowledgeable.

The West Australian: Secret Ingredient

2009-12-03T19:43:00.001-08:00

There are a number of new dishes to try at Japanese restaurant Ha-Lu, which has just released its new-season menu. Top billing goes to the 'Zukushi' tastings - a variety of dishes derived from the one key ingredient, all served on one plate. For anago eel lovers, for example, there is anago and mashed potato 'Dango' dumplings, anago and aubergine in a soy, mirin and sake 'Nikogori' gelatine, and anago tempura with teriyaki sauce.

"It's a unique menu and different to any we've done before," says owner Yutaka Yamauchi.

"We've very much enjoyed devising several different dishes out of the same ingredient,"

Other new dishes include finely chopped sashimi tuna with a poached 'onsen-'style egg, and sweet 'datemaki' egg roll with grated oyster.

Ha-Lu is open for dinner Wednesday to Sunday at 4.401 Oxford Street, Mt Hawthorn.

The West Australian: Thai Ties

2009-12-03T19:25:00.000-08:00

Expat chef David Thompson lives in Thailand and has written a second book about its food.

Australian chef David Thompson first visited Thailand more than 20 years ago and, since that fateful journey, has never really returned to our fair shores.

Seduced by the people and their traditions, he decided to stay and now calls Bangkok - and, these days, London - home.

But, being a chef, what Thompson really fell in love with was the food.

"Its just so bloody delicious," he declared during a recent visit to Perth.

"Thai cuisine has a broad repertoire of recipes, with both ancient techniques and sophisticated techniques. This all contributes to a fantastic cuisine".

It is this ongoing love affair with Thai food that culminated in Thompson's first cookbook in 2002, 'Thai Food', which comprehensively documented the traditional recipes he learnt working alongside cooks who had perfected their culinary techniques in the royal palaces of Thailand. Thompson has now written a second book, 'Thai Street Food', which explores the curry shops, street vendors and markets of Thailand.

"This book is different from my previous book because it's so current, so now," he said.

"It's about what's available and out there on the street. It has that immediacy. It's a different aspect of Thai cooking and it reflects the different ways that people eat. The book is broken down into different meal categories, and there are several recipes in each category of what you are most likely to find around that time. It's by no means comprehensive. It's just a nice range of recipes.

"One of the things that is happening in Thailand these days is a change in the way people eat and their dietary habits, or culinary culture. Previously the used to eat at home, and used to be traditional Thai food, whereas now more and more people eat on the streets and in fact, when I'm living there, my partner and I rarely cook at home, if ever. We simply go down and eat from the streets as most Thais do."

The book is sure to be a success thanks to the myriad Thai food lovers in the West. But Thompson isn't happy to sit back and take all the credit. He gives heartfelt thanks to photographer Earl Carter, his collaborator on the first book, for the exquisite photo essays that make the book come to life.

"The pictures are great," Thompson said.

"Earl has done such a sterling, sterling effort in showcasing a remarkable cuisine. He has effectively captured a sweep through the day, from how Thais eat in the morning to how they finish their day in the evening. It's a feed throughout the day. The Thais are inveterate snackers, so they not only have breakfast, lunch and dinner but also morning and afternoon tea, pre-dinner, late supper and a few other dishes in between."

When asked what his own favourite Thai food might be, he is quick to endorse another project that brings him back to Australia, the newly launched Megachef fish sauce.

"It's a damn fine sauce. The factory that manufactures it in Thailand is located about two hours from where the best fish is landed," he said.

"Once it's landed, it goes into good sea salt for around two years.

"I begged the guy to change the name from Megachef because it's so embarrassing. But I can put up with that because it makes cooking such a pleasure. You'll become addicted to it. In fact, I can't wait to get back to Bangkok to get a transfusion."

Link to Fresh, The West Australian, Dec 2009

The West Austn: Taking the stress out of the big day

2009-11-19T22:47:00.000-08:00

Top cooks and chefs offer advice for a fuss-free Christmas feast.

There's no point fighting it - Christmas is almost on us. But before you hit the panic button, here are some tips to help you survive it.

According to those in the know, being organised and planning ahead are sure-fire ways to guarantee a stress-free feast on the big day.

Start by pre-ordering the food you expect to eat over the festive period, said Tyrone Hinds, owner-chef of Attivo in North Beach.

"For example, I've just pre-ordered half a leg of ham from my local butcher and organised collection a day or two prior to Christmas," he said.

"Most people don't know this but a lot of the time suppliers will have food in their fridges well ahead of Christmas, such as smoked products and hams that are vacuum packed, and keep in the fridge for a long time.

"I will be doing exactly the same with my turkey - pre-ordering in advance and having it delivered the day before. That takes a lot of the stress and pressure out of it."

TV chef Anna Gare's best advice for a smooth Christmas in the kitchen was to 'delegate, delegate, delegate'.

"First of all, try to make as much as you can the day before so you can enjoy Christmas too," she said.

"Prepare cold food on Christmas Eve so that when you wake up in the morning, you can relax. I always do at least one moulded salad because they're fun and you don't need to put them together on the day.

"You can make a potato, chickpea or roast vegetable moulded salad by lining a bowl with plastic, placing all the vegetables in it nicely and putting a weight on it overnight to turn over the next day.

"Sometimes I do a beautiful fillet of beef with herbs and spices and that's just gorgeous cold. Cold meat is always good. Or cook something that can be done in two minutes on the day, such as scallops. Seafood is great because it's so quick. Having lots of yummy bits and pieces in the fridge is also handy so that when people come over, you can just pull them out.

"Share the responsibility. Pick a theme, such as traditional English or another cuisine. Or even a barbecue theme, where everybody brings something they've marinated.

"Then get everyone to bring a dish so you can all have a beautiful, relaxing day."

Once the big day is over, the next challenge begins - storing all those leftovers in the family fridge.

"A lot of people have hygiene problems storing their food during the Christmas period," Hinds said.

"A little tip I could offer, especially regarding storing seafood in their fridge, which is generally overloaded or getting full, would be to use ice cooler bricks. Once you've bought your fresh fish, you can cover it and put cooler bricks on top to keep it extra cold. This will help maintain the quality and the freshness as well as extending the life-span of the fish."

He said that the half ham he had ordered this year would be easy to store in the fridge.

"There is no reason why, a few days after Christmas, you can't go back to the place where you purchased the ham from and order another half ham if you haven't had enough.

"Don't get all your ingredients now and have the worry and stress of storing it. Buy what you need now for Christmas and then restock afterwards.

"It's only one meal and leftovers will last the next day. Then the shops will open again."

Buzz Now: Azure Review

2009-11-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

After toiling along the busy main drag in Mount Hawthorn, the soothing ambience at Azure provided such a tranquil embrace we felt we had just wandered into an upmarket day spa by mistake. The wait-staff were beautifully attired and exuded an air of calmness and authority: we immediately felt we were in safe hands. Clearly, chef and owner Christian Fogliani takes great pride in his restaurant/patisserie, with love and attention lavished upon every detail.

The menu has its roots in Italy, with several additions provided for choice. The porcini mushroom risotto was large and hearty, and the rice had just the right amount of bite. My dish of pork belly and scallops served with swooshes of pear dressing and jus was just brilliant. The pork was meltingly tender and be-decked with thin ribbons of fat and golden crackling, while the sweet and savoury accompaniments matched well. Dessert was a tough one. All of the restaurant's sweets are cooked in-house in the adjoining patisserie and there is a vast array on display to tempt even the most savoury of palates. We went with a visually spectacular chocolate Black Forest dome filled with a white chocolate and cherry mousse, all housed in an elaborate chocolate basket. Truly blissful.

Link to BuzzNow

The West Austn: Oceans awash with fine fare

2009-11-05T21:48:00.000-08:00

Spring has sprung and the warmer weather is bringing with it a bumper harvest of seafood delights that are starting to peak now.

Oysters
Australian oysters are sourced mainly from Ceduna and Coffin Bay in South Australia. They can be enjoyed either freshly shucked with a squirt of lemon or cooked, and there is a veritable panoply of ways to serve them: mornay, baked, deep-fried or grilled. And, as with all seafood, it is imperative to make sure oysters are as fresh as possible.

"When choosing your oysters, always look for a creamy flesh," says Josh Catalano of Seafood Secrets and MasterChef fame.

"There should be no discolouration or black spots."

TRY: Bloody Mary oyster shooters to give your dinner party that extra kick.

Rock Lobsters
If oysters were once the aphrodisiacs of the deep, then rock lobsters surely were the pharmacists. The Greeks and Romans treated snakebites, poor vision and high fevers with various parts of a rock lobster.

Nowadays, of course, they are renowned the world over for their sweet, succulent flesh. Our most popular, the western rock lobster, is caught along the coastline between Augusta and Shark Bay, and can be served half or whole, natural or in mornay. They are at their tastiest in late November and December - a perfect fit for the festive season.

"Look for a lovely red colour for best quality or, better still, buy them live." says Louis Lynch, from Seafresh Fish Markets.

TRY: Rock lobster medallions in a mango and dill salad.

Red Emperor
One of the jewels of the deep, a red emperor will give an angler looking for action a run for their money. It is a big fish, so buying one whole and grilling it on the barbecue should feed a family of four with ease.

"Red emperors are a particularly good eating fish at this time of year because they are gaining weight in preparation for the spawning season ahead," says Mr Lynch.

An extremely popular finfish, it can be served whole or, if you're limited for oven space, the firm white flesh can be filleted and steamed, baked or deep-fried.

"Always look for a red emperor with clear eyes, red gills and firm flesh that springs back when pressed," says Mr Catalano.

"And it shouldn't smell like fish, either".

TRY: Baked whole, smothered with fresh herbs and preserved lemon.

Mussels
Mussel farming dates as far back as the 13th century, and many a happy childhood was spent fossicking for the delicious morsels in local rock pools.

Mussels are cholesterol-free, high in protein, inexpensive and have more Omega 3 than any other shellfish. At this time of year, they're also well on their way to becoming plump and juicy, so it is a perfect time to buy.

"When buying your blue mussels, they should generally be closed." says Bruno Bini, from South Perth Seafoods.

"The shell should have a nice blue shiny colour, and they should feel heavy. There should just be the scent of the salt from the ocean, nothing more."

TRY: Steamed mussels with thyme, leek and white wine.

Crabs
Blue swimmer crabs are beginning to peak this month and, with their ocean home being just a stone's throw away, their freshness is almost certainly guaranteed.

Crabmeat has a sweet, delicate flavour and can be cooked in myriad ways, from resplendent in its own natural glory to delicious parcels of crab-filled tortellini or ravioli.

"A crab should feel heavy, just pick one up and see," says Damien Bell, a commercial fisherman from the Peel-Harvey Estuary Crab Fishery.

"Raw green crabs should always be bought within 24 hours of being caught."

TRY: Stir-fry chilli crab with coriander and jasmine rice.

Link to Fresh, The West Australian, Nov 2009

The West Austn: Cooking is all Greek to Basil

2009-10-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

The commentator and presenter admits he is a good kitchen supervisor.

The mere mention of Greek food is enough to have Basil Zempilas tripping through memories of his recent wedding on Kastellorizo.

Best known for his work as a sports commentator both in front of the camera and behind the microphone, Zempilas is one of a number of Channel 7 personalities who share their favourite recipes in Telethon's new celebrity cookbook, TV Dinners.

"I chose spanakopita because it's a very traditional Greek dish," Zempilas says.

"It's something I grew up eating probably once a fortnight at home with Mum and Dad.

"It was part of Mum's traditional Greek cooking repertoire, so when it came time for me to choose a recipe that I quite enjoyed I thought, "Well, traditional and Greek, that's the way to go for me'".

For Zempilas, loving the classic Greek pie is one thing. Cooking it is quite another.

"Put it this way, I have supervised cooking it," he says with a laugh.

"I have performed the role of a cooking assistant. I'm not sure that you would actually call me the main cook, but I have certainly been in the area when it's being cooked?

"I must admit my wife spoils me. Amy is a very good cook. Because I finish work quite late most nights, she generally has cooking well and truly under way by the time I get home. So I'm off the hook in that regard. And before Amy it was my Mum, so I've been spoilt all round".

For Zempilas, getting on board for the Telethon project was an easy decision.

"Telethon has been a big part of what we have done for a long time," he says.

"So it's very important to all the people here at Channel 7 in Perth. If there is any opportunity to help support Telethon, we jump at it."

For the uninitiated, spanakopita is a delicious savoury pie comprising layers of filo pastry wrapped around a spinach and feta cheese centre. Cooking skills aside, the dish brings back fond memories for Zempilas.

"I remember going to school and telling the kids we had spinach pie and they'd say, 'That sounds nice'. But they were imagining it would be a meat pie, except with spinach. It was almost impossible for me to explain it to them," he says.

"It also reminds me of countless trips back to Greece, most recently for our wedding in September.

"It reminds me of all the good things about being a little boy growing up here in Perth."

Link to Fresh, Oct 2009

Cravings Magazine: Spring 2009. Pata Negra

2009-09-17T20:04:00.000-07:00

Coming Full Circle

Star Anise owner/chef David Coomer with Pata Negra chefs Matt Stone and Kurt Samson were amid the embryonic shambles of their new Nedlands venture when I chatted with them. Upon meeting up with David, he quickly launched into an introduction to his new baby, Pata Negra, while the builders provided a convincing backdrop of clamor behind us. Pata Negra (which opened its doors in July) is Spanish but, it is emphasised, does not only offer tapas. Spain is a country close to the hearts of these chefs, with David relishing the simple, rustic cooking traditions and Matt having recently spent several weeks touring the country.

"I went to Spain and got to taste a lot of different types of food," says Matt.

"It was great. You go into a pintxo (Basque for tapas) and have an anchovy on a bit of bread, then walk up the road and have a totally different tapas experience - it might be croquettes or freshly sliced ham with tomato bread. It was definitely very inspirational and got me totally excited about this cuisine".

"There are very few restaurants around Perth that do a realistic style of Spanish food," adds David.

"So we are looking to introduce something very new. There'll be a real Moorish theme to it. Historically, Spain was heavily influenced by the Arabs, and they introduced cinnamon, cardamom, coriander and all sorts of spices that are found in Middle Eastern and North African food. These have become entrenched in Spanish cuisine. In Spain, a lot of the tapas bars are moving to all sorts of global foods. You might find sashimi-style tapas in Barcelona. But I['d rather start here with real Spanish food".

It's quite a seismic shift from the fine dining and gastronomic wizardry that has made Star Anise what it is today. But things weren't always so rosy for the much-lauded establishment. Opening its doors in 1998, Sydney-born David and his wife Kareen's plan was to create a nice suburban bistro that locals could flock to that served simple, modern food.

"But people, for some ungodly reason, didn't get it". says David.

"They complained about the chairs, or the noise, or the lack of atmosphere. Plus we had no money at all. No equipment and all our ovens were lousy. It was a really difficult time. So it took us a little while to get where we're at - around six years for things to start coming around and for people to say 'this is great'. And whether Perth has caught up to me or something, I don't know. I used to serve a curry with lamb shanks or a wagyu beef pie, pretty straightforward stuff. We'd always had a duck dish on the menu too and a lot of Asian-influenced food as well. I loved the food. It was so much simpler back then".

Nowadays, of course, Star Anise is best known for being uber-creative in the kitchen, with adventurous dishes such as oyster and hiramasa kingfish tartare with horseradish foam and pavlova with fairy floss peppering the menu. Techniques used in molecular gastronomy, such as freezing with liquid nitrogen and poaching in vacuum bags, are among David's bag of tricks. But, he believes, it's all just a part of progress.

"There are a lot of misnomers about the whole molecular thing," he says.

"We had the stove, then convection ovens, and this is just the next progression. I can see everyone will be doing it on ten years' time. The liquid nitrogen thing is just freezing the heck out of something. But it's probably no more of a crazy concept than deep-frying, or microwaving.

"I think if people knew how easy it was to cook in a bain-marie, for example, then everybody would be doing it. Your food is consistent every single time. It retains all the juices and succulence and doesn't tighten the muscles like high heat does. In other words, a steak will be medium rare on the outside as well as the inside and not seared on the outside as people are used to. It doesn't have that graduation".

"Instead of whacking it into a hot oven, we just whack it into the freezing cold," adds Matt.

"Visually it's amazing, steaming and smoking, but it's just another way of cooking something. It's a concrete way to get a food consistently cooked every single time".

But while David is pleased with Star Anise's runaway success, it is his craving for simplicity that has brought him full circle in the restaurant game. The fundamentals of home cooking with fresh, seasonal ingredients hold a lingering place in his heart, and it is clearly a methodology to which he is keen to return.

"I think the more I keep cooking, the more I like cooking simply," he says.

"It's the way I cook at home. In a little tapas restaurant you can chuck six prawns on the grill and a blob of garlic and parsley and it's so pure and simple. Whereas I can't do that at Star Anise. People would complain it was just prawns and garlic. While here, I can and it's food I really like to eat".

SPICE magazine: Spring 2009. Grainaissance Bakers

2009-09-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

Slow Dough

Local masters of the slow art of artisan baking kicked buns and cleaned the floor at Melbourne's Australian Artisan Baking Cup.

Way before it sped up and became industrialised, way before any strains of wheat and gluten intolerance raised their unwelcome heads, bread used to be made slowly. Artisan bread is made with a gentle hand, employing traditional methods and natural ingredients, and allowing for lots and lots of time for the culture to do its own thing. The ingredients are basic, and simply by tweaking fundamental techniques such as fermentation, time and baking, a whole raft of different types of breads can be produced.

Rob Howard is the owner of 'Grainaissance Artisan Bakers' in Osborne Park. Unlike many bakers, they're a wholesale outlet whose bread can be found on menus at eateries around Perth, including Bistro Felix, Beaufort Street Merchant and Caffe Peckish.

Rob is a staunch advocate of artisan baking. After spending half of his childhood in the kitchen, he began work as an apprentice chef at the age of fifteen before moving on to pastry cooking. But after discovering the many living permutations of sourdough ten years ago, he eventually turned his hand to artisan baking.

"Sourdough is fascinating because you are dealing with something that is alive, that you can control," says Rob.

"It uses no commercial yeasts, just natural culture. You need to look after it, feed it and care for it on a daily basis. It's really not like any other food. There are no additives put into it to save time and money. When I first discovered it I did a lot of experimenting until I had created my own sourdough formula using a combination of malt flour, honey, wheat flour and slow fermentation. It grew and grew, and we started making bread from it after the third week".

But there were a few hiccups in the embryonic stages, and that is when fellow artisan baker Leon Bailey entered his life.

"I had some trouble with the first few batches and there weren't many people in Perth making sourdough to talk to about it. I had read a few of Leon's articles in 'Leading Edge' baking magazine, so I contacted him. He was very helpful, and we stayed in touch".

The Melbourne-based Australian Artisan Baking Cup, which has been running for three years now, was the brainchild of Leon Bailey, who modeled the Australian version on international baking competitions such as Italy's SIGEP, in which Australia came second in the bread baking section this year. It's an enormous coup. Leon's dream is to end a team to the creme de la creme of baking championships, Paris' La Coupe du Monde Boulangerie, which is held every three years.

This year, along with his colleague Trevor Sims, Rob was the 2009 winner of the Australian Artisan Baking Cup competition, thanks to his winning interpretation of the Ettamogah Pub as an artistic (and entirely edible) centrepiece. Rob also took home wining trophies for his ciabatta and two of his baguettes, while Trevor won trophies for his croissant, Danish and stollen.

"It was pretty embarrassing actually," recalls Rob over the multiple wins.

"There we were, two blokes from Western Australia, and a table loaded with trophies. I think we had about nine between us in the end".

The Cup's competitiveness is becoming increasingly fierce as each year passes. This year there were 25 competitors from all States, including Sydney-based pastry wizard, Adriano Zumbo of MasterChef fame. The judging is stringent, and time restrictions must be adhered to.

"We had one hour the day before to prepare our ferments, which we had to fly over to Melbourne in a bottle," says Rob.

"And then when we competed we started at 6am, with tools down at 2pm, which included cleaning up and preparing the tables for judging. We were meant to have three people in our team and we were one person short, so Trevor and I had to work extra hard".

As if that wasn't taxing enough, the duo will be heading over to Italy in January for the SIGEP competitions, and this time they'll be taking a teammate, Dean Gibson.

"It's going to be fantastic, although we're going to be so busy. It's already late in the year and the team needs to practice together a certain amount of times before we go. So it will be pretty crazy between now and January".

Spice magazine: Spring 2009. Tapas reviews

2009-09-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

Restaurant Reviews: Tapas the Test

Roll up to any self-respecting wine bar in Perth these days and you're guaranteed to find tapas of some description on the menu. For the uninitiated, tapas are small tasting plates that have their origins in Spain and are now all the go. Better still, tapas are suited to all types of pockets because of their varied prices. So considerate in this bleak economic era. It was time to dig a little deeper.

Andaluz Bar

Andaluz is a beautiful space with beautiful food, yet I sat there feeling a tad perplexed. There were rich, inviting Chesterfield lounges cosying up to an open fireplace. There was nouvelle cuisine-style tapas fare, and there was Aretha Franklin singing her lungs out on the sound system. Los Gentlemen's Soul Club? Heterogenous styling out of the way, the only sore point remaining was that we didn't get to score one of the opulent booths tucked away in their own little niches.

The tapas dishes we chose were sublime. They were sophisticated and complex with long, mouthwatering descriptions, which always bode well with me. We chose four dishes, starting with a tortilla Espanola ($8) - thick cubes of potato topped with fried egg, which was good and hearty. Chargrilled asparagus, quail's egg and tarragon aioli ($9) followed, with the asparagus spears blanched and quickly grilled and the itty-bitty quail's egg gently salted and semi-hard boiled. The tarragon aioli was subtle and tangy, making it a beautifully light dish. Next up were twin towers of seared scallop atop a Berkshire pork cheek confit, with an exquisite sauce of Alvear PX wine and muscatels ($9.50). Our last dish was eight hour braised venison and creamed portobello mushroom empanadillas ($9.50). All excellent value, considering the amount of time and love that clearly goes into each dish. Yum.

Lamont's Wine Store

Kate's latest offering is Lamont's in Cottesloe, and it has already become a Mecca for the local well-heeled pashima set. Naturally the emphasis is going to be on the wines, with a staggering 250 varieties offered on a rotating basis, but the tapas menu, although more Australian than Spanish, does well to keep its end up. The marron dusted with pepper and garlic dust $15.50) was a big hit at our table, as was the cod croquette ($10.50), but I couldn't quite get past the price of a solitary scallop - $7.50 - no matter how succulent it was. Despite not getting much bank for our buck, the dishes were exquisite and, as with all of Kate's food, well-balanced in the flavour and artistic departments. Although I have to admit, the jewel-like macaroons flown in from Paris (see above pic) were my personal faves.

The Imp Cafe & Bar

Being a stone's throw from my house, I quite badly wanted to like this place. It throbbed to a Melbourne beat and was always pumping when I passed by. Alas things are not always as they seem.

The proffered olive is like the proffered water: you tend to assume it's gratis. When said olives were offered while I waited for my friend, I made the same sad presumption and got nailed $7 at the end of the night. A bit, dare I say, impish. Mind you, on arrival it was the size of a small tureen. Anyway. When my friend arrived ("What's with all the olives?!") we ordered crocodile cakes with yoghurt (4 for $12), beef and pork gyoza with an Asian dressing (4 for $12) and a warm lentil salad with coppa ($11).

The croc cakes sounded more exciting than they actually were and, other than the occasional Thai kick of lemongrass, were simply too bland while the accompanying minted yoghurt seemed to be sans mint. The warm lentil salad was a major hit - generous and perfect for a chilly winter's eve, with the coppa mixed through it giving it a real lift. A perfect combo. The gyoza were too strong - the tiny parcel of meat was far too spiced, which my heartburn thanked it for.

But all is not lost, there are several big ticks for The Imp too. Everything on the menu is made in-house and there are lots of gluten-free and vegan dishes on offer. The atmosphere is lovely and inviting. Brekkies are big 'n hearty. So are desserts.

Pata Negra

Star Anise's David Coomer has finally been able to fling open the doors to his new venture. David's former sous chef, Matt Stone, spent time in Spain last year checking out the local tapas fare and the menu is as about as authentic as it gets.

Along with the rest of Perth's foodaphiles, we had nabbed ourselves a table barely before the black wall paint had dried. We were given complimentary olives (ahem) and sampled the beautiful hand-packaged smoked almonds. The house-smoked octopus 'escabeche' (pickled marinade) ($14.50) was next, a slow-cooked delight that had been pickled in a Forum cabernet vinegar and dished up in a cute preserving jar. The jamon iberico, variously imported from Spain and local sourced, was sublime. And at $300 a kilo - hello - so it should be. The mussels, Manzanilla and jamon ($16.50) were also a winner, with surf and turf fighting for supremacy in a preserved lemon-laced broth. For mains we went with the Pata Negra fabada (stew) - ham hock, duck confit, chorizo and lentils ($36 for two). Pata Negra's food has a distinct Moorish theme running through it, and this dish was a great example of those strong, Arabic flavours.

The flavours at Pata Negra are big and gutsy, just what you'd expect from a Spanish pintxo. Add a glass of Marques de Riscal and you could be in Barcelona.

Zinc Travel Magazine

2009-08-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

Go Green

Imagine getting to stay at an exotic location most people would donate their left kidney to visit. For free. Think lush World Heritage-listed rainforests, remote girths of outback, sun-sodden islands and other cool places. Plus you get to help save the world. You'll be helping everything from endangered cassowaries to spotted quolls, as well as wildlife corridors and native plant-life. And in most cases, you need zip zero nix experience. These days, there are stacks and stacks of volunteer conservation projects to choose from that can have you living virtually for free on some far-flung piece of paradise in exchange for a bit of work. So if you feel like going hippy or have already gone feral and are sick to death of package tours, then here are just a few places that will have you salivating faster than you can say mung bean.

Lush Rainforests

Cape Tribulation Tropical Research Station

In Far North Queensland (about 80km north of Cairns) is Cape Tribulation, home to one of the largest tracts of virgin rainforest on the plant - the World Heritage-listed wet tropical rainforests. These rainforests have been around for 100 million years, with some of the trees being over 3000 years old. Cape Trib is also home to the famous Daintree Rainforest, crocodiles, Coconut Beach, jungle creeks, coral reefs and heaps more.

Up at the research station, one of the team's prime reasons for being there is to protect and rehabilitate their large flying fox colony, as well as to educate the public. They're also involved in the research of rainforest regeneration, energy conservation and a whole host of other eco-friendly activities. The station has up to 50 volunteers per year visiting the station, and that's where you come in. You'll be helping to look after the flying fox colony and assist with rainforest regeneration. You'll also be building and maintaining station buildings and equipment. Be prepared to be worked pretty hard, but you get Mondays off. "Happy Mondays", as it's been named by the team, allows you to head off by yourself and explore the local terrain. Visitors are also asked to be prepared to get over any fears of fungi, spiders and dirt...

Now, here are the rules. A stay of at least two weeks is requested, and they'd prefer you to stay for longer. You need to be over 25, unless you have skills they need, such as you're a tradie or a biologist. The rate is US$15 per day, which includes food and accommodation, although they are pretty negotiable. To arrange a visit, contact that station well in advance and tell them where your interests lie.

Tropical Islands

Lizard Island Research Station

Lizard Island, also based in Queensland, is 240km north of Cairns. Situated on the Great Barrier Reef and boasting 24 sandy white private beaches, it's one of the most northern and secluded islands on the Reef, as well as one of the world's most exclusive (read: expensive). Known as a hideaway for the world's rich & famous, guests have included members of the royal family and a night will set you back around $9000 a night. Boasting such stringent activities as swimming, snorkelling and general napping, it's also a diving and fishing mecca.

But as a guest of the Lizard Island Research Station, you pay next to nothing as a station volunteer. In return, you are expected to give up four hours a day to outdoor manual labour, which can include building, painting, digging and filling up scuba tanks. The minimum stay at the research station is one week, with the maximum being two but they are pretty negotiable. You've got to be over 18. You also get free accommodation but must provide your own food. Research on the island includes monitoring the troublesome Crown of Thorn starfish, which is truing to eat the Reef, and providing on-reef facilities to coral reef researchers around the world. You're more likely to be accepted if you visit in the Winter months and, again, lots of advance notice is required.

If you are a little more in the know, you can arrange to get on the island as a research volunteer by finding yourself a researcher who needs an extra pair of hands. Work includes lots of diving and lab work - perfect for the biology student with a dive certificate.

Orpheus Island Research Station

Orpheus Island is a tiny speck about 100km away from Townsville in Queensland and has a permanent population of about 45 people. It's also on the Great Barrier Reef and if you like your animals au naturale, then Orpehus is the place for you. The island has 1100 species of fish, 340 varieties of coral, 50 types of birds, giant turtles, dolphins and humpback whales. The research station on the island is run by James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville and conducts a wide range of marine work. It runs a volunteer internship that lasts from two weeks to three months. You will be expected to work 20-28 hours per week in exchange for free accommodation, but you're responsible for your own food. Those of you who have boat licenses or are qualified divers will have a much better time as you'll be able to get out and about with the research team rather than being stuck back at shore doing paperwork or looking after their gear.

Heron Island Research Station

One of the tiniest islands on the Great Barrier Reef (you can walk around it in 45 minutes), Heron Island has the largest abundance of marine life on the Reef. Located 70km off the central Queensland coast, it's a long way from the mainland but well worth the trip - it's absolutely pristine. Clear waters teeming with fish, no ugly buildings and the reef literally right at your feet. It's one of the most untouched islands you'll find.

The research station itself is well established and is seen as the most prestigious marine station in Australian, running out of the University of Queensland. The team spends most of its time obtaining information about the local ocean life and as it is literally right on the Reef, an enormous amount of work gets down there. The station takes volunteers for two weeks at a time and provides accommodation for some basic work around the station.

Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA)

Conservation Volunteers Australia is a fantastic outfit that provides excellent project opportunities for travellers looking for a little more meaning in their journey. Past activities have included:

Four days on Queensland's Mission Beach regenerating World Heritage rainforest to provide habitat for the endangered cassowary..
A four-day tree planting jaunt in Port Stephens (New South Wales) to establish wildlife corridors for native animals and birds. A must for dolphin and koala lovers...
Four days on Tasmania's East Coast removing the blackberry and thistle taking over the native vegetation..
Five days at Pelican Lagoon in South Australia locating echidnas and measuring the deep core temperature of Rosenberg's goannas..
Ten days off the beaten track in Mt Winter (350km west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory) based around the local Aboriginal community identifying the existence of the spotted quoll.

Interested? Who wouldn't be. Go on, get out there..

Cravings Magazine: Winter 2009

2009-06-26T23:43:00.000-07:00

Molecular Gastronomy

Cooking has come a long way over recent years. No longer satisfied with using the conventional oven, many chefs are raiding the laboratory for new and interesting ways to serve up their gastronomic delights. So is it cuisine, or science, or art? We’ll leave that for you to decide!

So What Does It All Mean?

Essentially, molecular gastronomy explores the science & technology surrounding traditional cooking methods. Coined in the late 80s by two European chemists, the phrase was adopted during the nineties and early noughties to describe the experimental style of cooking favoured by some of the world's most innovative and creative chefs. In more recent years however, many of these chefs have distanced themselves from the movement, even releasing a joint tatement repudiating the term that had begun to define them. So is it allnow just glory from a bygone era? The term 'molecular gastronomy' may be passe, but if some of the braver restaurants are anything to go by, many of its techniques are still as hot as ever.

Culinary Jargon

Bubble bubble, toil & trouble. Sometimes the non-traditional cooking techniques used by modern-day chefs can look more like a science class experiment than haute cuisine. For those who don’t know their sous vide from their spherification, here is a list of must-haves for the modern-day kitchen:

Anti-griddle: a device that quickly freezes sauces and purees, producing interesting solid and semi-solid creations.

Foam: a culinary technique invented by Spanish chef extraordinaire Ferran Adria. It involves mixing natural flavours (such as juice) with a gelling agent and then forcing them out through a whipping cream canister using nitrous oxide, which produces a light, airy substance similar to fairy floss.

Pacojet: a fast, automatated ice cream and sorbet maker from Switzerland that requires far less sugar than its predecessors, if any at all.

Sous vide: a cooking technique where food is sealed in a vacuum bag and then submerged into a water bath, to be slow-cooked at a low temperature. This ensures the food is cooked evenly throughout, as well as retaining its shape and texture. It is especially popular for cooking meat and fish, and puts paid to the old ‘seared on the outside, raw in the middle’ method of cooking a steak.

Spherification: a gelling reaction also coined by Ferran Adria when he first created the olive sphere. It involves dropping a ball of liquid into a chemical bath, creating a jelly-like shell with a liquid centre.

Thermomixer: Now the top ‘must-have’ appliance in domestic and commercial kitchens around the world, the thermomixer is ten kitchen gadgets all rolled into one. Its many talents include mincing, chopping, weighing, heating, kneading, juicing and steaming, and anyone who owns one generally has a lot of good things to say.

Yes Chef!

George Calombaris

In the relatively short time that George Calombaris has been a chef, he has risen through the ranks at a scorching pace to become one of Australia’s most high-profile chefs. Initially working at ‘Fenix’, George branched out with his own experimental restaurant ‘Reserve’ before opening his award-winning Greek restaurant at ‘The Press Club’, which he has written a cookbook about. He has since gone on to open two more restaurants in Melbourne and one in Mykonos, Greece, and is one of the judges on Channel Ten’s soon-to-air MasterChef Australia. As with everything, George comes straight to the point when asked about molecular gastronomy.

“For me personally, molecular gastronomy was so eight years ago. It was an amazing movement that is now unfortunately being bastardized by many chefs. For many, it’s about putting things in a gas bottle or adding chocolate to their chops. It’s not. It’s about modernized modern cuisine. It’s about new techniques. It’s about understanding produce and where it comes from and when it’s at its best. We cook pork loins at 61.5 degrees in a water bath for 14.5 minutes and it’s like eating butter rather than roasting it in a pan then throwing it in a hot oven where it’s going to lose 60% of its goodness. People have been cooking things in bags for centuries. It ain’t new.

“Yes okay, we do spherification and airs, but at the end of the day it is food. I’d prefer people to say ‘Wow that tasted great’ rather than ‘Wow, that was freaky’. I think that’s where you’ve got to balance it. It took some time to understand that”.

George can’t live without…

Paco-jet
Thermomixer
Water bath
Convotherm oven

Shannon Bennett

Shannon Bennett is the chef and maestro behind multi-award winning Melbourne restaurant 'Vue de monde'. He is as renowned for his cutting-edge cuisine as he is for his dedication to classical French cooking, and his latest books is called 'My French Vue'. His new offering is 'Vue by Shannon Bennett', which opened last year in Oman on the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East.

Shannon's preferred molecular-related cooking techniques are distillation (to concentrate the flavours), slow cooking in oil baths and bain maries, and spherification. But the term does not sit well with him.

"I believe 'molecular' is really the wrong word for this type of cooking," says Shannon.

"It's a term that should be seen, not heard. Working with molecules is the basis of all cooking, so molecular gastronomy will always be around. Some very clever chefs, particularly in Europe, have made great advances in working with molecules to enhance their cuisine, and we will continue to build on that".

Shannon can't live without...

Good coffee
Chocolate
French butter
Goose fat
Olive oil
A copy of Le Repertoire

Ray Capaldi

Scottish-born chef Ray Capaldi was the mastermind behind one of Melbourne’s most adventurous restaurants, ‘Fenix’, serving such whimsy as green tea gas and scallops with licorice before it sadly hit the ashes last year. But rest assured, Ray’s latest venture Locarno 150, which opens mid-2009, promises to continue with the showmanship he became so renowned for.

“There will always be people who mock this style of new and creative cooking,” says Ray.

“But chefs are suffering from a shortage of staff and experience at the moment, so why not look to science to cook a perfect steak and understand what part of the animal did it come from, what it ate, and so on? We all want to cook to perfection.

“It has taken many years to understand why we cook the way we do to realise much of it is all wrong. The creation of some of these new dishes sounds a bit like Alice in Wonderland. But to learn new ways you have to have a limit and it takes time for a good chef to set his limit. Like all new techniques, it is the chefs that doubt that will be left behind.

“The phrase ‘molecular gastronomy’ is the science behind why we do what we do, and is nothing to do with a trend. Personally, I prefer to call my style of cooking ‘traderne’: traditional cooking in a modern way”.

Ray can’t live without..

Tin opener
Thermomixer
Pressure cooker
Homogenizer
Water bath/ sous vide. All kitchens should have one
The best man in the kitchen, the dishwasher

SPICE magazine: Winter 2009

2009-06-26T23:30:00.000-07:00

Restaurant Reviews: Sashimi

Sashimi is such a polarizing food. People either harbor a life-long addiction to its clean, subtle flavours or gag at the mere idea of sitting down to a plateful of uncooked ocean fare. Sashimi typically consists of really fresh raw fish, sliced thick or thin, served with soy sauce, a smidge of wasabi and the occasional pile of white radish. In Australia, the most popular varieties include salmon, tuna, kingfish and octopus. The key to good quality sashimi-grade fish is that it has little to no ‘fishy’ smell or taste, which indicates the beginning of spoilage. That was what was to be my litmus test in the search for ‘best quality’ sashimi…

Hayashi
Hayashi is an old favorite of mine. It was the first Japanese restaurant I visited in Perth in fact, and we have been fans ever since. It has a sweetheart of an owner who always ensures the sashimi is good and fresh. Every second morning he trundles off to the fish market in search of fish with the clearest eyes, firmest backs and reddest gills for his sushi chef. Bless. On this latest visit, we ordered the sashimi set ($26.50). Sashimi included tuna, salmon, kingfish, scallop and octopus, which were accompanied by rice, miso soup and a Japanese salad. The salmon was creamy and firm, as you would expect in this country. Aussies are so lucky –Tasmanian salmon is arguably among the best sashimi-grade varieties in the world. It must have been good anyway: my two-year-old was gobbling it down. The tuna was brilliant - succulent and melt-in-the-mouth, while the kingfish was tender, glossy and translucent, a good indication of freshness. Great,as always.

Hayashi, 2/15 Ogilivie Road, Applecross. (08) 9316 3384

Matsuri
Matsuri is a big, glass restaurant wedged into a corner of the city’s QV1 building. Although it is undoubtedly the best-known Japanese restaurant in the CBD, I had never been there. We sat at the sushi bar hoping for a little repartee with the sushi chef but sadly there was none. Instead we gazed at the rows of pre-sliced salmon, tuna, octopus, prawn and egg roll stashed at eye-level in front of us. The medium-sized sashimi platter ($19) consisted of firm, pink tuna, octopus and a decent amount of salmon, with red cabbage and seaweed thrown in as well. Sashimi-grade tuna is generally a headache for sushi chefs – it is hard to source because it’s seasonal, and being such a large fish is almost impossible to serve fresh, which is why most restaurants need to fillet and freeze it. Practically all tuna fillets are cut from the shoulder and are varying shades of red, but the best (and rarest) comes from the fatty belly and is pale and creamy. All was good with the fish, and the earthenware crockery added a home-spun touch. Also on offer was a tantalising soft shell crab sushi roll which, disappointingly, did not come in anything smaller than eight pieces. We tried the salmon roe sushi instead, which was fresh and generous, albeit its seaweed wrapper was dry and crunchy. A fair night out, but clearly set up for the business crowd as vibe and personal service were minimal.

Matsuri, Lower level, QV1 building, 250 St Georges Terrace, Perth. (08) 9322 7737.

Ha-Lu
Ha-Lu has been open for a couple of years now, and for me it continues to hold the mantle of best Japanese in Perth. Spurning the traditional menu, Ha-Lu instead offers its customers a more social, Izakaya-style dining experience: small tapas-style servings that are shared with your buddies and have your taste buds screaming for more. Cruel, really. Their sashimi is some of the best in town, and the cuts are super-thick. A bit daunting for those new to the joys of raw fish, but a glory for those who aren’t. We had the standard salmon, tuna and kingfish (is there anything else served in Australia?) and it was top notch – firm, bright and fresh. Some of the other dishes were so delectable and out-there that they also deserve a mention. The Patagonian toothfish netsuke, aubergine with soy dashi broth and pork belly ‘Kaku-ni’ were all completely lush. By the end of the night, I think we’d ordered the whole menu.

Ha-Lu, Shop 4/401 Oxford Street, Mt Hawthorn. (08) 9444 0577

Sushi Station Fuji Japanese Restaurant
It’s been a good while since I’ve visited this little restaurant in Victoria Park, famed for its authenticity and large contingent of Japanese patrons. It closed down for a long while, and everybody thought they were renovating. But they opened again earlier in the year and the décor looks exactly the same, so who knows? Perhaps it is now under new management, because it doesn’t seem quite the same. We were a tableful of cackling women, which appeared to go against our favour as the service was entirely absent. The large sashimi platter we ordered ($25) consisted of 2-3 slices of salmon, tuna and scallop, with a disproportionate amount of kingfish. The salmon, in all its orange vivacity, was top-notch, as was the creamy scallop. The tuna was thick and rather chewy. This was definitely just-thawed shoulder tuna. The kingfish was overly fishy: I kept it to one slice. Other dishes that passed muster (just) included vegetable and seafood tempura, gyoza dumplings and beef teriyaki.

Sushi Station Fuji Japanese Restaurant, 233 Albany Highway, Victoria Park. (08) 9362 3796

Practical Parenting magazine - Toddler Diarist #4

2009-06-26T23:10:00.000-07:00

Jordy & Amelie

And so we are ensconced in our big new place. The packing boxes have all been flattened, the windows scrubbed and the cat can now venture outside without freaking out. Jordy’s new catch-cry is “Mummy, where are youuuuu?” and I get a real buzz calling back “By the lemon tree, darling heart” or “Just dead-heading the rose bushes, sweetness”. We’re very happy now. But the nights are not so hot..

When Darkness Falls

I guess an active fear of the dark had to happen some time. And as Jordy’s new bedroom is about three times the width and height of his old one, it’s fair enough too. There was a tickle of foreboding on the first day when he flatly refused to go down for a nap, but I put it down to the excitement of wanting to watch a really big truck unloading all our worldly possessions and let it pass. That night, though, it began as soon as his bedside lamp went off. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in that 0.1 second before the light hurriedly went back on again and, two weeks later, it’s still on. I tried a night-light, but the batteries went flat at 2:30am, resulting in the greatest hullabaloo. I tried a really cool stuffed toy that glowed, with light crystals that shined strategically around his room but, come bedtime, they were all booted out and as a result we have a running store credit with Toys R Us. Not that I blame him. How a two year old is supposed to be able to locate and squeeze a toy’s right paw, in the direction of some crystals, in the pitch black, in the middle of the night, I really don’t know. Anyway, now we are onto a touch lamp, which I tap down and he taps back up. My heart also stops on a regular basis as I’m startled awake by a small figure standing by my side of the bed in the gloom, trying to convince me that 1:20am is the new 7am and that the sun’s got it all wrong. So yes, all in all, nights are pretty hit and miss at the moment, but like everything else, we’ll get there.

Bedtime Buddies

When Jordy was six weeks old, his first smile wasn’t reserved for his doting parents but for a small, stuffed bunny from Marks & Spencer that lived in his cradle. He still loves that bunny but, somewhere along the way, he decided bunny was a bit lonely and needed some mates. So a teddy bear and various Night Garden characters came to live in his bed too. Now he’s decided they need an array of reading material, a warm blanket, a drink of water and a ticking clock that periodically crashes to the floor during the night. I’ve also tried to tell him that the three pillows he absolutely insists on sleeping with each night are a little over-the-top in a converted Ikea cot, but he will not be moved. I saw the cat sleeping in there the other day, and suspect she will soon be the next must-have night-time accessory. When will it end?!

A Public Nuisance

Our latest bug-bear is Jordy acting up when we’re out and about. What makes it all the more troubling is that we don’t know whether it’s us or him. Is he still settling into the new house? Is it tiredness from the broken sleeps? Are we too lax with him? Too tough? Or is he just well on his way to becoming a typical ‘threenager’ (he turns three in May). We can barely shop with him anymore because as soon as his feet hit the floor, he bolts. Our local Freedom store was the latest casualty. The little chat we had before entering about staying with Mummy and not touching anything went by the wall as he leapt for the nearest micro-fibre lounge suite and began bouncing energetically all over it before grabbing a handful of ornamental knick-knacks on a teak coffee table and yelling gleefully “No touch! No touch!”. The bemused look on the staff faces told me he’d been branded with that label all respectable parents dread: a little monster. I wanted to tell them how sweet he was normally, how much he adored snuggles before bed, how wonderful he was with babies and small animals. But I could see their point – he looked like a brat to me, too, and I was his mother. So I grabbed this new, strange monster-child and ran for the nearest exit.

Blokes + Sausages = Bliss, Cravings Magazine

2009-06-09T07:05:00.000-07:00

Throw forty wheat farmers into an old stone barn with a few metres of sausage, some Shiraz and various animals flung onto a fired-up barbie, and you’re onto a sure winner.

This isn’t your typical Sunday session. Rather, it’s a cooking class for men who are interested in the finer points of culinary proficiency. The class, now into its second year, was dreamed up by Wyening Mission Farm owners, Ruth and John Young, and was such a massive success last year that they were begged to repeat it.

“We’ve been running smaller cooking classes for around five years now,” says Ruth. “But we noticed there were never any local men attending. So one of the farmers from up here suggested we run a cooking class for blokes, and the idea just took off from there.”

Meanwhile, back in the barn, it’s just turned 11am and the boys are cracking open their first stubbies for the day. Chef extraordinaire, Ann Meyer, is to be the class maestro, and her remonstrations soon see the boys edging out of their seats and up to the two long stainless steel demonstration trestles set up at the front.

As they jostle around the tables, butcher Joe Princi begins to show the boys how to de-bone and roll an enormous slab of brisket. He makes it look so easy, yet there are clearly some formidable knife skills at work. One of the boys is offered a turn, and quickly becomes unstuck before being guided under Joe’s quiet tutelage.

The wind howls outside and the flames flicker under a giant pot of beef stock simmering on the barbecue. Inside though, the atmosphere is warm and genial. As the boys become more comfortable with the set-up, the beer starts to unearth the larrikins and they are promptly put to work.

When Ann asks if anyone owns a sieve, one jibes that he uses his to de-grease his engine parts. But there’s more than mirth. It’s refreshing to see how many Blundstone-clad farmers actually know how to make couscous, or when to add saffron to a dish. On Ann’s request, one particularly large chap makes his way to the front and begins to shyly explain to the group how to make gremolata.

As the day rolls on, the barn becomes redolent with aromas of goat, rabbit, smoked quail and the now-cooked brisket, all of which are dispatched post-haste by the lads for lunch. But now, what will become the highlight for many has arrived: the sausage making. Joe heaves an enormous crate of beef up onto one of the trestles and sets up a heavy-duty mincer.

The boys roll up their sleeves and jockey into position. As the diced beef is pressed through the mincer and guided home into its membrane-like intestinal casing, there is much jocularity as the boys taunt each other over proficiency and technique. Meanwhile, Joe coaches from the sidelines: keep your casings wet and soft, don’t pack them too hard, and for God’s sake don’t break them or it’ll reduce the flavour of the meat.

The boys work on a rotating basis, and before long there are metres of sausage snaking all over the table. Joe then proceeds to twist them into bunches with dexterity that so impresses the lads, they beg him to slow down so they can replicate it.

Before too long, all the meat has been minced, piped, twisted and cut into sausages. As the sun moves westward and the new sausages are thrown onto the barbecue’s hot plate (with a final plea from Joe not to prick them), the merriment in the barn reaches a crescendo and Matt the winemaker finally gets a look-in. At this point, there’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that they’ll all be back here to do it again, next year.

Practical Parenting magazine - Toddler Diarist #3

2009-05-27T03:52:00.001-07:00

Jordy & Eli

Playdate sans Mum
We had a major first the other week. Jordy & I went to a friends’ place for a playdate, then I nicked off and didn’t come back for over half an hour. Okay, stop laughing. Seriously, it was a really big step for us. Rob’s folks live in Indonesia and mine live in Melbourne, so we’d never really had the chance to leave Jordy with anyone before (at least while he’s been awake). Plus, I’m a wuss. Anyhow, he went great guns. By the time he’d waded through the toys and made it out the back to the dog, the trampoline, the swing set and the multi-level cubby house with his buddy Eli I was back (slightly out of breath) from my hasty shopping expedition. And his only comment when I was away was “Where’s Mummy? I’m a bit scared” before hoovering up the proffered plate of chocolate Tiny Teddies & promptly forgetting I was gone.

The Drool Factor
You can’t blame us poor Mums. After being on the oestrogen circuit of playgroup, kinder gym and swimming lessons for a few years we’ve all become a bit, well, male-deprived. So it’s little surprise when we start to get a bit swooney over the male eye candy in our lives (other than our long-suffering partners, of course). The blue and new yellow Wiggle get more than their fair share of female ogling. So does Sportacus from Lazytown (well, he is awfully buff). Not to mention the token Dad at playgroup or the cute new teacher at the local school. It’s like being a teen again, right down to the revering of all-male pop groups (goodbye Duran Duran, hello Hooley Dooleys). And at the end of the day, it’s great for a laugh and a bit of good girly bonding. Just back off Sportacus, okay? He’s mine, even if he does live in Iceland.

In-Law Heaven
I’ve heard all the stories about scary monster-in-laws but truth be told, I adore my husband’s folks. Okay, so they don’t live here, which undoubtedly makes a world of difference, but having them here for two months out of every four is just a dream set-up. They are semi-retired now, and fly out from Indonesia to hang out with us several times a year. Mum S puts me to shame with her high energy levels as she whips us all into a familial frenzy of catch-ups, big meals, celebrations and mini-breaks together. It’s great. After the success of the motherless playdate, my in-laws agreed to start babysitting Jordy for one morning a week, and I can happily report the test run today was a stomping success. I got to do my errands in record time while Jordy discovered the joys of washing the toilet bowl with Mum S’s hairbrush. Although I do admit to shedding a couple of tears as I drove away from their house (he didn’t even say goodbye!) and then counting the minutes to picking him up again. My heart cracked a little that day, yet I was so proud of my independent little boy. A very bittersweet feeling.

On the Move
Apparently it’s supposed to be one of the most stressful times in your life. Apparently. Explain to me, then, why I so unaccountably excited about moving house in a few weeks’ time? We are so ready to move out of our little shoebox and into a slightly larger shoebox with a garden that it doesn’t bear thinking about. Jordan has become quite the packing box boffin, telling me exactly where to stick the sticky tape and folding the sides just so for maximum intake. He is mega excited about “the newwww house”: his bigger room with air conditioning, the large tract of grass that wraps around the house and the playground over the road. It’ll be interesting to see if that excitement persists once the house of his birth gets its last goodbye, and we’re irreversibly transported to a strange new land. And I’m not just speaking for Jordy either.

Practical Parenting magazine - Toddler Diarist #2

2009-05-09T22:28:00.000-07:00

Jordy and fellow junior physicist Grace performing experiments at playgroup

"Watch me throw this ball at that fountain!"

Thanks to Jordy I've been having fun reliving my childhood, seeing things through his toddler eyes. And, particularly in the last couple of weeks, we've been having fun with "Yes" and "No"

“Have you finished dinner, honey?”

“Yes”.

“Would you like to get down, then?”

“No”.

“So you’re still hungry?”

“Yes”

“Would you like some more dinner, then?”

Big smile. “No”.

Arrgghh! What does it all mean? Is there a technical glitch in the mainframe? Is this his first, fledgling attempt at humour? Does he mean he’s hungry for chocolate ice-cream and not peas? I don’t know. Like so many other kid conundrums, it will probably pass and we will never be the wiser.

Jordan added a new twist to the game the other day, where the answer to “Would you like to wear your brown shoes, sweetheart?” was “Yes-No”. Maybe he is trying to say he doesn’t know what he wants. Or that he doesn’t care and I should stop bothering him with silly questions. Mental note to self: must start devising questions where the answer does not require an affirmative or negative response. You've got to love the inconsistent toddler.

Screen Grabs

For somebody who was raised without the background thrum of a computer monitor, the combination of kids and computers all seems a bit, well, amiss. Jordy just seems so unhealthily transfixed by it. I guess this is our fault because so are we. He will be happily playing follow-the-leader with his Matchbox cars in the living room, so I’ll quietly takes myself off (okay, sneak) to the study to check my inbox/latest eBay bid/Facebook notifications.

But, oh no, there’ll be none of that, Mummy. Jordy’s by my side in a flash, mewling and grabbing the mouse, climbing onto the desk, wanting a turn and generally being a nuisance. I’ve tried explaining Mummy time and Jordy time. I’ve tried bringing his toys into the study with me. I’ve tried kicking him out of the room (guaranteed meltdown). To no avail, of course.

TV Turnaround

Then there’s that other hypnotic screen, the television. BC (Before Child), I vowed my offspring would barely know what a television looked like as they would be too busy out in the sunshine, communing with nature. Gosh, how my Mummy friends laughed. Of course they were right.

Jordan can now recognise the lovely lilting tune of ‘In the Night Garden’ from twenty paces and be able to spot ‘Thomas the Tank’ merchandise from the other side of Target.

At least the chances are reduced of him being a social pariah when he gets to school. Well that’s my pathetic excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Whose Playgroup?

Jordy and I love our Montessori playgroup. We’ve been going for a year now and it just gets better and better. The Mums (& Dads) are funny, supportive & kind, and I look forward to catching up with them every week. Over the months I've made that lovely transition to a closer friendship with some of them, and my life is all the more rich for it.

Oh, and Jordy loves it too. Which is, of course, important. If he could have playgroup every day of the week, he would.

Man, I wish this stuff had been around when I was little. The other week the kids got to hold silkworms and watch them munch through leaves a la 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. This week it was all glitter collages, playdough, water activities, trikes and more fun than you'd think any small child could manage.

But playgroup wasn't always like this for us. The first one we went to was more like a members-only clique. The mums parked themselves on the sofas for a couple of hours while the kids wandered around looking bored. After months of mounting bemusement, Jordy and I took ourselves off to our new one and we've never looked back.

Your Restaurants: The George

2009-03-20T05:16:00.000-07:00

The George is the first of what is rumoured to be one of several Perth offerings from Melbourne restaurateur extraordinaire John Ahern and business partner Steve Garcia. Sequestered away in the heart of the very British London House, the eatery exudes a reserve and opulence that reeks of money and the made-man. Fittingly, a theme of "victory" runs through the decor, from the faux bust of a Roman emperor (named George) sternly overseeing proceedings, to a colossal commissioned Italian mural depicting the onslaught of battle back in the days of yore. It's all very divide-and-conquer.

The long room is split into two by an enormous set of black wrought-iron gates, with the main bar and grazing area at one end, and a more formal dining section at the other. The menu itself is exceptional, and surprisingly not at a price that will break the gold plastic. The marron, with its casing cleverly reduced with a pork rillette tian, is a faultless dish with the two flavours complementing each other well; the runny free-range egg, caviar and watercress salad with a smidge of truffle oil is another winner. Chef Brad Hatfield, who is no stranger to upmarket commercial kitchens, has already hit his straps in terms of creativity and attention to detail. The upscale, extensive wine list reflects John's penchant for a fine drop, and for those who like to covet, the personalised wine lockers are a must for the frequent diner.

A large corporate area complete with training room is also available, with a reviving bar and barbecue area to get stuck into after those long brainstorming sessions. There's a cocktail bar just for the ladies, private boudoirs for those wishing to clinch more intimate deals and a Scandinavian forest running rampant through the restrooms. Go forth and be conquered.

Practical Parenting magazine - Toddler Diarist #1

2009-03-18T00:34:00.000-07:00

Sun, sun, sun, here we come! Now that Jordy’s a little older and wiser, Rob & I are hanging to get out into the great outdoors and broaden our horizons with him a bit. Beaches and swimming pools, community fairs, zoos and parks are all ripe for the picking. The Hooley Dooleys DVDs have received a right caning over the Winter months and I will be happy to pack them away…hmm, perhaps forever?

The Wednesday Wrap-Up

I must have done something right in a former life, because this time around I scored really well with my two guys. The little one is sweet and even-tempered, and breaks hearts with his high cuteness factor, while the big one is an absolute God-send. Thanks to Rob taking every Wednesday off work, my mummy week is broken up into two days on and one day off so that I can concentrate on my journalism. Plus, he gets a day off work to hang out with Jordy. Each Wednesday they head off on some father-and-son bonding adventure or other and get up to all kinds of mischief. One week it was testing out all the drums in a music store. Another week it was rides on three buses, two trains and a ferry boat. One memorable occasion found Rob trying to re-claim a Jordy floater at the local pool, which apparently proved quite difficult without his glasses on. They’re off on another one now: goodness knows what they’re up to. It’s a top set-up, and we feel blessed to be in a position to be able to do it.

The Dreaded Lurgy

It really has been the winter of our discontent, with two bouts of gastro and a houes redolent with the aroma of chunder and other bodily fluids. Needless to say, the candles and incense sticks have been on high rotation and Jordy's cot has been pulled apart, disinfected and re-assembled on more than one occasion. Thank you, Ikea. And after five months of an all day runny nose and an all night cough, we finally booked in an allergy test for Jordy and, hey presto, he has a gluten and dairy intolerance. So that has meant a couple of hundred bucks spent in te health food section of the supermarket. The good news is we can tell people he has an allergy and not a cold, as I was getting well tired of people glaring at his runny nose. Not to mention wiping it.

Love hurts

Actually, I shouldn’t complain. The beautiful thing about having a chatty toddler is that he can tell me exactly what’s wrong with him, and where it hurts. Naturally if there’s blood gushing out of an open wound it’s a no-brainer, but when the only clues are screams or a fever, a growing vocabulary sure helps. The other night Jordy woke up crying, and when I asked him what was wrong he bawled, “Sore head!” and pointed to his noggin, just in case Mummy was being a bit thick (which, at 2am, was quite likely). After a sip of strawberry Nurofen, a cuddle and a quick bedtime story he went back down like a lamb. Easy-peasy. Over the past 2.5 years I must have spent hours dreaming of this moment, when his wails would break my heart and sometimes have me wailing with him. At last, the moment has arrived! Making it all better just got a thousand times easier.

Purr-fect Pets

We recently found a massive young tom cat hanging about the place and Jordan took to him straight away. Sure, he had ear mites, fleas and odd behavioural quirks but my son’s love for ‘Tom-Tom’ knew no bounds. So we lugged him up to the vet and got him cleaned up. Now they are the best of friends and we’ve never seen Jordan happier. We’re unable to have any more children, and I have always felt guilty about not being able to give Jordy a playmate, but I hope Tom-Tom might make a nice replacement. Plus, no sibling rivalry!