Category Archives: Book Reviews

From India: a cookbook worth coveting

From_India_Kumar_Mahadevan

With its beautiful blue, intricately designed, padded cover, From India: Food, Family & Tradition by Kumar and Suba Mahadevan is a cookbook worth coveting.

I’m a big fan of the Mahadevan’s work. We’ve visited their first restaurant, Abhi’s in the Sydney suburb of Concord, for a number of years. We’ve taken friends there, celebrated birthdays there, consumed festival banquets there, and it’s fair to say we’ve never been disappointed by a meal.  We’ve dined at its higher-end sibling, Aki’s, and I’ve ripped Kumar’s recipes out of newspapers, so it’s about time that they pulled their finger out and published a cookbook! Continue reading

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Nino Zoccali’s sweet pea ravioli with gorgonzola cream and burnt butter

Nino_Zoccali_Sweet_pea_ravioli_ gorgonzola_cream_burnt_butter_Pasta_Artigiana

Nino Zoccali’s sweet pea ravioli with gorgonzola cream & burnt butter

A platter of large, square ravioli on a table of seven as part a shared meal is dangerous business, particularly if it’s Nino Zoccali’s ravioli. Zoccali’s sweet pea ravioli with gorgonzola cream and burnt butter was part of a shared Italian feast at the Crave Sydney International Food Festival gala dinner. We each got one piece of ravioli: a silken pocket that ebbed on the tongue, secreting the subtlest hint of fresh pea that was coddled in a just rich enough gorgonzola cream sauce. Smack your lips, and it was gone. The platter with two remaining squares sat on the table between myself and my neighbour. With no pretence of table etiquette — we couldn’t offer them around, what if they were accepted? —  we each went in for one of the two remaining parcels.  Blink your eye, and they were gone. Continue reading

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A toast to the man who invented Vegemite

The_ Man_Who_Invented_Vegemite_Cyril_Callister

“More jars of Vegemite are sold each year than there are men, women and children in the entire country. But most would struggle to name the man who invented it.”

Jamie Callister, the author of The Man who Invented Vegemite, has a point. Many Australians remember the advertising slogan “happy little Vegemite” and the iconic radio jingle that first played in 1954. They can hum along to the Men at Work hit song of 1982, Down Under, with its reference to a Vegemite sandwich. They can pick out the bright yellow lid and labelling of the black, sticky spread from the far end of a supermarket aisle, and are likely to know it’s rich in vitamin B.
But unlike Vegemite itself, Cyril Percy Callister – a humble chemist from country Victoria who created the spread – isn’t a household name. Read the full article here.

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The Little Veggie Patch Co’s Guide to Backyard Farming: review

Little_Veggie_Patch_Co's_Guide_To_Backyard_Farming

You don’t have to be a green thumb or a veggie garden geek to put The Little Veggie Patch Co’s Guide to Backyard Farming to good use. The authors, Fabian Capomolla and Mat Pember (referred to hereon as the Veggie Boys), explain the intricacies of backyard edible gardening step-by-step, month-by-month. Continue reading

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Digital versus hard copy food media

Gourmet_Traveller_iPad

I had a fight with the newspaper on the train as I went to work last week. It was the Good Living section of the Sydney Morning Herald. We’re usually pretty good pals. Dog-eared from being stashed in my handbag for days and badly refolded after my last fleeting perusal, the weekly lift-out refused to fold neatly as I attempted to catch up on the latest culinary news.

It was raining outside. I was juggling a bag, a brolly and a newspaper with a bad attitude. It was a proper girlie fisty-cuffs: a lot of flapping and slapping and then some pages fell to the floor. I wrestled with it and dropped some more. As I shoved the paper in my bag, our friendship in tatters, my iPad – compact, neatly stowed, and well behaved – caught my eye. Continue reading

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Filed under Book Reviews, Reflections