Moving home

Not my physical space, but my cyber one. This blog in fact. From now on, I'll be blogging at:

http://blogs.news.com.au/couriermail/food/

Yippee, this means I can actually blog at work, ratified by those who pay my salary. Not a bad gig hey? Anyway, I hope you'll join me for what I hope will be an animated, lively and hopefully interesting blog about everything you put in a saucepan, on your credit card, or in your mouth.

Natascha
xx

RIP patch

Wondering how my urban patch is progressing? A very sad story indeed. Shortly after planting and thriving of said patch after much attention and tenderness we had a disaster. I thought it was just the usual smells (neighbours, the XXXX beer factory etc) but in fact it was us. The 100 year old sewerage pipes had given up the ghost and to replace them required two loud men who drank endless cartons of iced coffee and swore a lot and a mini digger. The neighbours hate me because while I was sick in bed with food poisoning, semi-delirious, somehow gave the impression to digger driver that the next door neighbours had okayed the removal of their fence and a digger leaving tracks all over their yard to get to mine!
A very rude note later, and I understand (and completely sympathise with their feelings) Trouble is, while I was busy vomitting, the digger driver drove straight through the veggie patch, totally decimating it.

He claimed they were weeds. I mourned long and hard and still hang over the verandah, hoping for a sign that something survived. The garden, after a month is still one massive hole. The pipes were replaced, but the trench is still there, the paving has not been relaid and the fence still has a big hole where the digger went thru. The boys aren't answering their phones- it seems that it's too small a job to come and fix it all. The kids enjoy it though, building bridges out of bit of offcut pipe, sailing leaf boats down the canal when it rains.

For now the veggies are on hold, until I can get the hole filled. Mavbe in the spring.

Jellyfish and young chefs

Yesterday was hardcore. A degustation lunch and a dego dinner in one day. Needless to say, I pushed through and managed ok. The first was at the brand spanking new Jellyfish, John Kilroy's newest venture under Friday's at the Riverside. It was a media launch, which is not always the place to make up your mind, but so far so good. It's totally different in feel to his other place, Cha Cha Char, which always feels a bit boys club to me. It has spare, clean lines, a minimal palate of white and charcoal with a glass wall allowing unimpeded river views. I admit, I went with a good dose of cynicism-as with Chinese, I find seafood restaurants to be constantly disappointing, but was very excited in this case to be proved wrong.

There will be eight fresh daily fish on offer, depending on what's fresh, cooked in different ways, depending on the type- (fish, as Kilroy pointed out, don't all respond to the same cooking methods- some suit grilling better than frying etc). We tried a few different things from the menu, and I couldn't fault anything-all were beautifully cooked, looked gorgeous and tasted seriously good. (I left my menu on the table or would list a few) Kilroy says that he'll try to keep mains between $35-39 which is pretty good for fresh fish.


A few hours to digest and it was off to the Courier Mail Young Chef's Dinner at Restaurant Two. This was the chance for six of Brisbane's best young guns to show off their talents each cooking a course for invited guests including Brett Graham from the michelin starred The Ledbury in London and Xavier Pellicer from Abac in Spain. (Ok, I know this is the 3rd time I've mentioned Pellicer, but really, I'm not obsessed!) All six courses were exceptional, no mean feat when you're serving around 70 odd people at the same time. For me one of the standouts was the dessert-only because by that stage of a degustation it takes something pretty special to re-ignite the palate. This was it though- a very un cloying rectangle of white chocolate mousse with a layer of white chocolate showing off small circle of salted caramel served with slightly spiced morello cherries and a teeny pinch of basil powder. Fabulous. The chefs, all in their twenties and from hotels and restaurants all over Brisbane obviously have big futures ahead of them. It was back to reality today with a cup of the Courier Mail cafe's tomato soup for lunch. :(

Masterclass Weekend Highlights

Despite feeling pretty average this morning, I dosed myself with cold drugs and headed off to the first day of the Masterclass weekend.

Interesting points and dishes for me were:
Martin Bosely- who pointed out the duh! factor in chefs propounding 'seasonal eating'. 'Many chefs think it's something new but its just normal to cook and eat whatever is best and in season'' Bravo! I think we've overdone the 'regional' eating too. If I hear one more chef pontificate about how their style cooking 'eating seasonal, regional food'', I think I'll vomit! It should just be the norm by now.

Bosely, who specialises in seafood, never uses seafood stock- it doesn't have enough fat, he says plus it's just hard to make a good one.

Loved Michael Richard of Citronelle in Washington's 'Beluga pasta'. He made it as a sort of tongue in cheek present for a friend with health problems whose doctor had banned real caviar. It's Israeli couscous, cooked in butter, onion, stock white wine and squid ink served with lobster,hollandaise and a poached egg. I suspect his mate's Doctor still wouldn't approve, but it was divine and so clever, served in a little caviar style tin.

Everyone's but everyone's doing sous vide. We had some different demos on how to do it, from the special sealing machine thingys to DIY with glad wrap.

Xavier Pellicer (who has a team of 35 in his kitchen to serve 55 odd customers!)made a fantastic deconstructed Spanish Omlette which, although horribly time consuming and fiddly proved the point, that you CAN have that type of super modern gastronomy that still eats like comfort food.

George Calombaris was good value- but as he told us he only uses Greek olive oil made me wonder. Surely it's not going to be as fresh as the local stuff (and what about all those air miles and talk of regional/seasonal hey?)plus if you're doing 'new Greek' in another country why do you need to use old country olive oil? While I got the deconstructed Greek salad, I didn't really get why it was served in one of those jars with the seal you'd normally store rice or something in?
The olive oil chocolate mousse I thought was kind of interesting, but I didn't really like the texture and I thought you could probably only eat about the amount we were given as a tasting- a spoonful. I think it would get very sickly. By far the best dish was his lamb neck--a lighter, more modern version of a Greek classic that was melt in the mouth good.

Not sure I'll make it tomorrow- need to go to bed with a hot toddy and stay there. All in all, a very worthwhile day out though

what chefs eat (not pretty)

I once shared a house with a chef who worked in a fairly salubrious restaurant cooking beautiful meals all night who'd come home having stopped at Hungry Jacks drive through or the dodgy kebab place on the way home and devour this rubbish with relish. I know another who had a penchant for those microwave chicken rolls you could only get a petrol stations.

Not quite in the same gross league, but today I met Xavier Pellicer, of the two Michelin starred Abac restaurant in Barcelona, (who by the way is a lot dishier in real life) who mentioned that one of his favourite comfort food treats was chocolate spread on bread with olive oil and salt. Put it in the microwave for ten seconds he reckons. Hmmmm.

Pellicer is known for his cutting edge cusine combining traditional Spanish flavours with the techniques of molecular gastronomy (or techno-emocional cuisine as the very precious choose to call it). He's appearing at the Brisbane Hilton Masterclass this weekend and apart from his dubious liking for chocolate-salt sandwiches, should be great value. I was really impressed by his dedication- he's doing all his mis en place himself, including deboning some 200 red mullet. Bet you wouldn't catch Ramsay doing that.
Apparently there are still tickets left for Masterclass, go here to check out the programme.
http://www.qldmasterclass.com/