71 replies to this topic

[Shalmanese]

Greetings and welcome to another foodblog from a Pacific Northwesterner. Although I live in Seattle now, you won't be seeing any food from that region for I am on my summer holidays in not-so-sunny Sydney.

I have to run off real soon so I'll leave some of the introductory stuff for a bit later. I was asking for advice from some former foodbloggers once I knew I was going to be doing one, and one of them told me that many foodblogs start off a bit slow so I'm going to start this one off with a dinner I just cooked in Melbourne for some of my friends:

Melbourne and Sydney are the two largest towns in Australia (although neither are the capital). I did my High School in a small town quite close to Melbourne and so many of my High School friends are still living there. I hadn't been back since I left High School 6 years ago so this was the perfect time to return and catch up with a lot of old friends who I hadn't seen for a long time.

As part of my last day in Melbourne, I was going to cook a big going away meal. The main problem I was facing was trying to find someone who could donate their kitchen and house to me hosting a party. It was a bit touch and go for a while with a few people saying they might be able to do it, and then not being able to and I was structuring my menu around being adaptable to any kitchen I would have to walk into but, fortunately, on the noon of that day, someone finally came through and things were very quickly organised.

So in the end, I had 2 hours to shop and then 3.5 hours to cook 7 courses for 19 people. Here's what I managed to pull off:





The Inaugural Fitzroy Garden Salad - Milkweed, Radish, Apple & Lemon Thyme with a Raspberry Vinagrette. I love using the combination of Radish and Apple and it's appeared a bunch of times in different salads. I'll tell a story of how the milkweed got into the salad in a later post. Someone at the table suggested this salad needed a name and we were dining near the Fitzroy Gardens so that's how the salad got it's name.



Irish Lamb Stew with Onions, Potatoes, Parsnips, Turnips, Carrots & Roasted Garlic. This was a great dish for a cold, winter's day and it was deep and hearty with all the different root vegetables. Dead easy to make as well



Mushroom Risotto. At this stage of the night, I was pretty drunk so I pressganged people into stirring the risotto for me. The great thing about cooking for friends is, if you're clever, you can push them into the kitchen while you're quaffing red wine at the table and being belligerent.



Roast Leg of Lamb with Minted White Bean Mash and Sauteed Silverbeet. The Lamb was rubbed with garlic, rosemary, lemon thyme, anchovies, & olive oil and roasted in a low oven until perfectly medium rare. The beans were pretty magical. I simmered them until almost tender with some trimmed off lamb fat and the silverbeet stems and then I placed the entire thing underneath the lamb when it was roasting so all the fat and drippings dripped down onto it. A bit of mint at the end really brightened it up. The silverbeet was just sauteed lightly with some garlic and chilli flakes and they were great too.



Apple & Rhubarb Crumble with a Feijoa Sabayon. Anytime I'm drunk and get to play with fire is a good night in my opinion so once I found out the kitchen had a blowtorch in it, sabayon was put on the menu. Rhubarb was looking great at the market and a crumble is always a good way of doing a dessert without needing much equipment. Feijoa is an interesting and rather unusual fruit. I had never had it before that day and I bought a bunch not knowing what I could do with it. It tastes sort of a cross between sour apple and kiwifruit and, according to wikipedia, it grows in South America and now New Zealand/Australia. It went really well in this dish as it played off both the apple and the rhubarb quite well.



Passionfruit Truffles. I always love ending a meal with Truffles now since they're so easy to make but give such an elegant finish to a meal. I hadn't eaten passionfruit for almost a year as they're either impossible to get or absurdly expensive in the US. So when I saw them, 7 for $2 at the market, I snagged as many as I could and just went on a binge.

Anyway, I'm going to go be nerdy with my friends now at Dorkbot but I'll post something later tonight (It's 6pm here in Sydney so later tonight means in a few hours).

[markemorse]

Goodness, the Blind Eye Organ looks like a great idea...how's it sound? We should get these guys to come over to STEIM in Amsterdam.

Keep the geekery coming!

mem

[Chufi]

welcome to the world of blogging Shalmanese!

So in the end, I had 2 hours to shop and then 3.5 hours to cook 7 courses for 19 people. Here's what I managed to pull off:

that is simply amazing. Your energy is mindblowing! (but I´ve thought that before, when reading about your big dinners for large groups).
What´s it like being back home? which PNW foods will you miss when in Australia, and which Australian foods (besides cheap passionfruit ) did you miss while in the US?

[miladyinsanity]

Oh my, this is going to be a wonderful wonderful blog. Experience or no, we've all seen the 21 courses thread. :smiles:

Can I ask what are you doing in the US?

[SheenaGreena]

finally! someone on egullet that's younger than me (whewwww).

your passion fruit truffles look exactly like yomogi mochi rolled in kinako.


btw, how long does it take to fly from the Pacific NW to austraila?

[prasantrin]

Greetings and welcome to another foodblog from a Pacific Northwesterner. Although I live in Seattle now, you won't be seeing any food from that region for I am on my summer holidays in not-so-sunny Sydney.

I thought it might be you! So do you consider yourself a PNW-er now, or do you still think of yourself as being from Australia?

Like Chufi, I also want to know what foods you most miss when in each location, but I want to know about junk food, specifically!

[Shalmanese]

Well, I'm back for the night so I thought I would tell just a bit about me to start the blog off.

I think I'm one of the youngest members on this board having just turned 22. I was born in Mainland China and my parents are Chinese, from the Jilin province in the north east but my family emigrated to Australia when I was 5 and I consider myself more Australian than Chinese. However, my family still cooks Northeastern Chinese food so expect to see some of that in the blog in the next few days. I first got into cooking around year 9 or so when I started helping with the basics around the kitchen but, during my high school years, I was never a very serious cook. My specialty was Spaghetti Bolognaise with the sauce coming out of a jar and, even then, I had a love of Western food which continues to this day.

I finished high school in Geelong, a city about 100km (70 miles) south west of Melbourne and moved to Sydney to start my undergrad degree in Computer Science. During my first semester, I was living in a college and there were no cooking facilities whatsoever open to students and it was only during that time that I realised how much I missed cooking. After the first semester, my parents found a job and a house in Sydney and I moved back in with them and that's the house I'm living in right now. After I moved back in, I started getting really seriously into cooking, discovered eGullet, read through the entire of the eGCI over the course of one sleepless night and fell in love with the community here.

In Sepetember of last year, I moved to Seattle to start a PhD program in Computer Science at the University of Washington. Even though I was living in a share house in Seattle, the other people in the house never really cooked so Seattle was the first time I really had a kitchen to myself and was free to buy and cook whatever I wanted. Seattle was also the first time I started hanging around other foodies as eGullet people seem thick on the ground there and, all in all, I'm having a blast of a time over there (if only someone could do something about the rain!).

And now, it's summer holidays in the US so I chose to abandon the lovely Seattle summer and return to what has been torrential downpour and regional flooding in Sydney so I could visit my family and friends again. I had always wanted to do a foodblog and I thought this would be a great chance to show all of you what I love about Australia and my local neighbourhood as well as providing an informed contrast between Australian food and American food.

I've got a fairly packed blog lined up for you this week. Tomorrow, I'll be giving you a tour of some of the local eatery's around my neighbourhood and take you to my favourite Chinese hole-in-the-wall for lunch. For dinner, I have a function at Google I'm attending so you can take a sneak peek at the Sydney Google office. Wednesday, I'll take you to one of the local farmers markets I used to attend regularly when I was here and dinner is going to be at Tetsuya's, widely considered the best restaurant in Sydney and ranked 5th best in the world. Thursday, I'm going to be cooking another Lamb dinner for a bunch of my friends so I'll walk you through the markets and then the dinner. Friday, my Dad gets back from Hong Kong so I'm planning to cook a special family dinner. Then Saturday and Sunday, I want to showcase some of my parent's cooking of authentic Northeastern Chinese food which is not nearly as well known in the west as Cantonese or Szechuan food.

I have a conference paper I need to submit by 5pm EST (7am my time) so I'm probably going to be up fairly late, compulsively procrastinating so I should be checking into this thread fairly often.

[Shalmanese]

Goodness, the Blind Eye Organ looks like a great idea...how's it sound? We should get these guys to come over to STEIM in Amsterdam.

Keep the geekery coming!

mem

Thanks markmorse, I got the creator's email address so I'll point him to that site. The Blind Eye Organ was great. The idea behind it is so obviously simple. The resistance between the pen and the earth circle is what determines the frequency. As you draw, graphite is being laid down onto the page and reduces the resistance. Here are some pics I managed to snap:

This is a shot of a video he was playing:



And here's him doing it live:



Dorkbot was a whole lot of fun and I had dinner with my best friend from university at his place. His family is from Hungary and his grandmother had cooked a traditional hungarian dish:



It's as ugly as sin but absolutely delicious. I'll have to bug him about the Hungarian name of it but it was some sort of green beans in a creamy sauce and chicken in a red wine sauce.

After dorkbot, I was still a bit hungry so we grabbed a late night falafel wrap:



Kebab shops are ubiquitous around Sydney and one of the only places open late as they cater to the drunk trade.

welcome to the world of blogging Shalmanese!

So in the end, I had 2 hours to shop and then 3.5 hours to cook 7 courses for 19 people. Here's what I managed to pull off:

that is simply amazing. Your energy is mindblowing! (but I´ve thought that before, when reading about your big dinners for large groups).
What´s it like being back home? which PNW foods will you miss when in Australia, and which Australian foods (besides cheap passionfruit ) did you miss while in the US?

As I've become more experienced with cooking, it seems easier and easier to cram large amounts of cooking into small quantities of time. The prep for this meal was extremely basic and I actually had half an hour at the end to have some civilised cocktails before the guests arrived. I'm going to highlight some of my favourite foods that I miss in the next few days so have patience .

Oh my, this is going to be a wonderful wonderful blog. Experience or no, we've all seen the 21 courses thread. :smiles:

Can I ask what are you doing in the US?

I'm doing a PhD in Computer Science in the field of Human Computer Interaction. I'm looking at taking an idea from Developmental Psychology called Theory of Mind and trying to apply it to the design of social software. My premise is that how we behave online is affected by what we think other people think about our actions and what we think other people will think about what we think about them and so on. I've just completed my first year so it's all very preliminary at the moment. Before that, I was doing research on tabletop computing like the newly announced Microsoft Surface and looking at how time pressure affects tabletop interaction. Before that, I was working on computer vision algorithms for camera localisation.

finally!  someone on egullet that's younger than me (whewwww).

your passion fruit truffles look exactly like yomogi mochi rolled in kinako. 


btw, how long does it take to fly from the Pacific NW to austraila?

I prefer not to count hours travelled as it just depresses me too much. However, I've become somewhat of a seasoned traveller by now so plane flights are relatively tolerable to me. My Seattle to San Francisco flight left at 6am so I held my 22nd birthday party the night before and partied till 4am. I was asleep before takeoff and slept the entire way to SF. Took a brief nap in SF airport and then was asleep before takeoff again and managed to squeeze in a good solid 5 hours on the plane. Noise cancelling headphones, a laptop with a 5 hour battery and a whole stack of TV shows and movies held me up till I got to Beijing. In Beijing, I was already unjetlagged and got a good solid 8 hours in a hotel bed. Every time I go to Beijing, I always try to have some lamb skewers, some peking duck and a lot of shopping and I managed to get all 3 on this trip so I was happy. Beijing to Sydney was another redeye and I again got a decent amount of sleep and I was completely fine once I got to Sydney.

I thought it might be you!  So do you consider yourself a PNW-er now, or do you still think of yourself as being from Australia?

Like Chufi, I also want to know what foods you most miss when in each location, but I want to know about junk food, specifically!

Hrmm... that's a hard question to answer. I think I'm in the middle right now. I've started getting my claws in Seattle but I still define myself as an Australian there. On the other hand, I certainly don't feel like I'm at home here. It's quite clear that I'm a temporary guest.

I was never much of a junk food person at all but my two vices are Chinese peanuts and ChaCheer Chinese sunflower seeds. The peanuts I could get in the States but my brand of sunflower seeds, I couldn't find AT ALL. I've eaten one and a half bags of these things in 2 days which is NOT GOOD seeing as each bag contains 80 grams of fat but these things are SOOO addictive.

[johnnyd]

a sneak peek at the Sydney Google office

Hey, there was a cool news segment on the comprehensive culinary program at the Google Seattle location. Lots of regional sourcing and great menus. Sydney too?

I'm very excited to see some authentic Northeastern Chinese cooking. Blog on!

[Pan]

[...]Anytime I'm drunk and get to play with fire is a good night in my opinion[...]

I'm SO looking forward to this blog!

Did I ever mention to you that my whole family visited Changchun in the summer of 2004? My mother, an anthropologist, was participating at a conference on shamanism at this big, Communist hotel on the outskirts of the city -- a huge estate with real bureaucratic functionary officials (OK, some of the younger ones were nice, but there were some really soulless individuals there). As soon as my brother and I walked out of their grounds, we left that oppressive atmosphere and got into what almost felt like a different world -- a bustling but comparatively relaxed city (compared to places like Beijing and Shanghai, of course). We really enjoyed the park around the lake, and the people were so friendly and nice! The food we liked best in Changchun was the flatbreads. Similar flatbreads were on sale in Beijing, but the ones we got in Changchun, for example at a market a few blocks west of the big square near a junior high school and across the street from the administrative offices of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, were better. The city struck us as pretty poor but also as a place where people enjoyed life however they could. Lots of families and pairs of lovers were making an afternoon of it in the park on weekends (and of course, there was food involved a lot of the time), and there was kite-flying and traditional music-playing (just for fun -- applause was gratefully accepted, but not money, and most people just ignored them) on the big square at lunchtime.

Which part of Jilin province does your family come from?

Edited by Pan, 25 June 2007 - 10:16 AM.

[racheld]

. . . a visual trace of an ephemeral sonic past. What a lovely line, and that was the COOLEST site!!

Glad to see you blogging---I love your "ninety dinners for forty in three days"
approach, and your meals are always terrific.

And that was SOME gorgeous china---I always want to know HOW MANY pieces it took to serve all those folks all those courses.

And of course, who did the dishes?

[SheenaGreena]

you know what I eat for my birthday?

I fix a bowl of seaweed soup for myself and that's it. It's traditional to eat a bowl of it for your birthday and since I don't live with my parents anymore, I have to make it myself.

water
beef dashida
hijiki seaweed
garlic

I know that you like to make ELABORATE feasts for your birthday, but what were the traditional birthday dishes you ate growing up?

[Shalmanese]

Did I ever mention to you that my whole family visited Changchun in the summer of 2004? My mother, an anthropologist, was participating at a conference on shamanism at this big, Communist hotel on the outskirts of the city -- a huge estate with real bureaucratic functionary officials (OK, some of the younger ones were nice, but there were some really soulless individuals there). As soon as my brother and I walked out of their grounds, we left that oppressive atmosphere and got into what almost felt like a different world -- a bustling but comparatively relaxed city (compared to places like Beijing and Shanghai, of course). We really enjoyed the park around the lake, and the people were so friendly and nice! The food we liked best in Changchun was the flatbreads. Similar flatbreads were on sale in Beijing, but the ones we got in Changchun, for example at a market a few blocks west of the big square near a junior high school and across the street from the administrative offices of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, were better. The city struck us as pretty poor but also as a place where people enjoyed life however they could. Lots of families and pairs of lovers were making an afternoon of it in the park on weekends (and of course, there was food involved a lot of the time), and there was kite-flying and traditional music-playing (just for fun -- applause was gratefully accepted, but not money, and most people just ignored them) on the big square at lunchtime.

Which part of Jilin province does your family come from?

My mother's family is from Changchun. My father's family is from the countryside near Jiaohe. I'm glad you loved Changchun, I've only been there a couple of times.

. . . a visual trace of an ephemeral sonic past.       What a lovely line, and that was the COOLEST site!!

Glad to see you blogging---I love your "ninety dinners for forty in three days"
approach, and your meals are always terrific.

And that was SOME gorgeous china---I always want to know HOW MANY pieces it took to serve all those folks all those courses.

And of course, who did the dishes?

The China was all from the friend who let me use their house. I think we alternated between 3 sets. He has a dishwasher with a fast rinse cycle so we would just shove one set in and in 20 minutes, it would be ready for the course after the one we currently served.

I know that you like to make ELABORATE feasts for your birthday, but what were the traditional birthday dishes you ate growing up?

I don't just like making elaborate feasts for my birthday, I just plain love making them full stop. For me, it's a way to really push my cooking to the limits and see what I'm capable of. I love really stretching myself to the absolute max and always trying to improve on the last time. As a rough history or "dinner party milestones" I've had:

- 6 courses, 4 people, 1 week of prep
- 10 courses, 4 people, 1 week of prep
- 6 courses, 4 people, 2 days of prep
- 21 courses, 21 people, 1 week of prep
- 6 courses, 4 people, 5 hours of prep
- 22 courses, 18 people, 2 days of prep
- 7 courses, 19 people, 5 hours of prep

As you may have noticed, I've never had a dinner party under 6 courses before .

[Pontormo]

As you may have noticed, I've never had a dinner party under 6 courses before .

Hmmmm...do I sense a challenge coming on?

I won't elaborate since it might be a good scenario to consider at some later date.

Meanwhile, first, to quote you: "Patience, woman!" See how good I've been in waiting for this blog to begin? Thank you for including a cool, unfamiliar fruit in your very first documented meal! I'm looking forward to this week.

I wonder if it's possible to take us to whatever counterpart you have to Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market in your hometown. Any outdoor markets? While I realize the weather is rather mild, I am curious about what fresh foods are available during the winter and where all the produce you buy comes from at different times of the year or growing season. I.e. how local do you eat? What other nearby or distant sources for other ingredients do you have? Are Aussies at all concerned about "carbon footprints" or whatever else preoccupies locavores & farmer-market groupies in the States?

Edited by Pontormo, 25 June 2007 - 08:56 PM.

[prasantrin]

I was never much of a junk food person at all but my two vices are Chinese peanuts and ChaCheer Chinese sunflower seeds. The peanuts I could get in the States but my brand of sunflower seeds, I couldn't find AT ALL. I've eaten one and a half bags of these things in 2 days which is NOT GOOD seeing as each bag contains 80 grams of fat but these things are SOOO addictive.

But it's a good fat!

Maybe they have those sunflower seeds in Canada. You could do emergency seed runs to the North.

[Shalmanese]

Time to take you on a walk around my neighbourhood. I live right next to the University of New South Wales where I did my undergrad and the university has a huge asian population so, as a result, there's a "restaurant alley" quite close to the university full of cheap, student eats. Most of the places are quite generic, cheap student food but there are a couple of decent finds in that area.



This is Oporto, a local portugese chicken chain. There are 3 different portugese chicken chains in Sydney, Oporto, Ogalo and Nando. From what I heard, they're all started by the same family who's 3 brothers had a massive falling out. Each place is slightly different and people have debates about which is their favourite but they're all really excellent for chains.



Right next to Oporto is an italian place called Giovanni. I really, REALLY wanted this place to be good as they have such an interesting menu but I've been there twice and both times, it's been mediocre . What a shame.



The very front sign, in green is the Hidaka supermarket, my local asian supermarket which we'll go into shortly. Behind it is the Chinese Dumpling and Noodle House, a restaurant specialising in Beijing and Northern Chinese food. Not surprisingly, it's very good for it's dumplings and noodles but the rest of the menu items are rather mediocre. Behind that is the Fajar Indonesian restaurant. I've only been in there twice but it always seems packed with Indonesians.



I think I would be lynch mobbed if I went into an Asian supermarket and didn't show the pocky aisle so here it is.



For hzrt8w, here is the hot sauce aisle. It's quite small and I'll be going to a larger asian grocer later this week hopefully.





I mentioned earlier that my two junk food vices are asian peanuts and sunflower seeds. Here are the brands I like. I call the peanuts in the middle "old man" peanuts and they come in regular and garlic flavour. Garlic costs a bit more but I always get that. Garuda peanuts are different and also really nice and I always find it funny that they have the same name as the airline company with the horrible safety record.

Chacheer sunflower seeds are simply the BEST, most CRACK COCAINE filled sunflower seeds in the entire WORLD. The red ones in the middle are regular, the green ones on either side are coconut. They have a few other flavours but those two are my favourite.



Mi Goreng are a type of Indonesian ramen noodle but they must be processed in the same factory as the sunflower seeds because they are also filled with crack cocaine. They contain 5 different flavour packets inside, fried onion, kecap manis, flavoured oil, hot sauce and soup base. You HAVE to eat them drained of all water, if you eat it like a noodle soup, it tastes like crap but dry, OMG, soooo good. These were all the rage at my High School and we ended up using them as scrip. I went to a part boarding/part day boarder school so us day boarders could buy them in bulk and sell them to boarders at quite a hefty markup. It was great.



Here's another thing which I haven't seen outside of Australia. They're called Jelly Joy and they're this pouch of half jelly/half liquid with a straw in them. The texture is really unique. They cost 75c a pop here which is about 60c US so I bought 3 of them.

Unfortunately, at this stage, the manager saw me taking photos and chased me down and asked me to put down the camera. I have no idea why but I thought it was pretty odd. Maybe they thought I was from the health inspectors or something.



Here are the 3 jelly joys I bought, taken out on the street. Slurpy Mango, Slurpy Strawberry and Slurpy Lychee flavour.

Finally, I went in for lunch at my favourite Chinese restaurant on the strip:



Kingsford Chinese Restaurant. Because we're in the suburb of Kingsford and it's a Chinese. Imaginative, I know. There's only 2 dishes worth ordering here, the rest of it is undifferentiated garbage. But those two dishes, damn they're tasty:



Salt & Pepper Squid. Bits of squid fried in a crispy batter with salt and Szechuan pepper corns.





Sang Tung Chicken. This is an entire chicken, fried until the skin is crispy and the meat is succulent and then topped with this ultra addictive, slightly sour sauce with hot chillis and garlic and spring onions in it. Damn, I wish I knew how to make this.

[Shalmanese]

Oh yes, I forgot the obligatory fridge shots, well, here's what it looked like on the day I got back:



I think I win some sort of prize for that right?

After I left for Seattle, my parents shipped my little brother off to a fancy boarding school for a year and, with the kids out of the house for the first time in 21 years, Dad took a sabbatical in Hong Kong. As a result, the entire house has been pretty much empty for the last 6 months with my mother alternating between Hong Kong and Australia. I was the first one back, my mother got back the next day, my brother came back 4 days ago on the same flight back from Melbourne and my Dad gets back this Friday.

So this is a clue to why I named my blog the Itinerent Chef. Even though I'm back home, it still feels like cooking in an alien kitchen because we have nothing here. All the pantry items are gone, the fridge is bare and I need to buy all my foodstuffs from scratch.

Here's the fridge as it looks this afternoon:



On the top shelf are a whole bunch of homemade pickles. The northern chinese LOVE their pickles and they will pickle anything to keep them going through the harsh winter months. Personally, I can't stand pickles so they're all my parents. On the right is some Vanilla Yogurt. Full fat yogurt is something I think Australia does far superior to the US. Almost every single flavoured yogurt in the US has all sorts of weird gums and thickeners in them and I haven't yet found one that tastes good. When I'm in Seattle, I just buy plain yogurt from a company called Mountain something or other and mix it with my own fruits.

On the second shelf is a whole bunch of Lamb. I am absolutely in love with lamb and I found the lamb in the US to be very bland and mild so I ordered a giant "pack" of lamb from Rutherglen Farms when I got back. The lamb stew and the leg of lamb from the Melbourne dinner was from that lamb and now I have 4 loin chops, 4 shanks, 2 racks, 2 scotch fillets and some diced lamb left. The scotch fillets are going to be rubbed and seared to go over the top of a warm lamb salad on thursday and the lamb chunks will be going into a proper shepards pie. The shanks and rack are for my family and I haven't quite figured out what to do with the loin chops yet.

Oh, and also something random I saw walking along the street:



I would LOVE to own this lamp if it wasn't $100 and I didn't have to lug it all the way back to Seattle .

[jumanggy]

- 6 courses, 4 people, 1 week of prep
- 10 courses, 4 people, 1 week of prep
- 6 courses, 4 people, 2 days of prep
- 21 courses, 21 people, 1 week of prep
- 6 courses, 4 people, 5 hours of prep
- 22 courses, 18 people, 2 days of prep
- 7 courses, 19 people, 5 hours of prep

Wow. You are a machine. I'm so looking forward to the next few days.

I noticed that many shops don't allow picture-taking, don't know why (spies? copycats?). I take my clandestine photos with a camera-phone, pretending to think while placing it against my chin (a la Oprah).

The Sang Tung chicken reminded me of Mortal Kombat (hello, twentysomething). Sounds great, though when you type out descriptions it always seems as though there's crack in the food ("ultra addictive")

[Shalmanese]

- 6 courses, 4 people, 1 week of prep
- 10 courses, 4 people, 1 week of prep
- 6 courses, 4 people, 2 days of prep
- 21 courses, 21 people, 1 week of prep
- 6 courses, 4 people, 5 hours of prep
- 22 courses, 18 people, 2 days of prep
- 7 courses, 19 people, 5 hours of prep

Wow. You are a machine. I'm so looking forward to the next few days.

I noticed that many shops don't allow picture-taking, don't know why (spies? copycats?). I take my clandestine photos with a camera-phone, pretending to think while placing it against my chin (a la Oprah).

The Sang Tung chicken reminded me of Mortal Kombat (hello, twentysomething). Sounds great, though when you type out descriptions it always seems as though there's crack in the food ("ultra addictive")

Keep in mind I haven't had many of them in almost a year so I'm in junkie-scoring-a-fix mode right now. Once I sate myself, I'll start describing things normally.

[Sentiamo]

Oh yowser!.... a foodblog from the Antipode's, and Melbourne to boot.
All going well, me along with hubster and the menagerie, will be safely installed there within 2 years so I am surely going to love this whole thread.

Dying to know your Lygon Street picks and favourite breakfast/brunch place.
And the markets....swooooooon.

You have my undivided attention here Shalmanese.

[Pat Churchill]

I'm a relative newcomer to Melbourne but I really enjoy it here. I was thrilled to find some feijoas at South Melbourne market the other day as they were one thing I was really missing from New Zealand. When I was growing up in Auckland NZ lots of friends and neighbours had feijoa trees. This is quite an aromatic fruit. It's great in crumbles and makes beautiful juice. Also teams well with guavas. But I just love feijoas raw. Plus you can eat the skin if you fancy.

Tamarillos are another favourite.

I'm impressed with the menu you made your Melbourne friends. If you'd waved that menu at me you could have cooked at my place

[Shalmanese]

Just got back from the Google thing. Unfortunately, they don't allow photos within the googleplex . They just had the standard assortment of function food, only done better. Some mini sandwiches, wraps, hummus, guacamole, nuts, cheese, deli platter, potato chips etc.

In absence of photos, let me show you some threads of mine from previous times that I particularly liked.

Philosophical

Is Home Cooking on the Irrevocable Decline? - I still maintain that I was right and food is turning into a hobby, not a necessity.
The Dumbing Down of the Western Palate - This thread taught me a whole lot of things
Culinary Heresies - I loved what some people came up with in this
Food Miles is [redacted] - The title had to be changed to avoid offending some of the more delicate souls on here.

Avant Garde

Toast Bubbles - I never ended up doing anything with this. I should revisit it sometime.
Fat Free Roux - The topic was fairly mundane but the experimentation was fun
So what else can I blowtorch? - I was surprised there hadn't been a blowtorch thread on eG before

Just Plain Crazy

Professor Shalmanese's 2 week cooking school - I attempt to take a complete novice and school him in the art of cooking in 2 weeks. It's a reality TV show without the cameras!
21 in 21 for 21 on my 21st - I cook 21 dishes over 21 hours for 21 guests because it's my 21st birthday... Craaaaazy fun. And at the end of my thread, I do 22 courses for my 22nd. And no, I'm NOT planning on continuing it for next year although that's what I said last year too!
The Supreme eG Baking and Pastry Challenge - I was tapped as part of the eG Iron Baker competition to complete 7 dessert courses in a week. Wanting to add a bit of difficulty to the challenge, I created a 6 course tasting menu to serve with it and each dessert reflecting an element from each course. And then my 7th dessert was the first (and, as far as I can tell only, vegemite dessert ever created).

[Peter Green]

So what else can I blowtorch? - I was surprised there hadn't been a blowtorch thread on eG before

Thanks, Shalmanese, I've loved your threads!

And I'm buying me a blowtorch this weekend!

[LEdlund]

2 scotch fillets

Hey Shal! Great blog! We'll have to plan a homecoming party when you get back to Seattle....

So what are scotch fillets? I've not heard that term before.

[Shalmanese]

Oh yowser!.... a foodblog from the Antipode's, and Melbourne to boot.
All going well, me along with hubster and the menagerie, will be safely installed there within 2 years so I am surely going to love this whole thread.

Dying to know your Lygon Street picks and favourite breakfast/brunch place.
And the markets....swooooooon.

You have my undivided attention here Shalmanese.

Sadly, this blog isn't coming from Melbourne, it's from Sydney. I was just in Melbourne last week but expect to see some shots from Queen Vic Markets coming up soon.

I'm a relative newcomer to Melbourne but I really enjoy it here. I was thrilled to find some feijoas at South Melbourne market the other day as they were one thing I was really missing from New Zealand. When I was growing up in Auckland NZ lots of friends and neighbours had feijoa trees. This is quite an aromatic fruit. It's great in crumbles and makes beautiful juice. Also teams well with guavas. But I just love feijoas raw. Plus you can eat the skin if you fancy.

Tamarillos are another favourite.

I'm impressed with the menu you made your Melbourne friends. If you'd waved that menu at me you could have cooked at my place 

You can eat the skin? I tried it and it wasn't too appetizing. Any tips for getting the flesh out?

[Shalmanese]

2 scotch fillets

Hey Shal! Great blog! We'll have to plan a homecoming party when you get back to Seattle....

So what are scotch fillets? I've not heard that term before.

I wasn't quite sure myself and google is being a bit unhelpful. It's a purely Australian term and I thought it was the ribeye cut. Wikipedia confirms it's the ribeye but a local newspaper segment seemed to indicate that it wasn't. Anybody willing to chime in here?

[MarketStEl]

I see that I will be spending the next week in the presence of a master who's only barely legal to drink in the US. You're off to a great start -- and you managed to get both of the obligatories out of the way on Day One, which has to be some kind of record -- so I've got a feeling this blog is going to be one of the great ones.

In Sepetember of last year, I moved to Seattle to start a PhD program in Computer Science at the University of Washington. Even though I was living in a share house in Seattle, the other people in the house never really cooked so Seattle was the first time I really had a kitchen to myself and was free to buy and cook whatever I wanted. Seattle was also the first time I started hanging around other foodies as eGullet people seem thick on the ground there and, all in all, I'm having a blast of a time over there (if only someone could do something about the rain!).

Any particular reason I missed encountering you on my day in Seattle back in April?

I have a conference paper I need to submit by 5pm EST (7am my time) so I'm probably going to be up fairly late, compulsively procrastinating so I should be checking into this thread fairly often.

So I see we have the same disease!

At my left as I type this are proofs from two newsletters. In another open window on my computer desktop is a bear of a manuscript I'm editing (rewriting might be closer to the truth) for a retired physician-turned-wannabe bestselling author; I promised it to him by month's end, and I'm about 60% finished. In another window is a Phillyblog discussion. Five blocks away is the Wellness Center, where I ought to be working out right now. I need to touch base with a psychology professor about Op-Ed essay ideas. And what am I doing right now instead?

Oh, one more thing: Melbourne and Sydney "towns"?

This is Oporto, a local portugese chicken chain. There are 3 different portugese chicken chains in Sydney, Oporto, Ogalo and Nando. From what I heard, they're all started by the same family who's 3 brothers had a massive falling out. Each place is slightly different and people have debates about which is their favourite but they're all really excellent for chains.

Please tell me a little about Portuguese chicken and what distinguishes it from other varieties.

Unfortunately, at this stage, the manager saw me taking photos and chased me down and asked me to put down the camera. I have no idea why but I thought it was pretty odd. Maybe they thought I was from the health inspectors or something.

More on this below.

Oh yes, I forgot the obligatory fridge shots, well, here's what it looked like on the day I got back:



I think I win some sort of prize for that right?

You most certainly do!

Here's the fridge as it looks this afternoon:

That's much better!

I noticed that many shops don't allow picture-taking, don't know why (spies? copycats?). I take my clandestine photos with a camera-phone, pretending to think while placing it against my chin (a la Oprah).

I think that in most cases, it's the former. The stores are afraid that you're coming in to swipe trade secrets or something like that.

However, it's also image management. Reputation is one of the most valuable assets any business has, and owners--well, good owners, anyway--go to great lengths to make sure that reputation is protected from harm. (Bad owners go to great lengths to make sure that reputation is distorted in their favor.) As the owner has no idea what you are planning to do with those pictures you're taking, and it would be awkward indeed for him to ask you while you're engaged in the activity (and risk having you give him a misleading answer to boot), the default position is to forbid your taking them.

Larger chains usually have some sort of procedure whereby you can obtain permission to take photos in their stores ahead of time.

[Pam R]

This is Oporto, a local portugese chicken chain. There are 3 different portugese chicken chains in Sydney, Oporto, Ogalo and Nando. From what I heard, they're all started by the same family who's 3 brothers had a massive falling out. Each place is slightly different and people have debates about which is their favourite but they're all really excellent for chains.

Great to see you blogging, Shalmanese.

Nandos brings back great memories. It really is great fast food - especially when you've been in the car all day and you come across a gas station with a mini-Nando's in it. (You can get an occasional Nando's fix even in NA - head to Vancouver.) (Do I remember chicken ribs?)

I'm looking forward to your week.

[lexy]

Hmm, I wonder if the Australian Nando's is any relation to the UK restaurant chain Nando's? (also portugeuse chicken)

[miladyinsanity]

Hmm, I wonder if the Australian Nando's is any relation to the UK restaurant chain Nando's? (also portugeuse chicken)

Just the question I was about to ask. A girlfriend of mine loooooves Nando's, and can't wait until we get to the UK for it--we are headed to the same university over there later in the year.