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Melkors, fascinating stuff! Thanks for sharing it all. Must be hectic trying to see what you want to see plus posting this all for us to enjoy. Much appreciated and you're makin' me very hungry!

What a cool blog! Can't wait to experience the adventure...

Thanks everyone for the information. I take back what I said about buying a replacement KA if mine dies. If I need to replace it I'll take your recommendations on alternatives since I use mine for making a lot of bread dough.

I've had my KA mixer for at least 12 years. I got it as a gift (great gift!) when I lived in the US a year or two before I left. Didn't use it much there but I've used it endlessly in Australia where I've used it via a transformer, of course. I thought transformers where supposed to reduce the lives of the equipment used with them but not my KA. The KA is now on it's way to meet me in Dubai and I hope that I have many more years of abusing it. If not, I'd definitely go out and get another one, I love it so. Is mine considered an "older KA" which a few people have said are more reliable than the new ones?

I've never made fried chicken before and I am SO looking to forward to your chicken experiment, Marlene. Are you going to have ratings categories for the chicken? For instance rate 1-5, crispness, tenderness, flavour, ease of recipe...?

Oh, and forgot to mention that the range of cheeses Beechers makes looks pretty extensive and quite interesting. Can't WAIT to hear more!

I'm SO excited about this blog! Yeah! Cheese! Pikes! Sur La Table! Thanks for the great intro and pics so far.

Hmmm, don't know if he's coming out with a new book. His website only lists this current two: http://www.gregmalouf.com/books.htm

I LOVE Seattle and have since I was a kid. Have dreamed of moving there and now I'm convinced I have to live there some day. Thank you, thank you for taking us to Ivars (my fave from childhood and more recently too) and Pike's Place and especially all the wonderful things you had to eat in your home. Fantastic, excellent, wonderful blog!

Last year I made a big batch of granola/muesli and boxed it up in noodle boxes as presents. I got rave reviews for that. People thought is was a nice sensible thing to get during the holidays that was healthy. I really only gave people about enough for 1 or 2 servings. I loved the noodle boxes!

I used to subscribe to Gourmet Traveller. It is a good magazine. I found that the recipes are really restaurant sort of recipes not what I cook every day or even for many dinner parties. It's been awhile since I read an issue, though so the style may have changed.

oh, my...I've already had lunch but I'd give my right arm for some of those ribs. They are soooo beautiful! Thanks SO much for sharing.

Thanks for the description of this cookbook. I haven't had a look but now I want to. I frequently avoid flipping through cookbooks because I want to resist buying them! Would love to know how you go with Shannon's recipes. Do tell, once you've tried some!

PaulaJK, I haven't been there myself but if I were going and wanted to work out the best places to eat I'd use the Cuisine website in NZ. Here's the link to the specific page: Cuisine magazine - NZ restaurant reviews Also The New Zealand Herald does restaurant reviews: The NZ Herald-restaurants

Those sound like heaven! I really want to see your pictures.

This is currently my fave Australian food site. The TV program is excellent. You'll see a lot more than Australian food, it's really more about finding great food and food producers around Australia no matter ethnicity. Food Lover's Guide to Australia And this is my fave New Zealand website which is from Cuisine magazine; a terrific mag. Cuisine Magazine

What a beautiful shop with glorious goodies! Mel, best of luck. Your efforts have produced a foodie heaven setting.

It seems to be summer hiatus, or at least I'm hoping it is since I was quite enjoying this thread. Of course it's perfect time for me to be baking since I live in the southern hemisphere and it's winter. I'm still amusing myself with baking from other books at the moment.

Made the focaccia dough this weekend because I've been wanting to do the leaf shape for quite a while. It turned out very pretty: I don't think I shaped my dough as "fat" as they did in the book and might try that next time. The shape was incredibly easy to do and looked very impressive, I think. I'd do it again for sure.

foodie3, you're making me really want to try the brioche. Looks good and I bet it tasted excellent. jgarner53, my crostata had a fair bit of butter leakage. You can sorta tell by the paper under it in the picture...greasy spots. Probably not that unusual since there's lots of butter. Raspberry peach sounds like a great flavour combo! With regard to your comment about dough being hard to work with when it warmed up...guess it's lucky it's winter here and my house is cold!

In Melbourne I can recommend (I've been to all of these; some are more cafe than restaurant. Melb has excellent cafes!): Mecca, meccabah, livebait (http://www.mecca.net.au/) Momo (http://www.momorestaurant.com.au) Chocolate Buddha (http://www.chocolatebuddha.com.au/) EQ (http://www.eqcafebar.com.au) Nudel Bar (76 Bourke St, Melbourne; phone: (03) 9662-9100) Hairy Canary (www.hairycanary.com.au) Richmond Hill Cafe & Larder (http://www.rhcl.com.au/) There are plenty of restaurants I haven't been to. My source for reviews is The Age daily newspaper. Every Wednesday they have my fave insert called "Epicure" (http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/epicure/). I've heard great reviews about: Pearl (http://www.pearlrestaurant.com.au/) Botanical (http://www.thebotanical.com.au/) Reserve (http://www.federationsquare.com.au/2003/whats_at/whats_at_detail.asp?category=1&id=28) In Sydney I've been dying to go to Tetsuya's for years (http://sydney.citysearch.com.au/profile?id=20230068). Finally will be going in August. Let me know if you have any questions, I'd be happy to help.

Those look great! Well done! I've got a great list of things in the book that I still want to try. Not sure where to begin. Between BWJ and the Bread Bible by RLB I just wanna stay home and bake! There are a couple of Bread Bible recipes I thought I'd try this weekend but I might try some new stuff from BWJ in the next week. Last weekend I did a couple of recipes from BWJ that I forgot to mention. Did the potato bread AGAIN! This time I made it into mini loaves in a mini loaf tin I've been dying to use. They were bloody cute! I also made the semolina bread and shaped it into rolls. I think I'd like to try that one again because I didn't get a chance to try the rolls. (Took them to a Christmas party...Christmas in July with some other northern hemisphere people who are used to cold Christmases, so we have a winter Christmas too! (I'm in Oz, by the way.)) The rolls seemed to be really airy inside.

I'm definitely still interested! I baked the amaretti last night but they've turned into amaretti hit by a bus because I didn't follow the exceedingly easy recipe correctly! They still taste yum and I'll just tell my guests that they're a new kind of amaretti...flat amaretti! Bake on!

callalla, thanks for posting this. Though I live in Melbourne I would love to sometime do one of the courses at the fish market in Sydney. Great report!

I made the crostata this weekend. My filling was pear (because they're in season at the moment) blueberry (because I had some frozen ones on hand) and almonds (because they'd suggested that somewhere in the other combinations listed). I thought the dough was a bit thick using their instructions for dividing it and rolling it out but it turned out OK. I did have a bit of a panic that perhaps the bottom wouldn't be fully cooked but I think it was. I didn't have/couldn't find a decorative wheel cutter so I just used an knife. Once I got the hang of what they were suggesting for putting on the top strips, it was a breeze and I liked the pattern that method made. I brought it into the office to exclamations of exhaltation and they all said it was good. Haven't tasted it yet (though I seemed to have problems not eating the raw dough because it was yum) but I've taken a piece of it to share with hubby. Here's my pic: I think I'll do the amaretti today or tomorrow. They sounded pretty easy yet interesting to play with. Anyone else still around in this forum?