callalla

At the Leichhardt Farmers Market in Sydney on Saturday (it's autumn here...) Greengage Plums Pink Lady Apples Usual juicing carrots (so nice that they're organic - saves on all of the peeling!) Beautiful tender 'wet' fat, fresh ginger Organic eggs (with really hard shells which makes me feel that the chickens are in good shape) Lump of speck (my gran said that speck to her is just the fat, but this had meat too) No bread this week as we've started to make our own!

I'm a pounder. Love making pesto in my lovely big Thai mortar and pestle. Of course, curry pastes are also fun to do, but there's just something about starting with the garlic, then pulverising the pine nuts and reducing a huge bunch of basil to a little jar of bright green loveliness. If upset, smashing digestives for cheescake bases is great therapy.

Our wedding reception was held in a whisky distillery about a mile away from where my parents live in Scotland. In the end we had about 120 people at the reception (we didn't expect that many, but everybody said yes to the invitations!). We picked a local caterer to do a buffet which I seem to remember included things like poached salmon, cold roast beef etc. It sounds a bit boring, but I really wanted things that everybody would like, especially as many of them had travelled a long way, and needed sustenance for a long night of ceildh dancing ahead... Also, this might seem like a bit of a given, but I knew that the caterer uses really good ingredients and would go the extra mile to ensure that everything looked and tasted lovely, so I was happy to stick with fairly 'safe' options. From vague memory(this was only three years ago), she also did a great dessert buffet, but I was starting to get a bit emotional and nervous what with the speeches coming up and didn't really eat it. My mum made the wedding cake which was beautiful. I appreciated it even more as she had just made one for my brother's wedding 5 weeks earlier. Ralph was very organised and gave her a couple of years to get started but I think that we only had about 4 months from getting engaged to being married. Quite late in the evening, my husband and I snuck up to the room where the food was (leftovers were re-plated nicely for people to graze on through the evening), and were just starting to get stuck in when we got called away for Auld Lang Syne and to be packed off to our hotel. Being quite ravenous, I think that we ate all of the biccies in the room, and then had a huge breakfast the next day. Ah, happy memories!

Just to throw another topic in here. Recently on ABC radio in Australia, I listened to a really interesting program about the concentration of livestock in certain breeds that work well for commercial purposes, to the destruction, and near-extinction of other breeds, many of which display attributes that may be really valuable in future. E.g. around 99% of the turkeys bred in the USA, are bred to have such enormous breasts that they are unable to breed naturally. This built-in ability for almost the whole cohort of one species of poultry to die out after one generation, should artificial breeding cease does seem something of a concern. Also, a scientist in the UK discussed experiments that he had carried out in the 80s about which pigs were resistant to a partiularly virulent and destructive disease that affects pigs. Apparently, pigs from what are now considered 'heritage' breeds, and are now almost all gone, do have some in-built resistance - which would obviously come in very handy should an epidemic of this particular swine fever thing break out. Apologies for not having all of the facts to hand - I just wanted to throw this out there. Lots more useful information can be found at the website of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy

I think that I've posted about this elsewhere, but this stuff is always to be found in my fridge... It's an adaptation of recipes for various tahini sauces that I've found - this is much thicker and a definite spread. Take... The juice of one lemon A tablespoon of water A teaspoon or thereabouts of soy sauce A tablespoon or so of sweet chilli sauce A bit less than a teaspoon of sesame oil About a third of a jar of tahini Put all of the ingredients into a sealable container and shake vigourously - et voila. This is addictive on toast, especially with a thin coating of homemade chilli jam on top!

Funny, I was just looking at kangaroo in the supermarket the other day and wondering whether it was worth giving it a whirl. Our cats eat it every day so perhaps that's been subconsciously putting me off. We tried emu recently in the form of some not very nice sausages from an emu farm down near Jervis Bay which wasn't so great, and again, may have contributed to a lack of enthusiasm for indigenous meats... However, given the responses upthread, it may well be time to give Skippy a go (will have to get the barbie fixed first after a nasty grease container conflagration/oh, my god what are all those flames doing up the side of the house-type incident. Moral of the story is, if the man of the house insists on being the keeper of the barbie, ensure that he is also cleaner of the barbie before firing it up....). I imagine that a good marinade would probably be the way to go for the first few experiments as it looks like such a dense/lean meat.

It's sometimes a bit random, and best if you can get there in an off time when it's quiet as the store is totally claustraphobic, but I like Victoria's Basement in the Queen Victoria Building. Also, once you're in that part of town, it's a short walk to Chinatown where you can find all sorts of useful (and cheap) kitchen gear. Also, I just posted on the Mortar and Pestle thread about my new mortar and pestle - a huge granite job that cost $AUS36 in the fantastic Lucky Thai Grocery on Campbell St (just up from the Capitol Theatre).

I just got a big stone mortar and pestle from one of the Thai Supermarkets in Central Sydney and I love it! Once I'd wrestled it home on the bus (wincing at the thought of dropping it on my toes) I immediately knocked up some pesto - not only did it hardly take any time, it was very theraputic. I've also made goma-ae (sp...) from the recipe archive, and on Saturday followed the David Thompson recipe for green curry paste - he's a firm believer that the pestle and mortar is the way to go. It turned out fantastically - the green curry of my dreams, but I did have to fetch my goggles out of my swimming kit as the small drops of flying birds-eye chilli juice were posing a danger to my eyes (wasn't quite so circumspect later as I accidentally removed my contact lenses with my chilli holding hand). Obviously there are lots of recommendations about what type to go for etc, I would recommend seeing what's available in any Asian supermarkets that you have nearby, as I saved heaps by doing that. Also, I think that bigger is better - in terms of result and of ease of use.

At a recent Thai cooking class that I attended in Sydney, our tutor told us that David Thompson has an army of chefs pounding away with mortar and pestle to get that really fresh aromatic Thai flavour. As he's based in a v.expensive hotel environment in London he probably has the fund behind him to do that - not sure how other places would manage.

On the occasion of my husband's 30th birthday a couple of weekends ago, we took part in a Thai seafood cooking class at the Sydney Seafood School (at the Fish Markets). The class started off at one of the big Thai shops near Central (can't remember the street name, but it's parallel to Hay, where the Capitol Theatre is). I'd walked up that street for the first time about a week previously and had a great mooch around. Anyway, we had a slightly windswept introduction to the basic ingredients as we stood around on the street and were left to wander around and take a look for ourselves before meeting back up at the Fish Markets about an hour later. The introduction covered the various herbs, chillies, sauces, vegetables etc, as well as some basics like noodles, rice etc. Back at the Seafood School, the class host gave about a 1 1/2 hour cooking demo of squid salad, thai fishcakes, red curry paste (which was used to make a curry with blue-eyed cod and pineapple), and tom yum gai. It was excellent to see everything made from scratch as it gave a pretty good idea of how long things took (although all dirty dishes were passed through a hatch at the back of the demo area which I wish I had in my kitchen!). Also, while I've read about how to clean squid etc in the past, seeing someone do it right in front of you I think gives you more confidence to do it yourself. Anyway, after the class, we went into the preparation area and split into groups of five to try things for ourselves. Our impression at this stage was that a bit more organisation would have been useful, as there was a bit of milling around that reminded me of PE classes at school! Also, while the general idea that we would make everything up ie. curry without the fish, tom yum gai without the prawns and then finish it all just before taking it through to the dining room and eating it, was relatively straightforward, a bit more guidance and assistance would have been useful. The class host was assisted by 2 helpers who did drop in with the odd bit of advice here and there. My task was making up the red curry paste which really was pretty easy, I can't remember exact proportions but the ingredients were lots of dried mild red chillies, soaked and drained, coriander root, lemongrass, cane sugar, garlic, galangal, thai onions/shallots, oil, shrimp paste - there may have been other things but I can't remember them off the top of my head. One technique that I thought was interesting was frying off the paste for the curry in the thick 'coconut -cream' that you get at the top of an unshaken can of coconut milk. After our group had completed everything we sat down and ate the fruits of our labour - which were all great. However, other members of our group were slightly timid when it came to chilli so I don't think that we used enough of the paste in our curry - this was confirmed when I used some of the leftover paste at home last week in more generous proportions (the best Thai curry I've ever had!). The tom yum gai soup was great and I couldn't believe how much heat just 2 bruised 'scud' chillies (small green ones) imparted. I'm so making it the next time I have even the hint of a cold. Overall, we really enjoyed the whole thing, which lasted from 10am to about 3pm, and I think cost in the region of $AUS70 each. Negatives were that we felt that the class host and helpers could have been a bit warmer and that the whole dining room etc could be much more pleasant (you had to set the tables with very ordinary utensils and then 'slop-out' in the manner of a school lunch when leaving...) They do tons of other classes including barbecuing, one-off dishes like Singapore Chilli Crab, and they also have a lot of chefs from top Sydney restaurants like ARIA who come and do guest nights.

Hi Moby - feel your pain. Just finished a 4 week detox very similar to the one that you describe. Luckily, after 5 years in London (and being stiffed by Fresh and Wild - the one near Old St) I'm now in Sydney, which does tend to be better on the organic veg front. Have to agree with all comments upthread about the hideousness of most wholemeal pasta. I couldn't believe it when I put a forkful in my mouth - decaying cardboard. Anyway, I'm a bit out of the loop on London food, but just wanted to say that despite the annoyances, I did feel genuinely great after the 4 weeks were up, and that in fact, I'll probably stick to quite a bit of it (including the cold showers amazingly enough). Also, as an aside to Carlovski's theory about people eating organic/wholefoods not really caring about taste, I found that eating more simple/'good' food for a while, made basic things like veg, fruit, bread etc taste better than I could have imagined.

I've just finished a 4 week liver-cleansing/detox diet. It wasn't totally painful, but sugar, processed foods, alcohol, caffeine and meat were 'banned'. One thing that I discovered is that while brown rice is actually really nice, wholewheat pasta is vile. I think that I'll keep eating brown rice at home in fact . Stand out dishes that I wouldn't otherwise have tried included a great stir fried tofu/asian salad style dish, and a supposedly North African chickpea stew. Also, instead of using butter, I made a spread out of tahini plus lemon juice, a little water (and if in the mood a little bit of soy or chilli sauce, and/or grated ginger), which was a big hit (with my non-detoxing husband too) For premium snacking, dried fruit and nuts were the order of the day. I'd forgotten how good they are. It was really interesting to see how one's palate adjusted to flavours that were often more simple and how foods that I'd previously considered quite plain (bread/rice/vegetables) tasted fab (that might also have been down to eating more organic stuff). Anyway, my four weeks was up last weekend and although I did have a bit of a bacon and beer fest then, I'll be sticking to a lot of what I did and exploring lots more vegetarian food.

Something that I do that's really fast but tastes great is pumpernickel (you can sometimes get 'cocktail' size slices, or just cut the bigger slices down into bite-size pieces), with a folded piece of rocket on top, a piece of goat's cheese on top of that and then half a cherry/grape tomato on top, all held together with a cocktail stick. They're handy in that they're vegetarian and good for people who have to avoid cow's milk. They also look very cheery.