[Down Home Australian]

By the way, does coffee count as comfort food? Or just a comfort drink? Either way, a coffee at Pellegrini's often does the trick for me.

[Down Home Australian]

For me, it has changed over the years, but the one constant has always been the standard Cadbury's plain chocolate bar.

As a kid though, I used to love the humble meat pie....the "Four and Twenty". These days, I rarely eat one.

Growing up, it then became braised beef briskets - a winter food for Chinese people. However, the problem was that I had to wait until my parents made it. I never did cook when I lived with my parents....but I must have learned by osmosis because once I left home, I didn't find cooking for myself that big a jump to make.

These days, it's congee. My parents would cook congee during winter and whenever they thought that my sisters and I needed a bit of "inner warmth" from food.

[First time in NZ and OZ]

I agree with arbuclo on Mecca and MoMo. If you go to Mecca, try and get a table next to the windows...you get a great view of Melbourne over the river.

I'm not that sold on Nudel Bar though. I reckon you can get Asian noodles that are just as good, but a lot cheaper, from various places around town.

On Pearl, I went there a couple of weeks ago with my partner. The food was very, very good. People call it Australian food with an Asian bent, but I saw it as being the other way around. The key difference between what Pearl does and what you can get a couple of tramrides away in Victoria Street and/or Little Bourke Street is the quality of the ingredients they use. To my mind, if you had a year in Melbourne, you would go. But if you're only here for a few weeks, there are probably other restaurants that I would recommend ahead of Pearl.

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/).

Epicure comes with the Age on Tuesday, not Wednesday.

[First time in NZ and OZ]

For Melbourne, I can highly recommend Vue De Monde. You can click onto their website at www.vuedemonde.com.au

Other favourites include Ezards (I hate the term, but it's fusion food), France Soir (French brasserie style food), Abla's (Lebanese) and Moreton's Brasserie (French).

[Shopping in Melbourne]

wonder what might happen if I keep a couple geese in the backyard...

Keeping geese to make foie gras? You'd probably end up getting animal liberation activists protesting outside your place and mounting raids.

Anyway, the other month, I had a dish at Vue de Monde that contained foie gras from Strasbourg in it. The foie gras was encased in brioche and sliced thinly. Quite lovely.

[Aussie Chefs' Cookbooks]

I've been tempted by "Sri Lankan Flavours". I may take the plunge and buy it soon. Recently, I've been buying up on spices, and I've been roasting and grinding my own spice mixes, and I'd imagine that there would be plenty of spices used in Sri Lankan food.

What's your view on "The Lebanese Kitchen"? Speaking of Abla Amad, I've just made a booking for tomorrow night. It'll be my first time there and I'm very much looking forward to it.

I think the next cookbook I'll be getting will be "Rockpool". I just want to read Neil Perry's thoughts on food and there are a couple of recipes that I want to try.

[Aussie Chefs' Cookbooks]

I've looked at the Blue Ginger cookbook a few times, but nothing in there has really inspired me to buy it. Looking at the recipes, there hasn't been enough in the book that makes me say, "I want to cook that!"

[Aussie Chefs' Cookbooks]

I bought Arabesque last week. I don't know why I didn't buy it sooner.

[Baking Help in Australia]

The conversion that drives me the most insane is for butter. US recipes often call for various portions of "sticks of butter". Here butter is bought in blocks with gram marks on the side. If you know how much a stick of butter is in oz then it's easy to convert. (I have forgotten how big a stick of butter is by now!) The rough estimate I use is 30g = 1oz. (It's actually 28g = 1oz, I think, but the math is easier using 30. )

According to the book that I have (The Kitchen Hand by Anthony Telford), 1 stick of butter = 125 grams = 4 oz.

[Melbourne Restaurants]

Try Pacific House on Victoria Street, Richmond (it'll be just one or two tramrides from where you are). Very good quality Chinese food at more than reasonable prices. The address is 8/240 Victoria Street in Richmond.

[Aussie Chefs' Cookbooks]

Could I put a word in about "Paramount Desserts" by Christine Manfield?  

Hi all

This is my first post on this board.

On Christine Manfield, she's also released three other cookbooks...."Paramount Cooking", "Spice", and "Stir".

I haven't got "Paramount Cooking", but I can say that it's the companion piece to "Paramount Desserts".

I do have "Stir" and "Spice". "Stir" is split up into several sections where she has a recipe for a basic paste (eg., coridaner peanut pesto, garam masala, laksa paste, chili jam etc.) and a series of recipes that use those basic pastes. Her recipes do take some time, but are worthwhile for that special dinner party.

"Spice" is one of those dual coffee table and cooking books. In the book, she discusses spices and spice mixes before several sections of recipes (divided into salads, soups, seafood, poultry, meat, vegetables, noodles/rice, pastry, bread, and dessert. Near the end of the book, she has an essay discussing spices and wine. As yet, I haven't cooked from this book.

All in all, if you have "Stir" and "Spice", you probably won't need "Paramount Cooking" as many of the recipes overlap. Also, "Paramount Desserts" has recently been re-released in paperback.

Everyone else has already mentioned the really good Australian cookbooks. Bill Granger, Kylie Kwong, and Stephanie Alexander all have great books on the bookshop shelves. I've also found Campion and Curtis's "Campion And Curtis In the Kitchen" to be good, and Anthony Telford's "The Kitchen Hand - A Miscellany of Kitchen Wisdom" is fantastic for the times when you want to quickly check on a cooking technique or finding alternate names for foodstuffs. Also, Greg and Lucy Malouf's "Moorish" is quite good and friends have raved about their other book, "Arabesque". I've also had good recommendations from friends for Ian Hempills (spelling?) books on spices.

A couple of last things, the Ezards cookbook has been re-released in paperback and Shannon Bennett (of Vue De Monde) will be releasing a cookbook later this year.

Cheers