Snadra

I happened across this item on the Sydney Morning Herald website today: Still living (and eating) in the 70s

I mentioned it upthread - I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling this! Some of the photographs are quite beautiful, but a few of them are nearly frightening (there's a trout dish in particular that makes me think "horror movie" rather than "delicious" everytime I flick past it). The Beef Stroganoff recipe is really excellent, and very simple.

Homemade baked treats are a winner round here. One coworker brings in brownies, mini quiches and mini lemon meringue tarts. I do cookies sometimes and the ocassional batch of butter tarts, but my biggest hit so far was a cake salé I brought in just before Christmas. We toasted short slices on the sandwich maker and everyone was pretty mad for it. If my commute wasn't so draining I'd probably bake more and bring in more. Actually, I thought my coworkers were pretty good at snarfing things down until I did a teaching prac: the brownies & blondies I brought into the staff room disappeared almost before I got the lid off. Something about dealing with surly adolescents makes the sugar rush all that more appealing, I guess!

That is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. We did redo the kitchen a few years ago, but time passes sooner than you'd think and before you know it you're fixing it up for sale instead if fixing it up for your pleasure.

Chocolate hot cross buns. Actually, they're use called 'choc' hot cross bus (there's something wrong about that abbreviation to me). I know that Easter and chocolate go together most of us, but it still seems like a crime. Also fruitless buns. And I'm not sure if they're out yet, but my husband reported reported the usual kind were at the shops last week.

I'm always amused by this thing, and even more by how many devices there are out there for this purpose (Google "Spargel Schäler" for many examples). Is it just me, or do Germans have a device, serving dish or utensil for every culinary possibility (this dish and spoon should be used to serve tomato soup with square croutons to your mother-in-law on a rainy Sunday)? Personally, I like peeling carrots, which are refreshingly straighforward. Unlike I imagine, say, Chinese Artichokes to be.

I've seen this method for peeling pearl onions in a few places, although I've never tried it myself. For small potatoes like chats I use what I think of as the Danish method: cook in their skins, then impale them on a fork one at a time and use a paring knife to nick the skin, then pull it off, grasping the skin between the knife and your thumb. It usually comes off pretty quickly with just a couple 'pulls' per potato. You do have to watch you don't burn yourself, but once you get the hang of it it's pretty straightforward. It certainly wastes less than when I peel before I boil and I find it easier on the hands as well. Although if you overcook you'll find them breaking apart on your fork.

Part of the reason I want to switch from gas to induction when we move is because I HATE cleaning around the burners and trying to keep grease & food from blackening the burners themselves. I keep thinking that glass MUST be easier to clean than these gas burners (not to mention the number of times I gouge my hand on the ignitor when I've taken all the burners off for cleaning). Waiting for things to go kaput in order to get something better requires balance. I made the mistake of putting up with a set of knives from the discount shop that my inlaws gave me for Christmas for almost three years before I went out and bought something decent. I don't know why, as the knife set was absolutely awful, with tiny serrations that made it impossible to cut pretty anything and collected meat fibres on them and we had the money to get at least one decent knife. But somehow my frugal self kept saying "make do, make do". On the other hand, I am (im)patiently waiting for my 15 year old Moulinex foodprocessor/blender to die so I can replace it with a sturdier Magimix. The Moulinex does its job absolutely fine, and really shouldn't be replaced until it dies, but that doesn't stop me from obsessively checking out all department store sales and eBay, just in case an unmissabel bargain comes up! But I am excited to report the bowl to my icecream maker seems to have sprung a leak and I can justify buying a new one in time for next summer (if not this summer what with this insane heatwave!) - this time with a compressor instead of a freezable bowl I think.

It's something I haven't made myself, but bread dumplings came to mind for me too (or bread gnocchi)! Do you have a specific recipe for these you're willing to share? Bread dumplings were a favourite of mine growing up, but they always came from a packet. Other things I like: Queen of Puddings - the nice thing about it is that it changes character depending on the flavour of jam you're using. Bread sauce - classic accompaniment to roast chicken, although I've not made it myself, it really is delicious. French Toast/Pain Perdu - I think it needs stale bread to be its best, and the best thing is you can do it with almost any kind of stale bread - there's even a german version using rye bread. Leftover Pannetone makes a nice holiday version, but my favourite was using italian bread for a savoury french toast sauteed in olive oil and served with roasted tomatoes & wilted spinach.

My favourite food mag is Cuisine from New Zealand. I don't have a subscription, but I keep every copy I buy. I had a subscription to Gourmet from about 1995 until it fizzled and have kept all of them. Every once in a while I pull stacks of them out and flip through them - I like a window on the past, even if it's a fairly recent past. I have convinced my mother to keep all of her old ones (going back to the 70s) and plan on wasting fuel to ship them over one day. But I have great difficulty divesting myself of any printed material.

Wonder if you could use a tortilla press, too. Tortilla press....interesting! Wonder if I can find one around here and how much they go for? I should have gotten one while in the US and sent it over with my shipment.... Fireworks Foods sell them - $21.95 each. I've used my pasta roller for making flatbreads more than pasta. This one works especially well, and makes lovely long flatbreads that look just like the ones that cost $13 for a small pack at DJs Food Hall. I've experimented with a yeasted crispbread as well, but it's not quite as successful. I plan on trying a scandanavian rye cracker soon and might get out the roller for that as well. This could be related to my lousy dough rolling skills... I've also seen a recipe for a sort of polish crostoli which recommends using a pasta roller. A Le Crueset frying pan has been used as an ersatz baking stone too - I got the idea from the NYTimes no-knead bread. I use parchement, and usually remember to remove the paper after the dough has set.

I haven't read these books in over 20 years, but I could have sworn in the edition I read the word hominy was used. Or maybe I've just done some convoluting in my head over time My mother made molasses or maple snow taffy a few times every winter (having grown up in rural Quebec) and I was always thrilled that I was doing something just like Laura did. Plus it was delicious! She used to sew my dresses in floral calico (no, really) and I remember getting her to make a pocket on one of them like Laura had when she collected rocks on the lake shoreline (how can I remember that after so many years?). I suspect it was out of relief that I had moved on from my Heidi phase (= braided hair, toasted cheese and hard bread obsession). Although we raised our own pigs for a few years I was never given the bladder to play with I had the full set of these books and have no idea what happened to them. Of course, now I simply HAVE to get another set, plus the cookbook.

There are a lot of thrift stores (there are two in my tiny, tiny suburb for example), mostly run by individual churches or larger church groups like the Salvation Army or St Vincent de Paul, but as far as I know they have largely stopped selling electrical appliances due to liability issues. But that does remind me that eBay is a good source for these things. edited for clarity

We put up with an annoying, uncomfortable set for years while shopping around for the 'perfect' one: heavy handled knives, nice balance and easy to hold. Eventually we came across the Robert Welch Stanton design, and I love it. Lovely smooth curved handles with just enough weight and spoons and forks that are nicely proportioned. The only problem is the price, and the fact that their curvyness makes them fly pretty spectacularly off a plate when you're picking it up! Andie, my mother-in-law has a pile of sheffield knives like yours. They are used at breakfast and for the bread and butter plate every day. I love them.

I do get Choice (although it can be annoyingly prissy in a domestic sciences teacher sort of way) and I looked up their recommendations. The Breville Ikon and Kenwood came at the equal top of the list of the ten tested. Considering the Breville Ikon is $200, I'd go for the $70 Kenwood. The comments section said there will be another test of slow cookers coming out before winter. Besides Bing Lee & Peters, also check out The Good Guys when shopping for small appliances. David Jones can also have surprisingly good prices on these kinds of things at this time of year. And from an acquaintance who deals in refurbished electrical goods (ie store returns, etc), appliances from Aldi are apparently quite good - keep an eye on the catalogues, as they are likely to bring out a slow cooker as we head into autumn. As far as cookbooks go, I use booko.com.au to find the best price for books shipped in/to Australia, but if you sign up for Borders VIP you can get excellent occasional discounts via email as well (frankly, considering the prices at Borders I need a discount to shop there).

Our kitchens are about the same size I think Nick, but you are definitely turning out some magic in yours! I love your splashback, by the way.

Have to be dodgy supermarket mystery bags, too. With a list of ingredients that says something like, 'Meat (45%) ...' And a white supermarket loaf. A $20/kilo organic Daylesford bull-boar sausage in a $6 sourdough just isn't right. Oh, yes, absolutely! TipTop, or even better, generic bread. Somehow it complements the dodgy sausage and sauce perfectly. But I really can't stand it otherwise.

I like Aussie-style tomato sauce, but only in a sausage sizzle situation: overcooked snag laid diagonally on a bit of doughy white bread and topped with grilled onions. Otherwise it's Heinz ketchup all the way.

I know what you mean about being easily swayed - the right picture on a restaurant website can capture an essence that really influences the way I feel about a place too! Lochiel House is a fair distance from the city, and it's not on the 'tourist' side of the mountains either, which just makes it that much harder to get to if you're from out of town. For us though, it's our nearest 'hatted' restaurant (just as well I like it then!). Re lunch: I work on Macquarie street in the CBD, and my lunch preferences for a quick bite are based more on geography, convenience and coworkers than on being ideal food destinations, but there are some decent enough places around. A selection: Ryan's Bar, Martin Place Bar and Verandah are all pretty reliable for a pub-style lunch with a beer or a glass of wine. The noodle dishes at Bligh Bar are great, but the service has been APPALLING the last few times I was there - two people would probably fare better than the groups of 6 or so that I am usually in though. Martin Place Bar is probably the best of the lot food & service wise, and has a good selection of beers on tap. Opera Bar is great for an afternoon drink (the views! the location!) but the food seems to be steadily treading the path of mediocracy and is overpriced (as you'd expect). If you do want lunch at/near Circular Quay, Mirabelle is a nice option, although it's in a funny sort of space, in the lobby of an office building, and edging towards pricier. Further inland, Bacco Pasticcera at Chifley Plaza is excellent for a sandwich on sourdough - their sandwiches are huge actually, so consider sharing one and following it with a coffee (excellent) & pastry. Avoid The Avenue in the Chifley Forecourt unless you're just having a coffee (which is very good). I think Sushi Tei across the road is decent but not spectacular if you want something lighter, and you can eat quite cheaply - it gets mixed reviews with my colleagues though. Although I haven't been there in nearly a year now, Chinta Ria is a very fun and rather noisy place, in a great location on the city side of Darling Harbour. And I rarely get up to Haymarket these days (at my last job nights out with my coworkers ALWAYS ended up at Golden Century for some reason) but Uighur Cuisine is definitely in the cheap & cheerful category. You'll like it, assuming you enjoy lots and lots of lamb - everyone I take there leaves very happy (actually, when I was there in November there was an egg and leek dish that we particularly enjoyed). Finally, if you go to David Jones Food Hall, there are quite a few eating options as well, both takeaway and counter service (the noodle bar line is usually quite long, but I like the cheese counter myself), or you can get some cheese, ham, fresh bread and a bit of fruit and have a picnic in one of the parks - maybe somewhere in the Botanic Gardens overlooking the harbour, just to soak up the Sydney vibes.

I guess that goes alongside the shows that regularly point out that shoppers in the eastern suburbs pay more for all their groceries! Maybe... although looking at yours again, my mother's book was a hardcover (still cordon bleu cookery course, and the exact picture, I'm certain) - I think published in the late 60s/early 70s, rather than the newsagent series publication you've got. Which brings me to another question: given the influence it had on you, do you still cook from it at all, or any of your 'early cookbooks', or have your interests and tastes changed?

You will LOVE having a scale! I now deliberately search out recipes that refer to weight,and convert recipes to weight as I use them - it makes life so much easier.

Are you going out on your own or with others? Now, I've lived in Sydney for 15 years and still haven't been to Tetsuya's, so if it's a mistake, I've been compounding it for a few years! That said, we don't get out as much as we'd (or I'd) like, so that may be part of the problem... From personal experience (and that of my colleagues) I can definitely recommend est and Becasse. Marque also would come in high on the list, although I haven't been there myself. I wasn't thrilled with Flying Fish on my only visit - something about the atmosphere and style of food put me off. And there's always my personal favourite, Lochiel House, but that's probably a bit out of your way!

An Isi soda syphon! But I also received some cash and I plan on buying myself something at the post Christmas sales... like maybe a new Magimix to replace my rather rickety moulinex.

In Black Kettle, Full Moon Geoffrey Blainey talk about how popular pumpkin was in Australia. I only once ate it outside of a pie when I was growing up in Canada, but when I got here it did seem to be everywhere! Roast pumpking is a common accompaniment to a roast dinner and even chicken takeaway shops sell wedges of it roasted... Even at my local, crappy fruit-fly-infested fruit & veg shop there are usually three kinds of pumpkin on offer. Pumpkin soup is pretty high on the list here - last winter everyone I know seemed to be having curried pumpkin soup. I like it in 2cm cubes, tossed with a bit of oil, salt & pepper and roasted until it goes golden at the edges. Delicious as is or with lots of parsley leaves, toasted pinenuts & parmesan tossed through. Leftovers make a great pizza topping (I like it with some feta), or used as a pasta filling like Janeer suggests. The one time I ate it growing up in non-pie form it was acorn squash cut into quarters and roasted with a knob of butter, nutmeg & brown sugar in each cavity.

Nick, I'm so excited to see you doing a foodblog! Can't wait to see what you're cooking. What's your take on the quality & availability of australian produce & food shopping in your area of Sydney? I meant to talk about my impressions from Western Sydney during my blog, but didn't get around to it in the end, and I'm keen to hear yours. Do you do most of your shopping at speciality stores, or do you use Woolworths/Coles? Seeing that Cordon Bleu book cover made me gasp a bit - we had that book when I was growing up and the cover dessert of brandy snaps and caramel oranges is something my mother made for dinner parties - all the way on the other side of the world!