Snadra

I have two, but that's more because we haven't tried a lot of places than because we're particularly fussy. That said, everyone tells me that you get the best examples close to the ocean, and I haven't found that to hold true, to be honest. There's a great place just off the roundabout in the town centre of Windsor (the name of which I can never remember). You can pick up your F&C and duck across the street to eat it in the park, looking over the river. Our other favourite is The Raw Prawn in Riverstone. They sell fresh fish as well as F&C and I've never had a dud from there, fresh or cooked, unlike the many duds I've had from various incarnations of the Costi's chain. They are also quite careful about labelling where their fish is from. It's a bit of a gem, considering the area! Even better: they manage to make chips that are worth eating. Do you (or anyone else?) have a Sydney favourite?

I got some tortillas, tortilla chips, dried chiles and a tin of hominy from Fireworks Foods last week. The tortillas were a revelation compared to the corn tortillas that have been available recently. Lovely flavour and texture. The tortilla chips were also fantastic. Given the weather (the cold cold and frosty weather!) I'm keen to make something warming, and I think pozole might be nice, now that I've finally got hominy. And today, searching for dried hominy rather than canned, I made a new find: Quilla Foods. In the 'natural foods' section, they sell dried mote, which according to the googles is another term for hominy. I'll be ordering from them soon and will keep you posted.

If it's really fresh with thin skin, I usually just scrub it before grating or slicing or whatever. If I do peel it, I sometimes put the (scrubbed) peels into the rice as it's cooking - makes a lovely aroma.

This recipe for chicken baked with onions might fit the bill (I say just don't bother with the last two turns. Rice from the rice cooker and an asian-style slaw made before you leave would complete the meal. I've made it a few times and it's very flavourful and forgiving. If your oven takes a while to heat up, I also think you could put this into an un-preheated oven before you leave, and serve the same way as the dish above. Made with thighs it doesn't dry out easily and will definately smell delicious by the time you get home.

My mother used to fry garlic and ginger in oil for certain chinese dishes, then discard them before continuing. I have made a basic italian tomato sauce (is sugo the correct term?) which calls for simmering the tomatoes with half an onion. The onion is discarded before the sauce is put through a mill. I think it's from an Anna del Conte book. It's quite subtle and lovely on fresh pasta. And the beef stroganoff I make from a Pellaprat book does something similar: the beef strips are sauteed with onion in a few batches, then the onion is discarded before adding the beef back to the sauce. Again, it's a nice subtle onion flavour (and delicious aroma) and it enhances the beef without overpowering.

I haven't seen frozen bread dough here (although I'm sure it exists) and other pre-made alternatives are pretty blah. I used to use the bread machine to make pizza dough, but the machine is cumbersome, doesn't make nice regular bread and anyway I would rather use my limited appliance space for that compressor ice-cream machine I've been hinting about for a while now... We have used lavosh for a quick pizza base - sort of like the pita bread pizzas that I remember from the 80s, except a bit better. So long as we were light with the cheese, sauce and toppings, we could stick one under the grill and have something approximating a crisp-based pizza. Currently it's no-knead dough (with more salt than the NYTimes recipe calls for). In summer it goes into the fridge after a couple of hours on the counter. In winter it just stays out (no central heating here!) for a couple of days. The nice thing is that it's very forgiving and requires little work. If you can't make pizza tonight, it's happy to wait until tomorrow. Rather than use lots of flour to roll it out, as &droid mentioned above thread, I find it easier to put some olive oil on a sheet of baking paper and use some of it to lightly oil my hands and stretch the dough (fairly thinly) out onto the paper. A bit of semolina or polenta is nice under the base, and seems to make it crisper than the semolina alone should account for. I suspect it might create a bit of an air pocket under the dough and reduce steam, but I can't be sure. The paper gets used as a lifting tool to put the pizza into a pre-heated oven onto a preheated sheet (if it's a bigger pizza I sometimes use a breadboard to assist). Even better into a preheated cast iron frying pan - I use a LeCreuset. It takes two pizzas of that size to feed us, but we bake the second while eating the first, so it's not a big deal. In any case, the pizza bakes on the paper, which makes cleanup fairly easy. We've experimented with par baking the crust before topping and find it is a bit better, but we like it both ways. If the oven and sheet or pan is heated (about 25 minutes minimum) the pizza cooks in around 8 minutes (add a minute or two if you like browned cheese). For us this makes it a quick mid-week dinner if we turn on the oven as soon as we get home so that it preheats while we sort ourselves out. We've used purchased pizza sauce, which is okay, but prefer a quick homemade one: a tin of peeled roma tomatoes, 1-2 cloves garlic, a glug (that precise quantity!) of olive oil, some pepper flakes, ground black pepper and dried oregano, all whizzed up with the stick blender. Whatever doesn't get used the first day gets cooked quickly and stored in the freezer for another session. Toppings naturally vary depending on what's in the house, but a definate favourite is smoked ham from the polish deli (oh so italian, I know!), with fresh tomatoes sliced on when it comes out of the oven. Nearly as low mess and low effort as the original post!

We like to brush halved zucchini, thickly sliced eggplant, and halved capsicums (peppers) with olive oil and bbq them and Lebanese bread. Sprinkly with sea salt, some fresh thyme and/or parsley and eat with homemade hummus (on the lemony side) and tzatziki (or however you spell it). Sliced tomato is nice on the side. If we want it a bit more substantial, we add a boiled potato. If it’s small and in its skin still we sometimes add the potato to the grill, but boiled potato is lovely with hummus anyway, and it makes a nice contrast to the grilled stuff. Great summer meal if the veggies are't hot straight off the grill, or winter meal if they are.

Lamingtons are not my favourite treat - probably because I've never had a homemade one...but I have seen them made on television by CWA ladies! Although maybe I should try to shore-up my Aussie credentials by making some this weekend. I've never seen a ganache used - all the recipes I've seen using a chocolate icing made with cocoa and hotwater (plus varying amounts of milk, sugar and butter), like these: Lamingtons from Taste.com.au; from lifestylefood.com.au; and from Australian Womens' Weekly. So, I'm thinking for a lemon or matcha lamingtons you would simply replace the thin-ish chocolate icing with one in the flavour of your choice. And maybe a bit of lemon rind in the sponge for a lemon lamington? Sometimes lamingtons get a jam and cream filling before they are covered in icing and coconut, so you could try a lemon or matcha filling of some description as well. Now that I think of it, my mother used to make a snack cake that had the same kind of assembly when I was growing up: chocolate cake squares dipped in thin plain icing and coated in crushed cornflakes. Reverse Canadian lamingtons maybe? Edited because 'cream' is not the same as 'ream'

"feasting like a pair of preschool vampires"... you've just painted a marvelous picture in my mind. Cherries do inspire a particular kind of gluttony, don't they?

The first time I heard about Shandys my concept of lemonade still involved lemons, and made shandys sound far worse than they are. Now I'm used to thinking of lemonade as a sweety fizzy drink, but it's still a pleasure to go back to North America and get a 'proper' lemonade (no beer required). Snadra PS. I was drinking lime in my beer in the 90s - 10 years out-of-date is probably about right for the locale!

Actually, you've just solved a life-long mystery for me. Now I FINALLY know why most of our preparation for preserving was done outside when we were kids. I always thought it had something to do with the heat, but you post made me remember my brother and I nearly covered with cherry guts from head to toe after a visit to the pick-your-own place...well, there was more 5kg to pit, even after we'd taken out a pickers' payment.

Queen of Puddings Italian Gnocchi di Pane or German/Austrian Bread Dumplings (I LOVED them when I was a kid, but unfortunately have no recipes) Also I have a recipe for a cake made with dried breadcrumbs and almonds that is in a Pellaprat book. I believe it's called Mascot Cake. My mother used to make it for special occasions, decorated with Mocha Buttercream. PM me if you want the recipe.

Could it be this book, Fabulous & Flourless by Mary Mauksch? It seems to fit the bill from your description.

We're hoping for the Costco to open in Sydney soon. The site in Granville has apparently been picked, rejected and picked again. There's a HUGE thread in the vogue forums on the subject.

I was at a bar in Calgary and noticed some of the locals pouring some red liquid into their beer. The barman lady, informed me that it was clamato juice. Apparently this is a mixture of tomato juice and the liquid that is left over when clams are boiled. I honestly thought she was joking at first! No eggs though.... It's pretty common throughout northern Canada in my experience. I've worked in a few places where people would order 'two and a juice' ie two beers and a tomato juice. And yes, Clamato (Mott's is the brand if I recall correctly) is the usual alternative to tomato juice - I used to call that a 'clameye', but that's just me... I think it's vile, but it was pretty popular, and not just amongst the oldies. I knew quite a few women my age who drank it. But hey, Brits drink shandys (beer and lemonade or beer and gingerale) which I find really odd. I mean, at least there's a pretence of vitamins in the tomato juice! But with regards to the egg in beer issue, I'm SURE I've seen that mentioned in books before. I'll have to go look it up now. It does sound like it's meant to be a hangover cure, doesn't it? And why do hangover cures always seem to involve the unfertilised ova of innocent poultry anyway? Snadra Full disclosure: I have been known to enjoy fresh lime juice in my beer on ocassion.

Snadra, do you know Fishbase ? Your comment makes me wonder - it's fairly well-known around eGullet, I think. I don't think I've come across it before! Thanks for pointing me to it - it's a brilliant thing. Now, I'd buy an iphone app for that!

I've never had whiting (King George or otherwise). I'll have to try it now. But isn't it frustrating how many names are flying around out there for the same fish? I hadn't realised that Blue-eye Cod was trevalla, never mind butterfish! I'm probably from the same school of crispier chips - at the least they should be fluffy inside and not droop in your hand like a sleeping, chicken-salted kitten! It's also a threatened species due to its long reproductive cycle.If you're into sustainability, try one of the other alternatives. Funny you should bring that up. Sustainability is one of the reasons I tend to go for flathead these days. A good reason to try whiting as well, I guess. Of course, in NSW something like 75% of our seafood is imported from elsewhere. Check out this sustainable fish guide for a quick overview of better fish choices.

We're very lucky to have two good fish & chip shops near us. I only like white-fleshed fish for battered fish (and never crumbed either because the crumbs are usually over done, taste awful and make the fish tough). My favourite is flathead - it's got a lovely firm texture and big flakes and from my local place it's always caught local-ish as well. I've had monkfish and that's been great too. Flake is good when it's fresh. I've only ever had snapper grilled, must try it battered. Barramundi is exactly like eating a dish cloth!! Unless it's wild and you never see that these days. Personally, I've found that if you get a lace that does good fish (light, crisp batter and just-cooked) the chips are awful.... When I was growing up (in a landlocked part of Canada) we used to love cod in our F&C. Not that there's much of that anyore I guess!

I'm pretty sure fireworksfoods in Northmead has it (it's mentioned in the Mexican ingredients thread) but I'm sure I saw it at Harris Farms in penrith at Christmas If it's there it's probably at other Harris farms as well. I saw corn tortillas at woolies two weeks ago for the first time in ages (have you noticed it's all flour tortillas here lately?). They were okay, but not amazing - mind you it could have been my cooking. They were woolies select brand. The only cornmeal I've seen at woolies has been polenta - a bit coarse for what you want I'd guess!

I am hating Masterchef at the moment and have given up watching it, but I was glued to the screen when that dessert came on - salt, peanuts and chocolate are my idea of dessert heaven. How disappointing that 5+ hours of work ended in tooth-ache! A few years ago I 'catered' a christening morning tea for 50 guests for a relation as a gift (I'm not a professional). After I had spent several weeks attempting to get her to speak to me about what she wanted on the table and FINALLY finalised it, she called me the night before, just after I'd bought all the food and done all the do-ahead stuff, to tell me that what she really wanted was lots and lots of Krispy Kremes, because that would be 'unreal' (I was paying by the way. Do you have any idea what those things cost?!). But it took me two knocks to learn my lesson. I did the food for a birthday party she was hosting the next year. I should have run for the hills when she told me she wanted Italian and started talking about buying supermarket roasted chicken, hummus & guacamole for that authentic italian flavour.... Now I can say with confidence, NEVER AGAIN! But the food I made was awesome. I was just too tired to enjoy myself, or stab her with a breadstick.

It will be interesting to see the South Pacific cookbook johung mentioned. There is really nothing out there on the topic. Fingers crossed for a slightly less expensive edition... Booko is the awesomest ever. Yes, that's right, it's fantastic enough to make me mangle the english language. It and Book Depository are responsible for the current bookshelf space crisis in my house.

Had lunch at Quadrant Restaurant the other day and it was frankly disappointing. The service was rather good, and the view is great - looking out over Circular Quay to the Art Gallery - but the food is unappealing and lacks freshness. My dessert, a chocolate and hazelnut tart, tasted as if it had been plated the day before. The potatoes were appealingly brown and crisp looking, but were limp and had little flavour. It's a shame, because it's an excellent location, but it feels lacklustre and the prices are steep ($36 for grilled scotch fillet and $32 for grilled salmon). Luckily the company was great!

I love this book, even though I've not cooked much from it. Fantastic pictures and stories, and recipes for foods that different but remain accessible. However, I made two dishes from the book over the past week: Tofu batons with hot sesame dressing and Miao Pork with corn and chiles (corn's practically out of season now, but I just got a corn zipper and needed an excuse ot use it!). Both delicious and very simple, although you have to plan ahead with the tofu sticks because they need to be soaked. I'd never had tofu sticks before. They have a nice chewy texture and a distinct but mild flavour I can't quite put my finger on. I found it made a real difference cutting out all the bits that didn't hydrate properly - chewy is nice, hard isn't. The folds hold the dressing nicely too. We found we prefered them at room temp rather than warm. Definately making it again. The pork dish was great as well - the fresh corn and chile is a good combo. It's a nice change from my usual stirfry dish and I like that it has just a few ingredients so the milkyness of the corn really stands out and the fresh chiles make a sharp contrast to it.

I agree it is a shame it didn't deliver. It isn't a destination diner but a useful place in this part of town which is devoid of much else that is good at this price point. I wonder if it was a bad day in the kitchen...? Useful is right! There's little in that part of the city that won't run an enormous bill up AND has food that's worth bothering with, particularly for dinner. Lunches are a bit easier, although that could be because expectations sometimes aren't quite as high at lunch. Speaking of that area, I'm going to Quadrant for lunch next week. Shall report back!

If you want a quiet kettle, plastic is a better option than stainless (speaking from experience). However, I second the Breville Ikon if you're after stainless. We bought ours last year (they are in the A$100 range) and it's been great. Wide opening, pleasant chime, and VERY quiet for a stainless kettle. We bought another as a housewarming gift for friends, and they have been just as pleased with it. http://www.brevilleusa.com/ikon-electric-kettle-1-7.html That said, we're on 240 volts - not sure if that makes much of a difference to boiling time.