foodie52

And you don't have to watch them die. All the flavor and none of the guilt. Kids can do it, too!

Melbourne: North Carlton: Rathdowne Street Food Store, 617 Rathdowne St. A landmark place: a favorite for pies, breads, salads, jams and relishes. Great breakfast place. Yarra Valley: go to the Yering Station winery and have a wonderful lunch with a fabulous view of the rolling hills. Starters like:Seafood Trio - tuna sashimi, tea smoked salmon and Katafi barramundi. And Mains such as barramundi fillet with scallop, prawn and vanilla bean bouillabaisse, or marinated rack and loin of pork with potato and Ligurian olive tian, chorizo zaalouk, sage and apple jus. Desserts: Passionfruit chocolate mousse with passionfruit coulis and cinnamon tuille. They also have a bar menu. If you can make a small detour a wee bit north on your way from Adelaide to Melbourne, go to Mount Gambier and eat at Sage and Muntries. Check out their website: sagemunt@bigpond.net.au The chef is Graham Armstrong and he does things like Kangaroo Fillet with Quandong and Chilli Sauce and Crispy Skin Duckling boned with llawarra plum and ginger sauce. Aboriginals come to his restaurant with wild-crafted plants, and Graham uses them in his dishes. Smokey Bay oysters with sour cream and lemon myrtle...or Wattleseed Icecream Afogato. Phone: 08-8724-8400 Closed Sundays. His wife works front of the house. If you can coax Graham out of the kitchen and get him to talk about his passion, you'll be a happy camper. This is an award-winning place and filled with locals and folks who drive from Adelaide to eat here. Tell Graham HI from Jane, in Texas. We were there in October. Mt. Gambier is ugly. The restaurant is divine. Allow at least 3 days to drive the Great Ocean Road. My husband thought I was crazy, wanting to spend three days driving that relatively short distance. You'll want to stop EVERYWHERE - I warn you. Great views around every corner. It's one of the most fabulous drives in the world. A good place to stop is Apollo Bay. Look for the restaurant on the hill - ask in town. I can't remember the name of it . I think it is "Chris's" We had an excellent meal there. It burned down a few years ago, but apparently is now rebuilt. It is Dame Edna's favorite place - he/she has his/her original artwork on the wall by the loo!! Can you tell I love Oz?

I tuned in because The Apprentice was supposed to be in that slot. Turned it off after 5 minutes. It appeared to be kind of degrading. To food, that is.

I live in Austin and used to sell fresh herbs that I grew in my garden to the very first WF: would walk in the front door, give the Produce guy my herbs and my invoice and get a monthly check. WF is HUGE and hugely corporate now. Customer service is NOT what they are all about, is it? I work for Central Market in Austin, and our customers call the shots. You want pork belly? No problem - we'll have to special order it, but we'll get it for you. Ostrich? Rattlesnake? Eel? Whole suckling pig? Whatever.... if we can source it, we'll get it for you because return business is what keeps us going. And, we're a private company so we can do what we want. WF doesn't have to care what you want. If you don't like it, that's tough - go shop elsewhere. Their mission has been lost in their growth. Don't get me wrong: I still go there once or twice a month because it's a fun store. But they aren't particularly serious about food anymore.

Did Joanne's restaurant (Upperline) ever reopen? I loved that place.

Ahhhh......alcohol laws..... In Texas, the TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) was instated during Prohibition. We are still living under those laws. Wineries can't ship their wines out of state. Hell: wineries weren't allowed to ship, period, until just a few months ago. At least, I think so, because the laws are so complicated that nobody really understands them. Stores can't sell alcohol before noon on Sunday. And if you want to hold a public event serving wine, pu-LEEZE; they make it as hard as possible. If you want to sell wine AND do tastings on the premises, you can't sell anything more fortified than sherry. No port. At least, that's how I understand the law. Hope nobody from the TABC is reading this: they might jerk my Alcohol Seller's license and I won't be able to pour wine any more at work. Oh: and I am required to take that boring 8 hours of training just for the license, every 2 years. Costs $50.

Speaking of olives, I went to an Barnier olive tasting last night : the sherry I sipped paired with the olives beautifully

These work great. You can get your grocery store manager to order them for your store.

During highschool, my daughter entertained her friends by holding dinner parties: granted it was tons of spaghetti, garlic bread and then icecream, but they sat around the table for a good hour or so and CONVERSED! We insisted that our children eat dinner with us 5 nights a week. It is one of my best memories of their childhoods. It's so ....civilized.

Yup. Colon.

I want what the guys are having.

winesonoma: Let us know if there is anything we can do to keep your spirits up. You are in my thoughts.

Has anyone asked the lobsters what THEY think?

When my first baby was born, my mother in law brought over her "salmon mousse". I'll eat just about anything, specially if I don't have to make it, but I couldn't handle it. Neither could my husband. We offered it to our basset hound who was known to even eat bottle caps. He refused it as well. When my MIL asked how we liked it, my husband waxed poetic. So guess what? She made us another - bigger - one the next week.

An excellent chef told me that the secret to really good mac and cheese is the addition of Velveeta to the rest of the cheese - just enough to make it creamy.

Don't forget to go to the flea market on Saturday. It's amazing. I stayed at El Rancho a couple of years ago: it was a blast! The mezzanine is covered with photos of all the movie stars who have stayed there since the 30's. Fascinating town.

Campbells used to advertise like crazy in the 50's: "That's why Campbell's Soup is mm mmm good." Remember? Then their think tank got together and brainstormed recipes to use the soup in "gourmet" ways. It was the decade of the casserole - they rivalled the newly introduced TV dinners - women everywhere were opening cans and mixing them together. I vaguely remember some recipe that called for one can of cream of mushroom and one of cream of celery. Casseroles were in, man. As were jello salads. And toothpick spears of pineapple and Spam. Tomato aspic.

"Rolled" oats is merely a definition of how the oat is processed: in this case it is rolled out into a flat oat. Quaker oatmeal is a rolled oat. "Steelcut" oats are just that: the whole oat is cut with tiny steel knives and they end up in tiny chunks. Has anyone used agave nectar for sweetening? I'd like to make granola for friends who are borderline diabetic and agave has a low glycemic index. I'd prefer to leave out all that sugar anyway.

Where I work, we had a small jar - 30 g - of Ossetra caviar that had just gone out of date. It retails at about $350. I was invited to partake. We got some fresh rye bread from the bakery and stood around the jar with spoons: dropping great globs of caviar on the bread. It was surreal and wonderfully decadent!

I love it as well. I use only the 0%. Tonight I'm filling puff pastry shells with fresh berries that have been tossed with warmed bilberry spread, then a dollop of Total yogurt and a drizzle of agave nectar. Figured that would work for dessert for us and a couple of diabetic friends.

Yup. Fried potatoes and red cabbage. The theory is that the acid in the cabbage helps with disgesting all that goose fat! Do NOT throw away the goosefat. My grandmother used to have a special crock into which she put the goose cracklins on the bottom and then covered it to the brim with the fat. So we'd have our goose dinner at noon and then "Ganzefett mit Schwarzbrott" ( with a liberal sprinkling of salt) for supper. It was considered rude to try to dig up all that great cracklin from the bottom of the crock!!

Maldon salt is perfect for rimming margarita glasses.

I was told that the original glaze layer was not apricot, nor was it raspberry, but gooseberry. My father used to receive a Sachertorte in the wooden box every Christmas for years from an Austrian client. I remember it was delicious. You ate it with a cup of good coffee. Nobody back then complained about dryness. Perhaps our palates have become so used to moist and fatty that we no longer tolerate the old-fashioned, original versions of European cake. I'd like feedback on this theory from those of you in the baking business.

Maybe what Whole Foods needs to do is make little bitty iceskates for all of their lobsters so that they can skate on the temporary, $125,000 icerink that is sitting on the roof of the Whole Foods in downtown Austin for the month of December!

When you are on the slopes, your options are limited! If you are lucky enough to be skiing where there is a restaurant, stop in by all means. Have a glass of wine and the local food. You can't go wrong, for goodness sake. Just enjoy being hungry, in the fresh air and appreciate the local offerings. They will be mostly noodles and sausages. They taste damned good after a morning of skiing.