Pat Churchill

Haphazardly. Mainly by size then genre - ethnic, general, authors, ingredients (eg fruit or vegetable books), non-recipe food books, food history, encyclopedias and reference books, food-related autobiographies, and "old" cookbooks. During an organised phase I started cataloguing them by Dewey decimal classification, but that was of course useless for shelf position - small next to large. So I gave up. This is about half the collection. I have to say it represents 40+ years' collecting. Less used ones are in two bookcases in a bedroom, very randomly arranged. And there are still some cartons in the cellar waiting for our next move to another rental house in March. Another good opportunity to review exactly what I own. The pity of it is, in the house we own in NZ I had custom-made bookshelves specially designed to house the lot, a real cook's library. Sigh! Picture at the url below - sorry it's a bit fuzzy. That's about a third of the floor to ceiling shelving. We kept other books there, too. http://cookingdownunder.com/articles/2002/110.htm But in spite of it all, often I can't lay my hands on the book I want! I found myself standing in front of the bookcase the other day wishing I could just do a Google through all the books for some information I was after. I guess one day we will have the iPod equivalent of our library on one little hand-held device.

That reminds me a little of these spiced pears which I make to go with duck breast, though your recipe has more sugar: 2 tablespoons duck fat or oil 1 medium onion finely diced 1 teaspoon ginger finely chopped 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice 2 tablespoons brown sugar 3 tablespoon white wine vinegar 8 small pears or 4 larger ones Peel the pears and quarter lengthwise, leaving the stem on if possible. Remove the core. Drop into acidulated water till you are ready to use them. Saute the onion and ginger for 10 minutes then add the pears the spices and brown sugar and cook gently till the pears start to caramelise. Add the vinegar and cook for a further five minutes. Edited to add photo

It looks like the article has been taken from a sister publication. Could be the photo is a stock photo, and not one taken specifically for the article. Happens sometimes in feature pages that need an illustration. After the dead trout and the vegan alternatives, gimme turkey. We don't do Thanksgiving down under but I've poached rainbow trout for Christmas - as a starter. Whenever I take a family vote they want roast turkey or lamb and all the trimmings, even when the temperature is 30C or more.

Talking about fat consumption - I was out at dinner the other night and we were reminiscing how every pantry used to have a dripping container where the leftover fat from the Sunday roast was deposited. That fat would be spread over the next Sunday's roast. Dad used to make bread and dripping - a doorstep of bread slathered with dripping and bits of the dark jelly from the bottom of the tin. A good sprinkling of salt and pepper on top. They also used to feed us that at boarding school for afternoon tea some days. I couldn't look at it now but in those days it tasted pretty good.

The SMH put out a good tabloid to mark Good Food Month.

Sounds like what my Belgian friend would call witloof or endive.

Might be something he ate?

Get your daughter cooking. Help her prepare some good vegetarian meals and then let her demonstrate her skills to Chef Dad next time he's in charge. He might even get interested in helping develop her talents. And chuck the wallpaper paste. Or freeze it till the next time you make a meal for your ex.

I like Jamie Oliver's recipes because they always work: Enjoy his scallop recipe: http://cookingdownunder.com/courses/fish/rf165.htm and the pork on rhubarb: http://cookingdownunder.com/articles/2001/064.htm For Indian I like Manju Malhi (aubergine and potato curry): http://cookingdownunder.com/articles/2006/228_aloo.htm When I start feeing guilty about the number of cookbooks I own, I drag one out and cook from it for a week. Tonight it was a fish dish, very loosely interpreted. Baked fish with capers and spring onions. Just looked at the recipe and it bears little resemblance to what I ended up doing. But, heh, that's what it's about - a recipe is just a springing-off point.

A lawyer chap who worked with me was moaning about a meal he had at a restaurant frequented by the "suits" brigade. Seems he'd ordered risotto and couldn't fathom why the wait staff were miffed when he said it lacked something - where was the soy sauce?

Absolutely gorgeous, Ling! Any left?

Went to L'Oustal in Albert Park, Melbourne, the other night and one of the dishes included their own black pudding. The owner told us they have to get the pigs' blood from Western Australia. I've eaten a lot of black pudding in my lifetime (thanks to a grandfather who got me hooked on it when I was about 5) and theirs was pretty good. BTW does anyone know where to get beef cheeks in Melbourne? I've got this recipe I picked up during the Slow Food week that my husband is very eager to sample - http://cookingdownunder.com/articles/2006/slowfood.htm Two cups of port and one of red wine might have been the attraction

Does the Food Network concentrate mainly on US programmes, or include other countries? I watch quite a lot of the Lifestyle Food - http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/home/ - channel here in Australia. There is a good mix from the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and an occasional New Zealand or South African programme. It's interesting to note the different presentation styles and content from country to country. I couldn't take a solid diet of US programmes. Is that what Buford had to contend with? Some seem to fall more in the "don't try this at home" category, instead of making us want to get into the kitchen and cook.

A chef by the name of John Reid Was entranced by the thought of sous vide So he slow braised some snails Then chopped off their tails And served them with pea foam and mead Meanwhile back in culinary school The students were playing the fool With the liquid N2 And a pound of wagyu They made something terribly cool

My father was in the New Zealand air force and in 1956 visited the US on a goodwill exchange and returned with the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I remember the first thing Mum made from it was the Pineapple Upside Down Cake, complete with the maraschino cherries. We'd never seen one before. I still have the cookbook, 50 years on. I've been pondering what I could substitute for apple in a Tarte Tatin - maybe fresh pineapple... and cherries

Some of these are British, some Australian - I watch them on the Lifestyle Food channel here in Australia Like: Jamie Oliver (his recipes work) Sophie Grigson - daughter of Jane and a good practical cook Tamasin Day-Lewis (the inside of her Le Creuset casserole is browner than mine not pristine and "unused") Gordon Ramsay (an English chef was telling me Ramsay's actually a really nice fellow. Great food. Love his programme The F Word ) Curtis Stone and Ben O'Donoghue Tyler Florence (caught his radio show via podcast and he thinks quickly on his feet and knows his stuff) Giorgio Locatelli Neil Perry (great travel pieces) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Reza Mahammad (so over the top he's fun!) Gone off: Ina Garten (teach Geoffrey to fend for himself!) Kylie Kwong Rachael Ray Emeril - though I caught him doing a quiet show with no audience and he was actually OK Alton Brown Michael Chiarello Rocco DiSpirito (why did he let the cameras in, for goodness sake) Michael Smith (repeats himself after every ad break) Cook Like a Chef (too many cameras appearing in the picture) Antony Worrall Thompson (too uptight) [edited to give reasons for a couple of choices]

My son who's an honours chemistry graduate tells me: They will have the identical basic structure, but one will have a hydroxyl group attached (-OH) and the other will have a carboxymethyl (-CH2-COOH) group in that place instead. Both are a derivative of cellulose - a long chain carbohydrate polymer, and both will have different groups attached to the base (repeating) polymer unit. Basically hydroxymethylcellulose = cellulose + methyl group + hydroxyl group carboxymethylcellulose = cellulose + carboxymethyl group These differences basically will slightly alter how the polymer behaves (viscosity etc), but he imagines they would be quite similar. He's suggested checking out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose http://sci-toys.com/ingredients/methylcellulose.html Hope that sheds a little light It's a while since I studied chemistry

That lemon pudding is one of my favourites. I remember writing about it nostalgically in my newspaper column - my mother often made it when I was a child and I loved it. Next time I visited her for dinner it was on the menu. I hope being nice and being a doctor aren't mutually exclusive - my son who is a pretty affable young man graduates medical school in December. Perhaps I'd better warn him about charlatans offering students cheap charisma bypasses...

A chef by the name of John Reid Was entranced by the thought of sous vide So he slow braised some snails Then chopped off their tails And served them with pea foam and mead Meanwhile back in culinary school The students were playing the fool With the liquid N2 And a pound of wagyu They made something terribly cool

I used to dry herbs successfully in the microwave. Haven't done so for a while but found this site - http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8111.html - which says: Microwave drying is a quick and easy method to dry small amounts of herbs. Lay a single layer of clean, dry leaves between dry paper towels and place them in the microwave for 1 to 2 minutes on high power. Drying will vary with the moisture content of the herb and the wattage of the microwave oven. Let the leaves cool. If they are not brittle, reheat for 30 seconds and retest. Repeat as needed. Thick leaved herbs may need to be air dried for several days before microwaving. The herbs done like this can be easily crumbled and stored in jar in a dark place. The site has other ideas for herb preservation. Good luck!

A lot of mine are here: http://cookingdownunder.com/links/links.htm sorted into various categories. And there's a collection of other food sites, some weird and wonderful, here: http://www.cookingdownunder.com/sites/sites.htm I particularly like Leite's Culinaria ( http://www.leitesculinaria.com ), the Gilded Fork ( http://www.gildedfork.com/ ) and 101 cookbooks ( http://www.101cookbooks.com/ ), the latter for its photos in particular.

I can also remember several of us hitting a pie cart in Nelson, New Zealand one night after a lengthy period of bonding at a pub. Meat pie, chips and plenty of tomato sauce in the cart "dining area". Stuff you mightn't want to eat sober, but at 3am magnificent.

We went to a fashion launch recently. There was a lot of standing round drinking champagne, then some sitting watching the parade (those models may be very slim but they still have cellulite - and no tone!) then more champagne and more champagne. Unfortunately the waiters with the grub were either avoiding us or trying to make 200 canapes last four hours. We asked our cab driver to swing past our local restaurant on the way home but they were shutting up shop so we went home hungry. I valiantly offered to attempt an omelet. Even managed to handle the knife without drama. As we were both desperate for food, I dispensed with the niceties of individual omelets and made just one biggie with mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese - thank goodness for ready-grated. I would have taken a photo of it but even with my glasses on it would have been a challenge. And I reckon there will be more than a few of us who have reached a state of terminal confusion during a dinner party and found elements of the dessert on the bench the next day that never did make it onto the plates!

Never did it but was served it a couple of times - with some sort of berry sauce/jam? Oh, yeah - the shrimp cocktail, made with canned shrimps 'cos we couldn't get the real thing in New Zealand in the 60s. Best part was the sauce - ketchup, mayo and lemon juice. Sometimes served in an avocado half - two bites of the cherry. And then there was black forest cake!

I've often used beetroot tops if they have been young, fresh looking ones. They look great when mixed with coloured peppers: http://cookingdownunder.com/articles/2003/162.htm (pic is towards bottom of page - I haven't worked out how to upload pix, sorry)