ChrisTaylor

Roden, yeah. Totally forgot Roden. She also covers a lot of food from Eastern Europe in her books, too.

Oh. A food-related one. Road runner. When you're driving in the rural areas of Zimbabwe, even on the national highway, you'll get chickens running across the road. These random chickens, dodging buses and four-wheel-drives with skill, belong to locals. I first tasted 'road runner' sitting atop an upturned metal bucket. I was sitting in the dark, nursing some utility beer (for future reference if you're travelling in the region: a lot of the readily avaliable beers in Zimbabwe, which are either made locally or over the border in South Africa, suck to varying degrees--the pick of the bunch, by far, is 2M from Mozambique) and sitting with random old men (in the rural areas it's very easy to collect visitors), assorted uncles and a number of children. The chicken hadn't been carefully braised in stock w/ a roux and mirepoix. It had simply been boiled in water with a few other ingredients (tomatoes, a lot of salt, maybe some onion--the sauce had a watery gravy thing going on) over a fire in a dark, smoke-filled kitchen. Amazing. I've paid a lot of money for chicken. Of the readily avaliable commercial birds in Australia, I reckon I've tried most of them: from the supermarket-grade free rangers to the high end organic, free range birds put out by Saskia Beer. I've tried a number of farm-reared 'game' birds including pheasant, partridge and guinea fowl (the real deal, also avaliable in Zimbabwe, is vastly superior to the farmed stuff). I've had chicken prepared by high end restaurants. And all of this chicken--all of it--sucks in comparison to road runner. Commercial chicken is utility chicken.

Laos: Phia Sing's Traditional Recipes. Thailand: David Thompson's seminal Thai Food. Russia: Please to the Table, maybe. Wouldn't be surprised if there are better options avaliable. Spain: Too complex to boil down to one book. Consider the differences between, I don't know, Catalan and Basque food. Catalan Cuisine is a classic. Maybe Basque Table. Italian: There's Hazan, yes, but I'm rather fond of Locatelli's Made in Italy. France: Wolfert and/or Robuchon. Morocco: Wolfert. Nepal: Taste of Nepal, perhaps. China: I'd lean towards region-specific books. Dunlop, maybe, for Sichuanese food at least. I suspect if you read any of the Chinese languages you'd find much better books. Japan: Tsuji's Simple Art, perhaps. Altho' if you want to learn about sushi in-depth I'd lean away from recipe books and more towards 'theory' books such as Edomae Sushi. For something even more specialist, Dashi and Umami is very interesting. Korea: I have a couple. I'm not satisfied with either. Could not recommend either. Mexico: Kennedy's Art and Essential. Argentina & Brazil: South American Table. If you're specifically interested in Argentine-style BBQ, though, you might want to supplement this with Seven Fires. Fires is not an outright replacement for this book, however. Elsewhere ... South Africa: I own a few but have enjoyed Ruben Cooks Local the most. Not bad considering it was a blind buy from the bookshop at Oliver Tambo. It highlights South African ingredients in a way very few home cooking books do. If you want something that checks off the big classics, maybe The Illustrated South African Cookbook--slim as it is--is the way to go. US - New Orleans: I own a few but my favourite is Link. It's Cajun-oriented, tho'. UK: Henderson. All the way. Ireland: Andrews.

Huh. Sorry for the confusion. Perhaps they serve anchovies both ways? I have also known waiters to get things wrong. On my friend's tasting menu the anchovies were described as "salted anchovy with toasted bread" (he sent me a scan of the menu), and he was served this dish for which they're famous: Anchoas a la Barbacoa Estilo Etxebarri In any case, you can take Sanfilippo anchovies home with you, and this isn't marriage, one doesn't have to be faithful to a single anchovy! A fellow anchovy polyamorist.

I am, to some extent, this way with basically anything booze-related. I was a non-drinker for a while. Not for any philosophical reason or health-related motivation but because I didn't enjoy the taste of the (cheap) beer, (cheap) wine, (cheap) rum or (cheap) whisky I'd tried. If I didn't enjoy the flavour I wasn't interested in drinking. But ... being curious about things I decided to try, I don't know, some nice imported beers (thanks, Belgium) and single malt whiskies. And after that not only did I drink: I was unable to go back to the cheap stuff. I started with expensive tastes and, if I can't afford to satisfy them, will not drink.

You could get a lot of mileage with just the choice and peel before you even got into DIY liqueurs and syrups. Citrus juice is used in a lot of cocktails: lime and lemon especially, although orange and grapefruit juice also have their place. Lemon and, to a lesser extent, orange (and to an even lesser extent grapefruit) are common garnishes in cocktails. And the olive tree? Martinis! And we're still well within the realm of classic cocktails here. Nothing beta cocktails-style outlandish. This is the sort of project that, yeah, would be more about trees than shrubs. Of course, given your fondness for sweet stuff, a collection of citrus trees would be wonderfully versatile.

Inner Circle Green, perhaps. I do have some casually loitering around, I think, but half way through a bottle of Durif I don't feel it's an appropriate time for such a Cynartastic drink.

Frying chicken breasts in salty aged pork fat is the act of a winner.

A possible irrelevancy but a sign, maybe, that at least down here, this sort of thing might just have legs. Vue de Monde, one of the best (and more expensive) restaurants in Melbourne (and perhaps Australia as a whole--I'd rate it up there with the best Sydney has to offer) employs a 'tea sommelier'. During our visit he appeared towards the end of the meal to match a chocolate dessert (perhaps the most pedestrian course of the menu) with a tea. He presented me with a tea menu when I expressed interest in the notion of a tea sommelier. The selection was broad. But also expensive. I mean, yeah, I get that good quality tea isn't cheap and this was a different context--a high end restaurant as opposed to a specialist bar/cafe--but still, the price they were charging per ~150mL cup was undeniably steep. I'd be nervous about severely limiting my market by having a menu that was prohibitively expensive, particularly given you're presumably aiming to bring novice or casual tea appreciators into the fold. A newcomer isn't going to pay $15 for a cup of tea.

I like that idea. I like it a lot. Nice burger.

Does this sexy beast have a name? Did you invent it? I love it.

I purchased the rolls. And yes, I used the liquid smoke because I cooked them in a pan. I oiled the pan with a small amount of dripping to emulate, as best I could, cooking on a seasoned grill.

My lamb burger. The patty was made from leg chops. I minced the chops through a fine die and then formed the patties loosely, binding them only with salt. The patties were jacked with a little bit of liquid smoke. Instead of lettuce the patties rest on a bed of wilted baby spinach. Instead of a brioche bun like David Ross used (my inspiration in making this burger) I used focaccia rolls.

I assume 12 hours/58C, which came from Modernist Cuisine, would be enough to pastuerise the meat.

A question about shelf life. I am following the 'turkey wing' recipe from Modernist Cuisine. I sealed the wings with salt and sugar for 24 hours. Then, this morning, I took them out of the bath after a 12 hour overnight cook. I have not opened the bags. They are still sealed. The vacuum? Well, I don't think it was a 100% vacuum: I'm using an entry-level strip sealer, after all. I put them in the fridge straight away. No muckin about. Anyway, I'm not able to give them the final sear tomorrow. Instead they'll be sitting in the bags for another evening (making it a total of two days from sous vide to sear/service). I assume they'll be okay, right? In terms of food safety and all. I'm a little paranoid.

A tzatziki variant.

This one wasn't a win: sous vide lamb neck. 55c for two and a half days. The meat itself is okay but the cut is just too fatty.

If you're so concerned about fucking it up you could: Debone and butterflySous videHold until serviceSalt then sear over a hot grillDone. Little risk of taking it too far if you're inexperienced.

That chicken rice looks amazing.

A couple of nice local-ish beers. Both from Hargreaves Hill. The Pale Ale and the Hefeweizen. Both, esp. the Hefe, are very good. Some of the best local beers I've had in a long time. Time to pick up a case, I think.

I was in one of those 'can't be fucked' moods tonight but didn't feel like falling into the trap of any of the local takeaway offerings. So, stepping back from the goal of the perfect Parma, here's my 'can't be fucked' version of the recipe. Open a bottle of wine. If Australian-made Malbec is the first thing you find when you blindly grope into the cupboard then, well, it's a Malbec night. Wine matching requires effort. Take a swig of wine. Take two chicken breasts (you want Parma for lunch tomorrow, right?). Take a swig of wine. Place in some chamber vac bags you stupidly purchased (i.e. won't work with your cheap strip sealer) because they're thick and large. Place on counter top. Imagine the face of someone you hate. Take a thick-bottomed pot and give the breasts a few good whacks. Thin but not too thin. Wine. Dust the chicken breasts with a mixture of potato starch, salt, pepper, chipotle powder and garlic powder. Set aside. Wine. Take the pot and tip into it some diced serrano (protip: if you don't want to wash a knife and a chopping board you can do this well-enough with kitchen scissors) into it. Render out some of the fat on low heat then pour in some store-bought pasta sauce (you could use plain old sugo but, hey, Barilla Napolitano has non-descript chunky bits). Simmer for a few minutes to take the harsh edge off the sauce. If this was a weekend you could go down that road yourself by loading up some sugo w/ a sofrito, obviously. Wine. Sear the chicken breasts. Tip sauce onto them. Sprinkle some shredded Parmesan on top. Throw into the oven for as long as it takes the garlic bread to warm through. Wine.

Does beer really contain that much in the way of carbs anyway?

Walkie-talkie.

One of the (fellow) booze hounds from the spirits & cocktails section. Adam George? Chris A? Rafa? FrogPrincesse?

Nogne O Saison. Also good.