We’re well into the long, hot days of summer now and I’ve been starting to have a good think about what wines to drink to match the lighter, fresher cuisines of the summer months. Summer’s a time when we all start to lean towards salads, barbecues and seafood, but what are the best wines to be picking this season to really make these meals sing? So often it’s easy to lean towards our old faithful wines rather than branching out into some new and interesting styles and varietals.

Here’s my advice for freshening things up this season:

1) It’s not just about the white! Summer’s the traditional time when people make the switch from red to white wines. But what many don’t know is that there are some great Australian red wines available from Wine Selectors that match perfectly with the traditional Australian barbecue.
My pick for the barbecue season is the Brokenwood ‘Bentleys Boot’ Pinot Noir 2010 - this Hunter Valley varietal features red and black fruit flavours and a dry finish. Kangaroo fillets seared on the barbecue would be suited to this earthy and spicy Pinot Noir.

2) Celebrate with a great bubbly – The festive season wouldn’t be complete without a drop of top Australian bubbly to match our celebratory foods. This summer I’m looking forward to serving up plates of seafood-based canapés with some Petersons Sparkling White NV. Petersons have been producing wine for 30 years in Australia so they certainly know their stuff. This Semillon Chardonnay blend smells of citrus and melon fruit and is great with seafood.

3) Zest it up – The tang of citrus is a classic summer flavour. You’re bound to be spicing up your summer meals with the tang of limes and lemons. To really make your meals sing, watch for these flavours in your wines as well.
I’ve stocked my cellar up with the Lions Den Babylon Block Riesling 2010. Its distinctive lime juice flavours with a touch of straw and honey add complexity to this soft wine. Lions Den is an exclusive Wine Selectors label from Dandelion, a unique fusion of vineyards between the Lindner, Rey and Brooks families. It’s great paired with fresh pan fried scallops with lime and ginger.

4) Support your local producers – All too often we look overseas for great tasting wine, but there’s so much to be had right on our very doorstep. As well as supporting your local producers you’ll cut down on your food miles and find some exciting tastes and styles. Wine Selectors supports around 400 largely small and independent producers across Australia so jump online to www.wineselectors.com.au to explore some great local flavours like the Jackson’s Hill Under Block Semillon 2011. This unique drop is from a vineyard situated at the highest point of the Hunter, and would work well with your favourite seafood dish – fried whitebait, salt and pepper squid, or garlic prawns. And while Semillon is an old favourite in NSW, it’s underrated in the rest of the country, that’s just not fair!

5) Have fun and experiment - enjoying wine is all about exploring and sampling different – and you don’t have to spend a fortune! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having an affordable bottle of Sauvignon Blanc with your grilled chicken and salad on a Monday night. As a guide, almost any summery dish works with great un-wooded whites like Sauv Blanc and Pinot Grigio. They both work with a wide range of summer foods, from seafood to mild cheeses, and their light and fresh characters match nicely with simple salads, but are also enjoyable by themselves.

My wine picks for the season are all available from Wine Selectors at www.wineselectors.com.au

Japan has always baffled me, I'm often wondering if I should be impressed or just simply terrified at vending machines selling breast milk, diet water and salad juice. From the crazy reality TV shows, mopping slippers, Sumo and the craze of young kids poking adult strangers up the butt, Japan has at least entertained us.

The recent Tsunami and consequential radiation from its nuclear plants has struck the country to its core. There have been more suicides than ever and the population is living in a vortex of uncertainty about the health of their future in the current radiation levels. However, given all of the crappy things that they have gone through, their sense of fun has not waned.

Last week The World’s Largest Rice Cracker Committee finally lived their dream of you guessed it, building the worlds largest rice cracker. With a diameter of 5 feet 3 inches the cracker dwarfs the typical "senbei", a crunchy snack made from rice flour that is eaten widely in Japan. For Michihiro Yamaguchi, a 63-year-old member of The World's Largest Rice Cracker Committee in Kioroshi, a town east of Tokyo, it was a moment of triumph.

"We made it. It's sweet revenge," he said, after a failed attempt to get into the record books last month with a cracker that fell three centimetres short of their target. Once the cracker was measured and photos taken to prove their feat for an inaugural Guinness World Record largest rice cracker title, the soy-sauce flavoured snack was broken into small pieces and presented to townsfolk.

I have to say I’m pretty impressed with not only the committee itself, but their fortitude in tough times. The saying used to be “only in America”, I now beg to differ.

I was lucky enough to attend a Musica Viva gig last night thanks to Miccal Cummins from Gastronomy for the ticket. Stephen Hough played a sonata by Chopin on the most fabulous Grand Piano I’ve ever seen in my life. An absolute privilege to see such manifested talent first hand.

But now for the food, I was in the room at Ottoman Cuisine for less than 30 seconds before someone said, “you have to try those, and those and those”. My Lord is all I can say for the Sis Mantar, char-grilled mushrooms with cumin and mild Aleppo chili; I can’t count how many I ate. Then came out huge trays of Etli Borek, filo rolls rolled with slow braised veal, currants and pine-nuts, served with a pomegranate and yoghurt sauce. And another version of these filo rolls filled with feta I could have hid in a corner with a tray of them and a blindfold forever. Not sure why the blind-fold actually but there you go.

For entrée I had the most delicately moist melt in your mouth Kofte Piyazli served with white bean salad and a cucumber and yoghurt cacik that I could bottle up and bathe in. More lamb for main – 4 cutlets, can I fit anymore in right now? Yes I could there was room for Turkish Delight, Baklava, baked custard with mastica served with pomegranate ice-cream and morello cherry sauce – the cherries had been semi dried rendering them to most bitter sweet morsels for your taste buds to swim amongst.

I’ve eaten way too much was what I was thinking but there is something about cushiony chairs that seems to allow you to just keep stuffing yourself, they scream out saying, its comfy isn’t it – forget your dreams of losing wedding weight.

After this it was onto the Premise – a Drambuie funded floating pop-up bar right next to the Opera House. However my directions were thwarted by 6 glasses of good wine and we ended up on the wrong side of the harbor amongst a group of underagers drinking beer out of long-necks. Got me thinking that people who enjoy drinking parties with the best harbor views are either: a) filthy rich or b) teenagers with no-where else to go. I wondered if they really appreciated the beauty of their preferred party venue or whether it was just conveniently dark and out of the way.

Back up Fleet Steps to a taxi home, the bar looked empty anyway.

Saturday's are for food thinking, food watching, food making but most of all food eating. I ventured today for the first time to the Bondi Organic Food Markets, i kinda feel ashamed that I haven't actually been yet. It always seemed small and a bit empty, so I wasn't drawn to it. Yet it needs people to get amongst it for it to thrive. I heard that they were not letting anymore stall holders in and I didn't get it, but now I see that they are all trying to compete for the limited amount of cash they can get from the small numbers visiting the markets. Its a sad state of affairs we live in really. But the markets were so much better than I thought. The first stall was run by two fellas who worked on the farm, real salt of the earth types more than willing to run around and find you a box, open the tops of the corn to check for grubs and let you try the freshly picked this morning asparagus. I bought kilo of blue potatoes, one whole celery, 2 kilos tomatoes, 4 corn on the cobs and the total bill was $10.40 - things were looking pretty good already in my book.


Next stop was the dried meats stall run by the cutest French girl, the salami she sells is illegal to import but apparently not illegal to make and sell here, its absolutely divine and I was pleased for the upgrade to the $20 huge salami. She said, it will last you 6 weeks, I laughed and told her no it will last us 3 days, maximum.

After this I stopped by the young couple selling mushrooms, although they were weird and their $12 risotto mix was a bit overpriced I bought it anyway. I'll make it tonight with the fresh pasta I added to my box from another Frenchy selling home made pasta, she was very good at making people try things and the duck ravioli with beetroot and truffle cream. Holy shit that was good, yes please I'll take some of that.

My bag was getting pretty heavy now but It didn't stop me adding in orange beets, kale, fresh chives, parsley, coriander and silverbeet, all organic and total for $15.

Couldn't carry anymore so I had to move away from the market before I could even see the cheese stall. I'll be visiting those folk next week I'm sure, and besides my eggs were waiting for me back home.

If you are really going to cook something, there are choices to make and you can cut corners or attempt to make things authentic and do it all by hand. I don't know about you, but I like to spend time in my kitchen and use my hands. Its not just about the food, for me its about the process, the textures the smells and the ability to save smells into your emotional memory. The more you cook beautiful things, the more good memories you will have. And the happier you will be.

Get some flour, try to make it really good quality bakers flour 00 with extra protein. This will make it extra glutenous and easier to handle when you are rolling it out later. Add in water bit by bit, enough to make it a nice fluffy dough, keep using your hands in a circular motion to pick up the water from the sides of the bowl and mix it will the flour. When you have a nice sticky dough start to knead it by folding it and squishing it down with your fists.

Let it sit for 20 mins, this will let the proteins start to work so it becomes really stretchy like mozarella. You will know when its ready when it stretches, you don't want to wait too long though or it will stretch all the way to QLD and back.

Pull off a small ball and roll it in your hands to make a perfect round shape. Flatten it down onto a bread board covered with flour. Then use a rolling pin to flatten it out into a nice thin circle, it doesn't have to a perfect circle though. Just flat.

Heat a pan with no oil and dry fry the tortilla for a minute or just until bubbles start to form on one side remove before cooking the other sides. Repeat until all done.

Now for the cheese, please if you are going to do this, do it with the best cheese you can get your grubby mits on. DO NOT USE BAD CHEAP YELLOW CHEESE, this is why bad Mexican restaurants are bad. There is no yellow cheese in Mexico anyway, they make salty white cheeses which are the like the love children of fetta and mozarella. Its amazing but a mixture of provolone and brie will do a marvelous job. You could also use gruyere and gorgonzola.

Place the cheese on the cooked side of the tortillas and then sandwich them together and fry again to cook the outer sides. Cut into slices and then serve with some home made salsa.

5pm meetings on the Friday before your long weekend are almost un-Australian, but drinking beer at these meetings is essential and the more you talk idle chit chat the more points you get. But an hour is still enough, after my last meeting of the week I jump in my car to take the easy traffic free journey home during school holidays. Its amazing how good it feels to just be able to drive home, I’ve been known to send e-mails and have two conversations going at once on both phones just to get through the traffic, but anyway I’m losing pace on my story.
When I got home Simon said he had made a booking at my favourite restaurant in Sydney, Sean’s Panoroma. Things were getting even better, I washed my face put a jacket on and we walked down to the restaurant.

Your table is never ready which is fine because you can sit in the ‘bar’ the tiny small room next to the restaurant. There is always a table of people who didn’t make a booking and have been relegated to the ‘bar’. I would argue that it isn’t really a bar as such, but whatever. You can hear their conversation, as there is no people talk buzz to dilute the sound. Funny how sometimes other people’s conversations can be excruciating, almost like watching an episode of Faulty Tours, nothing is going right. English folk holidaying to Australia and not being able to relax enough to enjoy themselves. Secretly wising they were back home in bleak Sheffield eating beans on toast in front East Enders.

What am I talking about? Dunno, but by the time our table was ready I was wanting to eat the basket the bread came in. The bread…… oh that bread, it comes out in a mountain and you think to yourself that is way too much bread for two of us, ten minutes later there is nothing left and you are pushing your fingers into the sesame seeds left in the oil tray.

I love how the menu is simple, there are only a few choices and its all written on the chalk boards so you don’t have to negotiate a massive list. Too much choice is bad for us, and I want to eat what is best today, not yesterday.

We ordered the roast pork and the beetroot ravioli. The pork came out with the most evil crackling that melted in my mouth I wanted to waltz into the kitchen and demand for more. In Mexico they sell Chicharon on the side of the road topped with salty white cheese and salsa of course, I can stop at 10 stalls in a 4-hour journey and still be hungry for the stuff.

The ravioli was like a tale of perfection, filled with roasted red beets and topped with roasted mini orange beets and a pistachio sauce. I’m not a massive fan of art on your plate but it did look remarkably pretty.

We drank the Wairau River Riesling, too sweet for me so Simon polished the bottle off himself, luckily he was happy to oblige. No dessert but we did ask for take home bread that was wrapped and added to our bill. You can’t go wrong here, the service is always 100% although we do miss Karl who made lots of ginger beer and would call us when it was ready. If you ever go to Sean’s Panoroma be sure to ask if the ginger beer is ready, it’s better than anything you have swished down your thirsty gullets, ever.

Pack:- Good champagne as the better it is the less it will need to be cold, a container full of good smoked salmon, some brie, sliced pear, sliced tomato, a jar full of good home made salsa verde, a chopping board and a fresh baguette.

Find a place out of the wind


Throw a rug down


Put your feet up


Look up


Go for stroll with a champagne buzz


Keep walking into the sunset


Find your place again

I don't really have much more to say than this does work.

Here is a lesson for those of you who enjoy the inflight chefs, the wine list and sky beds of business class. Rack up your points on your credit cards and use them wisely. "booming economy" doesn't have the same to ring to it as "economy"

I'm a late sitter on flights, meaning I'm generally the last one to board given my hate for rush and having to touch anxious strangers with bags too big. I'm the one everyone is pissed off with who saunters in last and quickly throw my hand luggage under the seat in front just before the safety message. However not so easy today. I board the flight only to find that my seat is taken by a lady who flatly refuses to let me have it. She wants both my seat and hers, the one next to mine. She physically wouldn't let me into the seat. Meanwhile the air stewards are attempting to push me into the seat while the women in question was pushing me back. There really is only one thing to do in these situations and it's not what I usually do..... I start to giggle so hard I think I'm going to wet my pants. How can this actually be happening and how does everyone around me think it's so normal?

Let me add now that this here flight is full, there is nowhere else for me to sit. Secretly I was happy thinking well of course now they have to let me sit in business. But no. A young girl a few seats away was forced out of her seat and sent back to her mother and so I finally had a seat. That mess all over and the flight takes off and I think, I either missed that safety message airlines usually like to give or maybe, well they actually didn't give one. Fine by me we all know where the exits are right.

Ok so the next chapter in the flight is my fault I packed my charge cord instead of my headphones, and the airline-supplied numbers aren't cutting the mustard for my iPad. There will be no watching the episodes of the Mighty Boosh I downloaded last night at 2am. Ok so what else is on offer in this bus in the sky? Oh um would 'nothing' be the answer to that question? I think so.

Before I can begin to think of what will entertain me, and I might add here, we are still on a fairly steep incline with seatbelt signs on. The trolley dollies are rattling down the aisles already. I'm pretty impressed by this stage to be honest by the energy, efficiency, guts and ballsiness of these people to break all the so called international flying rules and just get the trolley amongst it and push forward!

"chicken or beef" now doesn't that bring back memories of some 80's weddings? I take the chicken I'm actually scared to eat the fruit, it has had better days and today is clearly a bitter end for it. There is wine on offer but it's 11am. Even for me it's too early.

But a few more hours into the trip with no entertainment and serious boredom settling I have to press the "come help me" button. I ask if I can possibly have some wine. Yes I can apparently have the last 1cm of red wine left in the bottle, and for that matter the last of the wine on the plane We are only 3 hours in. God save me. Most airlines usually would have a stash of wine at hand. And generally anyone wouldn't serve a mere lip-stain of an amount of wine. But it's all happening right before my eyes.

But I can't be beaten, I'm tough, I'm solid, I'll survive I think as I jump and scramble for my airline headphones because I see a movie appear on the distant screen; 10 rows ahead of me. Luckily it's a French film so there are subtitles as f&$I'd if I can hear anything through this head set. Nice, an hour and half of brain escape gotta love it. Yes. No. Right before the end, the movie was interrupted. No that's the wrong word, the movie was stopped. Did Charlotte Win the revolution? What happened to Gerard Depardue die? Not sure but it's more important to show us that map we all love. Great I'm 5678miles above sea level and it's -678 degrees outside but wait, is that the Philippines? Can we just put the movie back on?

No but we can put another movie on, a whole new film. Don't worry about the ending of the last one who cares what really happens in any ending of any movie right? Clearly it's unimportant because just when the next movie was about to show some guts in the end we are interrupted by another very important announcement. The tiny screen changes to show 3 air stewards sitting upright in chairs floating in clouds rubbing their temples for health benefits during your flight. If it didn't look like something Frank Zappa created himself I could have been a bit annoyed, but clearly this has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous and the girls look so cute in their fluffy clouds. I thought, well when in China do as the Chinese do. Most of the other diligent passengers were joining in, rub your temples, remove any tension you may be feeling. Open up your Qi.

The movies are off but the trolley has come around again and this time we have warm beer on offer. Between the cloud ladies and the warm beer I feel comforted and happy. I decide to ask for another pair of headphones and give them a crack on my iPad. If I hold them with both hands to my ears I can just make out the sound. For the last three hours of the flight I watched all episodes of ‘Go back to where you came from’. The messages of compassion and acceptance are pretty clear. I think our media loses focus of the debate and forgets to mention that Australians are essentially a racist bunch. Not sure what it is about flights but I cry watching anything, tears are falling when I see the "shoot em all" lady completely turn. Compassion comes to me from the spitting in cup man beside me who offers up his can of warm beer to cheers with me. We cheers and I give him my handipack of Kleenex. Only four more hours to go.

So it’s almost the end of Dry July and the words ‘detox’, ‘rehab’, ‘get clean’ come to mind and all I can think of is the recent passing of Amy Winehouse.

Not since the shock of Cobain’s suicide in 1994 has a celebrity’s death shaken me up so much. All I see in the pictures is deeply troubled turmoil and I’m not the cry-baby type yet its brought me to tears on more than a few occasions. But it’s been the constant barrage of negativity and judgement of the self-righteous commentary that has made me feel so sad. Comments such as “you should have said ‘yes’ Amy” on her Rehab YouTube and “where were her family and friends?”


The sad truth of it all is that Amy suffered from Bipolar disorder and was constantly self-medicating (a symptom of the disorder) at least she knew it. She didn’t want to take the personality numbing medication her Doctors prescribed her. Yes we saw her public struggle and demise that she wasn’t afraid to hide. People self-medicate - that’s what we do it’s a choice. If the statistics are true that one in four of us will suffer from a mental illness during our lives, why are we all up in arms about this? People spend $1,000’s on therapy but yet they can judge others for drinking and falling over during some troubling times. The whole judgement culture we have spawned and developed, not helped by reality TV is doing no-one any favours, where is the love and compassion?

Depression is rife in my family amongst other things and we are big self-medicators. And thanks to the attempts to instil some good old-fashioned puritanical Christendom during our youth, a night of self-expressionist medication can result in double the feeling of shitness the next day given the self-judgement we were taught. Thanks God, you’ve done wonders for my self-image.

A few years back during a particularly bad break up, my Doctor offered me: Xanax, Valiums, Mogadon and Normasins. Imagine the state I would have been in if I had of accepted this generous offer from the legal drug business.

But I decided to self-medicate through the whole deal, OK it took a good two years. However, if I had chosen the cocktail my Doctor offered up I certainly wouldn’t have achieved the consistent High Distinctions from my college, I definitely couldn’t have grew the part of the business I was working in 4 times over and I sure as hell wouldn’t have trained for the half-marathons I ran.

I’m not saying Amy was right, I’m not saying she was wrong, clearly its all ended tragically; I’m just offering an alternative to judging her decisions. From where I see it, Amy Winehouse was a phenomenal artist who chose her own ways of medicating and she left (us) the world with some magic to be remembered forever. I wonder what all those self-righteous “you should have said ‘yes’ Amy” types will leave the world besides their uptight, allergy ridden children. For all those judging her family, producer and friends for not helping, crawl back into your little IKEA decorated holes and pray your children don’t put you into nursing homes too early where you’ll enjoy the highs of all the retiree drugs you can get your arthritic hands on.

A beautiful friend of mine who was recently diagnosed with bipolar told me his Doctor wanted him to take medication. “How ridiculous” he quipped, ”why would I do anything to mask my gift?” I love this attitude and I think more of us should see the beauty and absolute courage in that. Next time your friend needs to self-medicate when they are going through something tough, be with them, protect them from harm, make sure they get home safe and love them. Any amount of unconditional love will shorten the period of crazy-town. Who says we need to live till we are 90 anyway? I would rather a short creative life full of self-expression than a long one of pent up self-repression.

RIP Amy, thank you for your music.

The worst thing about working in an office is the deciding where to buy your lunch from and having to go and get it, usually from some commercial kitchen where they are pumping out huge amounts of fatty filled un-loved carb fests.

I love a bit of cooking, however at night I'm usually exhausted and can be un-interested. That is why its so nice to have your kitchen and fridge handy to make your own lunch when you have energy to do it. And you can decide what goes in your lunch.

Today I whipped up this roti with my left over salad from last night, was deliciouso. And so easy now I have discovered bakers flour, if you leave it so the gluten does its thing you don't even have to roll it out, you can just fly it through your hands like the Italians do with pizza bases.

Black sesame seeds i have discovered just now are the tastiest little addition to a roti your cupboard could give you.

Whilst walking down the beaches on the pacific coast of Mex, past bars with names such as “coco loco surf bar” and “cosmico surf bar” or “la pearla negra” you notice their big list of offerings. Signs with ‘refrescos, jugos, vino, cerveza, cocteles, licor, y tequila’. Now surely tequila could be thrown into the same category as licor, but apparently not.

There are lots of sayings about tequila, my favourite; “when life throws you lemons, break out the tequila”. The Mexicans have a good one, “for everything bad drink tequila and for everything good too”. Mexicans are proud of their tequila, just like the Guatemalans are proud of their rum. Considering rum was the official currency of Australia perhaps we should be a bit more proud of our rum past, I mean the so called Rum Rebellion that gave the spirit such a bad name wasn’t actually in fact about rum at all. And the last time I was in Queensland the bar actually had a sign saying “no rum served here”. Ha ha, what have we done.

Here beer is kind of considered alcohol, you can have it for breakfast and no-one batters an eye-lid. I myself prefer the freshly made juices of mango and papaya, but they also serve well with a dash or two of tequila inside them when the sun is on its way down the other side. Wine and other spirits are definitely considered alcohol, and the local posh is DEFINITELY considered alcohol. But tequila, well it’s more like a lamington. And forgive me if I am wrong here but if you drink good tequila straight for an evening, you don’t feel hung over the next day. And you might even have ended up buying a block of land in the Chiapas, but that is another story all together.

For proof of the goodness of tequila, on our sleepy little street in the outskirts of San Christobal, so sleepy that wild horses would rule during the night feeding on the front gardens. I was walking home from a friend’s house one evening after a few tequilas and there was a large bunch of beautiful horses in the dirt road. ‘Oh look Simon, ponies everywhere!” I waltzed straight up and attempted to converse with one of them…… she wasn’t having a bar of it, no domestication in that lot! The snarl and teeth showing and fierce look in the eye almost made me shit my pants on the spot in horror and fear. Anyway I digress it was here on this street I met a massage/healer type lady called Carmen. I’ve been known to have three massages a day in Bali so I wasn’t about to say no to an offer for a few. On my second morning there I felt a little dusty from a celebration the night before. My friends had sold thousands of dollars worth of their amber to a cool Japanese guy called Uigi. Considering they live like kings on $300 per month, it was a big cause for a celebration. We drank a whole bottle of tequila the best way, straight of course. The next morning I was at Carmen’s ready for my massage she said “ah, bueno, tequila es bueno para el corazón y el alma” - Tequila is good for your heart and soul. Anyway she seemed happy that I had a good night on the stuff. But the best thing was that at the end of the session she told me to stay away from alcohol. So there you have it, even from a health expert, tequila isn’t considered alcohol, its good for your heart and soul. I love it here.

I’ve been labouring through Stephen Fry’s ‘The Fry Chronicles’, and as excruciating the monotony of the pomp it may be, it’s hard not to endear yourself to his twatty youth.

I’m just at the part where he is detailing his own self loathing and unhappiness and how he thinks it all stems from having a passionate hate for his physical self. Well he isn’t Robinson Crusoe in that wave of thought, imagine growing up in this day and age where media is the new religion and we consume it like it was the blood of Christ himself. And every cover of a magazine shows an unobtainable figure of a new starlet’s photo-shopped body or face. And what does it all do for the subject or the viewers? Makes us all feel sick enough to be turned off our food or to feel guilty about eating anything.

It is my prime hate of the world, closely followed by lack of vision in politics and too much politicking. Where we have pitched ourselves as a culture so fervently desperate for perfection in ourselves creates an unhealthy relationship with eating. What I notice here in Central America – or at least in the South is a distinct lack of magazine covers, it’s quite refreshing.

I can’t speak for anyone’s personal happiness although beyond the desperation of the poor to find their next meal, Central America seems more concerned with family and food to be bothered about whether their bum looks big in their jeans. Their bums do look big in their jeans, but let’s face it we should all be enjoying our food more than obsessing about the calorie intake and the extra kms on the treadmill it will take to tackle its consumption.

As a Nutritionist of course I’m not saying we should guts ourselves silly just for the sake of it, but I do believe our relationship with food is suffering from the relationship we have with false media. The constant seeking for perfection and it’s inevitable failure is only good for pharmaceutical companies selling false happiness in little pills. Things may not be perfect in my world, but I am feeling huge surges of happiness with close to perfection beautifully hand crafted corn tortillas filled with avocado, beans and organic chicken, topped with hellicious hot sauce.

“one more margarita please, and make sure it has fresh lime in it”

xx

The search for the best hand made tortillas and the learning of how to make them has essentially been the main reason for this trip to Central America.

In Guatemala the slapping of masa is a serious activity happening constantly and for me it is the countries main idiosyncrasy, just pipping the post before endemic government corruption.

Crossing the border into Mexico it became apparent that I was leaving that part of the cooking culture behind. Right at the border on the Guatemalan side was a tortillera selling tortillas made from a big tortilla-making monster machine. When I was here in the Chiapas 15 years ago, the installation of a tortilleria in a pueblo was a symbol of progress, much akin to the installation of white goods in for the West in the 50’s; it freed women up to do other things.

There is no way I would ever advocate for us to go back to basics and start washing our clothes by hand again, however the making of tortillas by hand is for me something so visceral and authentic. I would encourage anyone to get their hands into it just to see how simple it is and how much more satisfying it is than putting some toast on.

So my fascination for hand made tortillas goes a little too far at times. A gruelling 5 hour trek up a volcano is one thing, coming back to your Guatemalan hotel only to be served packet tortillas is another. The over-enthusiastic or ‘bossy’ nature in me came to life as I waltzed into the kitchen where these were produced and demanded to know if this was going to be the same quality of tortilla for our evening meal. For Dios sake hombres I’m in Guatemala and any self respecting Guatemalan can make hand made tortillas. It is like they are born with the instructions tattooed on their hands.

I’ve been trying to make them at home for a few months now and am so happy to have had a lesson in Antigua from Doña Soñia. I realised I was making my dough mix like a dough rather than a paste. And there is really no need to knead it either. It doesn’t need to rise. Anyone who comments on this blog will get an invitation to my house to eat some when I get back home in June.

Hasta Luego Caballeros!

It is impossible to escape the amount of cooking that goes on in Antigua, unlike Sydney kitchens where everything happens out the back, the stoves are burning all through the market place, in people’s front doors and mostly just on the foot path. The industrious nature of the place is admirable, it doesn’t seem like you need a permit to just open your front door and sell your wares. You can get tortillas, pupusas, chilli rellenos, fruit with fresh lime and sweet cakes at every turn.

Striking up conversation is easy if it is about how fresh the mangoes are today or what kind of chillies were used in that dish, or my favourite intro to any conversation “cómo lo vende éstos?” - “How are they sold?”

Finding a cooking school in Antigua set me on a wild goose chase as all of them had recently closed down and no-one seemed to know why or where they had gone. Luckily I met Doña Soñia in my search who was more than happy to show me a few things. She said I must learn how to make the Guatemalan version of the Chilli Relleno, the Guatemalans are very proud of their own versions and like to make the distinction between their Mexican counterparts.



Mexicans stuff the whole chilli with meats, but the Guatemalan version is much more delicate. The stuffing is made from minced pork or beef cooked slowly with finely chopped green beans carrots and potatoes. Doña Soñia threw in some Maggie chicken stock, (has any country escaped the Maggie invasion?) but I’m sure any kind of stock could be used in its place, maybe Maggie Beer's! The 'other Maggie' The meaty sauce is reduced to the point you could make meatballs with it. But there is always some maseca handy to thicken things up if you are in a hurry.

Hot Jalapeño chillies are roasted, peeled and cut in half and a ball of the meat mixture is placed on each one before being dipped in egg batter and fried into a delicious ball of goodness jammed with flavour. Each bite ensures a small piece of the Jalapeño chilli arrives on your tongue to remind you that you are alive and well and the world is a punchy place. As the chilli relleno is so hot it is served with a simple tomato sauce made from roasting then boiling tomatoes with white onions and blending it up.


For the full recipe head here Chilli Relleno Recipe

As we had just eaten the tastiest cheesy tortillas the world has to offer what more did we have to do the next day but head back to the markets to find our lady.

Apparently to our disappointment we were not the only ones who rated her food as she was sold out by 10am. “No Mas” The only thing to do was get amongst the market place and start stocking up on fresh produce for the kitchen back home.

I came across this peculiar looking vegetable, which looked like a floret of baby sweet corn, called ‘pacaya’ and it happens to be the early fruit of a date palm. The women selling their produce become quite animated when you ask them how they cook certain veg, and when they realise you are actually going to cook it yourself they start to throw in free stuff: herbs, chilies and unknown dried bits. My Spanish isn’t exactly top notch but it is here in these market places that I feel at home as it is with these women that I learnt my basic Spanish 15 years ago whilst living in Mexico. When talking about food you don’t need perfect grammar, you need eagerness and an interest and all else will fall into place.



Juanita our small house lady; and I’m not using the word ‘small’ lightly here, she comes up to my belly button and can’t reach most of the light switches in the house. She explained to me about the fan on top of the stove ‘el stuve’ and what it does but she has never been able to reach it so just opens the window. Although small she has the fiercest eyes I have ever seen. They are perched upon her face like fiery green emeralds, she is tough. And fortunately was delighted to show me how to cook these pacayas.

The pacayas are quite bitter when raw so they need a good half an hour boiling time in salted water to soften them up a bit. Then we beat some egg whites till they were stiff and folded in the yolks to make an amazing batter. The pacayas are then dipped into the batter and shallow fried. The egg is so fluffy it keeps its shape even in the heavy oil. We ate them with salsa verde, which we whipped up from the tomatillos I brought back from the markets. There is nothing I love more than to discover a new vegetable and to be shown how to prepare it by an expert is absolutely heaven for me.

For the recipe check it out here.

After 3 hours in an airport lounge guzzling the free Cali Chardonnay and an overnight flight with no sleep, we arrived in Guatemala City feeling slightly un-fresh.

Our ride wasn’t there so we hitched another ride with a guy called Edy Eduardo, what a cool name, and 40mins later we rolled up to our new pad in Antigua. Cities like Antigua don’t change much in 15 years, there is too much history and cultural pride to let things move, which is why places like this are so attractive to visit.

I was so keen to get to the markets I didn’t even take a good look around our new diggs, I grabbed my sunnies and walked into town to do my most favourite thing in foreign countries; which is to put my cash card into an ATM and watch the local dosh spit out. Who knows how much 2,000 QTS really is? I mean its equivalent to about $250 Aus but that means nothing, the real question and meaning is how much good living this will provide.

After stumbling upon a spectacular garden café for breakfast, we wandered through the produce markets and found a lady hand-making mouth watering quesadillas. Which I have since leant are called 'Pupusas', quesedillas are Mexican. We had just eaten a massive breakfast, but that didn’t stop us woofing down a couple of these delicate parcels of awesomeness. I’m in this part of the world to perfect making tortillas so its very exciting to see them made by experts. Years of practice make this look as easy and putting the kettle on for these ladies. They perfect a round shape each time which is quite remarkable once you have attempted it yourself.

What is resonating here is the absolute simplicity of the local food, tortillas are corn flour and water, guacamole is avocado and salt, salsa is chilies and tomatoes. Modern Australian cuisine tends to over complicate things, which makes it easier to make mistakes. Here, the outstanding guacamole for your tortilla is made fresh each time so the avocado doesn’t turn brown, the tortilla is cooked in front of you to keep the fresh corn taste, aromatic salsa is made daily; this is real food for me. Not a packaged guacamole or bread loaf in site. It just reiterates the splendour of preparing your own food daily with simple fresh ingredients and to not rely on mass-produced goods.

Arrived in LA for a quick 24-hour stop over to heal the system from a bit of jet lag and sample the grub.

We stayed right on Venice Beach where it’s action stations, you can literally see drug deals going on, I actually witnessed a bag snatching to the delight of a bunch of tourists who swiftly broke out their video cameras. Down in Venice Beach you get the feeling that everyone seems to be doing it tough, however there is also a sense of celebration of life that I think the Americans are pretty good at. I used to think it was just blind optimism but I think it’s something a bit deeper than that. And just for the record I don’t think it’s due to the recent killing of old OBL. From the guy with the sign around his neck saying “World’s Greatest Wino, I tell jokes and stories for booze money”, to bunches of Latino cheer leaders just randomly practicing their routines along the promenade, to girls in retro roller skates singing to themselves, then stumbling upon 100 people dancing salsa together in the streets and everyone just acting plain friendly; LA isn’t the fake titted plastic place I used to think it was. No one seemed to be trying to out-cool each other; there was hardly a hipster in sight even in the more gentrified area of Santa Monica. I think Americans just love a bit of comfort wear to be too bothered with being a hipster.

But anyway this is about the food we ate, I’m just going to give a short run-down of what we consumed in 24 hours:
1. A slice of Pizza on the promenade of Venice beach, I kind of turned my nose up as Simon ordered it but had to have a taste and nearly consumed the whole thing. There is a trick to this, you ask to owner of the pizza if they can hold your bags while you take your jumper off and while their hands are busy just go in for the pizza. Simon’s review “the best God damn sourdough pizza from the shittiest looking shop on Venice beach, crispy on the outside spongy on the inside”
2. Fried Oysters at James beach, famous for the man-date in the movie “I love you Man” – these were disgusting and flavourless
3. Fish Tacos at James Beach – ho hum, I think we are starting to do these better at home.
4. Pork lard infused mash potato at James Beach…. What more can I say about this. Tasty as all hell.
5. Fries with shaved white truffle on the top – seems like a waste of good truffle but it isn’t. It was magic fries.
6. Jalapeno and Spinach Omelette, was so hot we could only eat half of it from Hotel Erwin.
7. Curried chicken salad from Wolfgang Puk express, a delicious blend of red cabbage and rocket with a light dressing and dollops of curried chicken.
8. Wild Mushroom Pizza, from Wolfgang Puk express. Trend alert I can see this happening in Sydney soon where the hatted chefs start their own express bars and serve to inner city lunch crowd and actually start making money out of their food.
I could have just maybe put on a kilo from my day in LA if it wasn’t for the 8 hours of walking we did.

There is not much I like more than sharing a meal with friends around a private dinner table at someone’s house. Indulging in good conversation in the freedom of knowing you can have your point of view amongst friends. Around a table there is less judgment than in a bar or restaurant, the nature of home cooked food brings a more earthy level of social interaction, which I really love. Personally I’m too loud for restaurants anyway.

Who wouldn’t love the idea of sharing food with your buddies, especially food that has been carefully prepared with love just for you? There is something so nurturing both socially and emotionally in the whole process, not just for the cook but also for the eaters. However, I think we have all lost the plot a bit and have forgotten how not only beautiful but important these nights of sharing are to us.

I’m constantly reminded of how we are losing our connection to what is meaningful in our lives, by people canceling on dinner parties, usually after you have spent some time thinking of the menu, gone and shopped for the finest ingredients only to be sent text messages from your loved ones with lame excuses as to why they can’t make it.

In the last 24 hours I’ve received the following text messages from people and as this is my blog and in my own virtual land, I’ve decided to post my dream responses instead of the ones I did receive.

REALITY “I’m trying to have a couple of weeks off booze.”

DREAM “Hey I’m not drinking so I’m going to bring a big six pack of sparkling water and drench myself in it. I’ll be the one pouring everyone waters so they don’t start yelling in my face when they drink too much. Much love to you thanks for cooking can’t wait to see you Xxxx”


REALITY “I have a date can we do next week?”

DREAM “Hi, I have a Date, I’m brining him along. There is nowhere else in this city that is going to serve up food with love and that is what I’m after MEOW!!!! See you on Sat thank so much for cooking let me know what we should bring. (other than champagne and oysters, cos I’ll be packin’) Xxxx”


REALITY “I promised to go to a Movie with someone who is detoxing.”

DREAM “I promised to go to a Movie with someone who is detoxing, but I think some nice food made with love would be exactly what the Dr ordered, do you think you could add a Vegan dish to your Menu? We’ll bring a salad. Thanks for cooking xxxx”


REALITY “Hi, I’m cleansing at the moment and having a colonic on sat. I have to lose 5 kg in 14 days for my friends wedding.“
DREAM “Hi I’m cleansing at the moment and having a colonic and want to lose 5kgs in 2 weeks… ha ha who the fuck am I kidding. Of Course I’d love to come for dinner, I’m on a serious detox though so I’m coming early to make everyone a veggie juice starter. That’s all I can eat/drink right now so what the fuck let’s share it. I might not get to taste your food, but your company and love is exactly what I need. See you Sat. xxx “


Ha ha, one can only hope!

Last weekend was the National Garage Sale Trail day, an initiative to encourage recycling your trash into other people’s treasure whilst reducing landfill and meeting members of your local community. I decided I’d make some of my hot sauce and bottle it up for all to sample. Out of 10 bottles I made, three of them developed into the exploding variety. The same three purchased by a friend's Mum, my best customer of the day. Not only will she be turned off hot sauce, garage sales and me for a while, I’m sure she is probably still cleaning the back of her nice car out as we speak. (sorry Mrs Burak)

And all that after I plied her with tequila, she probably got home and had to have a little nap on the couch. (sorry Mrs Burak)

So I’ve heard of exploding hot sauce before but the explosion is usually occurring in your mouth once you have opened the bottle. I’ve tried to research this phenomenon and I’ve come across one explanation that you need to cook the chilies and make sure the ph level is alkaline. But let me tell you, I cooked those chilies for half a day and added in vinegar to reduce the PH.

The other part of the mystery is that all other bottles were explosion free. If anyone out there has any clues as to what happened please email me at dee@cookmyway.com.au. I want to get the bottom of this one as I have an inkling it is not the last time I will make hot sauce.

If you want to check on the recipe used feel free to have a gander here. http://http://www.cookmyway.com.au/recipe/535/hellicious-hot-sauce

Meanwhile back at the ranch we have been eating hot sauce all week, I just cannot get sick of this one.

As if we need another fad diet to sell to the ever expanding numbers of obese people in Australia. Just when you thought it was safe to grab another chocolate croissant, look there it is a diet from the French no less!

I can imagine a bunch of researchers and marketers sitting around a brain storming session thinking, ‘what will make this new diet more authentic?’….. hmmmm you know how French people are never fat… bingo!

France is full of the waif like petite ladies and thin hipped men. My parents travelled to France for their 30th wedding anniversary and after checking into a room where they could barely fit their suitcases and their bodies literally didn’t fit on the small bed; My Father in his limited French said to the concierge, “I’m sorry Sir but we booked the Honeymoon suite” to which he replied “but of course Monsieur that IS the honeymoon suite”. Let’s face it we are fatter and larger.

So can we get one thing straight here people, you can’t change your attitude to food and years of culinary blunders overnight. The French take meals very seriously they make time for meals, lots of time in fact. A five-hour family lunch can roll into a dinner where everyone will know what to cook with the leftovers. Wine will be consumed and desserts will be munched. In contrast we have become like the Yanks and eating to us is like an obsession, how many calories, what’s in that, oh no I can’t have dessert, and all this usually on the run. We are losing our respect for mealtime and it’s showing in our waistlines. The French also like many other European countries eat much more fresh produce than we do and actually reserve the creamy dishes they are famous for, for special occasions.

The new 'Dukan' diet is way too suspiciously phonetically close to 'Do Can'. The amount of cheese involved makes me want to vomit up my Baguette de Coulommiers I had for lunch. The diet takes the consumer through 4 stages, oh hang on I see a familiar Atkins style format:
The four phases
1 Induction
2 Ongoing weight loss
3 Pre-maintenance
4 Lifetime maintenance

EXACTLY THE SAME!

With the first three stages on not much more than oats and water so obviously you are going to lose a stack of weight. Then the fourth stage offers a whole new way of eating forever, wow amazing eating with consideration! Not exactly ground breaking stuff, but just normal health education that should be on every school curriculum.

Phase 4 of the diet also makes you promise never to use the escalators again. I can see it now by the end of the year half of Australia will be taking the stairs in their sketcher shape-ups carrying their McDukan Happy Meal. I’m glad they are taking the stairs as it means more room on the escalator for me.

And finally, the catch phrase for the diet is ‘5 million people can’t be wrong’. Well I’d ask you to question this if you are considering investing in yet another diet fad. At the height of the Atkins obsession over 35 Million were followers, right around the time Dr Atkins had a severe heart attack from clogged arteries.

The Mexican restaurant scene in Australia is a pretty sorry state of affairs. If it wasn’t for the free flowing tequila and relaxed pouring of the margaritas who would ever go?

But don’t be fooled by these hoaxes that pretend Mexicans are munching on Doritos with salsa all day and night. There is so much more to Mexican food than rice in a burrito. I often attempt Mexican restaurants to re-live the year I lived in Mexico, the only good thing going is the corn tortillas, there is nothing like the smell of corn tortillas to take you back. And blue corn is the ultimate, not only is it higher in protein and contains anthocyanins, which are the worlds best antioxidant, they are so tasty you can’t help but smile while you eat. So I was on the hunt for blue corn tortillas for my next dinner party and thankfully I found it in Balmain and bought all of the stock they had.

I have never enjoyed my own food as much as last night. I think I might have mastered the hand made blue corn tortilla much to the delight of my guests taste buds. There was a lot of margarita making going on, but I’m sure the delight was from the food!

Each region of Mexico has its own cuisine style and also its own chili. The secret to real Mexican food is in the different kinds of chilies used for each dish and the combination of chilies for dishes. I just discovered three new types of chilies, habanero, chipotle and mulato.

The habanero chili is the hottest you can get, besides something called Bhut Jolokia from Bangladesh. And unless you are doing a Jackass skit I’d probably stay away from those. I opened a jar of habaneros yesterday and didn’t want to put my finger in it to taste the hotness so I just put the tip of my tongue into the jar. Major error, was like someone putting a cigar out in your mouth. Hurty.

I used these to make an amazing Salsa Verde using tomatillos, another essential Mexican ingredient. They are tiny green tomatoes, which come wrapped in their own brown leaves. The habaneros as mentioned are hot hot hot. Warn your friends and load it onto the plates of your foes for some entertainment.

The second and best discovery of the day was the Mulato chili which is used to make Mole sauce, it has a sweet and smoky flavour with chocolate undertones. It’s hard to get them fresh in Australia so you need to soak them in water for an hour before you make a sauce. I used these with chipotle chilies which is a smoke dried jalapeno, famous for the Tex Mex flavours used in Mexican restaurants. I soaked these also and sliced them up and put them in a blender with the water to make a smoky sauce for refried beans.

The term ‘refried beans’ is a mistranslation, ‘frijoles refritos’, actually means well fried beans. You really need pork lard to make sure they are full of flavour but a chorizo will do the trick if you cut it really fine. The pinto beans need to be soaked for a few hours, I put some seaweed in the water to assist the process. Then boil the beans and reduce to a simmer for an hour or two. When they are soft drain them. Fry up the chorizo pieces in some oil and then put the beans in the pan with some salt and the mulato-chipotle mix. Mash it all slowly and keep frying till you think it is done for you. Use the water from the boiling beans if you need to make them softer.

As for the blue corn tortillas, they are a secret for now and I’m still experimenting, when I completely perfect it I’ll make it public.

Hasta luego caballeros!

I’m working from home today and I’ve realized it is the day my cleaner comes. I have made it a policy that I never meet this women. I actually like to think she doesn’t exist, and it’s actually just us being so neat that every Friday the house is sparkling like a hotel room. Maybe speaking about her cements the fact we are messy, maybe meeting her will mean I have to face this head on and I don’t want to. I want to keep living the fantasy, I want to.

So I just found myself racing around the house in uber panic mode, doing the washing up, spraying the nasty shower product on the grime, sweeping the floor and folded up a weeks worth of washing. All because now I have to face her I don’t want her to see me, and the mess at the same time. The shame of it all. I actually remember my Mother doing this before her cleaner came and I thought she was a nut job. It’s a tough call when you realize you are becoming your mother, but that’s a whole different subject.

Now there is a whole new layer of even more panic, the illusive cleaning lady is going to know I just did all this because she was coming, I’m not usually this neat, its all just a farce and she will see straight through me. That’s it, I’m out of here, I’m taking my computer down to the café where its safe and I’ll return and complement myself on how organized I can be when I really put my mind to it.

And hell, being messy is fun.

When I’m seriously angry about whatever mmm there is a whole list of things that seem to tick me off, and I feel the smoke coming out my ears, I start to think it might be better if I smoke something else rather than my own head. This is one of the reasons why cooking works for me, when something is on my mind negative or otherwise, I can escape to the fluid process of cooking and immerse myself in creating something to eat. When you also accept my philosophy that you don’t need to be a celebrity chef to make love in the kitchen, its easy to just go for it on your own terms in your own time doing it your own way.

Anything can be inspiration for a dish, anger is just another emotion and why not express it through food. So when you are pissed off, SMOKE SOMETHING!

If you have a gas stove you can smoke just about anything. My favourite and easiest thing to smoke right now is eggplant. It not only adds a slice of the Middle East to your cooking which can be magic in itself, it will help you let off some of your own steam just watching the little sucker smoke itself nuts.

Everyone seems to have his or her own way of doing this but I’ve found this method to be the most effective and easiest for me.

Turn your gas stove on high and then just place the eggplant right over the hob and let it start burning. The skin needs to burn and crisp so it tears. The smoke then passes through the tears in the skin and lets the smoke from the burnt skin pass through and send this exquisite flavour right through the eggplant.

Leave it 10 mins each side then do about 2 mins of rotating to the sides that might have missed out. It will hiss out liquid which is good as this is the bitterness of the veg, this is why you salt eggplant usually if you are cooking it to bring out the bitter liquid, so don’t worry about the hissing liquid it’s a good thing for the flavour.

Once its ready you can remove it to a chopping board, split open and spoon out the insides, or if you are making a dip you can actually just use all of the eggplant skin and all and put in your blender.

The taste of this will wash away all of your anger and if it doesn't just smoke another one and keep smoking until you feel better.

Do you ever wonder what all of this sustainable farming fuss is about? Should you actually be concerned about what you eat and where has it come from? At the end of August a group of inspiring teens presented their ideas for the future at the inaugural TEDx Next Generation event.

One of the guest speakers was Birke Beahr an 11-year-old home schooled boy who began studying organic and sustainable farming at the age of 9. In his talk at the TEDx Next Generation event, Beahr describes the detriments of our current industrialised food supply system and even unearths the tricky nature of marketing to children his age.

"A while back I wanted to be an NFL football player," Baehr noted. "I decided that I'd rather be an organic farmer instead. That way, I can have a greater impact on the world."



For me it’s really exciting that the sustainability of our food system is causing interest in people his age. Our desire for convenience has forced farmers into tragic and extremely unhealthy practices when it comes to our food supply.

Paul Roberts, Author of 'The End of Food', suggests in his book that the world faces a serious food crisis that could topple our food chain and cause a disaster much worse than the threat of any terrorist attack.

Roberts implies that the current food supply system is failing us, its own success of supplying food so economically will ultimately be why it could fail. Farmers and food producers continually cut their prices to remain competitive, but what is the ultimate price in quality and to the health of the eaters.

“We’ve had to reengineer our crops and livestock to make them amenable to mechanical harvest, then ‘amend’ the finished product by adding colors, flavorings and other chemicals to repair the damage incurred by the manufacturing process,” he said.
All this threatens the safety of the food supply, he concludes.

So if you are outsourcing your food preparation to restaurants or even factories to put that convenient lasagna in a frozen packet, maybe it is time to start considering what is actually in the food and how much of the contents is not just made of love, but actually made of food.

To make any positive change to our food supply industry and to bring the shift towards a healthy and sustainable system, it’s the power of the consumers which will eventually facilitate the move.

So start cooking for yourself and try to use fresh produce from your local growers, share your success and failures on CookMyWay with us.