The Good Food & Wine Show is one of those events which, when it rolled around, perked my interest a little but had never quite inspired me to get off my arse and attend. It wasn’t that it sounded boring, but to me it was the sort of event where you should really go with someone, and nobody I knew had been and could vouch for whether it was a worthwhile day’s outing or not.
So, when I was contacted and offered two tickets to attend this year’s show, I figured that it was a good chance to get my feet wet and see what it was all about.
Only one word comes to mind to describe this event.
WOAH.
I was totally unprepared for just how huge it was (and my poor feet are currently paying the price after truding about with 2kg of camera equipment all day on 2.5″ heels…), and the moment that I stepped through the entry doors, I was completely blown away. So many vendors, so much food, so much wine…I wondered whether it was even humanly possible to get through them all in just one day!
With my friend and trusted assistant Amy there to provide a helping hand, we started walking through every single aisle, taking the opportunity to talk with as many vendors as possible about their products. This aspect was without a doubt the best thing about the show. Majority of the vendors were wholesalers – selling their products to places like Woolworths and David Jones. I’d seen some of their products before but had just glanced at the packaging and walked straight past.
It was absolutely fabulous to be able to speak to the stall holders about their products, getting a chance to sample the goods that they were creating, and hearing their excitement, passion and enthusiasm for the goods that they had on display.
As one vendor said to me “We do wholesale, so we’re always talking to our suppliers, but this is the only chance we have to interact with the public, and communicate directly with them about the stuff we do!”. There were a few stalls there that sold overproduced
prepackaged meals and I admit that my own prejudices kept me from visiting them, but the overwhelming majority were niche market producers who could vouch for every single detail of their product – from when and where their berries were picked, whether any and what additives had been added to the product, and the taste.
There’s also something to be said for the range of products that were on display. Having the chance to sample so many different varieties of jams, olive oils, balsamic vinegars and other goodies really offered a chance to taste the subtle (and not so subtle) differences in flavour between different brands and makers, and talking to the vendors meant you could begin to nut out how some of these differences came about.
Majority of the vendors were amazing, particularly the wealth of knowledge that they had to offer to the layperson. Talking to one honey vendor, she had quite a bit of information to share about how different honey varieties are created. For example, have you ever wondered how an apiarist can tell that one hive has produced a particular sort of honey, especially when you can’t tell a bee just to go and harvest from lavender? Apparently the way that this is done is that during winter, when the bees are keeping warm in their hives, the apiarist feeds them just a single sort of honey (such as lavender honey) and the bees become accustomed to the taste. Then when the bees come out to start work in spring, they will actively seek that flavour so long as it is around!
I was also extremely fortunate to receive two tickets to see Gordon Ramsay, Matt Moran and George Calombaris & Gary Mehigan in the LG Celebrity Theatre. I’ll be honest here and admit that I am really not a fan of tv cooking/kitchen programs and rarely watch them, and the draw to these four chefs was that I knew they were decent cooks and had seen a little of their television personas, and I wondered what they would be like live.
Absolutely amazing, and unbelievably entertaining. Surprisingly, Gordon Ramsay had the cleanest mouth out of all four chefs, and the Masterchef duo took the prize of the most swearing, which was absolutely hilarious as they each ordered each other to take time outs in the ‘naughty chairs’ when they caught each other cursing. Matt Moran was also surprisingly hilarious – he just wasn’t having much luck in the kitchen, but just went with the flow and talking with the censors off (at one stage saying something that even he couldn’t believe he had said – standing and looking shocked with his hand over his mouth as I almost had a fit laughing).
A word here to the wise – chefs swear. Their environments are high pressure and fast-paced, and swearing becomes habit. The chefs that I’ve met in my time have all been closer to Gordon Ramsay with his ‘fucking hell’ than Jamie Oliver with his ‘pukka’. Therefore, if you really are the sort of delicate flower who can’t handle a little swearing and joking, don’t waste a perfectly good seat in the celebrity theatre by booking yourself in for a show, and leave it for someone who would actually appreciate the good laugh.
At any rate, it was pretty fabulous to see these chefs being given the chance to get comfortable and really show their personalities without the restrictions of production company requirements, and I walked out of each celebrity theatre a bigger fan of each chef than when I had walked in.
All in all, this was definitely one of the most interesting and entertaining days out that I have had this year. The only gripe that I had was that when I got there at 9:00am, half the stalls had no vendors and by the time I worked back to them, the crowds were so big that I didn’t get a chance to talk to them properly. Nevertheless, I had a fabulous time and I’m already looking forward to what will be on offer at next year’s show!
If you’re a Melbourne reader, the show is on today and tomorrow, so if you’re looking for something to do, it’s $27.50 for adult entry, and well worth every penny! You can get a small idea of what is on offer by looking through my photos of the event.
For my interstate readers – the Good Food & Wine Show will be coming to your neck of the woods on the following dates:
- Sydney – July 3rd to July 5th
- Perth – July 31st to August 2nd
- Brisbane – November 6th to November 8th
A few tips for people who are thinking about attending:
- Get there as early as possible. I was there by 8:45am, 15 minutes before opening, and a large queue had already started to form. However, this is your best chance to have a proper chat with the vendors as the later you get there, the more people there will be and you will have very little chance of talking to them.
- Bring a shopping trolley, green bags and cash. There is a lot of good stuff on sale, and the best thing to do is be prepared. I had no shopping trolley or bags as I hadn’t intending on buying much, but after browsing the stalls for 10 minutes, I conceded defeat and went to buy a shopping trolley (which they were thankfully selling inside the hall).
- Wear comfortable shoes. It took us about 5 hours to trek through and talk to every food vendor and sample their wares – and that doesn’t even include the wine (we had planned to do that as the last stop of the day, and by the time we were done with the food, we were much too exhausted).
I’d like to extend a thank you to Johanna Scott, who gave me this opportunity to attend, as well as all the fabulous vendors who happily answered my questions as well as being good-natured about rearranging their displays or assisting me so that I could get the photos that I wanted. It was a wonderful day out, and I can’t wait to see what next year has in store!
Technorati Tags: Melbourne Good Food and Wine show, Gordon Ramsay, Matt Moran, George Calombaris, Gary Mehigan
“So, there’s meant to be this really fun market nearby, my friends have been and they said it’s lots of fun…do you want to go with me tomorrow?”
I arched my eyebrow and looked at my mother rather suspiciously. “You do realize that tomorrow is Sunday, right? My cleaning & resting day?”
My mother flapped her hands at me. “I know that! But the market opens at 7:30am, so you only have to get up at 6:30am to get ready…and I promise it wouldn’t take too long…and you’ll have the rest of the day to do all the things you need to!”
The last time that my mother said that a market visit wouldn’t take too long, I ended up lightly thudding my forehead against a pillar at the springvale markets, 3 hours after arriving there and fighting for parking, while my mother tried to decide just which variety of sweet potato she wanted to buy.
You’d think that I would have learnt my lesson.
Being the dutiful daughter, I woke up at 6:30am on a Sunday morning in winter (a time of day that you really shouldn’t see on a Sunday – the only exception being if you haven’t actually had any sleep), rolled into the shower, back out again and then into some clothes. Finished getting ready 10 minutes early, I loped into the kitchen to fix myself some toast, when I noticed that the house was quiet. Too quiet. Which meant that my mother was still asleep.
I crept into her room and gave her a hard poke in the boob to wake her up, and scolded her for not being ready…however, to her credit, she was showered and decent by the time I finished munching on my charred bread and off we went to the markets.
Strike two against my mother – turns out that it was not a Farmer’s market, but a trash & treasure market. I had woken up at 6:30am on a SUNDAY to look over people’s second hand shit. Colour me unimpressed. In an attempt to make the best of the situation, I plastered on my ‘glowering’ look (to try and warn people against trying to interact with me) and shuffled about in the cold, foggy air, trying to feign interest as my mother looked over various pieces of bric-a-brac. Thankfully there were a few farmer’s food stalls that grabbed my interest, and even an apiarist (bee keeper, though he preferred the former term to the latter) who was selling slabs of honeycomb.
Oh, the honeycomb. It glowed golden even through the foggy air, and just looking at it made me imagine cutting a piece and having the warmth of my mouth melt the honey so it slid down my throat as I slowly chewed the waxy bits of honeycomb to extract every lick of sweetness.
As soon as we got back home, I unpacked my treasure and stared at it, wondering just how to show off its perfection…and after raiding the fridge and finding the ingredients for a panna cotta, I decided that a layered jelly topped with a piece of golden honeycomb would be perfect!
Milk & Honey Jelly
(Honey Jelly layered with vanilla panna cotta)
Vanilla panna cotta ingredients
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup double cream
2 1/2 tsp powdered gelatin
1 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla pod, split in half with seeds scraped into the milk)
2 tbsp honey
Honey jelly ingredients
1 2/3 cup cold water
1/3 cup strongly flavoured honey (I used stringybark)
3 tsp powdered gelatin
Pieces of honeycomb (either the real beeswax stuff or the candy) to decorate
TIP: To make a vegan-friendly version of this dish, replace the milk with a rich, full-flavoured soy milk such as Bonsoy, and replace the cream with a vegetarian-friendly yoghurt. Also, you can replace the gelatin with Vege-gel, a vegetarian gelatin replacement.
1. Pour the water and honey into a pot, and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Leave to rest for 5 minutes to allow the gelatin to absorb some of the water (this helps it dissolve faster and more evenly during cooking), then place on the stove over a low flame and stir constantly till it begins to come to a boil and the gelatin is dissolved. Set aside to cool slightly.
2. Combine the milk, cream, vanilla and honey in a pot, then sprinkle over the gelatin and rest for 5 minutes. Place the pot on the stove over a low flame and stir constantly till the gelatin is dissolved and the milk mixture is beginning to boil. Set aside to cool slightly.
3. Grab 4 glasses (whether tumblers or wine glasses, whatever you have handy) and then use HALF the honey mixture to pour into each glass (so in this first pour, they should receive 1/8 of the mixture each). Carefully transfer the glasses to the fridge and chill for 30 minutes – 1 hour.
Even though the honey jelly and panna cotta should not set without being put in the fridge, give the mixtures in the pots a quick stir every 10-15minutes to prevent the gelatin from settling and the mixtures from forming a skin.
4. Once the first layer of honey jelly is set, pull out the glasses and carefully pour 1/8th of the panna cotta mixture into each glass, on top of the honey jelly. Carefully place back in the fridge for 30 minutes – 1 hour to set, then repeat with the honey jelly, and then the panna cotta.
5. Just before serving, top each glass with a piece of honeycomb – and whether you use the real mccoy or the candy version is completely up to you 
This recipe has been designed to be quite soft – it’s really not a jelly that you would want to unmould, as the jelly would most likely go a little flat. This was a deliberate move, as I wanted the entire dessert to be soft enough to melt away in your mouth without any chewing, so that the flavours were what you noticed and not the texture.
Also, whilst this does require the fridge to set, I recommend bringing it to room temperature before serving. This will allow the jelly to soften a bit more, plus if it is served cold, this will dull the beautiful flavour of your honey.
Technorati Tags: jelly, honey, pannacotta, dessert, cream, milk, dairy
Others who have tried this recipe:
- Rina at Suitable For Consumption
Finally.
It’s here.
My post on english muffins.
You see, I stumbled upon this recipe from Barbara’s Winos&Foodies blog a few years back but never got around to trying it till a few months ago, and which point I became highly impressed with the fact that yes, it is entirely possible to make your own english muffins at home!
Yes!
Yet another goodie that I do not have to buy chock full of preservatives from the supermarket, but can make fresh and tasty in my own kitchen!
I posted a teaser on my twitter account, and I know that there is at least one of you who has been anxiously waiting for this to be posted…so apologies for the delay Unfortunately, I occasionally hit the wall when trying to photograph the food I cook, and it wasn’t until this weekend past that I finally got some photos that I liked and thought were worth posting
English Muffins
(recipe adapted from Winos&Foodies)
Ingredients
2 teaspoons dried/instant yeast granules
1/2 teaspoon sugar
250ml warm water
125ml warm milk
350g bread flour
100g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
rice flour or fine cornmeal/polenta
1. Measure out your yeast and set aside. Combine the flours and salt in a large bowl.
2. Mix together the flours with a fork or whisk, then remove 1 tbsp of the mixture. Add the bicarb/baking soda to the remaining flour and whisk through.
3. Add this to the yeast, add the 1/2 tsp of sugar and 125mL (half) of the warm water, then whisk together with a fork to break up any clumps. Leave this mixture to ‘blossom’.
4. Once the yeast mixture has blossomed, add the remaining warm water and warm milk to the bowl, give it a quick stir to pick up any flour that has sunk to the bottom of the bowl, then add the liquid to the flour mixture.
5. Using a fork, mix together the liquid and flours till it begins to come together. After this point, you will need to use your hand to give the dough a thorough kneading in the bowl – it can be a bit difficult as this is an extremely sticky dough.
6. Once the dough has been thoroughly kneaded, cover with a damp kitchen tea-towel and leave in a warm part of the kitchen to rise for 1 hr, or place in the fridge to let it rise overnight.
7. Once the dough has doubled in volume, use the oil to grease down your cleaned kitchen bench top and pull the dough onto it. Either roll (if you use a rolling pin then it will also need to be liberally oiled) or pat the dough into a rough rectangular shape, then fold and turn 90 degrees and repeat. Do this one more time.
8. Not pictured in the below – after the final turn and fold, lift the dough and sprinkle your bench top liberally with corn meal/polenta, then place the dough down and also cover the top of the dough with corn meal. Using a scone cutter, cut out 10-12 muffins.
Alternately, you can divide the dough into 12 balls yourself, but I prefer the shapes and uniformity that the scone cutter gives. Bear in mind that I am a lunatic who measures out her cupcake batter so that each cupcake liner has the same amount of batter down to the gram!
(The reason it isn’t pictured here is because I was seeing if just oiled surfaces would work. They don’t. Sticky sticky STICKY dough!)
9. Dust a large tray liberally with some corn meal, and also pour some into a shallow dish. Carefully transfer each muffin to the dish to make sure it is well coated with corn meal, before transferring to the tray.
10. Cover the muffins with cling wrap / plastic wrap, and allow to rest for 30 minutes. Heat a heavy frying pan over low-medium heat, give it a spray of cooking spray, then place 3-4 muffins in the pan (allowing room for them to expand). Cook for about 10 minutes each side, or till each side turns golden brown.
Once each muffin is cooked, transfer them into a pouch made from a clean kitchen tea-towel and rest for 15 minutes. Once rested, they can be split and enjoyed however you wish!
The muffins in this photo are from my first attempt, therefore a bit thin. Note to self: do NOT get over-excited when you need to roll out dough. I have a bit of a problem with this…
One of my favourite ways to enjoy these delights is to split them, toast them and spread each side with unsalted butter, a generous helping of jam (in this case, blueberry is a definite favourite), and to top them with a dollop of cream.
The other way I like to enjoy these is in a bastardized version of eggs benedict – english muffins, rindless bacon, spinach, tomato, poached egg and hollandaise!
See, the beautiful part of this recipe is the rising time! It’s actually easy enough that you can come home piss drunk (so long as you’re still able to stand on two feet and not throw up), make the dough and chuck it into the fridge. Then, you crawl into bed, bemoan the fact that you drank so much and fall asleep…the next morning, you can crawl out of bed, shape the muffins, go have a shower, and they’re ready to be cooked on the griddle or frying pan by the time you’re alive/refreshed!
No, I’m not speaking from experience…
In case that sounds a bit too difficult, you can also make these beforehand, split them and wrap them tightly in cling wrap and bung them into the freezer. When you do wake up with a hangover, you can just pop them into the toaster and enjoy them that way with minimal effort and grunting 
Technorati Tags: muffins, bread, english muffins, eggs benedict, breakfast, hangover
There’s something to be said for a lazy pancake breakfast on the weekend, however it’s usually lazy for everyone except the cook! Which, in my family, means me…
While everyone else in the family gets to lounge about, drinking tea and reading in bed, if there’s to be a pancake breakfast it means that I’m usually working at a flurried pace in the kitchen, trying to get everything ready before hungry stomachs decide that they can’t wait and reach for Friday night leftovers or toast instead…
Dutch baby pancakes (also called German pancakes – though this is not the same as Apfelpfannkuchen), are very different to the fluffier, cakier pancakes that are common in Western cuisine. With no leavening agent and a very different flour : egg : milk ratio, the end result is denser and eggier, but that’s not to say that they’re any less delicious!
These babies are definitely the way you should go if you want a truly lazy pancake breakfast – the hands-on preparation time is all of about 5 minutes (though you can increase that to 10 minutes if you want to serve this with a fresh fruit salad like I do), and once you pop it in the oven you can sit back and relax with the rest of the family till it’s done, at which point everyone can sit down to eat together
Now, that’s definitely my idea of a lazy pancake breakfast!
Dutch Baby Pancake
(Slightly adapted from the recipe at About.com)
Ingredients
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon salt
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C with a cast iron skillet (or oven-safe frying pan) inside. Break eggs into a large bowl and lightly beat together. Add the milk, melted butter and salt and beat lightly again.
2. Gradually add the sifted flour to the egg mix, beating it in lightly with a fork.
3. Take the 1tbsp unmelted buter and toss into the heated skillet in the oven and give it a few seconds to melt. Swirl it around, then pour in the batter and bake for 20-30 minutes, or till puffed high and golden
Serve however you wish! Traditionally served with lemon juice, clarified butter and sprinkled sugar, I prefer to use it as a kind of fruit bowl with chopped season fruit placed in the middle and dusted with icing sugar! Of course, to make it even more decadent, you can add a dollop of lightly whipped cream and drizzle of maple syrup…if you like
You can serve this baby in the skillet, tossing everything inside and giving everyone a fork, or if you prefer to do things in a more orderly fashion, you can pull it out of the pan (if your skillet is properly seasoned then this baby will slide straight out!) and serve everyone neat little wedges so they can enjoy it however they like
Other recipes for dutch baby pancakes/ German pancakes:
Technorati Tags: pancakes, German pancakes, Dutch Baby pancakes, breakfast, recipes
So about a month ago, I got sent to Sydney on a 2 day work jaunt, and decided to take the opportunity to put the call out to any Sydney foodbloggers who wouldn’t mind catching up for dinner while I was in town. Luckily for me, Helen (Grab Your Fork), Suze (Chocolate Suze) and Reem (I Am Obsessed With Food) put their hands up, and after a bit of emailing back and forth, we decided to try Bodega Tapas Bar in Surry Hills for dinner (which, luckily for me, was also just up the road from the hotel I was holed up in!)
Part of the reason that I pushed for this choice was that I had only just visited MoVida the week before, and had so thoroughly loved my experience that I was curious as to how other places would do it…
To be honest, the food was pretty fabulous! While the fare was not quite as spectacular as Frank Camorra’s offerings that I’d experienced at MoVida the week before, I really couldn’t fault any of it. However, I did feel a bit let down by both the bread and the dessert – after experiencing two amazing artisan breads at MoVida (which the girls and I had adored so much that we actually got a second plate!), I felt that the bread here was a bit bland (which served to accentuate the olive oil that it was served with, rather than enhance as I had experienced at MoVida).
And dessert? Okay, so I bake a lot, but I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, and I couldn’t finish mine at all (and kept pushing it helpfully in the direction of Reem in the hopes that she’d help me out!). The flan didn’t have the soft, melty texture that I expect with that sort of dessert, and the ginger biscuit it was served with did not give even the slightest hint of ginger flavour. The only redeeming part of the entire dish for me was the dulche de leche ice cream, which delightfully creamy, but melted far too quickly for my ice-cream nibbling ways 
Food aside, it was fabulous to meet all three ladies, and I commend them for not being overly taken aback by the loud, swearing and eccentric Melbournian who visited their home town Thanks for the lovely time, folks!
Also, I took the chance to visit the Sydney Fish Markets on my spare day, which turned out to have a pretty decent yumcha restaurant right in the heart of it! Who knew? Unfortunately all my photos taken there turned out quite rubbish, but I am quite fond of this photo which I nabbed while walking through one of the buildings…
Too true, folks. Too true.
Tune in next time for my own variation on chicken & vegetable wonton soup, and English muffins. Which I’m hoping will prove third time lucky (the recipe turns out perfectly each time.
