braised fennel with olives & soft polenta

I have a theory that there are two types of possessions. The first group are those things that you only need one of or as many as it takes to do the job. The second group, while they may still be functional, are things that you can never own too many….things that capture your imagination things that you just can live without.  I love how this varies from person to person for some it’s cars, others have their pot plants, I even have a friend with a barbed wire collection…but for me it has always been those two indespensable items: shoes and cookbooks. Read the rest of this entry »

couscous stuffed roast quail with prunes & chestnuts

Sometimes wouldn’t it be nice if the weekend could just keep going….No Monday mornings with harsh alarms and lists of thing to do…Just easy Sundays with leisurely brunches in beachside Bondi and candle lit dinners chewing the fat and planning holidays with a good friend… Read the rest of this entry »

orange and rosemary marinated wild barossa olives

This is a story that begins a little over two years ago in autumn 2004. It was the middle of a hectic Barossa Valley vintage and an enthusiastic young winemaker was working night and day crushing grapes and guiding them through the alchemy-like process of turning grape juice into wine. There was barely time to eat yet alone sleep but our tireless winemaker soldiered on, convincing herself that she was having the time of her life…. Read the rest of this entry »

pear & pecan crumble with homemade vanilla icecream

I adore the French. Really, how can you not love a nation that has an official 35 hour working week, is the home of Champagne, has Paris as it’s capital city, has an official label of origin (AOC) for everything from wine to lentils, chicken and walnuts, that speaks the most beautiful language, that has elevated snails and fatty goose liver to objects of culinary lust and that once had a president who complained that it was impossible to govern a nation that had 265 kinds of cheese… Read the rest of this entry »

the ultimate steak sanga

When it comes to recipes, you could say that I’m a bit of a ‘new’ junkie. It’s not very often that I’ll cook the same thing twice. This isn’t because I’m not happy with how things turned out, but more that there are so many amazing flavour and texture sensations out there that I really don’t want to miss out….It’s really like the food equivalent of ’so many wines, so little time’. Read the rest of this entry »

warm duck confit, baked onion & pear salad

When it comes to planning a menu, I tend to stick to ‘variety being the spice of life’ and go out of my way to avoid repeating ingredients throughout a meal. For example, if I was serving a pear salad, it would be very unlikely that I’d decide to go with a pear based dessert…  But sometimes there’s nothing better than choosing a hero and featuring it throughout the menu….and if the hero happens to go particularly well with pinot noir…well so much the better… Read the rest of this entry »

osso buco with pinenut gremolata & soft polenta

It’s funny how sometimes arranging a time to get together with friends can be a piece of cake and then at other times it can feel like you really need to enlist the help of the NASA logistics team to find a suitable date…. Read the rest of this entry »