newsletter 2 February 2023
Oh, it has been so so hot! So what have we been doing? Going out to eat as much as possible...still fronting up to process peaches. Thank you Paul and Christina Wade, vaccing them for ice cream and freezing them in 600g batches with four peach stones peach ice cream recipe or you might like to try peach sorbet and making sauce.
My neighbours are astonished that I am make sauce in the heat. I remember working in Singapore in a 46°C kitchen. The sweat ran down the back of my legs into my Birkenstocks. It is just the way it is in a kitchen. So, if you're dining out on a 38+ day, remember the kitchen is most likely not airconditioned or unable to cope, and just cut the kitchen some slack if you get your mains before your entrées because they are doing the best they can functioning for hours in appalling heat.
We have had endless welcome visitors in the last few weeks. From China for the first time in three years, from interstate for the first time since the COVID lockdowns. There has been a lot of home cooking a lot of laughter and a welcome return to a bit of normality. Nonetheless, the stories of restaurant hardship and where Australian wine now sits in the marketplace in China have been deeply depressing.
Please refer to Kaaren Palmer's February 23 Champagne News for Champagne drinking and other interesting content about Champagne, our favourite beverage click here
So what's happening...read on!
Ann Oliver
publisher and editor food cuisine-extreme.com - annoliver.com for art news and biography
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PAST ARTWORK STAY TUNED FOR NEW WORK - TO LOOK AT PAST WORK AND EXHIBITION HISTORY CLICK HERE
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I'm doing SALA this year and have been offered an excellent location and artist, aka moi, will be in residence and, maybe best of all we are planning an opening party. Toying with an exhibition name...too many choices. Stay Tuned!
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TOMATOES
It has been, and still is, a fantastic tomato season here in South Australia. We've been making 5kg batches with our own tomatoes every week of our tried and true Olive's Tomato Sauce
Our friend Nina Parnell, visiting from Canberra, offered a Sicilian version that we just love. Add chillies, anchovies and capers and basil leaves at the last minute...delicious! We've added quantities to our Olive's Tomato Sauce recipe use the link above. Makes a fab Puttanesca sauce with a few quick additions also included in the recipe update. We have also gone back to blanching and peeling tomatoes since Zyliss dumped their fabulous red tomato peeler because we have not found an alternative.
The most important thing to remember when preserving anything is the preparation of your containers. If you're a newbie or if you have had problems in the past please read our preserving bible. If you put in the love and stump up the cost you want to make sure you get to use it.
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Suggestion for re-phrasing: Regarding the price of a single zucchini flower in a restaurant, bite your tongue. At 30% ingredient cost, which is terrible for a restaurant, plus the considerable processing work at fair hourly rates, restaurants cannot charge less than $9.70 per flower. So if you want to eat them stump up and shut up it. It is time that restaurants started passing on the 40% plus increases in produce over the last three years.
Anyone who goes shopping for food and other household items must surely be feeling it and restaurants too afraid to pass the increases on are heading for annihilation.
Not everyone is as lucky as those of us who can go out into the garden and take twenty zucchini and pumpkin flowers back into the kitchen.
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READING NOW...and reading next
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Bulldozed: Scott Morrison's Fall and Anthony Albanese's Rise
Niki Savva
ISBN (13):9781922585981
published by Scribe
If you have an interest in politics Savva's trilogy is compulsory reading. All published by Scribe, Plots and Prayers was terrifying enough but Bulldozed offers an insight that only such an accomplished and respected political journalist as Niki Savva would be able to research and report without fear or favour. I have not read The Road To Ruin; How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government but it's on my list.
IN PRAISE OF NIKI SAVVA
"Niki Savva
Niki Savva is one of the most senior correspondents in the Canberra Press Gallery. She was twice political correspondent for The Australian, and headed up the Canberra bureaus of both The Herald Sun and The Age. When family tragedy forced a career change, she became Peter Costello’s press secretary for six years and was then on John Howard’s staff for three. Her work has brought her into intimate contact with Australia’s major political players for more than 40 years. She is a regular columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, and often appears on ABC TV’s Insiders."
IN PRAISE OF BULLDOZED
"Savva’s great skill as a journalist combines with sharp commentary and her vast experience to deliver a powerful analytical coda to Morrison’s pointless premiership … A key strength of Bulldozed is the way Savva convinces the key players to talk, including some of those closest to Morrison … Bulldozed will not be the last word on Morrison’s dismal premiership, but it will surely influence future accounts according to the degree to which their authors concur or disagree with Savva. It is a superb insight into a government in terminal moral decline, a regime with little purpose other than the burning career aspirations of its members."
MARK KENNY, AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW
As a side note we love the reviews in the ABR so succinct and so erudite, if you're not a subscriber you should be subscribe
"The gripping inside story of how Scott Morrison went from miracle man to roadkill. Savva portrays a fatally flawed leader who trashed his government, his party, and his legacy."
LAURIE OAKES
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SENSATIONAL
A New Story of Our Senses
et to be read 'Sensational' sounds fascinating, especially so to anyone whose profession requires sensory ability – chef, winemaker, sommelier. Ashley Ward was interviewed Friday 24 February on Philip Adam's Radio National Late Night Live. Such a fascinating interview I was immediately compelled to get a copy.
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RESTAURANT REVIEW ..............The Vietnam
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A machine, a 34-year-old machine that just keeps pumping. Make sure you book - they are always packed...for full review click here
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EATEN AT BUT NOT REVIEWED
Our reviewing policy right from the very early days of writing restaurant guides has been not to publish negative reviews, however, we feel it is fair to our followers to indicate where we have eaten and have chosen not to review.
Salopian Inn, McLaren Vale..no comment!
Moon Bear Dumpling, Tapleys Hill Road....had dumplings and a soup didn't rock my boat; didn't have the bao, a modern interpretation looked interesting might be worth further investigation.
Anchovy Bandit, Prospect Road...potato scallops were delicious, but pizzas were average and FFS they had run out of anchovies.
Dolly...great service from Taren and Jimmy from Banff [pearls and heart-shaped tat] whom we got to know at Lune, but too soon for food review, not as good as Lune. We want to take a look at the one and only Driller Jet Amrstong on location [might be fun]!! Also doesn't fall into our criteria for review as it hasn't been open for three months and we need to work out what 'disco' actually means. Given that we are the generation that danced on bars in the wee hours after work - might be fun to have a revival!!!
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previous newsletters
newsletter 1 January 2023
next newsletter March 2023
RESTAURANT REVIEWS
[in the main glowing with some good advice as to how to go about it!]
Ding Hao
Mezi-Mazi
NEW ORLEANS
Our friends Mary and Greg Sonnier from Gabrielle Restaurant give us the up-to-the-minute low down on dining out and having fun in New Orleans
OYSTERS
The start of the South Australian oyster season...recipes and where to buy
FIGS
Where to pick and dozens of tried and true recipes both savoury and sweet
COFFEE
D'Angelo Coffee where the obsessed coffee lovers live!
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IT'S EXPENSIVE, BUT IT'S AMAZING
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NEUTROG are working on advanced soil biologics and Popul8 is the latest product to be released by them...it is incredible. Yes it's expensive, but it's worth every cent. To this, we add the WHOFLUNGDUNG [terrible name] but also so, so good.
Don't believe me, just look at my gardenia after the last week of five days with over 35C temperatures...and just in case you'd like to know this one came from The Conservatory Garden and Home where quality plants are to be found. Two years chez moi plenty of time to kill it!
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