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Toffee Tomatoes: June 2010
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Tuesday, June 15, 2010. THE KING AND I. Durian, known as the 'king of fruits' in south-east Asia has, to put it mildly, a distinctive odour. ‘Dis-STINK-tive’ would be more appropriate, many might say. 8220;How can you put something that smells so bad in your mouth. 8221; a non-durian lover once asked me. 8220;Well, what about washed rind cheese? 8221;, I countered. 8220;Or cooked cauliflower. Or. Durian has some pluses though. It makes up for its ugly look – picture a pineapple on a really. We drive on, ...
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Toffee Tomatoes: April 2011
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011. Language difficulties can prove at best, a problem when ordering from a menu in other countries. At worst, it can be dangerous, frightening or nauseating. On one trip we confidently ordered from a French menu. Cervelles d’agneau. We knew that agneau. Was lamb, so how bad could a cut of lamb be? When the fried brains. Arrived, my partner blanched. He’s not an offal-eater. Luckily I am, so we switched. But I was the unlucky one in France (why is it always France we get caught?
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Toffee Tomatoes: September 2011
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Friday, September 23, 2011. I have waited until now – just in case you thought this blog was going to be all about toffee – to mention another savoury toffee dish I have encountered on my travels. Actually China is very fond of toffee. We saw beautiful glass-like shards enclosing pieces of fruit in the justly famous. Geographers, if you are correcting me here and saying that Xiahe is not in Tibet, you are right … and wrong. The plateau extends far beyond the recently-drawn borders of modern Tib...Http:/ ...
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Toffee Tomatoes: June 2012
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Monday, June 11, 2012. A few years ago, I travelled to Korea for a very unusual festival. Well, it was unusual to me, but for millions of Koreans in their own country and overseas, it was celebrating perhaps the most important part of their menu. Kimchi. If they know nothing else about Korean cuisine, most people will have heard of kimchi. That fiery, cabbage-y condiment which appears at every meal. And I mean EVERY - breakfast included. Although the version most people know involves rubbing a crimson sp...
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Toffee Tomatoes: Another thyme, please!
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Friday, November 25, 2011. Another thyme, please! My friend Bechora is one chef I absolutely trust my palate and my plate to, so when he brought me a herb from his garden, I was interested. 8220;Do you know this one? 8221; he asked. Well, it looked a little like rosemary, but the leaves were too soft. It smelled faintly of …. of what? I hesitated and he helped me out. 8220;It is thyme. Lebanese thyme.”. Bechora and his wife Sybil run Deeb’s Kitchen. Back home in Sydney I felt I wanted to continue my R...
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Toffee Tomatoes: January 2011
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Sunday, January 2, 2011. Once, long ago, I was a vegetarian. Now I define myself simply as a ‘squeamish omnivore’. To explain – I have never seen the Sardinian cheese meant to be consumed maggots and all, and I don’t know how I would fare with that. But washed rind cheese is fine with me, and while we are onto smelly food, so is durian that love-it hate-it fruit of south east Asia, every bit as ugly to look at as some people say it tastes. Vic was adamant I should taste a grilled grub and I gave in when ...
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Toffee Tomatoes: August 2010
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Saturday, August 14, 2010. 8220;Will you be able to keep what you find? That’s the question everyone asks when I tell them we are going on a truffle hunt. Of course it’s not that sort of a ‘hunt’, I explain. Ex-Customs sniffer dogs do the actual searching, and anyway at around $2000 or so a kilogram, truffles are far too valuable for tourists like us to simply scavenge. Black beauties from Truffles Australis. These are the winter black truffles ( Tuber melanosporum. In Australia are also currently trying...
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Toffee Tomatoes: September 2010
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Thursday, September 30, 2010. AS BLACK AS SALT. How would you reply if you were asked “now, would you like white pepper and black salt with that? Sounds a little Heston Blumenthal doesn’t it? Until recently I would have laughed at that question. But recently I bought a small packet of black, yes black. Salt – a little cellophane bag of lovely flakes as black as coal. But I had never seen jet black salt before. A little research in a book I have, The Salt Book. Consider these recent menu items and picture...
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Toffee Tomatoes: November 2010
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Friday, November 19, 2010. When most of us think about ham we immediately know where it comes from. Right? 8216;Ham is a process,’ I am told by Glenn Martin at the recent Restaurant 10 Exhibition at Moore Park, Sydney. ‘Almost any meat can become “ham”.’. Martin works with Seven Hills Tallarook, a Victorian breeder of Australian Boer goats and a purveyor of goat meat, and he should know. I tasted the Seven Hills chorizo sausage, one of the range of smallgoods supplied by this firm and it was really good.
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