30 September, 2016

New Bali, Beyond Bali

We were lucky to fly out of Bali on Monday.  If it had been Tuesday, we’d have been stranded along with hundreds of others (including many Aussie kids on school holidays) at Ngurah Rai International Airport south of the capital, Denpasar. Mt Rinjani, situated on the nearby island of Lombok, had blown its top and … Continue reading →
26 June, 2016

Gaziantep: The Soul of Turkish Food

The long table is set for breakfast. There are crinkly black olives, round brown olives, squares of fetta cheese, tomato wedges, cucumber crescents, creamy natural yoghurt, muscatels and almonds, soft white bread rolls, bowls of apricot nectar and honey, and a çaydanlık (or Turkish double teapot, similar to a samovar). Lightly scrambled eggs are served separately … Continue reading →
18 June, 2016

Bulgur: the first convenience food

On a recent trip to Gaziantep, a bustling, vibrant city of 1.8 million people in south-eastern Turkey, I made some astonishing discoveries. I’d been invited to Gaziantep for the city’s very first Bulgur Festival, a celebration to highlight the city’s recent addition to UNESCO’ s Creative Cities Network for gastronomy. Described by locals as “yellow … Continue reading →
14 May, 2016

Carol SelvaRajah on Dining with Dragons

I was running a little late for my appointment with Carol SelvaRajah, one of Australia’s leading exponents of Nonya and Malaysian cooking. When I arrived, she was on the phone to her brother, Dr Abel Arumugam, in Malaysia. She opened the front door, waving me in, while continuing with the instructions for chicken rendang. “After … Continue reading →