I’ll never forget the first time I saw octopuses hanging out to dry. They were strung along a pole outside a taverna on the Greek island of Spetses – and I walked slap-bang into them! Large and knobbly with long dangling tentacles, they were hard to miss and my exclamations of surprise and horror greatly [...]
It wasn’t until I lived in Italy that I realised the value of having my own pot of basil. I’d gone to Perugia to study the language and was living with a typical Italian family. Lunch was the main meal of the day during that long hot summer (followed by a siesta) and a substantial [...]
Sydney’s Chinatown offers something for every budget and every tastebud. At the bustling Dixon House Food Court, you’ll find a range of reasonably priced Asian dishes, representing the cuisines of northern China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Here, the most popular dish is the sizzling beef, ginger and shallot hot plate for $8.50, also [...]
On a recent visit to the Top End, I stumbled across Ken’s Crepe stall at the Mindil Beach Markets in Darwin. Scott Harris and Heather Pope-Daley were busy ladling out batter onto large French non-stick crepe-makers, rounding them out with a wooden swizzle stick and enclosing a wide variety of fillings.
A long queue had formed [...]
Potent, irresistible and ever so smooth. You might think I’m talking about one of the world’s legendary womanisers, and why not? Indeed, the 18th century Casanova had a penchant for chocolate. Apparently he consumed gallons of the liquid stuff and is alleged to have served it in much the same way that today’s playboys hand [...]
Here’s a curious fact: the banana is actually not a fruit at all, but really a giant broad-leaved herb!
Now grown throughout the world, it is believed to be one of the first plants gathered and cultivated by humans.
Edible bananas originated in south-east Asia in the region stretching from New Guinea to India and were carried [...]
It’s the road less taken by visitors to the Hunter Valley. Most turn left into Broke Road and head unblinkingly for Pokolbin once they exit Cessnock, never thinking to make a right turn into the lesser known Lovedale Road.
Little do they realise how much they miss, for this less built-up part of the valley boasts [...]
Early morning near Uki in northern New South Wales. A thick fog surrounds our chalet. All we can see through the long glass doors are the tops of the eucalypts on the slope below.
And all we can hear are whip birds.
It feels ethereal, as though we’re floating among the clouds a long long way from [...]
When Allison and Stephen Arnott first visited Morpeth near the Hunter Valley seven years ago, they were overcome by a sense of destiny.
“We were living in Glebe at the time and had just had our first child,” says Allison.
“One weekend we took a short break to Morpeth to find out more about where Stephen’s [...]
Lisa Wilkinson, mother of three, and sparkling compere of the TODAY show recently hosted a segment with me called Cooking with Kids. Her eldest son, Jake, came to one of my classes a few years ago and loved it. Hubbie Peter Fitzsimons is a dab hand in the kitchen and can often be found cooking [...]
