newsletter seven December 2008
Welcome to our December newsletter.
A recent simple new hard drive with a cloned transfer from the old hard drive proved something of a disaster when the clone proved to be faulty. If you have unsubscribed and receive this newsletter, we apologise as back–up was older than we expected — click here to unsubscribe Equally if you hear of anyone complaining they haven't received the newsletter please ask them to subscribe again
COOKS’ CLUB news
It has become clear that a January class is not a popular choice and due to demand we have moved the Ice Cream and Sorbets class to Sunday February 8, 2009 – Ice Creams and Sorbets booking form which is followed by our first Thermomix class Sunday February 22, 2009 – Thermomix booking form. Classes are a maximum of fifteen people. We also accommodate private or corporate classes on request.
We’ve put together our top 20 for South Australia. A diverse little list from the maximum spend to a very small spend, but they are places we trust and love for their unfaltering passion for the craft of food and wine — get the list
The good news is we start food in January 09 where we will return to drawing Australia’s best producers to your attention and backing the information up with recipes that are both kitchen tested and achievable (if you are already a pretty good cook). There are plenty of great books for beginners but it is not where our cooking is. The one thing we can promise is there will be absolutely no dumbing down; if that’s what you want buy your local/national paper! How we long for the complexities of the recipes of Diane Holuigue or the essays of Gay Bilson those reasons we purchased the Australian in its early days.
A couple of days in Sydney and just two restaurants and a visit to their wonderful fish market, followed by a fair amount of cooking. Fish Face and high tea at the Victoria Room lived up to everything they promised and both will be fully reviewed in January 2009 as we start to expand Sydney into full reviews. We just loves the sicko Christmas tree at the Victoria Room decorated with mass Barby dolls in various ambitious positions including a Christmas light in one’s knickers and not a Ken in sight to take advantage of their adventurous positions. Twisted sickos we just loved it!
Anyone who works in a restaurant or in the hospitality industry has mixed feelings about the joys of Christmas but we would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a fab 2009.

next month January 2009
Our first full reviews for Sydney from the left the Victoria Room, Fish Face and Bodega and of course our first food.

so much for sharing not a single email but we are still looking for commercial quantities of Iota Carrageen, Ultra Tex3 and Pure–Cote B790 please email us.

Last month’s newsletter packed with some great books to give (or keep for yourself) for the holiday season — click here

restaurant reviewing We listened with interest to the December 3, Radio National By Design Program in conversation a discussion between the presenter Alan Saunders and Joanna Saville, editor of the Sydney Good Food Guide about restaurant reviewing. The Radio National link above will take you to the pod cast. Having experienced the restaurant review from all sides, the kitchen as chef/restaurateur and now most often with Galaxy Guides from the reviewers side, for what its worth these are my conclusions. In many ways the known restaurant reviewer is far more terrifying than the unknown. Inevitably the soufflé fails to rise, the waiter forgets to order a course, the wine is corked and the sommelier forgets to taste it. Having worked for a company for many years that insisted on VIP dockets in the end I stood my ground and successfully banned them winning my case on the grounds that every customer is a VIP. Not entirely true of course! Staff (and management) usually rank customers by how often they come to a restaurant, how polite (or how much fun) they are, how much they enjoy the experience and very often by how much they tip. Big tippers invariably get the best seats and the best service and tables when there are none. From the kitchen side you see many amazing things like staff training in Asia with multitudinous photographs tacked to the kitchen door with faces to remember and strict staff training to ensure that you do. Princess so and so, consul general, premier so and so in some instances a daunting array of hundreds of people (including international food and wine journalists) that key staff is trained to identify and ensure their superior experience. Most senior restaurant management in my home city of Adelaide would recognise me in a restaurant context, yet reviewing on a Monday night often the chef and manager/owner’s night off it is amazing how invisible it is possible to be. One of the hardest things to come to terms with when you change sides (so to speak) is that as a chef I view a restaurant entirely differently to the general public and have had to change not only my tone, but also my expectations. Whilst chefs of course enjoy the complete dining experience most would enjoy a meal seated it in the toilet if the food was spectacular. The general public has a very different set of standards. When working for a large company that insisted on placing those insidious customer feed back forms in every bill, it was astonishing to find that the biggest complaint was they hadn’t been greeted properly on arrival. In my old age I have come relish filling them out and figure they deserve my wisdom if they are silly enough to ask for it! The restaurant reviewer has the responsibility to observe many things, cleanliness, toilets, accoutrements, value for money and especially if they get preferential treatment. Value for money does not mean cheap and frequently nasty; we think that Vue de Monde is incredible value for money. It takes vast experience and knowledge of food and cooking, which Saville indisputably has, to write about food with authority. As a chef and former restaurateur and currently practicing industry consultant and occasional chef I believe it is possible to tell the difference between a bad night and a bad restaurant. What bothers me most about restaurant reviewing is that all too frequently they are written by authors without the capacity or knowledge to understand either. Our policy has been if a restaurant is not worth going to we don’t write about it, however it is inevitably those establishments that most aggressively seek reviews. Some weeks with three restaurants already visited and still no review there is the temptation to publish a monthly list visited but not reviewed. We have the strong suspicion that a list might be of more use to our followers than our published reviews. At least they would know where not to go! Having opened a number of establishments as a hands–on chef consultant, we have also chosen not to review a new establishment, except in very rare circumstances where we are assured of immediate quality, before it has been open for three months. Some of my worst and most haunting memories in a kitchen have been during the first week of operation. Anyone who thinks they can deliver their full potential in their first month without significant pre–opening training of the complete staff for about a month before they open is living in lala land. With the exception of international hotels very few restaurants have the financial capacity to invest in significant pre–opening staff training and we would say dining at a new restaurant you have to accept you are taking a chance. Sometimes when despairing about geting it right, I have often been amused by rereading this wonderful essay from the American Magazine SAVEUR about Roy Andries de Groot, a British born restaurant reviewer, working out of America in the 70s who applied very interesting twists to his reviewing policy and was in fact blind (literally). The article is linked below for your amusement we admire his pluck! AO   Roy Andries de Groot page one and page two if you're looking for a great food and wine web site we think SAVEUR is one of the best

the restaurant review prompted after listening to a Radio National in design conversation between presenter Alan Saunders and editor of the Sydney good Food Guide the wonderful Joanna Saville you might like to read our observations

Restaurants
We’ve saved our first Sydney reviews for January but we’ve been back to Cos right in the city of Adelaide to find it ticking along very nicely after eighteen months since our last visit read their new review

New to us at least Spice Bar just off the beach at Port Noarlunga and we think quite a find. Great small wine list with some really interesting (and good) McLaren Vale wines, intelligent interesting mainly Asian focused cooking not given to shock without substance and really good service. All of this, but Spice Bar is the type of place where you could come from the beach in your daggy sandy thongs and a towel wrapped around you and they’d be unlikely to notice and dogs are welcome outside. Given that we hate rules we love Spice Bar
read their full review

Gluten and wheat free a cookbook where the recipes actually work, in fact they work so well it is hard to tell the difference
go to the details

food in January 09

batty the prickly pear is a pest in Australia with an equated nuisance value that comes close to the blackberry. We are here to do our bit to keep it under control by making it fashionable. A great Mexican dish with a fabulous chocolate mole sauce and a Persian prickly pear sorbet with crystalised rose petals and pistachio.

stoned since when does stone fruit shrivel, go mouldy and is still hard as a rock? What is the stone fruit industry doing to the fruit they are expecting us to buy? Apart from the fact that anyone with a backyard or a street frontage or a community garden should be planting heritage stone fruit trees, we want to know why they think we are going to continue to pay good money for this crap!

mango the end of the Australian season, January sees mangoes at a price where one can not just afford to be indulgent, but put some down for later in the year. We’ve got a lot of great recipes, but our Mexican Mango, lime and chilli sorbet with fresh mango and glacé chillies is a particular favourite, as is our terrific Indian Salted Mango chilli and lime pickle and a great sponge layered with mango bavarian.

food and wine and hospitality web sites and html newsletters designed by people with an association with the hospitality industry — www.annoliver.com

ann oliver’s
cooks’ club
www.annoliver.com

Southern Rocklobster
One area of my work that I enjoy enormously is doing recipe development and the html newsletter chef news for Southern Rocklobster Limited. One their web site you will find complete details for storage and preparation in their
technique section
and their are dozens of great kitchen tested recipes
that range from dishes as simple as a wonderful sashimi with wasabi mayonnaise to soufflés to more complex dishes. Southern Rocklobster Limited guarantees tagged clean and green lobsters that are traceable from boat to restaurant door.

our holiday reading It may seem odd that Jim Smith lives in Adelaide and yet is a highly regarded and often published world Champagne expert and it is his passion for the bubble that has been the inspiration for his latest book Bubbles, Bottles and Colonial Bastards A short history of sparkling wine in Australia 1840 – 1990. Bound to be a good read, the book is published by James S. Smith and Associates, Deluxe P/B $39.95. We’ve always had a fascination for the women of the great French Champagne houses. The Widow Clicquot written by Tilar J. Mazzeo, a cultural Historian promised another fascinating read. Published by Collins, P/B $33.00. Despite the beautiful photographs Frozen Desserts is more a textbook than cookbook and appears to cover all manner of ice cream techniques from old–style to the most modern using natural and chemical emulsifiers and stabilisers. An interesting and educational read fro the professional and obsessed cook. Written by Francisco J. Migoya and published by The Culinary Institute of America this elegant and educational H/B sells for around $100.
	And, for our kitchen amusement (and probably frustration) we’ll be working our way through the absolutely brilliant Alinea from wünder kind Grant Achatz and his team.

 

The gluten free issue is becoming an increasing problem for restaurants. There are any number of recipes on line and we have found that many simply don’t work. Pamela Moriarty’s sharing sweet secrets gluten and wheat free has been a brilliant resource for us. To read the full review click on the cover.

Annual Shakespeare at Coriole
January 23 — 6.00 pm
$70 per person including a picnic hamper

Essential Theatre at Coriole has become one of the summer holiday events that we most look forward to. This year Shakespeare’s brilliant romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. One of Shakespeare’s most amusing plays this delightful romp will be brought to life by this enormously talented group. The gorgeous Coriole gardens have long created a perfect amphitheater for performances of all manner and it is the Essential Theatre’s seventh tour for summer Shakespeare at Coriole.
Coriole winery is noted for many things not the least of which is fabulous wine, olive oil and Woodside Cheesewrights. The Lloyd family have been tireless supporters of excellence and the arts and are amongst the most generous philanthropists in South Australia.
These events sell out quickly so don’t delay!

Pre–purchased tickets essential
Enquiries Amy or Rachael
telephone 08 8323 8305
email amy@coriole.com

We are happy to list special dinners in our newsletter, but reserve the right to refuse unsuitable events. AO

Toying with opening a business in Shanghai or Beijing
We know and trust these people to deliver their promise and all have essential market knowledge and between them cover all aspects.

Campbell Thompson, The Wine Republic
David Laris, Laris Creates
Simon Tan, The Wine Centre
Walter Zahner, walternative

European truffles are available from Marco Martinelli, alias Adelaide’s Mushroom Man click here for price details, restaurant wholesale enquiries call 0400 189 303 (Australia)

our favourite truffle books
click on the cover to go to the review

truffle storage
So, you’ve bought a whopping great truffle and now you’re wondering how to keep it in the best condition. Rice forget it! Freeze it, forget it! we have conducted a number of trials and have found the very best way to keep our truffles is to bury them in clarified lightly salted butter and vac them. They keep for months in perfect condition and texture.

We support our suppliers for their integrity. We need them to care as much as we do, it makes the food we cook better. When you buy your ham this Christmas support your local producers and, where ever you are buy local