Ten months after I last donned my patissier gear and squeezed out a few hundred macarons, I returned to the piping bags for a brief baking blitz. My back hurt for two weeks. So then I made a cake instead.
The flexible macaron Top 20 and why I'm off it
Many people have asked me why I'm not participating in the Melbourne Macaron competition, I've decided I need to write an explanation of my perspective. It's about rules and fees and up-front transparency.
Short and sweet: it seems Adriano Zumbo will be a Melbourne fixture
The Age newspaper this morning mentioned in it's local gossip column that Sydney pâtissier and Masterchef regular Adriano Zumbo is on his way to having a presence in Melbourne. I wonder if that explains his increasingly frequent visits!
Could this mean tastier times to come in Melbourne?
Macarons at Liaison café
For those of you who like my macarons, click here to read more about what's happening at Liaison café in Melbourne.
TASTY PRESERVES
The harangued consumer can't navigate SOLE food, ethical eating and the 'simplicity' of cooking

The cauldron of ethical, responsible eating has been bubbling away for a while. Advocates of various issues throw in their own chunk of passion while others try to package this pot au feu in a pastry case,...
Read more Sat 19 Jul, 2008Melbourne's not so great macarons, plus rubbish in Epicure

Regular readers of these pages are very familiar with my obsession with Parisian macarons. Although I've recounted my baking traumas and occasional joys, described in considerable detail ways of making macarons and the hazards to...
Read more Tue 17 Jun, 2008Beef short ribs cause ecstacy

Last year I came across a recipe for Korean-style oven-browned short ribs in one of my favourite meat books. It sounded very tasty, braising tasty beef with ginger, garlic and other flavourings to produce something deeply delicious. The outcome was nothing short of heaven. Fatty heaven, but...
Read more Mon 10 May, 2010Review: Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser
Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, published in 2001, is a well researched, persuasive and at times shocking work describing the excesses of big business and the broad spectrum of compromises that make modern, cheap fast-food lifestyles...
Read more Sun 25 Mar, 2007Canelés de Bordeaux (or: my love of copper moulds)

I feel myself drawn inexorably to baking projects that have no end, just a rocky path of discoveries, flops, experiments, successes, flops... Not content with macarons and pasteis de nata to add girth and grey hairs to my existence, I started playing with canelés de Bordeaux...
Read more Fri 25 Dec, 2009
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