Lauraine’s blog
28 October 2010
As President of the NZ Guild of Food Writers, I get to do interesting work and meet many lovely people. So it was in the true spirit of generosity that I agreed to edit 'Comfort; Food for Sharing' a gorgeous book which is due on sale next week on November 5.
The nicest thing any one can do is cook for someone who needs help and support in difficult times. The recipes in “Comfort’, whether they are baked goodies, simple soups or fabulous family feasts, have been specially chosen so that they can be prepared ahead, are easily transportable and are totally delicious. And with some of the country’s most well loved food writers contributing their best recipes, this is a book every household will want to cook from every night.
“Comfort” is about generosity. The generosity of the food writers who shared their favourite recipes, the photographer and food stylists who created the stunning photos, the kindly donation of the ingredients for the recipes, and most importantly the lovely food that can be cooked and carried to friends and family in need of help and support. The NZ Guild of Food Writers is proud to have supported the Starship Foundation in this wonderful project. And I can guarantee every recipe will be truly appreciated.
Please look for it, ask for it and make sure you buy at least a couple of copies.
Published by Random House $45 rrp in good bookstores everywhere, or contact me if you cannot find it.
21 October 2010
I had eight sensational days in Paris. Here’s what I loved.
Hotel Lenox, 9 rue de l’Université, 7eme T 0033 1 42 96 10 95
This little hotel reeks of everything Parisien. Winding staircase, sloping floors, breakfast in a cave in the basement, and is situated in a dream position equidistant from St Germain Metro and rue de Seine. Helpful staff and with 3 stars, not too expensive.
Fish, 69 rue de Seine 6eme T 0033 1 43 54 34 69
Run by a Kiwi who has lived in Paris since the 70s, this cute little bistro specialises in fish but also serves rabbit, steak and other
Parisien specialities. A fab wine list and you can sit at the bar and watch the action in the street. Don’t miss the basil infused pannacotta to finish your meal.
Cosi, 54 rue De Seine, open from noon till late. The constant queue shows this is a real treasure. The pizza oven cooks fabulous bread continuously and you can choose between imaginative sandwiches, or eat the thing that’s really hard to find in Paris: a large bowl of fresh and delicious salad. Wine by the glass and a bowl of apple crumble makes this the best value casual eating in Paris when you’re over all that rich French food!
Macarons. Still the hot item in Paris. (Thank goodness the French did not take to cupcakes.) These delicate crunchy flavoursome discs with a gooey filling come in an amazingly innovative array of flavours and aromas. The best can be found at:
Pierre Hermé, 72 rue Bonaparte 6eme (and at other locations.)
Laduree, 21 rue Bonaparte 6eme (also at other locations.) Don’t miss Laduree's green apple macaron. A total disaster for me as our hotel was close by and it was very hard to pass by without stopping.
Bread. When I cooked at the British Embassy in the 70s I walked to the nearby boulangerie twice a day for warm baguettes for our meals, and I’d forgotten how good a good baguette can be. The best breads I found were:
Boulangerie Kayser, 18 rue de Bac 7eme for fabulous baguettes.
Boulangerie Poilâne, 8 rue de Cherche Midi 6eme for their classic chewy sourdough.
Paul, a chain of bakeries found in many locations has excellent bread but totally useless service if you want to have coffee, tea and breakfast or cakes there.
Huîtrerie Régis, 3 rue de Montfaucon 6eme T 0033 1 44 41 10 07
Fresh briny oysters, a pile of bread, fresh butter and glass of chilled Sancerre. Heaven for lunch, dinner or a snack between meals. Tiny and intimate, but Régis specialises in oysters so you won’t find him open unless there’s an ‘r’ in the month. (pic above)
Restaurant Jadis, 208 rue de la croix Nivert 15eme, T 0033 1 45 57 73 20
The corner bistro everyone dreams of finding. A rising star chef, Guillaume Delage, who has worked with Michel Bras and Pierre Gagnaire, food that is traditional with a simple twist, a great little wine list and decidedly suburban yet sophisticated and friendly. A tomato salad here made with a heap of heritage tomatoes, and some creamy fresh burrata was worth the detour!
Helène Darroze, 4 rue d’Assas 6eme, T 0033 1 42 22 00 11
Sublime food in this eponymously named two Michelin starred restaurant owned by a woman chef from the South West (no easy feat in the male dominated French culinary hierarchy.) Start with a gift from the kitchen: at-the table-thinly-sliced cured ham produced from prized black pigs and then launch into a stunning modern South Western set menu at lunch and dinner. Make sure to have the south western cheeses and If you’d rather there’s a tapas style menu downstairs. But why pass up the chance of such stylish food?
Le Villaret, 13 rue Ternaux, 11eme, T 0033 1 43 57 75 56
Another lovely intimate suburban restaurant with true French style food including offal dishes beautifully cooked, rare duck and steak cooked bleu or rare. Cosily crammed but a great if pricey wine list.
Brasserie Bofinger, 5 rue de la Bastille, 4eme T 0033 1 42 72 87 82
No visit to Paris would be complete for me without a meal at a traditional brasserie. The food may not knock your socks off, but the atmosphere, the attention from the waiters, the belle époque décor and the deliciously fresh oysters opened kerbside make this a true Parisien experience. I had a lobster salad with a huge pile of crunchy green French beans, and the platter of choucroute garni with duck, sausages and other meats was more suited to a giant. We organised a surprise birthday for a friend who did not even know we were in Paris and the waiters could not have been nicer.
And if you’re looking for something different to do than stand in endless queues for the museums, check out the classical music concerts in Paris’ oldest church St Julien Le Pauvre, or in the amazing Ste Chapelle in the Palais du Justice, which is renowned as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Or meander through the tightly packed book shelves at Shakespeare and Co on the Quai opposite Notre Dame, or take the Metro to Pierre La Chaise cemetery where we paid homage to Chopin at his grave, on his 200th birthday.
19 October 2010
I have been long time fan of Darina Allen. I first met this passionate Irish cookbook author and cooking school owner on a culinary trip to Oaxaca in 1993 where I was impressed with her good sense and total obsession with great fresh food and thought I would love to visit her and see her life’s work in Ireland. Over the years we’ve met up again at various food events in America and with her husband Tim, she visited us at Omaha a few years ago. I was even more impressed when she spent over five hours at the Saturday Matakana Farmers Market and learned the stories of every farmer and food producer.
So on our recent trip to Europe I finally, after 18 years of wishing, got to visit Ballymaloe Cookery School and Ballymaloe House . Our short Ryanair flight from Gatwick took us to Cork where we picked up a dinky rental car but then took 2 hours to drive the ’40 minute’ trip to Ballymaloe due to a complete snarl up on the local motorway. As an Aucklander I felt right at home!
Everything about our visit was impressive and gorgeous and even better than I imagined. Darina Allen first arrived at Ballymaloe House as a young student cook to work in the hotel, a beautiful traditional country house hotel with picture book grounds. She stayed, married owner Myrtle Allen’s son Tim, and together over the past forty years they have created a very fine cooking school on the neighbouring farm. The Allens are totally committed to organic produce, and their extensive gardens provide not only the school, but also the value added produce sold at their stall at the local weekly farmers market in the nearby town of Middleton.
Tim showed us around the farm and it seemed like we were walking for hours passing through fields of fresh vegetables and herbs growing outdoors, huge glasshouses of vegetables, by flocks of fine poultry that lay dozens of eggs daily and a tame family cow. Tim had recently made his first batches of cheese in the little dairy he’s built on the farm, and we were privileged to be the very first to taste this lovely farmhouse style tangy delicious cheese at splendid dinner with the family our first evening. Joy!
The gardens were worth the trip alone. Tim manages the property, as well as keeping a firm hand on the administrative side of the business. As well as the aforementioned veggies, there are large herb gardens all contained by neatly clipped buxus hedge, a wonderful maze that children can get lost in, extensive flowering borders complete with an inspired shell house that must have taken the shell artist months of work (Tim called it Darina’s folly)and lots of grassy meadows with wonderful old trees.
Students come from all over the planet to study. The mainstay of the school is the twelve week cookery course which gives everyone from beginners and home cooks through to professionals a thorough grounding in cookery. Graduates go on to open their own restaurants and cafés, and a Ballymaloe certificate is highly prized. I was astonished to see that almost all the 60 students can be housed on site in lovely little cottages while they study. They cook each morning, share the spoils from their work over a leisurely lunch and in the afternoon attend a demonstration by Darina, her brother Rory or Rachel Allen (Tim and Darina’s daughter –in-law and a world recognised star cook in her own right) where they learn the tips and skills that will provide the next day’s practical cookery session.
But that’s not all. Casual students can attend week long courses, or pick one day classes out from a programme that includes themed sessions and appearances by culinary stars. There’s a café, well stocked shop with cooking utensils, local foods and gorgeous culinary gifts. On Saturdays Darina’s youngest daughter Emily creates a pizza café at the school and locals flock to enjoy thin crisp crusted pizzas with the freshest of salads picked freshly from the garden.
The family working together ethic is strong here, and up the road at Ballymaloe House, Myrtle Allen, now in her eighties, runs the perfect country hotel with the sprightliness of someone half her age. Every detail is spot on; the reception rooms and bedrooms are charming, the gardens relaxing and a splendid table is offered of deliciously local country cooking at breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s hospitality in the true sense. Many of Myrtle’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are gainfully employed here or learn life skills on the property. Both are model businesses, providing employment for family, friends and many locals in a time where Ireland is depressed and suffering economic woes. I could have stayed forever!
17 October 2010
We just finished lunch. The orchard laid organic fresh eggs I had bought at Matakana Farmers’ Market inspired me to make simple omelets; salmon, onion, parsley and capers in my husband’s and Kaimai feta, parsley and fresh tomatoes in mine. Sound delicious? Mine was. But Murray’s was distinctly disappointing as I used the leftovers from some canned salmon he’d bought and opened the day before. It had a very artificial smoke aroma, and sure enough, the can was labelled “Added Smoke Flavour.” He didn’t like it but had not noticed this when he’d bought it. (The hot naturally smoked salmon I had purchased at the market would have been 1000% tastier and far better for him. Of course.)
So what is this obsession with added flavours, added preservatives, added stabilisers and all the other junk that comes with brand extension and the need for marketing managers to dream up new unnatural products to suck the consumer in? There’s even a competition running to find a new series of flavours for potato chips. As I saw on the web somewhere, “Imagine if you were the genius who dreamt up Lettuce and Liquorice potato chips for the next generation.” Personally I would dig a hole deeper than a Chilean mine and disappear forever if that was my idea! What ever happened to the concept that chips could actually taste of potato?
We live in a country with amazing fresh food, and no-one lives more than 20 kms from a farm. Even in the city our stores are filled with freshly grown, harvested and delivered produce. There’s absolutely no need to add junk to the food when the natural stuff is so fantastic.
What we need to do to avoid these intrusions to our diets is to wake up to our shopping habits. (I am presuming here that we all have basic cooking skills, which I know is a bit of a pipe dream.) Most of us, even when we are close to farms which are the source of our food, buy our supplies in a supermarket. Nothing wrong with that if we think about how to use a supermarket.
Supermarkets are arranged with all the fresh food a human could need stacked and stored on the perimeter. Vegetables and fruits, meat, poultry, dairy products, fish, delicatessen specialties and bread are all perishable. So the obvious place to service and keep this stock refreshed is not in the aisles but on the edges of the supermarket with its easier access, refrigeration and proximity to the storeroom.
So what goes on all those shelves in the aisles? Dry goods, household cleaning and health products, paper, processed food and drink, and all the foods that are shelf stable. In other words, this is where you find food that is not fresh and perishable, and despite “use by” dates, a lot of this stuff will last indefinitely due to the numerous additives and stabilisers added. If it can remain on the supermarket shelves without rotation and refrigeration, it could last in your cupboards and drawers at home.
To ensure fresh healthy eating, shoppers should think about doing the aisles only once a month. All that paper, cleaning goods, dry goods and supplies etc can be gathered up and stored at home. That done, a visit to the supermarket will mean whizzing around only the perimeter each week, gathering REAL food that’s fresh and healthy. Shopping will only take half the time or less, and impulse buying of the nasty shelf stable stuff won’t happen.
Imagine a house hold that does that. Lovely fresh meals every day, and no packaged and processed food with its possible threats to health and good nutrition. And forays to farmers markets, along with the new genre of urban fresh food stores like Nosh and Farro, will only prove to reinforce fresh healthy eating and provide even more lovely fresh artisan-inspired treats. Stay away from those aisles as much as you can!
15 October 2010
Here's a piece I recently wrote for the International Association of Culinary Professionals, most of whom think the Sydney Harbour Bridge crosses to NZ!!
When that great British navigator, Captain James Cook, sailed into a bay on the eastern coast of New Zealand in 1769, he discovered a lush land with surprisingly few native vegetables or fruits and no indigenous mammals. He also encountered extreme hostility and was involved in skirmishes that forced him to up-anchor and sail north in search of friendlier shores. The Maoris who inhabited that land ate a simple diet of seafood, birds, and roots and ferns. Their cooking methods did not include iron or pottery vessels but involved heating the stones of a large umu (underground oven) and steaming the food over these for a feast known as a hangi.
Visitors who arrive today in these same far flung shores on the world’s edge today are warmly welcomed, unlike Cook, and find a land offering an exciting array of fresh food. Pristine primary produce from the agricultural based economy accounts for more than 60% of New Zealand’s export income. The restaurant and café scene is sophisticated yet the primitive hangi of the Maori people lives on and is a unique expression of eating that intrigues visitors and locals alike.
I was asked to entertain a famously voracious food writer from Gourmet magazine more than 20 years ago, and so dug up my back yard to feed Mr Fred Ferretti and his food writer wife Eileen Yin Fei-Lo in the traditional manner. Members of the famous national All Blacks rugby team turned up to assist and even Mr Ferretti could not keep up with another local custom of the hangi; the consumption of dozens of bottles of locally brewed lager beer that calm anxiety as the Maori hosts wait, and wait, and wait some more for the right moment to open the underground feast of pork, lamb, chickens, cabbages, potatoes, and kumara, a unique sweet potato that is popular throughout the country. The flavours were pure; unadulterated by spices or herbs, as that’s the traditional way. Mr Ferretti was mightily impressed with the food and drink and wrote about the event in his Gourmet column. I, on the other hand, was singularly unimpressed that my lawn took two years to recover.
This year, the world’s king of fusion cuisine, the talented chef Peter Gordon re-invented the hangi for a large local fundraiser held on the Turangawaewae marae (the meeting place where New Zealand’s Maori king is domiciled), for the Rautakauri Music Therapy Centre. The New Zealand born and raised Gordon drew early attention to ‘fusion’ cuisine when he served knock-out dishes at a small Wellington restaurant, The Sugar Club in the mid-eighties. He audaciously mixed flavours and ingredients from the Pacific Rim countries of Asia, the Americas and the South Pacific Islands and drew worldwide acclaim for his innovative cuisine. He then moved to London and from the base of his restaurant Providores and the Tapa Room in Marylebone, his influence extends to menus in Istanbul (changa and musdechanga restaurants), NYC (Public Restaurant), Auckland (dine with Peter Gordon, Sky City) and everywhere else his kitchen disciples have gone.
650 guests were treated to Gordon’s gourmet hangi. Pity that Mr Ferretti did not return, as the feast include marinated pork loin and stuffed pork belly, marinated chicken, whole baby lamb and marinated beef. Gordon explained this was a traditionally cooked hangi with an injection of flavours. “All the dishes were devised to add a twist to the usual hangi fare. I simply added a fusion approach using local ingredients such as coconut, curry juice, walnuts, apple and sage, pikopiko (local fern fronds) and some Asian spicing as well. It was very tasty, I can assure you. ”
It has taken almost 200 years to modernise this traditional fare. Until the last couple of decades, the majority of immigrants who settled in New Zealand were of British stock. About 6000 Chinese turned up in the 19th century gold rush, some stayed on to become the backbone of the early horticultural industry and there were also Dalmatian gum diggers who were the forerunners of New Zealand’s now burgeoning and successful wine industry. The sad news for New Zealand cuisine which developed through this time was the country missed out on the vibrant sunny influences of Italian, Greek and other Mediterranean cuisines that underpinned the evolving food cultures of Australia and the American continent.
The colonial women were cheerful yet plain cooks and their greatest legacy has been the ubiquitous roast leg of lamb, which was the mainstay of the family diet for decades. They also helped New Zealand to become a nation of home bakers, and today the constant urge to make cakes, biscuits and small sweet things harks back to the very colonial high teas that the early British settlers indulged in. Cook books that offer lovely baking recipes inevitably top the nation’s best selling non-fiction list every month.
There’s a raft of interesting home grown cookies and cakes that can claim to be original , although occasionally there’s a bit of a ruckus as rivalry between Australia, the larger country a few hours’ flight west of New Zealand and the Kiwis (as New Zealanders are known) is fierce. Anzac biscuits, afghans, hokey pokey biscuits, Louise cake, and pavlova are all claimed by New Zealand cooks and recorded in the community cookbooks of the early twentieth century.
Pavlova is the most fascinating. A few years back the ‘Pavlova Wars’ broke out when Helen Leach, an anthropology professor at the University of Otago presented research to prove the earliest pavlova, a frothy egg white and sugar concoction, was made by a New Zealand housewife in the mid 1920s. The Australians had always claimed it was theirs, an invention of Perth chef Bert Sachse who presented such a dessert to ballerina Anna Pavlova in the 1930s. All hell broke loose in the press! I tasted a little of this friction last year, as a speaker at the Ubud Literary Festival in Bali, when I was asked to submit a recipe that was representative of my home country. Of course I sent the pavlova, not knowing that the largest part of the audience at the festival would be Australians. There were jeers and boos when I got up to speak about ‘my’ dish at a dinner, although the Aussies were quickly and effectively subdued when I quoted Professor Leach’s excellent research. And for the rest of that week I was known as the ‘Pavlova lady.’
New Zealand’s population, now around four million, has exploded in more recent times with immigration from the Polynesian islands and Asia. It’s an attractive destination for both starting a new life and for tourism. No-one in New Zealand lives more than 20 kilometres from a farm, and there’s a vineyard within two hours’ drive of every town and city. So New Zealanders are blessed with an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables, rich dairy products, aromatic wines and olive oils, and a plethora of artisan and gourmet foods. The diet is loaded with protein from the grass fed beef, lamb and venison that is farmed on the extensive pastoral lands. If New Zealanders grow anything better than anyone in the world, it’s grass and many countries would be envious to hear the animals are raised outdoors year round and there is only one very small boutique feedlot in the entire country.
Tourists visit for the extreme sport and adventure activities offered everywhere, but recently food and wine has shot to the top of the list of thrills that visitors seek. And it’s not only the fresh farm produce found in restaurants, cafes and the many farmers markets in every town that appeal. With 19,000 kilometres of pristine coastline on the two tiny islands and the largest fishing grounds of any country on earth, seafood is also a must. Shellfish, the highly rated Bluff oysters, tuna, Greenshell mussels and an array of both unique and familiar fish are fresh, tasty and freely available. A Friday night ritual for many families is to order in large newspaper wrapped bundles of ‘fish and chips,’ fresh moist fish deep fried in crunchy batter, accompanied by a pile of crisp or sometimes soggy fried potato chips with tomato sauce.
This profusion of fresh fish and the new Asian influences make sushi the number one choice for a fast lunch in the cities. Venture into rural areas, however and the very popular meat pie or sandwiches, often thin and cheap, are more likely to be the choices. To visit New Zealand and not eat a hokey pokey ice cream would be to miss an essential part of the food culture. We all grew up on this. Hokey pokey is sugar and golden syrup (a little like corn syrup but far superior) boiled together with bicarbonate of soda. When this mixture sets it forms a crunchy, almost fizzy candy that is then cut into small chunks and stirred into vanilla ice cream. It’s wonderful.
But a word of warning. New Zealanders love to eat fresh and locally produced food of course. No contest. But this tiny country, on the edge of the world where there are no farming subsidies, no tax concessions and no protection, has an economy dependent on exporting produce around the world. So don’t talk about food miles!
8 September 2010
Fish in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset; Fabulously fresh, and not overly expensive.
Loved Rick Stein's mussels, Porthminster Cafe's fish and chips (best ever) , Hix Oyster and Fish Shack's oysters and plaice, Michael Caines Cafe for grey mullet in Exeter, and the mackerel tartare at Polpo in Soho London.
Tonight? J Sheeky, rumored to be the best fish restuarant in England. High hopes!
31 August 2010
Today is take-off time. I will be away in Europe for five weeks. I will try and post stories but the real intention is holiday so there will be some great reports of London, Paris and Rome on my return, including the answer to this question:
Is it worth journeying all the way to Padstow to eat at Rick Stein's restaurant?
31 August 2010
Go to my WINES TO DRINK page to find a stunning new wine label that's worth seeking out.
22 August 2010
We finished our North Island book tour today in Wellington. We drove over from Greytown, stopping to sign books at Bookfeast in Petone. After a night out at Martin Bosley's for champagne, and dinner at The Larder, we were ready to cook up a storm on Sundya morning at the City Market.
It was my first visit to the City Market at Chaffers Dock and I must say it is a real complement to the adjacent outdoor farmers market. It's a little slice of complete sophistication, with an array of sparkling fresh Yellow Brick Road fish, amazing choclates, bread from Greytown's French Baker, organic meat, the Brat Boys with their sausages, endless great coffee, cupcakes, Turkish delight, vegies, Marrtin Bosley's ready to heat lambshanks and more.
Ginny, Kathy and I (mostly the other two as I was talking too much and catching up with so many old friends) cooked up dishes; fennel tart, lentil and vegetable soup, and Vietnamese style finger rolls from our NZ Vegetable Cookbook, alongside the lovely Yvonne from Petone's Bookfeast cookbook shop who sold our books. Sales really stepped up when the effervescent Annabelle White stopped by, and we're thrilled she loves the book too!
It's now a much needed rest and catch up at home for two days before we head down to Christchurch (Mercato on Tuesday evening) and Dunedin (Marbecks on Wednesday at 4.30pm)
Many thanks to Turners & Growers the veggie champions for making our tour possible, and putting wonderful veggies on the plates of so many Kiwis.
21 August 2010
One of the things that's very notable about The New Zealand Vegetable Cookbook is the thoroughly modern recipes we cook, using delicious locally grown olive oils.
We've always been fans of Village Press as the hard working team of Maureen and Wayne Startup have taken their olive oil to the world and really shown everyone just how good NZ olive oil can be. They're now big producers, but their olive oil still retains the boutique properties, and is always on our shelves.
While in the Wairarapa we were given some magnificent golden green Saundridge olive oil recently pressed and bottles by Jan and John Thompson. If you're down that way make sure you get hold of their lovely oil too.