After a few massive weeks of fine wining and dining this week saw yet another successful Melbourne Food and Wine Festival draw to a close. With an extraordinarily big program on offer it was an applaudable effort from all involved, and while I personally could only manage a few outings I did have a thoroughly delightful time learning how to taste and enjoyed sharing a fabulous sweet feast with good friends...
Read MoreGluten schmuten
With kitchen time still being partaken as a late-night, moodily-lit activity it's fair to say that the planning of any TPB-based affairs has been particularly haphazard of late. And so, in a vague attempt at gathering together some very lose ends, I'm going to pretend that it was this week's task to explore methods for baking gluten-free...
Read MoreNight bakes
Having been left feeling decidedly fragile on account of a few tumultuous weeks filled with deadlines, fun times, devastations and inspirations, there has been little room in life for TPB of late. Thankfully I have managed to occasionally seek refuge in the pleasures of baking, but given the late-night, poor-light nature of these kitchen catharses, you'll have to forgive me when I say that the results have, understandably, been far from photogenic...
Read MoreRich man, rich sauce
The story goes that the dish, oysters Rockefeller, was created by Jules Alciatore at America's infamous and oldest family-run restaurant, Antoine's, and named after oil industrialist and philanthropist John D Rockefeller, at the time America's richest man and now quietly regarded as the wealthiest person in history. Mystery surrounds the original recipe...
Read MoreThe other butter
Once a frugal kitchen mainstay and essential ingredient in the preparation of traditional steamed puds, the popularity of suet in more recent times seems to have waned. I suspect we probably lost this nose-to-tail treasure to the rigours of the 'low-fat healthy-eating' movement, although the thought of using the fat that surrounds the kidneys and loins of cattle to prepare sweet desserts probably dissuaded a few people too...
Read MoreToying with splendid
I have a slight problem with New Year's, which is that it occurs at the wrong time of year. Honestly, how on Earth are we supposed to adhere to resolutions of lofty exercise ambitions and healthier eating regimens when we're smack-bang in the middle of ice cream season? That's just silly...
Read MoreHomemade green
I come from a family of green thumbs, and although I lack the cultivatory talents of my more distinguished connections, the desire for home produce is most certainly there. But while I try and grow what I can when I can, my present abode affords but a skerrick of room for such nurturings, and so aside from the cursory herb box, there is often little on hand to satisfy kitchen cravings...
Read MoreAbroad
As many of you well know, the advent of Christmas saw me embark on a much-anticipated European sojourn, but while the kitchen took a little respite and lay quiet, the eating most certainly did not...
Read MoreHampered
The plan this year was to be selfish. I've always wanted a white Christmas, and having arranged to head off and enjoy exactly that, I had every intention of sneaking away for my frosty respite and taking a break from the annual Yuletide baking juggernaut. But to forgo sharing gifts for want of a little self-indulgence is neither the spirit of Christmas nor TPB, and since custom now comes with expectation, I was also loathe to disappoint...
Read MoreThe mighty crustholder
It's now less than two weeks until Christmas and with the requisite yuletide baking well and truly underway, I'm afraid you'll see little else on offer from the TPB kitchen this month. But the weather today was shabby, and what with a gift I'd been wanting to use for some time and the recent arrival of mum's first apricots at my door, there seemed nothing else for it but pie...
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