Links from the lost zone

I’ll be offline for a few days (if this delayed flight ever eventuates) and would like to leave you with a few morsels in my absence.

Reading this piece about cooking with quinoa in the NY times last month made me realise how food wise I tend to move on from one infatuation to another. I haven't made creamy quinoa for breakfast for over a year. However, I did have an amazing quinoa dessert at Mamasita recently that was sweet and orangey and delicious.

I’m impressed. The aforementioned Melbourne eatery is entirely gluten-free. More allergy-aware local dinning options listed recently in The Age. The list seems a bit sparse to me. Hellenic Republic for example asks about dietary restrictions when you book and my coeliac friends say they have lots of options. Munsterhaus, while not top end dining, also caters well for the dairy or gluten intolerant. If I was still in lecturer-mode I’d have told the author that he “could try harder” and “needs to do more research”. Or perhaps “stop cribbing the notes of your classmates and do some original work”?

When the weather warms up again can someone remind me to make Heidi’s grilled tofu and soba noodles? There’s nothing like slurping cool buckwheat noodles on a hot day.

If you’re not used to cooking soba, especially the 100% buckwheat variety, there’s quite an art to it. If you cook them the regular way in a pot of boiling water then drain and serve, they end up a gooey, sticky, tangled mess. The way that works for me is the 3 cups of cold water way. Add the noodles to boiling water. When the pot comes back to the boil add a cup of cold water. Do this two more times (boil/water/back to the boil/water etc) and the noodles should be perfectly cooked by the time the pot is boiling again after the last cold dunk.

See you when I'm back for the land of the wrong white crowd.


Very bored at Melbourne airport, drinking bad coffee and wondering if my plane will ever show up.