watermelon salad and the summer of love

My golden rule for cookbook buying these days is that I have to actually cook from it in the first week or two of ownership. Otherwise after that initial flick through it tends to be cast aside, relegated to mere food porn. I guess like the real thing, being a spectator’s one thing but it’s a heck of a lot more fun to participate.

In New Zealand I made an impulse purchase of Heidi Swanson’s lovely new cookbook. The current generous exchange rate always makes me feel so rich whenever I go home and was happy to spend some it in a local, independent bookstore.

As a longtime fan of 101 Cookbooks I knew it wouldn’t be hard to find something to cook within the critical timeframe. With eat.drink.picnic promising a stellar 30c day, the watermelon salad was a no brainer.

Did I take photos? No, in the rush to head off to the gardens I forgot. But it’s a simple dish – watermelon balls (note to self: must improve balling technique), toasted pistachios, slivered dates, a squeeze of lime and a dash of rosewater. Next time round I’ll throw caution to the wind and add more lime and roses and toss in some fresh mint.

The picnic was one of the best I’ve been to for ages. Perfect weather, a great mix of people (old and new acquaintances, all delightful), pétanque, vegan desserts (oh how I love to be able to eat a dairy-free dessert) and a delightful location. With the annual Village event next door providing some enjoyable music, by 5 pm our little pocket of Edinburgh Gardens was covered with so many blissed out park goers that it looked like The Summer of Love.

Thanks so much to everyone who turned up (and sorry if any shy souls arrived and couldn’t find us, like a blind date I should have been wearing a pink carnation in my lapel). I really want to make Michael’s vegan caeser with Black Ruby’s stunning GF bread, Carla’s I can’t believe it’s not pate and Johanna’s vegan nutella fudge*. The Significant Eater is determined to buy me an ice cream maker to recreate Kristy’s balsamic strawberry ice cream.

Notable mention also goes to Claire’s wonderful prawns and Ed’s proseco. Not that I’m picking favourites, just two days after a 5 hour feast this is the best my mind could muster. Surely a good sign that it was an excellent day,




P.S. Some random thoughts while writing this post

Independent stores – books, locally made clothes, food…are awesome. If you have to buy things for Christmas, it’s nice to support the little guys.

We must have more picnics! There’s talk of a bloggers end of year “break up” at Barefoot Bowls. (Though Christmas may be loosely translated to early in the New Year).

We need to make all food related gatherings, whether it be friends, family or food lovers, as inclusive as possible. That doesn’t mean 100% gleegan but it’d be nice is half of it is. Everything was delicious.

Summer of Love? Yes please.

I really don’t watch porn (or not in the past two decades at least!)

attention Melbourne foodbloggers: eat.drink.picnic

The weather forecast for Saturday is 30c, perfect for a picnic.

This is an open invite to all Melbourne Food bloggers who aren't heading north to eat.drink.blog #2 in Sydney, to come and picnic with other bloggers in sunny Nth Fitzroy, this Saturday.

This has been publicized through the Melbourne Food Bloggers group on Facebook but as not everyone has joined as yet, thought it'd be good to give a heads up here.

When?
5th November @12.30.

Why?
An opportunity to share homemade food, chat about eating, drinking and blogging and hopefully soak up some summer sun. Celebrate spring and include a fresh veggie dish to share. (To clarrify - this isn't a vego only event, just hoping that omnis can be inclusive and include a veg-friendly dish in their basket).

Where
North Fitzroy, comment/email me for exact location.

Don't forget a rug and sunblock, loved ones/families welcome.




Perfect for a picnic (and price of caulis willing) I'll be whipping up some of this. Over five years since I first made it, I'm utterly addicted to this dip and make it at least twice a month.

Australian food bloggers conference - how and why I blog about food (part 2)

Why do we blog about food? Aren’t we are all mad, passionat,e food obsessed beings, or is that just me? Some go into blogging with strategies and hopes of book deals or income streams, while others may see it as a way of diversifying their career. I can only talk about why and how I fell into writing about food. Here’s my story so far.

If not for fame and fortune – why blog about food?

In 2004 I got the blogging bug and spent hours venting my over-politicized spleen about the injustices of the world. Not many people read them, so for light relief I’d post about food occasionally. If site meters are anything to go by, it’s abundantly clear that those trawling the net are more interested in reading a hastily put together post about gyoza, than the result of half a day agonizing about the inhumanity of extraordinary rendition.

I created an ill thought out side blog about food (unintentionally offending a few of my potential readers), grabbed a name from the top of my head, used another Blogger template and with it came the identity from my other blog bearing little relevance to food. Five years on it is still the case.

I believe blogs have a life of their own, most evolve in their own direction no matter how we shape them. What has risen to the surface in these years as The Food Nazi is a cook’s journal. As an instinctive home cook, I find it near impossible to follow a recipe to the letter. This blog is the place I record the adaptations (just how many variations on the wonderful banana-based muffins can I make?) and use the site as an online cookbook.

But more than that, this recipe repository has something an offline one can never have – feedback. Blogs like this with open comments create an environment where thoughts can be shared and some discussions can help recipes evolve. For example, this summer when I got addicted to lemon cordial, Cindy’s comment suggesting a magic ingredient turned good homemade lemonade into great lemonade.

Community, on and off line, is a bit like the twist in the recipe. Having a blog has spawned unexpected friendships and delightful experiences. Far from the archetypal spotty computer geek tapping away on his computer alone, the world of food blogging frequently crosses over into real world happenings, perhaps more so than other genres because food after all is inherently social and nurturing.

When not writing recipes, I like to discuss thoughts on cooking, blogging and eating. To talk with others online about anything from food politics (how vegetarians and coeliacs are treated in the food industry), to cooking for invalids, frugal eating and take away coffee. I've loved every one of these interactions with blog writers and readers.

While my vegetarian gyoza recipe may have attracted my all time greatest number of hits, writing about food blogging ethics draws some of the strongest responses from within our world. When my name went onto the speakers list for Eat.Drink.Blog I got a number of emails asking if I could cover this topic at the conference.

Some thoughts on food blogging ethics

Keep in mind these are just my thoughts, not a code of ethics, rather what makes sense to me. Feel free to tell me yours.

Plagiarism

Who owns a recipe? According to some upsets in the food blogging realm in recent years, the general consensus is that while a list of ingredients cannot be copyrighted, ownership of the method can be.

Personally, I choose to only blog my own recipes and not transcribe other people’s. I can see why an author or magazine publisher may get uppity if they find their work splashed about the internet for free. It’s one thing to copy a recipe word for word or snip it from a magazine for a physical recipe book but putting it out on public domain is another thing altogether.

The same respect applies to other bloggers. I’ll post my adaptations but link to their original recipe and pay my dues.

Reviews

I blame Ruth Reichl for my growing unease about blogging restaurant reviews. I fell in love with her memoir Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, recounting her years as food critic for the New York Times. The lengths she went to dressing up in different disguises to check out a restaurant at least three times before writing a review puts our local food journalists to shame. But what about bloggers? We don’t carry anywhere near the weight of reviews in print media? I’ve flirted with reviewing, I read blog reviews of those who share a similar palate but at the end of the day, I doubt that I can do it fairly (even more so as my dietary choices often mean I can eat only a small selection of the menu). But more than that, when I eat out – I want to connect with my dinning companions, enjoy the food, the company and not be side tracked by taking sneaky shots of the food.

I do like to post food highlights from trips overseas, having gleaned the best places for my budget and food preferences from the internet and guidebooks. Not the least, so I can actually remember the name of the place when people ask me a year later. And it’s exciting to know that sometimes these holiday food rants encourage other bloggers travel itineraries too!

Perhaps all my ambivalence about reviewing crystallized in an unexpected phone call I received last year. When you blog anonymously, being outed in your real life is an uncomfortable collision. Though I think I did a fair and honest job musing about why a local eatery wasn't attracting many customers, I got rather annoyed about a string of comments on the post, all made by unknown male personas who’ve never appeared in our local food blogging community before or since. In the same tone they uniformly told me they loved the place and there was something wrong with me if I didn’t. Rather like the bloke (co-owner and chef of said restaurant) when he outed me at work and got all shouty. When your review is the only one of two to appear anywhere for a newish eatery, people read it. If the tone has any traces of negativity the owners won’t like it and potentially it can impact on their business.

I’d suggest if you do review – be fair, own your criticisms and if possible base it on more than one visit.

Then there is the issue of restaurant photography – do we ask before shooting, does the chef have the right to ask us to remove them if our lack of photographic skills make the dish look like shit? I really don’t know the answer to those questions. Sometimes I think that the low lighting in so many restaurants is a deliberate ploy to make us keep our cameras in our bags!

Would you like some sponsorship with that?

Oh the lure of getting something for “nothing”!

I’ve blogged about how we’ve been targeted by those lovely folk in Public Relations before. Some PR people get what blogging is about and know just how to tempt (or manipulate) us but most don’t. Why does someone think I will be wildly excited, even flattered, to write a post about beer, cheese or even cooking classes that I can’t attend in another state or even country?

Personally, product placement can’t be bought on my blog. Every now and then an offer comes my way to go to a food show or the likes that I’d normally consider attending, just as similar invites come my way for industry related events in my day job. I will take up the offer only on the understanding there is no expectation to mention the event on the blog.

I know some food bloggers have another approach, some even actively ask for goodies to display on their blog. I think there’s room for greater analysis of what occurs within the transaction, whose getting the better deal I wonder? Some events and products get amazing, free promotion for a non-cash reward. In a similar vein, when we write for free or give away our photos to a commercial website for a mere link or a mention – we are helping them make money and exploit those who write for a living.

So, how and why do you blog about food?


Taking a closer look at my backdrop for the talk - about every point was covered by a speaker at the conference. The biggest question of them all being "who still uses blogger?".


It was a privilege to be a panelist at the inaugural Australian Food Bloggers Conference. With little or no prior knowledge it was wonderful how my fellow presenters on the How and Why We Blog panel dovetailed into each other. I loved Zoe’s ode to community and writing (and heartfelt wish that her beer brewing partner would find an outlet like blogging to express his passion) and Reem’s delightful tale of starting a blog as a single woman.


See my post on top ten tips for food blogging for the first installment of my talk.

Eat.Drink.Blog and Exhibit

Just on the off chance you are one of the few Australasian food bloggers who don't know - on March 21st the inaugural Eat.Drink.Blog underground conference will be held in Melbourne. It will be small and sweet this time, attendance is free but the catch is seats are limited and you need to register your interest now to get one of the 45 seats.

Oh and I've been asked to be on a panel talking about how and why we blog!

A side event with the conference is an exhibition open to all Australian and New Zealand food bloggers. The rules are simple (the main one being it must be your own work and has appeared in your blog in '09/'10) but be quick the deadline is soon - Midnight Sunday March 7 2010.

The Guidelines and small print.

1. Submissions are open to Australian and New Zealand food and drink blogs only.

2. Try and limit your submissions to half a dozen or less.

3. Each picture will be framed and the entrant will received the framed copy. At some point we will need to get hold of a high resolution copy of the pic for printing.

4. The pictures should be original works from 2009/2010, have been blogged and the copyright owned by the entrant.

5. In return for SBS Food’s support, I’ve said they can include each of the pictures in the exhibition in an online slideshow which will include a blogger profile on the SBS Food website. By entering you will be agreeing to this.

6. That’s about it. All entrants will be invited to the cocktail launch.

7. A judge cannot vote on their own work but we’d love them all to enter.

8. That’s all.

To enter - submit your photos (maxium 6) to the Eat.Drink.Blog.2010 Flickr group by Sunday night. A panel of judges (all food bloggers) will select entries to be exhibited and framed courtesy of SBS.

For more information check out the conference site.

beyond the fridge door - round up

"Our fridge contained only allergy serum, Coke and Maraschino cherries."

Catherine Gildiner, "Too Close to the Falls"

I was hooked when I heard Gildiner interviewed on radio, the minute she recounted the contents of her childhood refrigerator. As soon as I could I bought her memoir, wanting to know more about a child growing up in such a home in the 1950's where every meal was eaten in a diner and the oven was only used to dry wet mittens.

It seems I am not the only one who is curious to see what lies on the shelves of people’s fridges. While the door may be a modern equivalent of the Rorschach (Ink Blot) test, what lies behind chilling quietly, could arguably tell us more. Well at least about what a person likes to eat.




Brazen used the photo opportunity to remind her to clean a few things out of the fridge past their use-by date. Check out the notes on her Flickr pics.











Mediterranean Kiwi, over at Organically Cooked (who incidentally comes from my home town but now lives on my favourite Greek island) supplied two shots that she'd prepared earlier - fridge contents in winter and summer.










Wendy at A Wee Bit of Cooking from snowy Scotland, sent a Flickr link packed with notes complaining that her fridge didn't look up to scratch due to having been away all week. For a supposedly bare fridge it is still packed with goodness!










The home of Progressive Dinner Party aka Zoe's place in Canberra, has furnished a wonderful Flickr set. The organization of her fridge made my virgo heart flutter with joy!














All the way from Oshawa, Canada Sarah of What Smells So Good?, has thrown open the doors of not only her fridge and freezer but also her pantry as well. There is a complete rundown of contents on her site.













Armchair Foodie's creator Megan rose to my strange challenge admirably and opened a lovely dialogue between Hood River, Oregon and Melbourne, Australia. Good to see there are fellow bloggers with bottles of vodka chilling in their freezer.















Melbourne friend Doc Witch who waxes lyrical at Dark Side of The Broom, described the inside of her fridge as Hellmouth but really its just crammed full with delicious gluten-free food (not to mention all those naturopathic goodies nestled in the door).















Single White Female, Catherine from Perth, intrigued me by keeping her vegemite in the fridge. Her soy milk stash is also impressive! Pop over and see her beautifully labeled photos.















Lucy at Nourish Me has just moved into her new Melbourne pad and managed to take the time to put up a fully noted flickr stream documenting what lies beyond her fridge door.

















Almost forgot to add my own entry. The SE's love of pickles dominating this pic. Just your average dairy-averse, market-loving Melbourne fridge!















Thanks to all those who participated (or did so in spirit) in this spontaneous little event. I enjoyed your pictures immensely. Special thanks to the newcomers to this blog for getting involved.

It has been suggested this should be a regular thing...stay tuned. You never know what will inspire me on another quiet weekend further down the track.

The cakes of solstice

Fruitcakes – who ever thought that such a simple piece of baking could elicit such strong responses in people? While some love a rich, wintry Christmas cake, others are less keen on them. The role of citrus peel or glace fruit in a classic cake stirred up passions. Don’t get me started on the topic of Parisienne essence that we’ve had at Chez FoodNazi. Love them or leave them – the Solstice Cake discussions, on and off line, have been a joy for me to read.

Oddly, I fall into the camp of ‘not a huge fan’ of the Christmas cake but for Solstice it is about a whole heap more than a sweet treat to have with a cuppa or round off a meal. I enjoyed the reconnection with my childhood, the physicality of stirring a massive amount of macerated fruit through a batter and the smell, oh the aroma of the cake baking was almost enough for me. To be honest I haven’t even eaten mine yet, as my recipe suggests letting the cake sit for a couple of months before devouring. Though that is taking some restraint in my household.

With the shortest and longest days of the year occurring in the different hemispheres there has been a sterling effort by entrants embracing the task. The trick has been making it your own. Uncoupling the cake from the tradition of Christmas seems to have freed up a lot of cooks to claim the genre for themselves. Each story has been a joy to read. I hope you like them too.

The Solstice Cake Round-Up

Lucy of “Nourish-me” in Melbourne made a most delightful fruit and marzipan cake. The inclusion of marzipan on the inside certainly peaked a lot of excitement. The first one was so good, she’s made a couple more since!






Din, of “No Eggs or Nuts” fame, has worked around the household’s dietary requirements to make a yeasted, egg-free Saffron cake. Another Melbournite with a long standing family tradition of marking winter solstice with a pudding, it was impressive to see the cake get a look in as well.



Still in Melbourne, a delightful newcomer to the blogging world Doc Witch high priestess of “The Dark Side of the Broom” has knocked up a Nigella inspired dark and sultry fruitcake. As a recently diagnosed coeliac, the cake turned out perfectly by substituting the regular flour for a gluten-free mix.




Also in this chilly city is Johanna from “Green Gourmet Giraffe” who managed to overcome her ambivalence towards fruit cakes with a large helping of chocolate. The people from Sunbeam would be proud to see their recipe updated in her Chocolate Fruitcake.



The chocolate theme continues with Nora in Sydney from “Life is a Smorgasbord”. She has created a rich, chocolate Drambuie fruitcake for solstice. Chocolate and liqueur has always been a winning combo in my book!




Bravely representing England in this event is Lysy from "Munchkin Mail". She has gone all summery with a Lemon solstice cake. As the only Northern Hemisphere entrant Lysis had a taste of how some of us feel about heavy fruit cakes at the height of summer and has opted for a Nigella inspired number with the fruit on the outside.






Last but not least is my own offering, reviving Alison Holst's great 70’s kiwi classic. A rich fruitcake featuring a tropical twist, my entry is a Pineapple Solstice Cake.




Honorable Mentions:

To the following Melbourne bloggers who got into the spirit of all things solstice but didn't give away their secret recipes or formally enter. They've taken great pics, so don't forget to check out their posts.

Suse whipped up a rich and dark number and celebrated the longest night outdoors with friends, family and very pretty lanterns.

Duncan teased us mercilessly with the a macaroon creation (I want some!)

Anna made the family’s secret recipe fruitcake.



It has been a joy to see people inspired by the theme. Long may the solstice tradition continue.

Solstice Cake 2008 - food blogging event

Here in the Southern hemisphere we are barely a month away from the winter solstice. The days are getting shorter and the nights decidedly cooler. This is the perfect season for dried fruit, nuts and warming spices. Unlike Christmas around these parts where it’s a case of “Fruit cake? No thanks, pass me anther mango please”, this time of year cries out for a rich fruity bit of baking.


Please join me in my inaugural food blogging event Solstice Cake – 2008. This is open to anyone who wishes to bake a Christmas-style fruit cake (or Solstice cake for my fellow pagans), anywhere in the world.

Rules

A cake is a cake is a… a full size, mini or even if you really must – muffins. But sorry no Christmas pud. Can be au naturel or iced. What defines this kind of cake is the inclusion of dried fruit and spices, sometimes nuts.

Your post should include the words “Solstice Cake 2008” in the title and/or in the body of the text. You are welcome to use the event logo as well.

Deadline your entry to be posted on your site and the following details emailed to me at otherrants(dot)gmail(dot)com by sunset on 25 June 2008. In your email please include a link to your post, who you are, where you are and anything special about your cake. It would be nice if you didn’t enter your cake into any other food blog events.

Please link your entry back to confessions of a food nazi.

Simple.

I look forward to reading about all your luscious Solstice Cakes…now get baking!