james test

After some food and chatter, Matt revealed the gifts he'd been carrying around for us over the past few days. There was an enormous graphic novel for Michael and pretty decorated origami paper for me. Then, to my surprise, there was more! One by one, Matt revealed shiny package after shiny package - samples of all kinds of junk food. He explained that he wanted to show us something from his everyday life that was different, and I knew what he meant. When I spent a semester studying in upstate New York I loved slowly browsing the supermarket on my own, marvelling at the bright and unfamiliar convenience foods. (There were nine brands of breakfast cereal that included marshmallows! Nine!) This gift was perfect, especially given the high ratio of chocolate to other stuff. I won't go through them all in detail now - they'll get a post each as we gradually eat them, and I think they deserve a tag of their own!

Cindy and I must have watched at least one episode of Nigella's slightly creepy cooking show, because we chased down her chili con carne recipe for future reference. The visit of my brother on a quick detour from his life in Japan was a good enough excuse to have a crack at it ourselves. Obviously we had to make some changes: the recipe seemed designed to feed about thirty people, so we cut things right down; out went the ground beef and in came some TVP; and we decided to change the plan from the cornbread topping, to our trusty cornbread muffins . I think the main reasons we got a bit excited by Nigella's chili were the preponderance of spices and the addition of cocoa to the mix. We were expecting something a bit more exciting than our previous efforts, with a more complex set of flavours. Unfortunately, the cocoa was barely discernible and the combo of spices really didn't add much to our simpler Moosewood recipe . It wasn't bad by any means, but it didn't...

Update 31/12/2014: Oyster Little Bourke was rejigged into a new restaurant Mezzo Bar & Grill in 2010. Thanks to Jo-Lyn's enthusiasm, this year we took advantage of the Food & Wine Festival 's Restaurant Express . For the duration of the festival, many of the city's top restaurants offer a two-course lunch with a glass of wine for only $30 per person! I was most pleased to read on the website that every one of these set menus would include a vegetarian option. This promise was backed up by Oyster's staff when Jo-Lyn phoned to make our reservation there. Melbourne Foodie Jon! thoroughly enjoyed the more carnivorous end of Oyster's set menu earlier in the week so we entered with some anticipation. When Michael, Jo-Lyn, Mike and I arrived at our table the day's lunch special options were already printed and set out for our perusal. All of the entrees and mains involved meat but, as he placed our napkins on our laps with a flourish, the front-of-house...

Q: So, what do you get after dropping a soy bomb ? A: A mushroom cloud! And here it is in song... If you're after something edible, I don't think there's anything that says 'cloud' quite so much as whipped egg whites. So how about a mushroom souffle? This is another dish that I didn't actually have a recipe for, so I relied on Google again and chose this one from "That's My Home" Recipes . It's a little sparse on the details, so I'll rewrite the recipe below as I cooked it. Souffles have a reputation for being difficult, and by the time I'd sauteed my veges, whipped the egg whites and washed a dirty baking tray, I must admit I was feeling a little 'difficult' myself. But I got them into the oven, where they dutifully rose to the occasion. After about 10 minutes out of the oven they'd sunk again, but even these withdrawn souffles retained an airy, cloud-like texture beneath the cheesy crust. Michael loved them, and I liked...

My mind's been ticking over ever since Elly announced the Eat to the Beat! blog event . I love a theme, and I knew I could meld meals and music since I count Fiona Apple, Cake and Custard among my favourite music-makers. There are lots of songs out there likening loves to sweet treats, but Warrant's tune Sweet Cherry Pie really isn't to my taste. Ben Lee is more my style, but listening to the lyrics of Cigarettes Will Kill You, I couldn't fathom what he was suggesting I make! (Though clearly it was not to be served up with cake... listen for yourself using the player at the end of this post and tell me what you think is cooking.) Perhaps, like Talking Heads, I was destined to Stay Hungry. Then, channelling the Eels, Michael chipped in with "Whatever happened to soy bomb?" The lyrics of this song are rather bleak and not at all related to food, but I liked the idea of soy bombs for dinner. A google search for tofu balls turned up a pleasant-looking recip...

My chocolate clusters went square this week - instead of dropping my fruit, nut and chocolate mixture into little mounds, I pressed it into the bottom of a foil-lined loaf pan. In designing this flavour combination, I took inspiration from rocky road - dried cherries, Turkish delight, roasted hazelnuts, coconut and rice bubbles. Marshmallows are noticeably absent, I know - I'm really not into them. These were good, but not as great as I'd hoped. The cherries were deliciously sour, but they overwhelmed the Turkish delight and smoky hazelnuts. Still, it'll be no chore finishing off the block!

Cindy was quite taken with this recipe when she saw it on 101 Cookbooks , and we set aside Sunday evening to give it a crack ourselves. We made a few small changes to Heidi's recipe, substituting some fried Asian greens for her brussel sprouts, almonds for her pecans, and adding some quinoa on the side. The tofu's the main event though - surprisingly sweet for the fairly small dash of sugar in the recipe and augmented brilliantly by the crunchy almonds. The garlic played its role as well, taking some of the focus off the sugary taste. Our greens and quinoa turned the meal into a Shakahari worthy affair (although we didn't make it quite as photogenic as they would have), for surprisingly little effort. This probably only took thirty minutes or so to put together, and would easily fit into a school-night schedule. Throw in the super nutritional value (tofu, greens and quinoa!), and you've got yourself a pretty special recipe. It's even vegan!

Michael and I hit the Taste of Slow Food Festival stalls a little before lunch on Saturday. I'd intentionally eaten a light breakfast, remembering the array of foods we gobbled down at last year's Flour Festival . Unfortunately for us the stalls were looking a lot fewer and a lot meatier this year. Michael bought a coffee and, uninspired, we plotted an alternative city lunch. We batted around a couple of ideas before Michael suggested Aix creperie, and I knew immediately it was just what I wanted. Aix (how does one pronounce that?) is in glamourously grungy Centre Place, just a few doors down from the Jungle Juice Bar . This alleyway is a place to perch at an outdoor table and people-watch, or stick your nose in a serious book and be watched as you nonchalantly get your caffeine and nicotine fixes. While Michael had his second shot of caffeine, and I contented myself with watching the parade. Aix already has its share of admirers ( Serenity Later , Simon and the Age ha...

Cindy and I have blogged previously about our quest for an excellent Indian place. We've had a few successes , but mostly the local Indian places have been reasonably priced , reasonably tasty , slightly dull - nothing to really inspire our loyalty. Especially not when it comes to take away. J-Wow told us that Spicy Junction on Johnston Street was worth checking out, so I wandered past on the way home to order something to take home and enjoy. The menu looked quite impressive, with loads of vego options, but they were inexplicably closed. Luckily I had a fallback plan - I'd wandered up Rathdowne Street on my way home one evening and stumbled across De Orchid, an Indian place about a block from our house that had completely passed us by. Luckily they were open and their menu was equally veg-friendly. We ordered three curries (to make sure we scored some leftovers for lunch the next day): Saag Paneer, Baingan Bharta and Malai Kofta - two old favourites and an eggplant cu...

I've spent the last week at work collaborating with two Brisbane-based smarties, Eve and Will. We've been sharing a fun, challenging and very nerdy project and best of all, they're just cool people to hang out with. There've been outings to Kake Di Hatti and Markov Place , and when it was revealed that it was Will's birthday on Wednesday, I packed him a gift of cherry and vanilla icecream . To welcome them to the lab on Monday I gathered all my local colleagues for afternoon tea and supplied trays of brownies and blondies. The brownies were Nigella's cream cheese variety , a recipe Michael has twice previously made to great acclaim. As for the blondies, these were an entirely new baking experience for me and I knew that Kitchen Wench would have the goods: white chocolate and walnut blondies with salted caramel topping . They are almost as over-the-top as the name suggests and at least as tasty. Most importantly the quantities Ellie gave yielded a sizabl...

After the bright lights and late dining of Friday night, we decided to show Michael's mum Robyn and her partner Rob a more sunny, leisurely side of Melbourne on Saturday morning: CERES. This community space is an oasis in urban Melbourne, a quiet and leafy refuge to share with not just other adults, but children, pet dogs, a handful of farm animals and some wildlife. But before we took a stroll through the site, we hit the cafe for breakfast. The menu here is as organic and locally-sourced as the cafe managers can prepare - as you might expect it's rather veg-friendly too. I reckon Michael's choice, pictured above, must be one of the most luscious-looking breakfasts we've had here in Melbourne, no? It's Verity's Baked Eggs ($14): the eggs come with fetta, spinach pesto, fresh beetroot, mint, parsley, pine nuts and sourdough toast. Even I, the egg-skeptic, would have a go at these! Robyn confirmed that the creamy scrambled ones were also excellent. Having ea...

After dinner at Shakahari , we led our guests across the road to Brunetti for dessert. They were appropriately wowed by its extent, so Michael and I made relatively fast orders and hunted down a table as they browsed. With a huge (and delicious) meal under my belt, I didn't find it too difficult to limit myself to two small Tartufo al caffe ($1.40 each). Their two-toned chocolate coating was pleasant, but the interior coffee cream was dry and powdery. Michael chose a French custard tart with cherries ($5.30). He enjoyed it well enough, but it was a typically unremarkable Brunetti dessert. You can read our full catalogue of Brunetti experiences here .

My mum and her partner Rob joined us for a weekend all the way down here in Melbourne and we took it upon ourselves to show them some of our favourite places. Our first focus was dinner on Friday night. When we've entertained other rellies, we've generally taken them to places that offer a good selection of non-vego food as well as stuff that we like. Our last guests complained and insisted that we should take people out for vego delights in the future. Mum and Rob were the lucky first recipients of this new policy, and it was hard to think of a better place to take them than Shakahari - probably Melbourne's best vegetarian restaurant. I think the menu was a little intimidating - tofu, quinoa, seitan, soy grits: these are not things that crop up on too many non-specialty menus. Cindy and I recommended the avocado rolls to start things off - they'd impressed us mightily on a previous visit and didn't disappoint this time. They really are fantastic. Mum and Rob...

Vege2go opened in Brunswick less than a fortnight ago with a disproportionate amount of internet buzz. Their shiny website , myspace and Facebook presence (?!), and tendency to leave bloggers crazy-enthusiastic comments no doubt helped. Consequently they've already been reviewed by Kiki , UM and FoodieFi . We don't have a lot to add, but here's a few notes. The Good: A bright, happy interior with all meals on display and incredibly friendly, helpful people who'll serve them to you. Fast and cheap - a full stomach will only cost you $10 and 5 minutes of waiting. It's the most nutritious-looking fast food I've seen in yonks - a rainbow of beautiful salads and no glistening oil in the hotbox. Pesto mushrooms. All vegetarian, with a number of gluten-free and vegan options. Pesto mushrooms. Did I mention the pesto mushrooms? The Bad: Foods that have been loitering in a display case inevitably don't have the greatest texture. For example, my calzone was re...

So I have a new and completely inessential appliance... It's my second ice cream maker. The first one churned out many, many batches of sweet cold goodness. But it's not been looking good lately, with the few scratches on the inner metal wall developing into potholes. My decision to update proved to be a good one, three times over. First, I found a very similar model for $10 less than I paid for my original churner seven years ago. Even better, it's much much quieter. Finally, I pulled out my old canister when I got home and found that one of the potholes was seeping a clear, viscous liquid. Ewww. That should not be getting churned into my dessert. So instead this batch of cherry and vanilla ice cream went into my new clean machine. I used the vanilla component of this raspberry ripple ice cream recipe - it's now my favourite base and conveniently uses whole eggs! - and just dabbed it with teaspoons of sour cherry jam as I poured it into a box. The result is...

So I was after a light weeknight dinner, with greens and grapes in the fridge leftover from eating this salad on the previous night. Enter a white gazpacho recipe from Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once . But its name and temperature were going to be a hard sell with Michael. I innocently suggested we try a "garlicky bread soup", he agreed, and we split the shopping. He wasn't thrilled when he discovered we'd be eating a cold soup that didn't contain any veges. But what did he think when he tasted it? The white gazpacho was weird. But good. But weird. But GOOD. I could really see the attraction of serving it small in shot glasses as Haalo did - the fresh garlic is really punchy, too punchy to eat by the bowlful for me. (However Michael will eat garlic in almost any dosage...) I'd love some toned-down roasted garlic for the big-bowl version. The fresh greens and grapes were a great side, and they started me thinking about how this recip...

We decided to make the final round of our SBS inspired Bollywood meals a bit special, and invited a gang of people around to enjoy Dhoom , an unintentionally hilarious 'fast paced motorcycle-robbery drama'. The movie was a hit (particularly the boat chase) and fortunately the food we'd prepared measured up. As we were entertaining a few people, we needed to make sure we picked recipes that easily scaled up to feed 8 rather than 2 and were guaranteed to be delicious. Luckily, we have just the recipes: palak paneer and spiced chickpeas, both from our Mondo Organics Indian cooking class. We've made these trusty recipes many times, and they never disappoint. Cindy capped things off with a reprise of her Indian mango rice pudding , which cooled everyone down as Dhoom hotted up. Now we've just got to figure out what to cook when we hire out Dhoom 2 .

Sunday morning was time to bike it to Brunswick for some groceries (Michael will show you why in his next post), and we stopped off first at Sugardough for breakfast. It's been a while since we last visited - over a year, in fact! - and it's been renovated a little since then. The indoor seated area has been extended to accommodate perhaps 8-12 more people and the pretty dessert display I photographed last time has stretched proportionally. It still has that style of a tea party with charmingly mismatched cups, but it isn't overly twee. The cakes and pastries look real and homemade and just a little bit lop-sided. The breakfast menu is short but appetising. The two dishes featuring eggs come with pork products, so instead Michael ordered poached pears and mascarpone on toasted ciabatta ($7.50), an excellent combination of sweet, creamy and chewy with a tangy twang. Things got even more decadent with my two enormous slices of toasted brioche with nutella ($4.80). Th...

It's taken us a shamefully long time to make our way to Cafe Zum Zum - a place that gets both three stars and a giant 'V' in the Cheap Eats Guide and is all of 800m from our house. For some reason everything fell into place on Saturday and we finally made our way there. Not without a short detour via Zucca , another semi-fancy place on Rathdowne Street starting with 'z'. When will Cindy learn not to trust me when I tell her, "I know where I'm going."? Thankfully it was only a short detour and, once I'd recovered from my confusion, we mosied north along Rathdowne until we stumbled onto the correct venue. Cafe Zum Zum is quite small and quite popular, meaning disorganised people like us turning up without a booking on a Saturday night are taking a fairly big risk. We were able to get away with just a fifteen minute delay while a prime footpath table was vacated for us, but for future reference: make a booking! A perusal of the entree side of th...

On Friday we had a nerdy night in, eating nachos on the couch while watching Dr Who on DVD. While half the point is to be slothful and self-indulgent, I don't think that nachos need to be a complete guilt trip. Chips and cheese are essential of course, but I like to fill out the middle with refried beans and chopped veges. It takes a little longer than the version I usually encounter at pubs - consisting of supermarket salsa, oily cheese and sour cream - but you can still prepare it within 30 minutes and I reckon you'll be far more satisfied with the result. To speed things up a little, you can layer up the diced veges raw rather than pre-cooking them. This would be delicious with home-made salsa, but that would make it even more time consuming. Instead Michael picked out the Chilli Factory 's capsicum salsa to serve on the side. Nachos, Cindy-style 1 red capsicum 1 medium zucchini ~6 mushrooms a splash of olive oil 2 cloves garlic, minced 750g can kidney beans (or bl...

Edit 22/05/2012: The EBC has now closed, but most of the menu has migrated to The Cornish Arms . We had another shot at a vege dog little more than 24 hours later, on Monday night. At this time, we'd arranged to meet up with Mike and Jo-Lyn, Tracy and Lee and Daniel for the East Brunwick Club 's weekly special of free pool, $10 jugs and $10 hot dogs. Ten bucks is arguably a fair bit to ask for a hot dog, but as you can see they come with chips and salad. There are a few different varieties as well - cheese kransky, not-so-American chilli, old skool, Greek style and, most importantly, the Not-Dog. So, how'd it measure up? Chips: satisfactory, though not awesome. To be fair, though, the bowl of chips we ordered earlier were excellent so there's obviously some fluctuation. Salad: great. Frank: one standard-size, exactly what we were looking for yesterday . Toppings: no sign of the promised "garlic mushrooms, roasted vegetables and melted imported Vegan chees...

The Indian food is coming thick and fast at the moment with thematically appropriate meals for SBS's weekly Bollywood movies. This week the movie was Devdas , the most lavish and expensive Bollywood film of all time (full disclosure: it's also one of the longest and we're still getting through it on tape). To match, I went for a lavish meal: dal from our Oxfam calendar and a vegie dish from Mridula Baljekar's trusty low-fat Indian vegetarian cookbook. The dal was nice and simple and was meant to be sour, sweet and hot. To be honest it was mostly sour (tamarind puree) and tangy (ginger), but that's probably mostly due to my lax measurements. Despite not quite measuring up on the 'hot' front, this was one of the better dal recipes we've come across - maybe not quite up to these standards , but then there's no can of coconut milk in this one to fill us up with creamy, fatty goodness. Anyway, this was basically all about the ginger and tamarind fla...

This little piece of Americana is perched right next door to where's the beef? favourite, Lord of the Fries . Most obviously, Walker's sells doughnuts, and you can read reviews of them at Tummy Rumbles and Mmm... doughnuts . And while I'm not a soda connoisseur myself, some of you might also be interested to know that Walker's drinks fridge includes cans of Dr Pepper, and well as cherry and vanilla-injected Coke and Pepsi products. But, as you can see from the picture, we were there for the hot dogs, because Walker's will substitute a vegan frank into any of their ketchup'n'mustard-laden menu items at your request. (However I doubt there are many folks out there ordering a Double Bacon Big Boy in the tofu model.) You're looking at Michael's New York Onion Relish ($4.95), topped with spicy onion relish, cheese and mustard. My Veg-o-rama Deluxe ($4.75) just had ketchup and mustard. We thought the toppings and buns were fine and they generously...

Update 31/12/2014: Butterfly Cafe is closed, replaced by Roasted Coffee Bar .  After months of vague intentions and a fulsome recommendations from Hayley , we finally made our way out to Camberwell to check out the Sunday Rotary market . On the way, we swung by the Butterfly Cafe, as recommended by Claire, the Melbourne Gastronome . It's a nice little cafe, with some attractive outdoor tables and cute interior decorations. The menu is just a blackboard in the corner and it's all counter-ordering and casualness. The vego menu options were pretty limited: eggs florentine, porridge, fruit salad and the couple of toast-based treats that we went for. I had the mushrooms, fetta and thyme on toast ($12), which was pleasant enough without really winning me over. The toast was thick and grainy, and everything on top was cooked impressively enough, it was just a little on the small side and a tad uninteresting. I reckon for $8 it would have been a huge success, but there are some p...