james test

January 2016: We're doing a bit of a blog clean-up and it seems as though Urban Burger closed down a while ago. After watching the likes of John Lethlean scoff down mushroomy macro dumplings and Elvis Presley sandwiches , Michael and I were ready for a rock'n'roll dinner of our own. We didn't have to wander too far along Swan St for Urban Burger to present itself as a fast, affordable and appetising option. This is Maccas for yuppies in the vein of Grill'd and Burger Republic , and boasts the 2006 Leader Business Award for best takeaway restaurant in Melbourne. Meat-lovers have 10 beef and 8 chicken burgers to choose from, while vegos have four appetising options of their own: one with tofu, another featuring portabello mushroom, a vegan one with beans and lentils, and finally one with grilled eggplant. These $9 burgers are enormous, on the same scale as those at Burger Republic. The menu describes the buns as a "sour dough wholemeal blend", but they ...

I love rock and roll and I love food. If only there was some way to combine the two. Oh wait, there is! Sunday evening's entertainment, billed as "A Rock 'n' Roll Cook Off for Charity", was a kind of Iron Chef for Melbourne's indie rock elite. Devised as a fund raiser for Good Shepherd Youth and Family Service , the event pulled together Melbourne musicians, media personalities and food journalists for a surreal evening of fun at The Corner Hotel. The basic structure of the evening involved four teams of five 'celebrities' each, two savoury cook-offs and a dessert challenge between two heat winners to find out whose cuisine reigned supreme. But the basic structure doesn't do justice to the chaotic, noisy and hilarious evening. We arrived to a moderately busy band room, with the two stages set up: a small one scattered with amps, mics and drum kits and a big one with a makeshift kitchen, overhead mirrors to give the crowd a good view of the act...

Probably the biggest and baddest eating temptation in my routine is mid-afternoon at work. The pace slows down and as the hours plod on, I start thinking about the fat-laden snacks at the FoodWorks no more than fifty paces from my desk. While there is certainly a psychological element to my cravings, I am often genuinely hungry by 4:00 and I need to eat to maintain those last threads of concentration. Thus, I'm often on the lookout for recipes and snacks that I can prepare and pack from home that'll minimise the damage done. Muffins have frequently popped up as a possible solution but they're usually very cakey and sweet, not much better than the chocolate bar I'm most tempted by! Trust the super-natural Heidi from 101 Cookbooks to present me with an alternative, with a recipe taken from Homegrown Pure and Simple by Michel Nischan. The photograph of Heidi's batch had the austere and no-frills look I sought to emulate, hinting at lots of fibre and little suga...

The hectic excitement of Kingaroy had left us feeling like a pretty lazy weekend, which meant a quiet dinner at home on Saturday evening. Cindy's enthusiastic consumption of thousands of food blogs means we always have a backlog of worthy recipes to sample. This weekend's treat: Turkish food from Ceviz at Only Turkish Food . I was feeling ready for a crazy kitchenathon, so I decided to attempt two courses: Lemon Zucchini in Olive Oil and Turkish Lentil Balls (see links for the full recipes). The whole process was quite time consuming, particularly because I'm not big on multi-tasking. I'm sure I could have set the vegies up to cook and then made the lentil balls while they were simmering away, but that's not how I do things. I start at the start and work all the way through to the end. So by the time I'd cooked the lentils and the onions, stirred through the bulghur, tomato paste and spices, a good half hour had passed and I hadn't even started on th...

Paul recently tagged us for a "5 Things About Me" meme. He cheekily handed the task of selecting five things about him over to his partner, and Mike provided a most pithy profile of the gourmand. We've decided to appropriate this idea and write 5 things about each other. Here are five things you might not already know about Michael: 1. Michael's CV boasts 3 degrees: in maths, IT and criminology. 2. The first meal that he cooked for me was a huge wok-full of noodles, chicken, veges, peanut butter, and a sachet of curry paste. This was his signature dish and he was secretly disappointed at the lukewarm response it received from me. I was just trying to keep my watering eyes in check - I was no match for the chilli oneupmanship that goes on in a sharehouse of 20-something males. Still, a man who cooks at all is pretty attractive, right? He's since refined his style but still provides most of the enthusiasm (and labour) for the hearty and/or spicy meals on our...

Michael and I took advantage of the mid-week public holiday to schedule a loooong weekend in Queensland. This included an overnight stay in Kingaroy, where my brother Liam has just landed his first job as a journalist. I suspect it was actually my mum who did a bit of early research, identified and then booked the most attractive and veg-friendly restaurant in the area, the Bell Tower Restaurant . With Liam's job success, mum's recent birthday and this rare opportunity to share a meal together, there was plenty to celebrate. While the food at the Bell Tower was quite tasty, reasonably priced and certainly at the more gourmet end of what Kingaroy has to offer, the biggest reason to eat there is the view. Our booking ensured we had a table on the restaurant's back deck, which offers a stunning view of the farmland below and blue-tinged Great Dividing Range beyond. We were further blessed with a warm day, blue skies and cotton-ball clouds to best appreciate our prime locat...

Little more than a week after we entertained Beth in our home , the adventure girl did some serious damage to her foot while rock climbing! She'll be stuck in hospital for several weeks, with surgery and months of recovery to come. After hearing the news on Tuesday afternoon, a small delegation was swiftly organised to visit her for lunch on Wednesday - apparently the hospital food is depressingly bland. As I walked home on Tuesday evening, I racked my brain for some small but flavour-packed offering that I could throw together without too much fuss. A most successful solution came from ingredients already in the cupboard after I made a crucial connection between Beth's habitual work-time snacking on dried fruits and the bag of dried cherries that I impulsively purchased at the Queen Vic markets and had yet to use. Combined with pistachios and dark chocolate, I would be guaranteed little mouthfuls of vibrant colour; crunchy, chewy and smooth textures; tart sweetness, rich c...