From The Weekend Australian: Travel and Indulgence Ed Charles sorts the wheat from the chaff in the wide world of food websites. Harold McGee: Not everybody wants to know how to cook an octopus. But many of us want to know the difference between cheap frying pans and expensive ones, how and what to cook in a microwave and why cool-climate Victorian shiraz smells of pepper. McGee, author of the brilliant On Food and Cooking: The Science ...More »

From In The Black: In the trenches The likes of actor Johnny Depp, with plenty of help from Hollywood, have in recent times romanticised the image of pirates and privateers. There he was charging about as Jack Sparrow in the blockbuster movie Pirates of the Caribbean, causing many a swoon and coining around US$2.7 billion worldwide at the box office. However, truth can be much stranger than fiction. According to some leading academics, pirates and privateers were ...More »

From In The Black: In the trenches Achieving an effective level of management is a fairly universal story no matter what business you work in or run. Just look at the restaurant industry. It's a microcosm of the business world, picky customers and tight deadlines. And the man who has highlighted it, warts and all, is internationally recognised chef and restaurant owner, Gordon Ramsay. His UK and US TV series Kitchen Nightmares has made his name as ...More »

From SBS Food Five Indian restaurants have been awarded Michelin stars in the UK since 2001. Ed Charles investigates how the trend towards Indian fine diners is progressing Australia. When Chandra Kanodia opened the Phantom India restaurant in June 1979 on Swanston Street in Carlton, just outside the City of Melbourne, it claimed to be the first Tandoori Restaurant in Australia. He had chefs flown in from famous restaurants in India to make the best Indian food. Australians ...More »

From The Australian, Entrepreneur JULIAN Persaud, the newly appointed online head at Google Australia, is a man with a big message for small and medium-sized companies. He wants to wake them up to the opportunities online presents for growing their businesses. "They are coming on board in increasing numbers," he says. "About 40 per cent have a website and there's about another 20 or 30 per cent who are currently building a website. There is a big opportunity. "The ...More »

From The Australian, Entrepreneur THE cafe business is highly lucrative and has a lot in common with the game of Monopoly. There's a vibrant trade in cafes -- in Melbourne there are stories (perhaps exaggerated) of $50,000 a week businesses selling for $2 million. If you know what you're doing you can pick up an ailing business -- or start your own -- build it up, sell, then move on to something bigger and start again. Nick Kutcher is ...More »

From SBS Food As he hits Australia to promote his new book A Day at El Bulli, Ed Charles catches up with the man who is changing the way we relate to food. There is no easy way to explain the food of Ferran Adria at El Bulli, which has been unanimously voted, for the past three years, as the best restaurant in the world. You need to eat there and that’s difficult because his 50 seat ...More »

From SBS Food Sure Alba has it’s gothic towers dating back to the 12th century. Yes, there really isn’t anything else than can match the easy European charm of the town, some 75km south or Turin in Piedmont, with it’s wonderful rustic food, wines and cobbled ancient streets. But really the whole point of Alba is its white truffles, the white tuber magnatum pico or Alba truffle, the magnificantly musky, earthy scented tuber that is harvested from ...More »

From SBS Food Phununication Do not say foe Do not say foo And especially don’t Say the word which describes a “number two” Start with an fff To be followed by an urgh Once it become un-Pho-gettable You’ll get with the slue. An extract from Phonunication courtesey, Katie Nguyen from the I Love Pho booklet. Anyone whose origins are Vietnamese has a story about pho, the beefy, spicy nutricious Vietnamese noodle soup. And pho, the national dish of Vietnam, is a hot topic debated every bit ...More »

From The Australian, Entrepreneur An online questionnaire can help employers sort the chaff from the grain when it comes to recruiting workers, writes Ed Charles Article from: The Australian THE internet is a wonderful thing for job hunters. Once an online resume is created, it can be sent almost effortlessly to as many potential employers as the applicant wishes. The SME recruiter, however, is fast becoming overwhelmed by resumes -- many from people who are inappropriate ...More »