Author: Ed

Drinks

The Butter Factor

Butter’s come a long way since Marlon Brando first used it as a lubricant – just as cheese has come a long way since it was imported into Australia in tins. We now have our first legally made unpasteurized cheese – known as C2 – available from Bruny Island Cheese. And for the first time the Australian Cheese Awards have recognised a really decent local cheese – Jindi Old Telegraph Road. The long slow march of the cheesemakers is now […]

Cooking, Eat streets, French, Japanese, Restaurants

Heirloom – one foam too far

Heirloom looks great but the food needs to be simpler. The best French chefs are Japanese nowadays, they say. But they aren’t French they are Japanese. They are just cooking French-style with the addition of Japanese ingredients. Meanwhile, the best French chefs are now open in Japan. They rock. Or at least Michel Bras does, the man who is one of the inspirations for local, sustainable super-natural cuisine several decades before Noma had even been dreamt of. And now this […]

Eat streets, Restaurants

Josie Bones: we ate everything

We all know Chris Badenoch right? The bad boy beer guy who was runner-up on Masterchef series one. He’s the one that was chewed-up by the tabloids and spat out a love rat. Now he’s a place of his own to, so to speak, chew-up rare breed animals and swallow, together with several hundred beers. Josie Bones, his love child with Masterchef runner-up Julia Jenkins, has only a token page of wines to a telephone book of beers but surprisingly […]

journalism

The foodies’ guide to Chinese New Year

Just as Christmas is the most important festival on the Western calendar, Chinese New Year is the most important on the Chinese one. It’s about the family coming together to feast on New Year Eve, honour their ancestors and wish for prosperity. Unlike the Western Christmas and New Year, it doesn’t fall on a set day, but follows the lunar calendar; the first day being the new moon, when the moon still isn’t visible, and ending on the 15th day […]

journalism

Art for art’s sake

There’s a strange thing about art. Try to make money from it and you probably won’t. But start slowly, steer clear of the word “investment” and the works you buy could appreciate. That’s the message from collectors great and small, and from specialists such as art dealer and author Michael Reid. “In my 10 years of writing for the business section of The Australian I never mentioned the ‘i’ word once,” says Reid, author of How to Buy & Sell […]

Food blogs

In for a gram…in for a pound

I think Gram magazine is quite nice looking. But as a concept it is utter crap. It’s a lazy way to use other people’s content to make money out of advertising. In short it summarises blog posts and then links back to the blog but without asking permission to use content. It did send out emails which detailed that bloggers had to opt out if they didn’t want their content used (which I did through several email exchanges). It is […]

Blogs, Content marketing, Facebook, rules of engagement, social media, Twitter

Davos: businesses exposed by social media

From today’s Australian: “And Davos confirmed that the Facebook social networking and mobile technology revolutions were now a priority agenda item for Australian business leaders extending from retailing (Mr Goyder) and banking (Mrs Kelly) to construction (Mr King) and business services (Ms Walker).” Westpac CEO Gail Kelly said that social media meant that “business was more exposed to issues being magnified and accelerated at digital speed”. “There are big implications for the way you manage media and marketing, the way […]

journalism

Robbie Burns Day

There are many jokes about the Scots, kilts and Robbie Burns Night. Some say Burns Night, a tradition which began in the early 1800s, is an excuse to have a piss up and dress up in kilts. But, nowadays, it’s really about poetry (and an excuse to throw on a kilt) and a country’s romance for the poet Robbie – or Rabbie – Burns who was born on the January 25, 1759 and died, prematurely, aged just 37 following dental […]

Advertising, journalism

The whole beast

While the default Christmas dinner option for many people is a golden-brown roast turkey, it is perhaps a strange dish to have imprinted on the national psyche. Now, cooks are escaping the mid-summer kitchen heat and taking to the outdoors, ramping up the traditional barbecue by roasting whole lambs, pigs and goats, which are the ideal size for the backyard. They provide a real “wow” factor, being roasted on the spit and presented whole on the table. Twitter food adventurer […]