Updated 20.3.07 and hopefully all links working. Any missing please let me know. I think this list of 42 is fairly comprehensive but inevitably there are a couple of local food blogs lurking out there that I haven’t found. There are many more local food blogs out there but they haven’t been updated for months or years. When I started blogging in July 2005 there were barely 30 food blogs locally. Now there are about 100 active ones in Australia. […]
Recent posts
Ed Lines
TOP AUSSIE NOSH The revamped Royal Mail Hotel (519 Spencer St, West Melbourne) is flying in by light aircraft fresh produce from Flinders Island, including crays. Open under new owner Jen Matthews for seven weeks, and with a new chef, the pub also offers your basic $10-$12 mains and plenty of grub for the kids. Watch out for wallaby and smoky bacon sausages, roo burgers and other national emblems. VIN JONES Look for new twists in Thai-influenced modern Australian cooking […]
IN THE BLACK: In the trenches – March 2007
Here’s the problem: Australia is very good at digging stuff out of the ground, and it’s very good at planting loads of stuff in the ground and growing it. What the country isn’t so good at is making high-value products – whether they be minerals or food staples – out of those raw materials. According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), the Australian food industry exports 95 per cent of food in bulk and in minimally […]
Farmers’ markets: are they worth it?
Honeycomb from St Kilda Farmers’ market: worth it. Hopping in your car and going to the St Kilda Farmers’ Market (Peanut Farm Reserve, Chauncer St) this Saturday? From Salon (via Crikey!): “Worried about the global warming impact of the fossil fuel consumed by the trucks that bring your tomatoes from hundreds of miles away to your local supermarket? In a life-cycle analysis, the couple of miles that you drive in your car to get to the supermarket and back does […]
Bridging the family fortune generation gap
By Ed Charles THE question has been exercising the minds of the wealthy forever — how to ensure the kids don’t blow the family fortune. Private banks report that independent advice on investment strategies for the intergenerational transfer of wealth is one of the fastest growing areas of demand. This is especially so in the case of business owners considering retirement. Goldman Sachs JBWere private wealth management managing director Paul Heath says private banking clients are usually successful people who […]
AT YOUR SERVICE – HOW TO JOIN A PRIVATE BANK – YOUR BANK, EXCLUSIVELY
By Ed Charles COVER STORY Qualifying is half the battle to be a customer of a private bank, Ed Charles reports THE world of private banking consists of an exclusive club of retail bank clients and an elite club of global private bank clients. The level of personal service you get and what you pay will depend very much on how much money you have. At the very least for membership of this club you will need assets of about […]
Ed Lines
In the first of a new weekly column, ED CHARLES dishes up the latest on Melbourne’s food and bars HARD ROCK The Hard Rock Cafe (1 Bourke St, city) will close this year to be replaced by shops as part of a refurbishment of the Windsor Hotel. Rubbish bins in the next-door alley, Windsor Place, will be swapped with cafes and restaurants, making a new eat street. No fixed plans for Hard Rock Cafe yet. BAR HUMS The Red Hummingbird […]
Five things you didn’t know about me
I’ve been tagged by Andrea, an Australian living in Paris, from Buy Organic for the “five things” meme. Sorry it has taken me a while… 1. I was exposed in The Australian today. Yes, it is true that this food blogger soon becomes part of the “enhanced” food media landscape. I was first approached by the Herald Sun (Australia’s biggest selling daily newspaper) last November, it firmed up earlier this month and I finally signed a contract last Wednesday. The […]
For beautiful bread, historic oven proves old ways still best
THE CURIOUS COOK 
 IT’S 11pm at the Portarlington Bakehouse, on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, and the wood-fired oven is still warm from the morning’s baking. I watch as Terry Christofi lights some pieces of newspaper stuffed between the old palings in the oven’s firebox; flames shoot out. Christofi taps on the antique brass temperature gauge, waiting for it to reach 800F on the old scale (almost 430C). The baker is making these preparations in the middle of the night because […]