Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 40

Heli to Rotto, Biking The Island, Quokkas, The Rottnest Express, A Beach Lunch and A Colombian Dinner

The truth about my trip to Australia is that, until I boarded the flight over here, I hadn’t really thought about what it was that I expected to get out of the trip. Of course, just coming here was going to be enriching and exciting, but what specific thing did I hope to take away? And then it dawned on me as I studied my itinerary; Australians are daring, they just get up and do things and don’t think twice about it. And so the activities planned for Wednesday (yesterday) would be the perfect opportunity for me to let go of my neurotic New York Woody-Allen-like qualities and become a Paul Hogan, a Steve Irwin, a Priscilla Queen of the Desert. It all began with a helicopter.

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The Clean Plate Club, Episode #15: Alex Witchel (Author of “All Gone”)

When I had the opportunity to interview New York Times writer Alex Witchel about her beautiful new memoir All Gone, I spent a whole day reading the book and I positively tore through it, I found it so moving and powerful. The book details Witchel’s mother’s decline into dementia and Witchel’s struggle to recreate the recipes she knew and loved from her mother’s kitchen. What’s so original about the book is that, unlike so many food memoirs, it doesn’t pretend that food can cure all ills–in many ways, as Witchel discovers over the course of the book’s journey, it simply distracts us from our harsh reality. But it’s not all bleak: there are bright spots, including bits about Witchell’s marriage to columnist (and former theater critic) Frank Rich, how she became a writer for The New York Times, and–most amusing to me–her lunch with Elaine Stritch.

Eating Swan Valley, Bushtucker, Makin’ Nougat, Lunch at Houghton Wines and Kanga Bangas on the Beach

Today was a day so filled with food and information about food I’m not sure what’s more likely to burst: my belly or my brain. Before I take you along on my first Perth adventure, here’s something I learned from my new Australian friends: Australians like to abbreviate words to make them easier to say. So they wouldn’t call me Adam here, they’d call me “Ads.” A fireman is a “firey,” a relative is a “relly,” breakfast is “brekky.” Got it? So let’s get started on this posty.

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Flying to Australia, Qantas Food, The Sydney Airport, Hello Perth and Dinner at Lalla Rookh

I can’t believe I’m about to do what I’m about to do. After 26 hours of travel (with 20 hours of flying), I’m finally in my hotel room capable of going to bed–it’s 7:52 PM on Monday night in Perth, it’s 3:53 AM Sunday night/Monday morning in Los Angeles–and here I am editing pictures and writing a blog post about everything that’s happened so far. I must be mad! But no, readers, I do this for you…because I figure if I’m going to have an adventure to Australia, you should get to hear all about it. So let’s start with the lentil soup.

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10 Big Pots of Food You Can Make To Eat For A Week

Well, folks, this is it. I’m packing up my suitcase to head to Australia for 12 days–a journey I plan to document on the blog as I go (we’ll see how I do!)–and Craig is asking me to make a big pot of something to leave him in the fridge so he can have food to eat when I’m not here. I feel very wife-from-Babe. Coincidentally, friends at a Halloween party recently asked me to write a post on this very subject: things you can make on Sunday night that allow you to eat well on Monday and Tuesday. So here, now, is a list of dishes that meet that very criteria; most will taste better the longer they refrigerate. Also: you can store these dishes in the cooking vessels you cooked them in and put them right back on the stove to heat them up. You can also double the recipes and eat for even longer. (As for what I’m making Craig tonight, it’s Gina DePalma’s lentil soup from my cookbook, as documented by Deb here.)

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My Final Top Chef New Orleans Cartoon Recap

The Clean Plate Club, Episode #14: Allen Salkin (Author “From Scratch: Inside The Food Network”)

So as many of you know, I spent a year hosting a web show for the Food Network that brought me face-to-face with some of its biggest stars: Rachael Ray, Bobby Flay, Alton Brown. I haven’t really talked about what I saw behind the scenes but in this week’s podcast, I open up with journalist Allen Salkin who just released a fascinating book called From Scratch: Inside The Food Network. Listen in and learn what Food Network culture’s really like, why their ratings are going down, how they handled the Paula Deen crisis and what they could do to save themselves. You can also listen in iTunes by clicking here.

Arkansas Black Apple Cobbler

When Chef Diep Tran sang the praises of Arkansas Black apples on L.A. Weekly’s Squid Ink blog, there was no lack of enthusiasm: “The Arkansas Black’s siren song starts out bright and tart, then blooms with notes of nutmeg, coriander, vanilla and anise the longer it sits in cellar.” She points out that the apple is called the “Snow White” apple because of its “white flesh and ebony skin.” By the time I finished reading her post, I knew that if I ever saw Arkansas Black apples I would have to buy them. And sure enough, a week or two later, at the Atwater Village Farmer’s Market, I found them in a bin. I felt like I won the lottery.

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How To Serve Guacamole On Halloween

My friends John and Michael hosted a Halloween party this weekend and everyone got a big kick out of how they served the guacamole (see above); they got the idea from Pinterest, so no one’s claiming it’s original, but it’s still a good one to use if you’re doing anything for Halloween this week. The party was a costume party and costumes were REQUIRED and, of course, I left it until the last minute to find mine. Here was the scene at Party City when I arrived on Saturday at 4….

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The Ultimate Five-Hour Meat Ragu

Gather ye round, friends, and hear the tale of a ragu that cooked for five hours, perking away on the stove as the many pieces of meat that went into it–lamb shoulder, pork ribs, short ribs–slowly broke down and contributed their fat and flavor to the tomatoes and onions and garlic that made up the sauce, along with a secret ingredient (anchovies) we best not tell our guests about. Unlike Sunday gravies that I’ve made before, this ragu–which comes from Canal House Cooking Volume No. 2–asks you, at the three hour mark, to shred the meat by hand and return it to the pot. What happens then is that the meat continues to break down over the next two hours, as the sauce thickens, and what you have at the end is something so remarkable, so utterly delicious, you may as well throw away any other ragu recipe you possess because there’s no topping this one.

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