Goodbye cruel blog world

You might notice that it's been a while since I've updated the site. That's because I am a total slack ass. I don't know if anyone reads it anyway, but the appeal of blogging is not as strong when you write all day for a buck as well. Perhaps, some day I'll be inspired anew and under the cover of some witty pseudonym start again but for now ta-ta.

Restaurant and Catering Awards

There were some surprises at last night's Brisbane awards, with the winners going on to represent QLD in the state awards. It was a pretty good result, although a couple of my personal faves (Citron & Tukka) didn't win anything.Nice to see Two Small Rooms get some recognition-it's probably been one of Brisbane's most consistent restaurants. it was a great night, but I reckon there are a few sore heads this morning. So here's the list. Feel free to express your opinion.


Winner
Best Alfresco Dining Restaurant Watt Modern Dining

Finalist
Best Alfresco Dining Restaurant The Full Moon Hotel
Finalist
Best Alfresco Dining Restaurant Vroom Café & Bar - Brisbane

Winner
Best Pizza Restaurant Arriva Italian Restaurant Dairy Farmers
Finalist
Best Pizza Restaurant Beccofino
Finalist
Best Pizza Restaurant Capri Café Bar

Winner
Best Thai Restaurant The Royal Thai Orchid Milton Nepenthe Wines
Finalist
Best Thai Restaurant
Mons Ban Sabai Thai Garden Restaurant
Finalist
Best Thai Restaurant Talay Thai Restaurant

Winner
Best Chinese Restaurant China Sea Milton Restaurant
Finalist
Best Chinese Restaurant The Bamboo Shoot
Finalist
Best Chinese Restaurant Wang Dynasty Southbank Restaurant

Winner
Best Chef/Owner Restaurant Seasalt at Armstrongs Goodman Fielder
Finalist
Best Chef/Owner Restaurant Gianni's Restaurant
Finalist
Best Chef/Owner Restaurant The Courthouse Restaurant

Winner
Best Informal Dining Restaurant Two Small Rooms Coca Cola
Finalist
Best Informal Dining Restaurant Amis Restaurant Bar & Venue
Finalist
Best Informal Dining Restaurant Baguette Restaurant & Lounge Bar
Finalist
Best Informal Dining Restaurant Blue Frog
Finalist
Best Informal Dining Restaurant Cha Cha Char Wine Bar & Grill

Winner
Best Specialty Cuisine Restaurant Ahmets Turkish Restaurant - Southbank
Finalist
Best Specialty Cuisine Restaurant Morgans Seafood Restaurant & Teppanyaki Room
Finalist
Best Specialty Cuisine Restaurant Tukka Restaurant

Winner
Best Seafood Restaurant Lure Restaurant @ The Coro Hotel Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries
Finalist
Best Seafood Restaurant Bretts Wharf Seafood Restaurant
Finalist
Best Seafood Restaurant Gambaro Seafood Restaurant
Finalist
Best Seafood Restaurant Morgans Seafood Restaurant & Teppanyaki Room
Finalist
Best Seafood Restaurant Oxleys on the River
Winner
Best Hotel/Motel Restaurant The Lab Bar & Restaurant American Express
Finalist
Best Hotel/Motel Restaurant Va Bene Restaurant
Winner
Best Casual Dining/Buffet Restaurant Hanaichi
Finalist
Best Casual Dining/Buffet Restaurant Shingle Inn Café
Finalist
Best Casual Dining/Buffet Restaurant Story Bridge Hotel - Shelter Bar
Winner
Best Indian Restaurant Sitar Indian Restaurant - Albion Castlemaine Perkins
Finalist
Best Indian Restaurant Sitar Indian Restaurant - West End
Finalist
Best Indian Restaurant Taj Bengal Indian Restaurant
Winner
Best Fine Dining Restaurant Gianni's Restaurant Alsco
Finalist
Best Fine Dining Restaurant Isis Brasserie
Finalist
Best Fine Dining Restaurant Restaurant Two
Winner
Best Modern Australian Restaurant Two Small Rooms
Finalist
Best Modern Australian Restaurant Baguette Restaurant & Lounge Bar
Finalist
Best Modern Australian Restaurant Restaurant Two
Winner
Best Family Establishment Restaurant Ragazzi's Café Westpac
Finalist
Best Family Establishment Restaurant Cosi Ristorante Italiano
Finalist
Best Family Establishment Restaurant Enchilada's Mexican Cantina
Winner
Best BYO Restaurant Piccolo Restaurant
Finalist
Best BYO Restaurant Raphael's Restaurant
Finalist
Best BYO Restaurant Sprout Café
Winner
Best New Restaurant Bespoke Restaurant Foster's Australia
Finalist
Best New Restaurant Amis Restaurant Bar & Venue
Finalist
Best New Restaurant The Point Restaurant & Bar
Finalist
Best New Restaurant Citron Restaurant
Winner
Best Themed Restaurant High Societea
Finalist
Best Themed Restaurant Ahmets on Oxford
Finalist
Best Themed Restaurant Belgian Beer Café Brussels
Winner
Best Pub/Tavern/Club Restaurant Regatta Boatshed Steakhouse Harbottle on premise
Finalist
Best Pub/Tavern/Club Restaurant Deery's Restaurant - Story Bridge Hotel
Finalist
Best Pub/Tavern/Club Restaurant The Full Moon Hotel
Winner
Best Breakfast Restaurant Café Conti
Finalist
Best Breakfast Restaurant Depot Emporium
Finalist
Best Breakfast Restaurant Jones the Grocer Indooroopilly
Winner
Best Italian Restaurant Mario at the Dining Room Ristorante Italiano Barilla
Finalist
Best Italian Restaurant Alberto's
Finalist
Best Italian Restaurant Mariosarti
Winner

Best Tourism Restaurant Vino's Restaurant & Bar Department of Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development
Finalist
Best Tourism Restaurant Oxleys on the River
Finalist
Best Tourism Restaurant Sirromet Wines, Restaurant Lurleens

Winner
Best Coffee Shop/Café Restaurant High Societea ABS Business Sales
Finalist
Best Coffee Shop/Café Restaurant Café 21
Finalist
Best Coffee Shop/Café Restaurant Justea

Winner
Professional Development - under
100 Staff Watt Modern Dining
Finalist
Professional Development - under 100 Staff Cha Cha Char Wine Bar & Grill
Finalist
Professional Development - under 100 Staff The Courthouse Restaurant

Winner
Professional Development - over 100 Staff Conrad Treasury Brisbane
Finalist
Professional Development - over 100 Staff Heritage Catering Services

Winner
Best Steak Restaurant Cha Cha Char Wine Bar & Grill Top Cut Foods
Finalist
Best Steak Restaurant Deery's Restaurant - Story Bridge Hotel
Finalist
Best Steak Restaurant Regatta Boatshed Steakhouse

Winner
Best European Restaurant Bespoke Restaurant Fine Wine Partners
Finalist
Best European Restaurant Lat 27 Brisbane
Finalist
Best European Restaurant Savini Restaurant & Wine Bar

Judges Commendation

Best Restaurant in a Winery Sirromet Wines, Restaurant Lurleens

Winner
Best Entertainment Restaurant Ahmets Turkish Restaurant - Southbank APRA
Finalist
Best Entertainment Restaurant Ahmets on Oxford
Finalist
Best Entertainment Restaurant Harem Turkish Restaurant

Winner
Best Asian Restaurant Two Seasons Cuisine
Finalist
Best Asian Restaurant Citron Restaurant
Finalist
Best Asian Restaurant Hanaichi

Winner
Best Restaurant Wine List
Featuring Qld Wines The Boroughs Café Wine Bar
Finalist
Best Restaurant Wine List Featuring Qld Wines Tukka Restaurant

Winner
Best Venue Caterer Michael O'Brien Catering - The Gabba Arnott's Campbell’s Food Service
Finalist
Best Venue Caterer Catering with Flair
Finalist
Best Venue Caterer Spotless at Suncorp Stadium

Winner
Best Event Caterer Cha Char Catering Yellow Cabs
Finalist
Best Event Caterer Bretts Wharf Events Catering
Finalist
Best Event Caterer Culinart Creative Catering

Winner
Best Function/Convention Centre Caterer Bretts Wharf River Room
Finalist
Best Function/Convention Centre Caterer Hillstone St Lucia
Finalist
Best Function/Convention Centre Caterer Spotless at Suncorp Stadium

Winner
Best Site Caterer Lifestyle Chef
Finalist
Best Site Caterer Heritage Catering Services

Winner
Best Corporate Caterer Cha Char Catering
Finalist
Best Corporate Caterer Bretts Wharf Events Catering
Finalist
Best Corporate Caterer Michael O'Brien Catering - The Gabba

Winner
Best Institutional Caterer Lifestyle Chef
Finalist
Best Institutional Caterer Beadles on the Quad

Winner
Best Wedding Caterer Hillstone St Lucia
Finalist
Best Wedding Caterer Bretts Wharf River Room

Winner Caterer of the Year Bretts Wharf River Room Queensland Government
Winner Restaurant of the Year Two Small Rooms Sunsuper

5 minute baby pear tarts

My just-turned 7 year old loves cooking (and eating the results!)and today, being a cold, greyish kind of morning, was perfect for cooking. I had some puff pastry in the freezer, and a pear that was looking a little mushy and came up with these. They're so fast, and kids love doing things with pastry! I have a thing for palm sugar- at the moment, I just love the subtle, caramelly flavour of it.

They're more like pear sandwiches than a tart, but I just don't know what else to call them! I broke my camera last week, so can't photograph them, but they're quite cute and would be fab with some really good vanilla icecream.


Makes around 16-20 mini tarts


2 sheets puff pastry
3 ripe pears
some palm sugar
milk to brush on
cinnamon


Lay out the pastry sheet, and using a the edge of a glass, cut out rounds. Put on a grease-proof baking tin. Peel and slice pear and place a couple of slices on each round of pastry. Top with a sliver of shaved palm sugar and sprinkle with cinnamon. Put another pastry round on top and brush with milk. Bake until golden and eat warm.

Blimey- this is my kind of degree!

While researching yesterday at work,(ok, surfing!) I came across the astounding fact that at Adelaide University, you can do an MA in Gastronomy!! Yes, seriously!!You can even do it online. Check out the link. It sounds fabulous. Am seriously considering this one.

Natascha

Food and Ethics

I've just been reading Peter Singer and Jim Mason's new book 'The Ethics of What we Eat'. Singer is an Australian professor of bioethics, although he spends his time between Uni of Melbourne and and Princeton Uni. Mason is an American journo, attorney and enviromnmentalist.

It's very disturbing reading. For example, "Chickens today, now grow 3 times faster and consume only 1/3 as much feed as they did in the 1950's. 90% of broiler chickens have leg problems because of their body weight, 26 have chronic bone disease. Sometimes their vertabrae snap and they are left to die of thirst or hunger. The high ammonia levels from all the bird droppings give the birds respiratory disease, sores on their feat and breast blisters and many go blind."

More than 90% of pigs raised for meat today are raised indoors in crowded pens of concrete and steel. They never get to go outside, or root around in pasture and don't even have straw to bed down in. They are pregnant most of their lives"


or veal calves "16 weeks of confinement in semi darkness in a bare wooden crate too narrow to turn around in. ALready stressed by separation from his mother and unable to mingle with others of his kind, he will be fed only 'milk replacer' a liquid mixture of dried milk products, starch, fats, sugar, antibiotics and other additives. This diet is deliberately low in iron so he will develop anaemia. Thats what the veal producer wants because it means that the calf's flesh, instead of being a normal, healthy red colour of a 16 week old calf on pasture will retain the pale pink colour and soft texture of 'prime veal'.


There's alot more in this vein- stuff about aquaculture farms and the damage they do in terms of pollution etc. It's pretty graphic- but not preachy. Basically, they are saying 'these are the facts- we don't expect everyone to become vegetarian but just to make whatever better choices they can'. They then offer a few ways to do this for example'

Eating local
Puts money into local economy and helps save small, often family run farms

Eating Organic
Better for the environment because of the lack of fertilisers and pesticides that make their way into the food chain

Eating sustainable wild fish rather than farmed. (The book gives links to finding out what these are)

Buying Fair Trade products- currently in Australia, these are mainly tea, coffee and chocolate marked with the Fair Trade logo. It means they have to pay workers a fair wage, the farmers have to be part of a co-op, they have to follow strict health and safety regulations and the farmers are paid a set price for their coffee, even if the market crashes.

And of course, considering become a vegetarian, vegan or cutting down on animal products.


Ethics are not really something I've ever thought about in connection with food- but it is certainly a complicated issue. While I'm unlikely to give up meat (I don't eat it all that often, and have only ever bought organic for years) because I like it, but the book has given me food for thought. I never really considered dairy for example, but will now go organic for my milk too, try to seek out some fair trade coffee and generally be more aware of what I'm eating on ethical, not just health grounds.

My name is Natascha....and it's been 3 hours 26 minutes since I checked my emails

I have a love-hate relationship with the internet. I use it waaaay too much. I check my emails like an expectant teenager, with the absolute conviction that it's only a matter of time until something remarkable is going to appear in my email box;an amazing job offer, an old lover recently divorced who can't get me out of his head, news of an inheritance.

Instead I frequently open it to find offers of cheap viagra or letters from a dying Nigerian lady, who wants my bank details so she can deposit her billions into my account for distribution to charity on her death.

I pathetically google myself every couple of months, just in case someone has written something about my fabulousness. I look up recipes, then have to do searchs on what 'ready whip' and 'hamburger helper' might be. Somehow, hours disappear and I resurface, dazed and confused, with a vague memory of logging on to check whether the buco, in osso bucco has one c or two.

I tell myself I'm going to give it up. Today, I decided to research the old fashioned way and went to the work library to look at BOOKS. I realised when I saw the astonished open mouthed faces that greeted my entry that I had crossed a line. The remaining guardians of paper and page were trying to spend their last few years before retirement drinking their cups of Tetley in peace and didn't want the likes of me making them climb stools for books, what with their arthritis and all.

I forget to leave a crumb trail and it took many hours of wandering through dark corridors to find my way to my desk again. I did discover however, there are 6 male and only 4 female toilets in my building and sat down to write a letter of complaint to the equity board, but make the mistake of checking my email while I'm waiting for the thesaurus to find a alternative for 'piss trough'.
Somehow, I end up at this site, : http/www.lileks.com/institute/galleryinstitute/gallery
my pod mates are rolling their eyes at my guffawing and my mascara is twin black rivers. By the time I recover it's going home time. A very unproductive day and I'm still not 100% sure how to spell osso buco, but just occasionally, the twists and turns of the cyber highway take you somewhere special.

Natascha

Thanks for the cake Soph!

Always great to have an excuse to eat cake! Tonight was going to a friends place for dinner and another friend, Sophie was coming. It was her birthday a few days ago, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and make a cake for dessert. Unfortunately dinner was cancelled. So here I am, with a still warm cake and no one to share it with. :(

Anyway, the recipe, which comes from all round nice guy, Pommy chef Antony Warrell-Thompson is one of the easiest I've ever made, a no-fail standby that is very moist nicely textured but not sickeningly sweet.


2 Oranges
200g castor sugar
200g almond meal
pinch baking soda
6 eggs

Boil oranges, for two hours. When done, drain, cool and put in a magimix with sugar, eggs and baking soda (left out the baking soda today and it still worked) and almond meal until just combined. Pour into a lined springform pan and cook for around 45 mins.


Natascha