The week that was (29 April 2017)

- The James Beard Media Awards were announced this week. As always, there were a few golden nuggets in there. For those who enjoy a good read: Bourdain’s Roads and Kingdoms won best publication - among their articles The Last Dinner in the Jungle is a desperate must-read, looking at some of the meals cooked by refugees in the illegal encampments that have popped up in Calais – food is so simple and yet so powerful; the New Yorker won for their food issue (see this year’s here); the NYTimes eat:column was also mentioned for numerous articles written by Francis Lam. For the more visual among us, do watch the beautiful trailer for The Birth of Sake, you may also want to watch a couple of the “24 hours at” series on Bon Appétit (Franklin Barbecue was pretty excellent). The restaurant side of the awardsplays out on Monday …
 
- From booze and barbecues to the slippery world of farmed vs wild fish. The Fish on my Plate, an American doco, looks excellent. While I haven’t yet found access to the full thing, the clip about half way down this article looking at salmon fishing/farming/ranching in Alaska was well worth watching. As you make your way to the trailer there are some great little thoughts and insights regarding farmed fisheries, conversion rates of feed for different breeds (and where that feed comes from) and lumpsuckers – a fish that is used to help reduce the sea louse on wild salmon as they pass farmed fish. The upshot for the producer was to eat more mussels and seaweed, but there’s so much to digest here. While you’re contemplating, you may want to have a look at this post from Sus re a very cute baby lobster grown from an egg in a hatchery in our own backyard …
 
- So, I’ll be in Adelaide next week for Tasting Australia. I bloody love Adelaide and am very excited – I’ve also been very lucky to be invited to some truly delightful events. God knows what it means for next week's TWTW, but I suppose that has become part of this 'weekly' missive ... the total mystery of the arrival date. I'm pitching for Thursday, but making no promises ...