The week that was (1 June 2016)

So many wine stories this week …
 
- The WET palaver. What you need to know:
 
The Federal government have proposed changes to the wine equalisation tax rebate. This rebate was originally put in place to encourage small business. It currently includes rebates of up to $500k for wine makers – I think that’s wine makers who have an annual turn over of around $2 mill. Bizarrely this is also available to NZ winemakers. Businesses have been built with this rebate in mind. Rorting is also rife among larger wine makers (with turn over in the $100 mill mark).
 
In recent years the small/boutique wine making scene in Australia has boomed. This includes both those with wineries and those with vineyards. This is important, as being able to have one or the other (but not necessarily both) has allowed people to enter the market without massive over-heads, a huge problem with agriculture in general. If you don’t inherit, how else do you break in?? So, the issue here is twofold.
 

1. Reducing the threshold (from $500k to $290k) will, without question, impact some small producers. While $2 mill turnover isn’t peanuts, it’s also not sheep stations – as any small business owner will attest to.
2. However, what I see as the bigger issue, is the eligibility (or lack thereof) of those without a winery. The suggested changes indicate you must have a winery (not just the vines) to be included. The ‘virtual brand’ or ‘virtual winery’ is at threat. In the modern world we live in, this is so backwards, it's ridiculous. In fact, even in an old-fashioned world, in the peasant cultures of Europe, a central winery has always been the beating heart of small localised production, with co-ops and winery facilities available to borrow. How ludicrous to suggest we will only support people who have built wineries on their properties. (“To remove the rebate from virtual wineries – some of whom I have made and still make contract wine for – and from tiny operators working out of corners of wineries around the country, would most likely endanger the rich tapestry that Australian wine has become in the last 10-15 years. That alone should never be allowed to happen.” Gary Mills (Jamsheed).)

 
We need more small. We need less large. We want to encourage a youthful culture in the country, we want to encourage small business. This seems pretty simple to me. Read more on the Wine Front here and here, or William Downie’s rants here and here.  
 
- Natural wine labels got a touch up in Punch for being too raunchy. No, actually, for been outright sexist. I admit I love the Ganevat labels, in fact, I think they’re beautiful (particularly Madelon), but I totally see their point. 
 
- I enjoyed this piece about the elements that make up the ultimate wine bar by Andrea Frost. "In a culture where active appreciation of sensory pleasures is rapidly being replaced with accumulation of digital ones, taking a moment to ponder, admire or discuss a glass of wine with company is something closer to important than pleasurable."
 
As an aside, it was George Orwell’s essay describing his own fantasy pub, Moon Under Water, that inspired her to put pen to paper. It is a beautiful essay and a delightful (abeit fantasy) ideal.

“And though, strictly speaking, they are only allowed in the garden, the children tend to seep into the pub and even to fetch drinks for their parents. This, I believe, is against the law, but it is a law that deserves to be broken, for it is the puritanical nonsense of excluding children—and therefore, to some extent, women—from pubs that has turned these places into mere boozing-shops instead of the family gathering-places that they ought to be." 

Of course this particularly poignant this week, with the above news that the Melbourne pub named for the same will close - a pub that is, incidentally, one of my favourites. Do read it.

- Finally, if you're not watching series two of Chef's Table, you are missing out. It is what these colder, wintery nights are made for! 

The week that was (26 May 2016)

- Last week I failed you with promises of Fass’s rant, disappointingly linking to an article in the Tele instead. My apologies. You can read Fass giving it to little Johnny and little Larry here (you will need to be on FB and you will need to scroll down to May 16).
 
Comedy aside, the rant is symptomatic of something else, a greater problem in the industry and an important one - the business of sustainability, or, more precisely, the sustainability of the business. This week’s news stories offered us plenty to ponder.
 
- Hospo Mag set the scene. They took a look at your average 180 seater, 7 day (lunch and dinner) operation (ok, so not so average, but for arguments sake ...). They broke down the figures (a pretty standard 30/30/30 split) and then tried to find places to make the savings, working on the premise that the punters won't pay more. (I’m not convinced on this point, in fact I think all food needs to become more expensive.) They take a furtive glance in the direction of award wages, apprenticeships and the proposed changes to the 457 visa. Sadly this is all questions and not many answers, beyond seeding debate and turning the glare away from the owners.
 
- One potential solution to managing costs is to look to a pre-paid system. Designed to abate some of the standard frustrations (no-shows, unnecessary food costs and nailing the balance of staff), the system was taken to task this week by Lethlean (you’ll need to scroll to find it). His grievances were largely aimed at Lûmé who are using Tock, a pre-paid reservations system run by Alinea co-owner, Kokonas.
 
“I don’t think Australia will get on board. But I’m just a Luddite who spends about $50,000 a year in restaurants, all of it the old-fashioned way. Tock will work for the restaurant. Right up until people stop buying tickets.”
 
Chef and owner Shaun Quade wrote an eloquent and considered response to Letho’s piece. In it, he explained his vision for the restaurant and shared his figures and reasoning. Read it. It’s great.
 
- Of course, there are also the anomalies, but at what cost? I'm talking about the incredible expansion of branded ‘casual premium’ restaurants: Fratelli Fresh (via UPG) have become a moveable feast, while Long Chim also appears set for rapid expansion and now George C’s Jimmy Grants, which apparently has designs on 20 to 40 new joints across Australia in the coming years. Is this the McDonaldisation of mid-range dining??
 
- Either way, it's not a solution for everyone either, and certainly not the owner/operators. I don’t know what is, but the debate’s important. Good restaurants are important. This week, Victor Liong penned this lovely ode to Marque that summed up why. Good restaurants beget good restaurants. It’s that simple.
 
- And so we move on to another controversial topic, but one that is sparking great debate. The ‘First Lady’ of wine, Jancis Robinson, posted an article on ‘Australia - The Wild Ones’.  “Until a few years ago, all of the world's winemakers seemed to be going in the same direction, roughly in pursuit of a local copy of the French classics, more or less styled to appeal to the perceived tastes of the most powerful American critics. So big and bold held sway for many years. But today a new subculture, or perhaps more accurately a counter culture, has emerged. All over the world a new generation of producers is turning its back on the conventional archetypes and is making wines quite different from the old icons.”
 
As fate would have it, I had this exact conversation with Joel from drnks last week. I find the whole natural wine debate fascinating. How amazing that our palates can vary, in that some will change (evolve?), while others hold fast. Love them or hate them, I certainly believe that the wine industry will benefit from moving away from the encyclopaedic, out of the wrong vs right. It’s taste. It can be many things: religious, personal bias, culturally acquired. But it can’t be wrong. So, we have a flavour revolution. Let the debate rage on.
 
- On a lighter note, what about all these porcini growing around Adelaide?? They’ve landed in Sydney too, thanks to Richard Gunner. I want in. Richard tells me they most likely came in on the roots of an imported plant. He also says they are multiplying, presumably spreading to other trees. This is seriously exciting.
 
- Finally, I stumbled across ‘The Seven Ages of a Chef’ this week (via Darren Simpson). It’s a rather exquisite series of interviews The Guardian ran a couple of years ago. Much within is still valid so I am including some of the thoughts I gleened from the interviews below:
 
James Lowe – “I've realised I prefer looking after people to cooking for them. I love cooking, but I love restaurants more – it's the whole package.”
 
Locatelli - “… you could see they were in love, but maybe they didn't realise it yet … At 11.30pm, I looked out and he was kissing her, and I thought, "Yeah!" I didn't look how much money we made that day; I didn't care.”

Albert Roux - (who talks as much about his appetite for women as for food.)  “It's a fact – I was born a womaniser and I adore the company of a woman, and not particularly for sex. I'd rather have dinner with a charming lady than a charming man. But sometimes it can be taken wrongly. I'm at the moment in an ugly situation of divorce which is very unpleasant, which I didn't want it to be.” Ha. The French.
 
And 83 year old Joyce Molyneaux - “A life lived through the kitchen is something I would thoroughly recommend.” And on Elizabeth David: “Old recipes like those have an awful lot to teach us. Cooks should never forget the old recipes.” Hear, hear.

The week that was (19 May 2016)

- Trawling through the exquisite photos of The Terminus via the Lost Collective (and these beautiful country pubs) gave rise to thoughts about the traditional role of the pub as social hub in Australia. Historically they are demonised perhaps, as this article points out, because"we tend to fixate on the excesses – the drunkenness, the fights and the chauvinism" and yet traditionally they were so much more. Looking at pubs in working class areas such as Pyrmont, and thinking about the tiny cottages these people lived in, the pub was actually an extension of the lounge room.
 
It’s a beautiful French concept of socialising in a public space. As I understand it, this is why their bistros and cafes thrive. It is also why it is rare to be invited into a French home. I am pleased to see so many Sydney pubs being lovingly restored at the moment. 
 
- Of course, it’s not all bars and beers. I had an interesting conversation about the historical importance of the Greek milk bar recently and, as is often the case when you let a seedling thought take root, all of a sudden I'm seeing and and hearing it everywhere. I understand this is partly due to a recently published book of photographs of Greek milk bars/cafes around Australia, looking at the milk bar as “a kind of Trojan horse for the Americanisation of Australian culture, bringing in American refreshments, cinema, and music.”
 
- From the British pub to the American influenced Greek milk bar, there is, of course, a glaring sin of omission - any sign of a native culinary culture. John Newton is calling it “food racism” in this article (we are hearing a lot from John as he promotes his new book The Oldest Foods on Earth). The Waverley Root quote he opens his article with is somewhat hard to argue with: “food is a function of the soil, for which reason every country has the food naturally fit for it.” It's all about terroir.
 
- And for a TWTW first, a little on sport. This one comes via Alex Herbert, who questioned the use of “duck egg” to mean zero in sport (“He has clearly never eaten a duck egg and I'm clearly not up on sports saying meanings.”) I’m ashamed to note in all my summers watching the tests I had never questioned the term. Apparently it comes from the shape of the egg - it looks like a zero. For those who instead spent their summers watching tennis, you are not left out, apparently it is the English bastardisation of the French word for egg (l’oeuf) that is the etymology of the word “love” in tennis.

So, from four Australian stories I managed to link three of them to France. Tres bien. 
 
- The last word, and the most important this week, is for our dairy farmers. I have been trying to get my head around this for a week now, and I'm still not quite there. What I do know - both Murray Goulburn and Fonterra are retrospectively cutting the price they pay for milk (they represent around two thirds of Australian dairy farmers) plunging thousands of farmers into instant debt. They are suggesting this is to make up for a drop in interest from the Chinese market. Is this a story of mismanagement on behalf of these companies or is this actually about a flailing industry? And, irrespective of the reason and the market, this retrospective price shift astounds me. In fact it horrifies me. You can listen to what Waleed Aly has to say about it here, or read it in the Oz here. I am still dumbfounded. One thing is for sure and certain, we can’t complain if we keep seeking the cheapest. Good food costs money and we all march with our wallets.
 

The week that was (12 May 2016)

- RecFishWest have developed a new app that helps identify your fish. It also contains all the rules around what you can keep and what you need to throw back and it even works offline. This seems like a great move for sustainability in recreational fishing – and how nice it is to catch what you eat. The West Australian states: “For decades, fishos have relied on the hard-copy species guide stuck on their boat or packed in their tackle box.” I’m going to ignore the fact the article is a very lazy re-packaged press releasebecause they used the word fisho. I didn't know that was a thing, but I like it. 
 
- Lucky Peach took a look at women in the kitchen via this article on the Mexican dining revolution and the women who fuelled it. "The confidence, economic freedom, and culinary ingenuity of Cámara, and of women like her, converged into a muscular fulcrum that elevated the dining scene. In creating a class of restaurants that generated international acclaim and drew the elite upper class to indigenous and regional Mexican food, these women were challenging the male-centric culture at large. They could be spokespeople and icons of the country; they could be powerful entrepreneurs; they could spearhead a culinary movement. Women had always toiled in the kitchen with no status or prestige; these women demanded that the profession be elevated beyond blue-collar work." There are some great thoughts (and I love the idea of a muscular fulcrum!) 
 
They touched on the "Best Woman Chef" award in the World's 50 Best awards. They raise a good point. “So the 50 Best comes out with the woman-chef category to compensate their macho leanings. Why do they have to make a special category for women? It just highlights how unequal the profession actually is.” And unequal it is. I have been saving this puppy for a while, but take a look at this pay gap. Whoah. 
 
And, in an article that just keeps on giving, I discovered huitlacoche. A beautiful word, I had to look it up. It is a fungus that grows naturally on ears of corn, also know as a corn truffle. It looks kind of disgusting, but in that fascinating, disgusting way. A beautiful ugly. Apparently it's a Mexican delicacy. I had never heard of such a thing, but I want to know more ... Anyone?
 
- From Mexico to France, with this interview with Michel Bras. Bras talks of his childhood (“permanently swimming in nature ... I grew up smelling flowers; I tasted things”) and the inspiration he drew from other metiers when teaching himself how to cook. He quotes Sartre, "Nature talks, experience translates it" and artist Pierre Soulages "Plus les moyens sont limités, plus l’expression est forte." (The more limited the means, the more powerful the expression.)
 
He then quietly and romantically challenges the Escoffier model of kitchen team as brigade (in the military sense) “As a cook, I am a merchant of happiness. I respect the producer, I respect my guest, but in between, I respect my collaborators [Ed note: Bras refers to his staff as collaborators].”
 
And then he brings it all back to “finding the magic of being around the table. It is simple, it is tomorrow's happiness.” Oui.
 
- In contrast to those beautiful, French, romantic notions of the table, the Oz ran this rant about the culture of the share plate in Australia. It’s a grumpy old man’s take on conviviality, but it did make me laugh.  

"It always starts the same way. A bushranger with an armful of tattoos saunters over just as I’m about to deliver the punchline to a filthy story, looks around like a schoolteacher for silence and ­attention, then asks: “Have you eaten here before?”

My heart sinks. I am about to be informed, after several decades of getting food successfully into my face (some say too successfully), how this restaurant “works”.

“Chef’s dishes are designed to be shared,” Ned Kelly drawls through his luxuriant beard. But they’re not. Outside a Chinese restaurant, they hardly ever are. They are designed to make you sad, angry and mean-spirited.”

Funny, yes, but I think we all know I'm on the side of the French.

The week that was (5 May 2016)

- The Fin Rev held their hot 100 (peer-voted) awards on Monday. The awards were unfortunately preceded by the list which was leaked, or at least accidentally published, on Sunday. The planned preface to the awards was a forum on the business of food and its future. Some of the words I enjoyed from that afternoon:
 
From David Thompson: (in a beautiful sing-song lilt he has apparently developed while learning the Thai language) On Thailand - "It's the languid way in which people approach their life. To live first, not work. Sensual creatures who enjoy their life because they want to enjoy it." On culinary tradition - "a regulated approach is not constricting, it's allowed me to explore my mind, to hone and explore and excavate, to research to create a better understanding of what's being done and the context within which it is done."

From Ben Shewry: On reputation - "It's the character of the restaurant that's important, and that's what I try to build, not a rep." On competition - "Criticism has affected me more than praise, failure likewise. But there's no point in trying to be better than anyone else, just the best version of you." 
 
So, back to the list. You can see the full AFR list here and top five below:

1. Attica
2. Brae
3. Sepia (who have turned the tables on plans to shut their fine diner at the end of the year, announcing at the awards they are here to stay for at least a couple more years).
4. Quay
5. Ester 

On a personal note:

I lost a friend this week. My heart is heavy and my head is full of memories of him. Thus I have abandoned my quest for alternative models to the farmers market today. I will tackle that next week. Instead, in the tradition of Fraulein Maria, here are some happy things I have been collecting:
 
(1) Quinces in the linen cupboard - due to their long life quinces were traditionally used to perfume the linen cupboard before they were put to use in the kitchen. Sheets that smell of quinces, how delightful.
 
(2) This photograph of a 98 year old Lulu Peyraud having lunch with Alice Waters (Chez Panisse) and Carlo Petrini (Slow Food) this week. In fact all of Fanny’s photos of Domaine Tempier helped my heart sing. Imagine the conversation ...
 
(3) Nick Haddow (Bruny Island cheesemaker) realising his dream and buying his own dairy farm. He will build a cheesery dedicated to raw milk cheese, made from his own herd of cows. I was discussing raw milk cheese the other night ... we could be on the cusp of exciting things here in Australia, which is of course well overdue, but exciting none-the-less. This is another step.

(4) This graph in The Financial Times, looking at the decline in use of artificial ingredients in processed food over the past five years. Yes. 
 
(5) Finally, someone suggested at Harvest Moon that we could switch the way we discuss the gender divide in our kitchens, suggesting the imbalance could also be about men wanting to nurture and finding that in cooking (rather than approaching it from the context of women being excluded). I understand this is a long bow to draw in many cases, but it's a lovely one none the less – particularly when I think of all the beautiful male chefs I know.

The week that was (28 April 2016)

- Saveur's French issue. It’s everything. In Paris, you can read tips on where to shop and eat from the women behind Le Servan or take a look at the talented Yves Camdeborde (chef/owner of Le Comptoiret al.)

The issue tells a wonderful tale of terroir through the eyes of some serious culinary stars: from the Aubrac (Wylie Dufresne on meeting Michel Bras) to Bordeaux (building the “Guggenheim of Wine”); from Lyon (Boulud on their acclaimed bouchons) to Normandy (the reign of apples and Calvados), then back down south to the exquisite mountains of Chartreuse, home to the wild alpine roots that flavour the bitter French aperitif amer.

And finally, to that beautiful part of the world where Provence meets the Med and the enchanting tale of Lulu Peyraud of Domaine Tempier. Lulu's food was the epitome à la bonne franquette - that sense of informality, of serving each course onto the same plates and holding onto your cutlery, of eating simply and with the seasons, vegetables to start, fruit to finish, where the conversation flows as freely as the wine. Don't google it, because the literal translation does not do it justice, instead read the article.
 
- The 2016 James Beard Foundation awards for book, broadcast and journalism were announced yesterday in NYC. Lucky Peach took out top gong for publication of the year (and best blog). 
 
There’s visual storytelling via Eater (One Night at Kachka) while @freshcutgardenhose won best humour for an instagram account of illustrated somm speak. I chuckled.
 
For those who like to listen, the Southern Foodways Gravy Podcast (stories of people and place through food ... stories of the changing American South) won best podcast, while the BBC’s The Food Chain (the economics, science and culture of what we eat. What does it take to put food on your plate?) won best radio show/webcast.

The investigative report Seafood from Slaves was recognised for best food reporting – the journos behind it were also winners of a Pulitzer for this amazing series of articles. For something a little more light hearted, but still emotional and evocative in the way great food journalism should be, I loved the stories inPork Life, an autobiography in seven meals. Finally, regarding critical restaurant review, take a  look at the work of Tejal Raos, reviewing a re-worked Ko or, not mentioned but more recent, her review of La Sirena,Batalli’s new joint.
 
The James Beard restaurant and chef winners will be announced on Monday the 2nd May.
 
- A parting comment - this Saturday is Alex Herbert’s last at Eveleigh/Carriageworks Markets. Bird Cow Fish has been a fixture for the seven and a half years since the market opened. That's a lot of very early starts and massive days. It's also a lot of delicious omelettes and delightful conversations. She will be missed.

I have been thinking a lot about her contribution - about the chef among the producers. I have also been thinking about the producers' contribution. The importance of this exchange has been bouncing around my head since the “more chefs connected to the soil, more producers connected to the kitchen” exchange I mentioned post-MAD.

I want to talk about this next week. I am thinking about whether we need more solutions for our farmers and producers? It’s a tough slog to work all week in the fields and then get out of bed at 3am to spend a day on your feet at the markets. Do we need another model?? I was fortunate to spend a brilliant weekend with the team from Full Circle at Moonacre Farm two weeks ago. It was an exquisite example of the exchange going the other way. I would love to hear your thoughts as I collate.

The week that was (21 April 2016)

‘If you get the hospitality right, the food tastes better’ - Fred Sirieix
 
Everyone (front of house, back of house, in the industry, out of the industry) should read this article on the skill of the maître d', from Jay Rainer and Tim Lewis in The Guardian. Wonderful service is a wonderful thing. Sadly, I fear we don’t value professional front of house staff as much as we should. 
 
I particularly loved the beautiful story of Elena Salvoni, who died this year at 95. She was still running a monthly service at a restaurant in Soho: “a friend … took a date to L’Escargot only noticing as he got to the table, through the surreptitious patting of pockets, that he had forgotten his wallet. Elena called him to the bar for a phone call. It was a ruse. She told him she could see he had no money with him, and that he was not to worry about it. She instructed him to enjoy his dinner. “You’ll pay me tomorrow.”
 
This talk of professionalism brings me neatly back to the reviewers, and a plea … can someone, please,please, separate themselves from the others and wait a few months before they put pen to paper? That is every time you review. And yes, that is three whole months. Then write an honest, considered review of a restaurant that has had the time to find its feet and its rhythm.
 
I fear the battle to be first comes with way too many compromises. You can’t review the floor staff when they haven’t even had a day to learn the tides of the room. And that food can only ever be a whisp of what it will become with a little time in the kitchen, the time for the chefs to evolve the dishes, to learn which gas ring burns a little cooler, to find the hot pockets in the oven. Not to mention the choreography of all those new chefs who have never danced together – imagine how much better their moves will be, 700 hours in?
 
I do think the reviewers know this rush to review is unfair, but this is worse still, with their reviews now tempered to avoid criticism of themselves. It's a review which is no review. Of course, we’ve all heard the excuses. Those who saw Jonathon Gold at the Art Gallery will remember Terry, squirming a little, while trotting out one after another: we're competing with bloggers, supporting the restaurants, helping out the public (who, yes, are shelling out their hard-earned from day one), selling the newspapers. 
 
I don’t want excuses and I certainly don’t want the concessions, I also don't want the egos. It's not a race. It's people's livelihoods. I want the professionalism we expect from the restaurant to be reflected in that of the reviewers. Talk up to your audience, expect more of them and don't rush. Respect them and respect the restaurant. The industry will be better for it.

The week that was (14 April 2016)

Read -  The Sugar Conspiracy in The Guardian. It’s a great story of scientist pitted against scientist (anti-sugar man vs anti-fat man) looking at how we found ourselves in the anti-fat fad of the '80s (as opposed to an anti-sugar fad). “It was not difficult to persuade the public that if we eat fat, we will be fat (this is a trick of the language: we call an overweight person “fat”; we don’t describe a person with a muscular body as “proteiny”. But there was so much more to it – dodgy board appointments, big business funding, popularity contests. I don’t agree sugar is to blame, but the tale of how fat was pushed out while sugar stayed in (everything!) is sordid and fascinating.
 
The article also looks at the correlation between the anti-fat movement and the obesity epidemic  (“Just 12% of Americans were obese in 1950, 15% in 1980, 35% by 2000. In the UK, the line is flat for decades until the mid-1980s, at which point it also turns towards the sky. Only 6% of Britons were obese in 1980. In the next 20 years that figure more than trebled.”) Wow. 
 
They note "the cure should not be worse than the disease" which segues nicely into this article in Bloomberg about the antibiotics used in livestock production. Did you know that worldwide, animals consume more antibiotics than humans? The exposé looked at the chook industry in India, where antibiotic regulation is almost non-existent and “antibiotics are often used as a substitute for sanitation and hygiene."

The use of antibiotics at "low or sub-therapeutic strengths" is also known to speed growth in food-animals and has been common place in western agriculture since the '50s. If it makes animals fatter faster, what do we think it will do to us?

However, the point of the article was not obesity but rather a fear of building antibiotic resistance (in animals and humans). A friend and medical journalist used a car analogy to explain the significance of this - you want to keep the Ferrari in the garage for special occasions. In India it's chicken feed. 
 
Watch - Roberto Liberatis, a Roman butcher, explain why working with ‘brado’ meat (literally translating to wild, but essentially meaning free-ranging and grass-eating) requires different thinking. Liberatis (great name for a brado butcher, right??) notes that in order to celebrate the virtues of such meat we need to re-think how we work with it, both in the butchery and in the kitchen. He also suggests we have also forgotten how to chew. He’s a delight and he raises some very good points.
 
Download - the free-range egg app, CluckAR.  Using the app you can scan an egg carton in store and the app will give you the stocking density of the farm. It's pretty cool. 
 

The week that was (7 April 2016)

MAD SYD was held on Sunday at the Opera House. It was a delightful afternoon. A few thoughts below –
 
- David Chang suggested that the low end of the restaurant world will become more fractured, with a single idea to dominate restaurants (do one thing, do it well). He is concerned the middle market restaurants will disappear as they are unsustainable (due to wages etc). Essentially he suggested food is too cheap. It is. More from Chang on that here. 

- Neil Perry also spoke about the sustainability of restaurants, not just in regards to the environment, but in regards to the industry. He talked about creating sustainable businesses for the future and the importance of not just nurturing customers, but also nurturing yourselves. 

- Social researcher Rebecca Huntley discussed the social and cultural disparity that exists in food in Australia. Did you know that food costs can be up to 26% higher in general stores in parts of central Australia? 

- Massimo Bottura stole my heart (again) with lines like: “with bread we create more emotion than with caviar.” 
 
He spoke beautifully on why cooking is a call to act. And act, he does. I have written about the Refettorio Ambrosiano before. It is a soup kitchen Massimo and Lara created during the world expo in Milan. They invited chefs from around the world to volunteer and create meals for the homeless with the waste generated by the Expo. It is an amazing project that continues to operate now, essentially running itself. He has two more in the pipeline: Rio (for the Olympics) and Turin. You can see the refettoria in action by watching the little trailer at the bottom of his Food for Soul website.
 
He also explored the idea of a recipe as a social gesture – there is a fabulous story of him creating a dish to use the Parmesan that was damaged after an earthquake in Modena, a natural disaster that threatened to bring the industry to its knees. Massimo shared the recipe (a take on cacio e pepe) and organised a virtual dinner - on that one night nonnas all over Italy cooked the same dish and the Parmesan was sold. How could you not fall for this man?
 
- I did like the logical progression from Rene regarding the chef as social crusader idea - “It's natural to want to take care of people because that's what we do.” It makes sense and I love the idea of chef and cook as nurturer. That is what food is. 

- I also loved the collaborative idea from Chido Govera (an amazing story in itself) and Massimo – “We need more chefs knowing about soil and more farmers knowing about cooking.” I think this is fundamental. The producer should be part of the restaurant family, just as it should be a part of every kitchen (via farmers markets etc).
 
If you want more, read Lee Tran Lam’s lovely wrap up of proceedings here.
 
- And finally, there’s the free range egg debacle. The government has proposed changes to the free range standards, allowing a stocking density of 10,000 chooks/hectare and no necessity of outside time. This is ludicrous. You can sign the petition and then buy your free range eggs with this guide.

The week that was (31 March 2016)

- The New Yorker’s annual food issue is out (and online). The articles vary from the history of Mezcal to a chat with Claus Meyer, who co-founded Noma, on Gusto, his restaurant in Bolivia and its impact on the culinary scene there. Ag is covered too, with a look at the “food and booze fest” that is the annual French agriculture exhibition and scouting for “the quinoa of the future”. All very well-written and very much worth the time.

- As per the above, this month’s GT is also out. You know who’s reviewed, but you could also pick it up for Fergus talking game (“I have often said that nature writes its menu for you …”), Max Allen chatting to Bruce Pascoe and as ever my favourite Paulette Whitney writing about nose to tail (root to leaf?) eating in the vegetable world (“The whole thing will be topped with a snow of basil flowers and we will feast, admirably, on things that might otherwise become compost.” Yes … a snow of basil flowers.

- Also in GT news, they have the Noma exit interview here. 
 
- Finally, Mike Bennie has left the country to take part judging a new natural wine award at VinItaly. This is important news for a few reasons.

(1) The award puts natural wine on the big stage (VinItaly is a mass scale wine award, the generally natural-wine-snubbing kind). It is inclusive.

(2) By virtue of Mike being a part of the judging panel, it also puts Australia and Australian wines on that map.

(3) Finally, and perhaps most importantly in my eyes, it heralds a new beginning for wine judging. The wines will not be scored. Instead the judges will look for a wine that demonstrates at least six of eight qualities, these include liveliness, evolution in the glass, balance, drinkability and a sense of place. In addition, there are parameters to ensure that the wines are practically natural from the ground up. (From VinItaly - Wines Without Walls).

I am not a fan of those who think there is a right or wrong when it comes to judging food or wine. I don't like the idea of searching for faults and prefer seeking the good. Like beauty, like art, like music, there are many nuances, many valid opinions and I think any judging or rating system should allow for that magic.
 
If you want more, read what Alice Fiering had to say about the award and her thoughts while choosing the judges and then read Walter Speller via Jancis Robinson for a wider view of the award (do also read on, the article on counterfeit Moet & Chandon made me chuckle).