Sunday, February 9, 2014

Julie Biuso to face off against Neil Perry and Jamie Oliver in global finals of Gourmand World Cookbook Awards

Multi award-wining foodwriter Julie Biuso will be travelling to Beijing in May in the hope of bringing back her 7th Gourmand World Cookbook gong from this prestigious organisation.

Julie's 16th cookbook, Julie Biuso at Home, has now moved successfully through the regional rounds of the awards and will face off at the global finals against six other titles from Australia and the Northern Hemisphere in the Easy Recipes section, including Neil Perry's Simply Good Food and Jamie Oliver's Save with Jamie.

Julie Biuso is no stranger to the Gourmand awards, having been a finalist numerous times and having had three of her books take out the ultimate Best in World title. She was also awarded a Special Prize by the Gourmand World Cookbook Award's Jury in 2007 for her career achievements, the only New Zealand food writer to receive this recognition. She has also officiated on stage at previous ceremonies.

And while this won't be her first visit to Beijing (her special Jury prize was presented to her there), she's particularly excited about the trip, and the opportunity not only to network with food professionals from around the globe, but to experience and enjoy the regional cuisines of China.

The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards are returning to China after five years in France. They will be held over two nights, as part of the Beijing Cookbook Fair, which is being staged at Starpark in the city's Southern Daxing District, from May 19-21, 2014. For further information on the awards and the fair, visit www.cookbookfair.com.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Lemon Thyme Pound Cake with Cinnamon Poached Plums from Dish

7, February 2014

Hello Graham
Hope you had a relaxing Waitangi Day. This week we have some inspiration for a foodie Valentine, a cake you'll want to add to your regular repertoire plus a copy of Josh Emett's beautiful book to win. Have a great weekend!

RECIPE

Lemon Thyme Pound Cake with Cinnamon Poached Plums

If you perfect just one cake make it this moist, totally delicious pound cake. Serve it plain or iced, toasted or grilled; it also goes with most fresh or roasted fruits. Or you can whip up flavourful versions by adding dried fruit, spices, nuts and chocolate.

More

No-Bake Granola Bars

Posted: 06 Feb 2014 - David Lebovitz

Someone once asked me how I know when to give up on a recipe. Sometimes I realize after a few tries, that I should just forget about it. And others, like the tarte tropézienne in my next book, I made seventeen times until I got it just right. (Because I got a little crazy about getting it just right, including bringing slices around to local bakeries to get their opinions. Plus making a second trip to the bakery in the south of France where I had the one that inspired me to include it.) And the cake has four components, so multiply that times seventeen, but I still didn’t give up until I got it just right.

Speaking of my next book, I had a kind of funny idea (well, at least to me…) to end the book with a recipe that has been vexing me for ages: granola bars. And I would accompany my spectacular barre de müesli recipe with a triumphant story about how I was able to succeed in the face of multi-grain adversity, which somehow I could turn into a metaphor for my culinary life. (In that very special way that I do…which has editors scratching their heads as my writing curves from one completely different subject to eventually landing on another – which, if I/they have any luck, is on the recipe at hand.)

But after a whole other round of testing, as my deadline loomed – and I had depleted all the flaçons d’avoine (oats) in the natural food stores of my neighborhood – I realized that it was time to give up my idea of including a naturally delicious dream bar, and move on with the rest of my life.

Then, one day, I had little peanut butter frosting leftover from a project, sitting in a bowl on the counter. And since we were taking a trip and I wanted to bake up something to take along to snack on, I mixed it up with some nuts, dried fruits, and whatever I had around – then pressed the whole shebang into a pan and baked it up. And you know what? Bingo! They were the best granola bars I’d ever had, hands down. C’est la verité.

Continue Reading No-Bake Granola Bars...

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Gastonomy with denizen WEEKLY

February 2014

EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS UNASSUMING YET DELICIOUS NEIGHBOURHOOD RESTAURANT...

A POPULAR INNER CITY CAFE GETS REINVENTED...

Monday, February 3, 2014

Random House NZ Authors - Finalists in Gourmand’s ‘Best in the World’ Awards

by Random House NZ on 3 February 2014

Three Random House New Zealand authors are among the acclaimed International food writers competing for the ultimate title of ‘Best in the World’ at the Gourmand Word Cookbook Awards.

The shortlisted authors and their books are Michael Van de Elzen for The Food Truck Cookbook No.2 in the Best Street Food Cookbook category; Nadia Lim for Nadia Lim’s Good Food Cookbook in the Best TV English Cookbook category; and Robert Oliver for Mea’ai Samoa in the Best TV English Cookbook category.

“We are just so delighted for Nadia, Mike and Robert,” says Random House Publishing Director Nicola Legat. “They’re up against some stellar authors from all around the globe, and we wish them the very best of luck.”

The Best in the World will be announced during the Beijing Cookbook Fair on 20-21 May 2014 in the Daxing Theatre, Beijing.

Purple Paris

Posted: 03 Feb 2014 - David Lebovitz

I was buying a bike recently and, for some reason, the store offered the bike I wanted in two shades: black and prune (plum), one of the many variations on purple (which include, but are not limited to, violet, purple, and magenta) in the French vocabulary. I wasn’t sure I wanted a purple bike, but then I thought about how purple has invaded Paris – especially evident when an old-fashioned, traditional French butcher shop reopened this fall after an extensive renovation…

But it wasn’t just the butcher…