Play the Mandolin - Memorable Flavours - Travel to Dine – Beetroot Ginger Lemon Salad, or Should I Say Carpaccio!
Fresh, clean, chefy-looking, delicious, and quick. Plus my flavour memoirs. And cooking with chronic fatigue, the efficient lazy chef.
EASY ENTERTAINING
Don't you love a table full of in-season fresh flavours and colours? It's the best way to eat in summer. Add platters of fruit dressed with herbs and some good rustic sourdough bread and cultured butter, and you're done.
MINIMUM GADGETRY
I'm not one for gadgets in the kitchen. Generally, I use a knife, a cutting board (these don't even qualify as gadgets), and a frying pan. But I do love a mandolin. Oh, and I also use a microplane and a grater, which are considered less than gadgets. It takes a major event to get me to use the Magimix!
LAZY
Lazy, or ergonomically economical, I prefer to say. Having suffered from autoimmune chronic fatigue since I was 13 (before they had a name for it), has made me incredibly efficient—or lazy, depending on how you look at it. Also, as a professional with many tasks at hand, you need to be as fast as possible. I was also an owner, a costing queen, a dish creator, a roster writer, and a therapist to my staff. Too many hats for one chef. I also believe in minimal intervention between me and my fresh produce. I'm not a giant fan of highly processed fine dining, even though I have invested large sums of money dining out.
TRAVEL TO COOK
Travelling and dining were essential for professional research. I've been planning trips to far-off (long-haul) destinations and expensive restaurants since the late '80s. Believing that you need to understand, or at the very least experience a place and its people to cook its food.
By the time I was 21, I had worked in about 19 bars, clubs, hotels, and restaurants, saving enough to pay exorbitant amounts to study at Le Cordon Bleu in London when the Australian dollar bought me 0.32p. Juxtapose that with my accommodations, which were initially a 7-quid-a-night bunkhouse, then a very upmarket squat with an Australian nurse. It was the 80s! I lived in a black dinner jacket and bought my clothes at Portobello rd. I ate at a few places but can't remember their names now. It was a long, long time ago.
STUDY
At 22, after cooking school, I worked in Martha's Vineyard for a summer and travelled across the USA on a shoestring budget. I took it upon myself to study the Caesar Salad and all its variations, from commercial reality to silver service. I also read many business management books during this solo rail pass adventure from New York to LA. When I went back to Australia in the '90s, I put a Caesar salad on my first menu in my first restaurant. You know, in 1992, many Australians in rural Australia did not know what a Caesar salad was!
DINING SABBATICALS
Over the years, I took many sabbaticals to eat at Chez Panisse (three times), Zuni's, City, and The French Laundry—before and after Thomas Keller. Spargo's, and another Wolfgang Puck place, whose name I forget. And more in the 2000s. I went to Copenhagen for Rene Redzepi's MAD in 2013, I think it was. I cried because I felt like I had found people who loved and cared for food as much as I did. I ate at Relae and some other places. Returning to Copenhagen a year or two later, I went to a few cool places and Amass, and Geranium, which had just earned its next Michelin star.
This is nothing compared to what the young gun chefs do these days. I sat next to a young chef in Copenhagen who was devouring the list of destination dining degustations like peanuts at a bar. He said it was for his education and experience. He was very matter-of-fact about it. There was a lack of revelation or restaurant spiritualism about it all to me. I think that's because, in my day, I never had the funds for such indulgences, and I made so many sacrifices, perhaps too many, to have these types of food experiences. I worshipped the white linen, the stacks of hard-glazed crockery, the endless flatware, and the pass. I always had a service high! It's addictive. I loved it too much, and it hurt me, like any person scolded by their cult.
I worshipped the white linen, the stacks of hard-glazed crockery, the endless flatware, and the pass. I always had a service high! It's addictive. I loved it too much, and it hurt me, like any person scolded by their cult.
The thing is, and I don't want to sound arrogant at all, the fine dining restaurant food I had was at the top of its game, but, I can't remember a single dish! Not one taste sensation. At the time, everything was sublime. This says more about me than them, I'm sure. And yes, I would do it all again, with more money and better accommodations next time, please.
Mind-blowing Taste Sensations
I do remember the first time I had a Caprino goat's cheese with an Ethiopian-inspired fresh lentil chilli and lime salad. The black figs squished with gorgonzola dolcelatte and rocket. The courgette escabeche with mint and red wine vinegar. The white peach with black pepper. I had these sensations at a restaurant I worked in London, all made with a casual nonchalance by Carla Tomasi. She runs cooking schools in Italy if you are at all interested in really good real food.
Why is it that I remember these dishes more? What meals and flavours do you remember? Were they in restaurants or in someone's kitchen, or at their table? Is it the connection and experience that makes it more memorable? Or do you just remember the price tag, not the flavour?
I let this question settle for a while and remembered more mind-blowing tastes like the first time my mother took us (when I was about 7) to Flash Gelateria. She said, "Taste this, it's not ordinary ice cream!" I was forever converted after that first taste of chocolate and lemon gelato. And the day I had strawberries with my nana from her large, quilted patch, while she was still in her silk pyjamas and slippers. At 14, I had sautéed chicken livers on soft polenta with fresh lemon and rosemary at Rigonnis, served by a very young, nervous Roberto, who later became a food leader in Adelaide. There was also the carpet bag steak I made with the tail end of the fillet after hearing my mother talk about it. The oysters just melted with the savoury rare beef, and the burnt butter was a magical consequence. The fresh peach chutney I made with white pepper, cardamom, and cumin. The intense spiced curry oil I made for a restaurant, grinding all the spices and roasting them myself. The twice-cooked chicken roti I made last Christmas for friends, with caramelized shallots and thyme. And I can't forget the white chocolate parfait with the lime sorbet centre that my ex-husband used to make at the Landhaus, way back in 1998. And the candied citron with aged Parmesan we also had on the menu.
Only one of these experiences was in a restaurant—other people's restaurants—that I remember. Is that because I cook myself? I'm keen to know what restaurant dinners remember.
Meanwhile, back to your program...
LEARN TO PLAY
This summer, the best instrument to learn to play is the mandolin. Unless you have ninja knife skills, you will never be able to get your slices so fine, consistent, and fast! The mandolin is primarily a slicing tool, although some models also provide julienne and grating options. Personally, I prefer to use it for slicing. All those beautiful vegetable carpaccios and shaved salads you see in restaurants are most likely made with a mandolin. Even that shaved fennel salad you spotted on "Succession," yes, probably made with a mandolin.
WARNING
It's important to note that mandolins come with a warning since their blades are razor-sharp. They typically come with a guard to protect your fingers, and unless you're an experienced hospitality professional, it's highly recommended to use the guard.
You can find mandolins in various models, ranging from cheap and friendly to super stainless professional ones. Look for solid construction when choosing one that suits your needs.
SHAVE NEARLY ANYTHING FIRM, EVEN CITRUS!
With a mandolin, you can shave virtually any hard vegetable. Soft vegetables will not work as they tend to wilt on the blade. Think radishes, daikon, fennel, onion, turnip, celery, and even Brussel sprouts. Doesn't this open up a whole new world of vegetable dishes and summer salads? You can replace traditional coleslaw with a finer, more visually impressive version. For my coleslaw, I particularly enjoy adding chilli, parsley, ginger and apple!
Thinly sliced vegetables require minimal cooking, making them perfect for marinating, quick sautéing, or flash roasting. These techniques allow you to enjoy fresh, clean, chef-like meals in no time. During summer, I use my mandolin nearly daily for salads, especially raw vegetable versions that feature courgette, radish, orange, lemon, ginger, and red onion. Just let your imagination guide you, and feel free to experiment
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