Spiceblog Weekend Digest - Jacksons! Cottesloe! OA! EoMEoTE! Cheese! Spicemag Picnic!

I pity the poor fool that doesn't start their weekend on Thursday. Backtracking from a glass of wine to finish the night at Jackson's, I've now been there approximately one week in total time, which isn't a bad way to look at where I am and what I've done. I'm still learning and also consolidating. I had another go at deboning a couple of quails, I made a mayonnaise and remembered to add the oil drop by drop raather than pour it in and ask "now what?". I can chop chop chop and peel peel peel. I'm still doing at least half a dozen things wrong in an evening but these are at least not in the things I've been taught to do. Mark, who just snared himself gold, bronze, gold in a local comp, has taken it upon himself to keep an eye on me for when I stray and quickly sets me straight- whether it's cleaning and flipping a board after chopping up garlic or the right way to segment an orange. Tanya gave me my first list of jobs, which I took as a sacred bond of trust, fields questions, and is going to teach me how to not sharpen knives like a "cocky". Krystin is starting to get dessert questions and Michelle talked me through how she organises and works through a night of service and set me straight on reducing stocks. Chef wasn't there , which is good because word has it I'm in the shit for my devasting review of the air-conditioning. It was a relatively quiet night so I took a few pics. I've organised a set on Flickr of pics you've seen but also some new ones. They're here: Jackson's Restaurant

Omnivoribus Australis - Edition IV is up and word has reached as far as San Francisco - home of bays, gays, and clam bisques. It's your monthly one-stop shop for austro-zealandian food and wine blog and gender clarification. Fans of eggs and 70's music, if they haven't yet, should get to the EoMEoTE#11---The Round-up before the drum solo finishes.

Barchetta in Cottesloe deftly evades the general rule on bars and restaurants named after vehicles being naff (although Cafe Kremenchug Auto Zavod KrAZ-260 would not be without its charms) and disappoints by actually having reet tasty tapas and thus not letting me call it Barfetta. Pity the frustrated food snark, maybe I will anyway, no that would be wrong, wrong, wrong. Bloody noisy though, a victim of its own ocean overlooking popularity. The beers at the OBH are still cold and writing is hard work.

Top tip: when taking some cheese along to a picnic, remove the plastic wrap and wrap it in greaseproof paper for that just cut from the cheese wheel look.

The Spice Magazine peoples had a picnic to try and capture the spirit of the summer and snag that elusive cover pic. So myself, Toni and the barge widow Kate went along to the Matilda Bay foreshore with my lambchops, asparagus, and eggplants as well as Holy Smoke Chicken pate, goats cheese, olives, bottle of champagne, a sixpack of Swan Stout and a bottle of lemonade. Mucho relaxation was had, freed from the pressures of the press room, time enough to sit in the sun, on the grass, and visualise the successful future that would bring a red and white Square Rigged Spice Yacht moored in the Swan River. I discovered I had a rare talent for making the ukelele a depressing instrument. Back to work, they've got three weeks left before it goes to the publishers and stay tuned for a remarkable subscription offer.

That's it. Sunday's good lookin' country cookin' will be up soon.




Stop the press Crafty tip-off: I know it's not about the stuff [cough] but how good does this look. Is it just me? Anyone actually used them? And why does one of them look like they've been stuffed with bin liner?