pumpkin

Who doesn’t love a snack with their pre-dinner drink? Oven roasted pumpkin seeds are perfect. They are quick and simple to make and all the more enjoyable for knowing you are using something that would typically be a food scrap. We have a worm farm and a compost heap for some of the tougher items that… Read more

International Scone Week 2016 coincides nicely with a recent dilemma I have been having. That of, excess pumpkin. Pumpkins are well and truly in season so it’s not uncommon to arrive at work to pumpkins sitting in the kitchen with a ‘please take me’ sign. If you do take a whole pumpkin, then there is… Read more

Last month I said that autumn had arrived. It did arrive and it has since departed however, we are back to summer rather than winter. May is the last month of autumn and all across Australia, temperatures remain as hot as they were during summer. We had little rain over the summer (traditionally when we… Read more

After a few freezing weeks by Brisbane standards, normal transmission has resumed with highs in the low 20’s. Just how we like it. August in Brisbane means the Exhibition or ‘the Ekka‘. The Ekka is the Royal Queensland Show, running across 2 weeks. It is like a State Fair with plenty of agricultural displays, animal shows… Read more

It’s all wet and blustery in Brisbane today. A couple of tropical cyclones have brought plenty of rain and some very gusty winds to this normally sunny city. In the past there would have been a  worrying (exciting if you were a kid) cyclone warning on the TV, telling you that danger was imminent. If there was… Read more

As part of the #Harvest Exhibition at QAGOMA, I finally got to see the movie The Big Night starring Tony Shaloub and Stanley Tucci. This movie regularly appears in top 10 food movie lists but I hadn’t even heard of it until I joined a hangout on Google+ with a ‘movie night’ theme. When I… Read more

…is the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day.’It was a rude shock to race into the supermarket at 7.30pm on a Tuesday evening and hear Bing Crosby crooning to the one or two souls wandering the aisles.  It was the first real reminder for me that Christmas is not long away.  It’s… Read more

The very first real tingle of Autumn arrived in Brisbane last weekend. Gloriously sunny days, temperatures in the mid 20s with the mercury creeping down to below 15 at night. Now to many of you, this wouldn’t count as Autumn and to some, it would be positively balmy but to Brisbanites (for that is what… Read more

I was originally going to call this post ‘Holy Trinity’ but if you follow the series, you’ll find out why there was a name change.  I’ve spoken before about how I’m a big fan of Andrew McConnell’s work, both in the kitchen and in service at the table.  A working trip to gave me a… Read more

Pumpkins are funny old things.  In the USA, they are relegated to carving at Halloween, overly sweetened pie at Thanksgiving and for decoration on front porches throughout New England. In the UK, the only time you ever see pumpkin is in insipid ‘Butternut Squash’ soup that always tastes like water or when someone such as… Read more