Paparazzo

Snaps and casual photos around  interesting cuisine tourism venues.

This month - on the grill, Nosh opens with a whoosh, Southern cuisine, flavours from the Netherlands, Oysters fat oysters, aromatic tastings, centre island nosh stop, Tapas in the clouds, from Paris with love, smoking hot Brisbane Cafe, seafood galore, a day at the beach.

European touch

There’s a receptive calmness about chef Jeremy Schmid that is almost disconcerting in an age of bad tempered, tantrum-throwing TV chefs who have left a false impression of how a commercial kitchen really handles 100 plus covers in a space of a few hours. Good kitchens are calm and collected, and there’s none more collected than Two Fifteen on Dominion Road. 

It is the week before Christmas 2009 and he’s stealing too much time away from the stove and prepping tables of his kitchen to participate in our profile and Foodstyle Review cooking project on octopus. 

Pear & Stilton salad

This is a highly-flavoured yet elegant summer salad that combines the sweet and tart taste of whole pear roasted in red wine and spicy syrup and rich blue cheese with freshly roasted hazelnuts and the saltiness of crispy prosciutto. There are many variations of pear and nut salad (usually using walnuts) – but few with the taste punch of this one. 

We have used expensive English Stilton on this occasion because it was made around Christmas for the summer issue of Foodstyle Review, but you can use any of your favourite blue cheeses and, we believe, you can’t go past a Kiwi blue such the lovely, organic Coromandel Blue from Matatoki Farm Cheese near Thames. 

Summer indulging

Ignore the implorations of the ‘fret set’ and food police and enjoy your summer indulgence, urges Jim Hopkins. Heat, drink and be merry, that’s the real summer recipe, and better to face the problems of affluence than the catastrophes of famine. 

Let’s be honest. Most summer food is junk. Not the smartest thing to say in a tucker mag, but c’est la brie. It’s true. Or is it? Is it true? 

Is most summer food junk? Well, no, on second thoughts, it’s not. Cancel the shock announcement and shout yourself a burger. 

Christmas Down Under

Stubborn sentiment has seen generations of Kiwis celebrating Christmas day with a parody of cuisine and customs mimicking a European winter, including flaming plum pudding and Aunty Doris’ tipsy trifle that have survived over 200 years of sun-kissed (sometimes), beach-walking, fly-swotting, barbecue-flavoured, Yuletides Down Under. 

The fickleness of our December weather was a feature of the first Kiwi Christmas recorded 367 years ago in 1642 when Abel Tasman’s crew coped with a summer gale off the West Coast while hunkering down to their Christmas Day repast. 

Captain James Cook logged the second Kiwi Christmas in 1769 while sheltering his Endeavour from another turn of bad weather. His log also mentions a boisterous lack of sobriety among his crew, heralding a cherished ritual to the Kiwi Christmas table that has lasted 240 years.

Pizza - the real deal

Italian pizza has many imitations, usually bad, and is second only to the burger as the world’s most popular fast food. For a taste of the original Neapolitan pizza you only have to journey to the tiny village of Huapai north of Auckland. 

Kevin is waiting inside Dante’s, a tiny pizzeria in the middle of a modest retail block on SH2 that has become so popular that customers are known to drive from Hamilton to tuck into one of its traditionally crafted pizzas certified by the European Union. He doesn’t look so much Italian as someone who could play a Cockney extra in a Guy Ritchie movie.

“My father is English and my mother Italian. He was a bit of an East End boy until he met my mum and thought he had better develop a passion for cooking, otherwise he might miss out.”

Texture cuisine

Some foods are as much about texture as flavour, and there is no better example than cooked octopus. Unfortunately it is still a rare feature on Kiwi menus. 

Marinated octopus offerings are plentiful in Australia and cuisine tourists cannot visit Melbourne without a munching tour of the expansive Queen Vic Markets in the northern CBD, and the largest open air market in the Southern hemisphere. 

Greek, Italian and Spanish cuisine influences are strong across the ditch and are plentiful in this market, which has been around since the 1850s in various reincarnations. It is one of three surviving Victorian markets in Melbourne - the others are the Prahran Market and South Melbourne Market. 

Queen city Tapas

Restaurants and bars in Auckland serving ‘small plates’, or a kiwi version of Spanish tapas, are vogue. Foodstyle Review field tested five popular venues within the inner city. 

The definition of a ‘tapa’ dish is pretty loose, even in Spain, and covers a broad spectrum of entrée-sized snacks served in an informal dining venue. Informal, designed to be shared and often more interesting than the conventional entrée, ‘tapas’ are a fad that could be here to stay.

Chardonnay rules

Pinot and sauvignon drinkers take note - chardonnay retains its crown as the queen of white wines. Foodstyle Review talks with Villa Maria’s group wine maker Alastair Maling about chardonnay’s long life with wine drinkers and the diverse regional styles throughout the country.

Media reports on the demise of chardonnay don’t live up to the facts – the chardonnay drinking faithful keep this grape popular at home while export volumes over the past two years have been stable.