Would you be interested in some human kebabs or a Lecter like oyster perhaps Sam if your girlfriends family was that way inclined also?

For the sake of manners I was willing to bend about as far as having some of the turtle soup and that was about it. I…

Would you be interested in some human kebabs or a Lecter like oyster perhaps Sam if your girlfriends family was…

This is a little gem I picked up from a chef I worked with in Scotland about 10 years ago. It may sound a bit weird but is absolutely delicious.

First take one large chunk of pork belly/loin (skin…

if the mother is nutritionally deprived, the baby is more likely to stockpile fat at the drop of a hat, while well fed mothers have babies that tend to stay slimmer

so fat people have thin children and thin people have fat children?

I would like to note a few memorable…

Aha, the 'Like Water For Chocolate" principle. Sounds like a fascinating field of study indeed. No problems finding guinea pigs I'm sure!

Well... more like the Nicholas Perricone/Sir Cliff Tasman-Jones/Linus Pauling/David Barker/Ranjan Rajnik field of study, really. Looking at optimising nutritional content, recognising which foods cause inflammation, and which foods…

Ah, tofu, my cultural heritage. It's used in plenty of dishes with meat

Yes, and I always feel cheated when I find it in my Chinese takeaway. I'm sure the Chinese word for Tofu is Pad Ding (actually that could be Thai)

If you really want to find the way to…

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” Mark Twain

Aha, the 'Like Water For Chocolate" principle. Sounds like a fascinating field of study indeed. No problems finding guinea pigs I'm…

Does loving to cook for men make me a bad feminist?

Nope, the way to our hearts is through our stomachs :-). And with menus like that, the sisterhood might not be totally on board with the means, but they'll have to accept that the ends – men grovelling at…

Does loving to cook for men make me a bad feminist?

Nope, the way to our hearts is through our stomachs :-). And with menus like that, the sisterhood might not be totally on board with the means, but they'll have to accept that the ends – men grovelling at…

Does loving to cook for men make me a bad feminist?

Did my mother's inability to cook make her a good feminist?

It certainly ensured that I picked up few abilities in the kitchen.

Ah student cooking – the horror, the torture, the humiliation. Oh the inhumanity!

You poor thing... I am beginning to realise how lucky I was in my student house (in Vancouver... nearly 30 years ago). Our student house was huge and owned by one of us, Michael, who charged next…

Even the mists of time have failed to soften the memory of a meal a new flatty cooked for us when he first moved into our residence. This was back in the days when I was an…

Eventually he got so bad the rest of…

Right.

And rice & potatoes are vegetables right?

She liked them crunchy (translation – uncooked) & nothing we could say would…

But in my defense I did go for simplicity – boiled rice with boiled cabbage.

neil, did we flat together here in wellington?

because that is sounding very, very familiar :)

I was inducted into the society of home made baked beans for breakfast

Ohmigod, this reminds me of Boston Beans & Bacon – pork belly, a truckload of beans & not much else. You cook it for about 5 days & it is unbelievable!

Although... you will experience "wind".

-- Burgers from the White Lady and Al & Pete's, back in the old days.

Al & Petes, sure.... but the White Lady? Really?

On more than one or two occasions, after packing out from gig and being within close proximity to the white lady (and in one case only 3 doors…

Caffeinds. Or Caffiends, can't remember. Not that great but always open and waitstaff would wander around desultorily with lost plates of nachos until you gave up and just claimed them as yours.

Caffiends. A mate of mine whose now a teacher in Chch use to work there in the early-mid…

My memorable food-related moments:

* Ireland, 2003. Driving with the whanau down the coast to this little seaside village where the…

And the first hangi I helped on, which meant ripping down the curtains of a friend's place when we…

Dinner at the Curry Club in London, with its plain decor and formica tables, and my friends.

Actually, thats probably much closer to the mark, its not just the time, the place and the hunger that maketh the memorable meal, its the company.

Any number of tables groaning with dishes for parties at our house. I don't have Che's finesse, but I do know how to make a whole lot of food appear at once and have people like it. I find preparing big feasts quite meditative.

i'm calling bullshit on that quote.…

A fish-burger at the old Roys Takeaways at the end of Courteney Place after a few too many pints of lager

A midnight curry in Brick Lane (funnily enough, after a few too many…

(I forget the exact name... Caffeines maybe?)

Caffeinds. Or Caffiends, can't remember. Not that great but always open and waitstaff would wander around desultorily with lost plates of nachos until you gave up and just claimed them as yours.

Four or five of us braved a late night fish and…

With a vanload of fellow activists, I was driving from Dunedin, leaving on Thursday evening, to get to a training workshop in Palmerston…

they don't always turn out so well. but! at least there were only three courses.

i fed a number of PAS people on this occasion.

14 people, 12 dishes, and one hell of a day of cooking.

but, if you're…

Back in late December 1993 (sorry to paraphrase Albert Hammond there) a flatmate and I got a ride with his brother from Dunedin up to Wellington. We were going back to our home-towns for Christmas, they to Wanganui, I to Gisborne.

We were due to leave…