Thoughts From Becca

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble with Mum's Crumble Topping Crumble is one of my favourite comfort foods. It's warming to the heart as well as the tummy in winter. In summer, I still serve crumble (with a change of seasonal fruit) and serve it at room temperature or cold. There's a couple of ways I make the fruit filling for the crumble, but I always use mum's crumble topping; this is the one we ate at home as kids. For the Topping In all honesty, while I don't remember ever measuring the ingredients, here's my attempt to recreate with measurements. There are four ingredients butter (125g or 4oz), brown sugar (1/2 cup), plain flour (1 cup), rolled oats (1 cup). - Mix the dry ingredients. Add the melted butter. Stir, and loosely sprinkle on top of the fruit mixture. - After a hint from Chef Luke Mangan , I've recently created a 'friends to dinner' variation by adding little chocolate nuggets (I used dark chocolate roughly chopped) to the crumble topping mix

Every few weeks or so, if I've had the afternoon at home, I like to poach a duck for Sunday dinner. This is not a treat, it is everyday duck. And, from the poaching I get > 5 meals (> 20 portions) which certainly makes it economical. #1 Poached Duck For poaching the whole duck, I have many variations depending on the season: bay leaves, mirepoix (2 parts onion, 1 part carrot, 1 part celery) peppercorns and/or ... white wine, lemons, oranges, fresh ginger root, juniper berries, quatre epice ... endless options To serve on the Sunday, I remove the duck from the stock, rest, and remove the 2 breasts Slice the breasts to serve with a variety of vegetables ( a favourite is sweet potato / kumara mash or souffle) depending on the flavours of the stock base - or - sliced in a composed salad #2 Stock After I've removed the duck, I strain the stock twice (don't season until finished dish) Soups (of many varieties) are the obvious first choice for a second duck dish using the

I've always had an interest in cooking in the way that is now called Slow Food. The movement to local is again gaining popularity. It never lost momentum with me. Flavour marriages are at a premium when you take the local produce from the same region and season; you can't go wrong! Classical food combinations are historically based on these regional and seasonal marriages. Although my reasons for cooking seasonal regional and fresh were always based on taste, there are lots of other reasons to use this base in understanding food, produce, cooking. For a start in our industrialised, and then technology based societies, (global) transport is easier and quicker so we've come to enjoy produce from other regions at any time of year. Long distance hauls have an impact, on not only flavour, but also have a huge cost to the environment. What is the impact to our world on transporting water in a bottle up to 15,000 kilometres (or sending pears to China from Australia?) Long stor

GENEROUS, NURTURING, CARING, LOVING, SUSTAINING When I was a little girl, everyone around me could cook. It may not have been with the sophistication that is sometimes expected today. It may not have been with the variety of produce that we can access today. But the food we ate, was always cooked and served with love. It was often homegrown, or windfall, and nearly always from produce of the season. The neighbours swapped backyard produce, swapped gossip, and swapped recipes. I was reminded of backyard swaps, only this afternoon. I stopped the car to pick up a bag of fresh limes. There was a handwritten poster at the side of the road: "Limes $2 a bag". The two young boys, young entreprenuers were selling the limes from their overladen backyard tree. The limes look delightful as they adorn my dining table, and the aroma permeates. They'll later be used for a range of delicious treats. When I was a little girl, of seven turning eight, my grandmother died. She died the day b

What a wonderful world of travel has unfolded before me. My wonderful world is the world that the online communities and user generated journalism provide to me, to us. My latest trip included Barcelona. There wasn't much preparation to find the accommodation. Still in Australia, with some months before travelling, I went straight to the TripAdvisor website and picked the top of their list: all 5 star ratings, all excellent comments. And, I was not disappointed. This information was from a trusted source. It was not from the advertisements, sponsored links or hotel listings. My selection was from the ratings of my fellow travellers, from their reviews. Destination BCN was top of the list, and did not disappoint on arrival. Closer to the time of my holiday, I used the Internet to research what to see and do in Barcelona. Of course I'd heard of Gaudi. I did not however know much about him, and used the time of mounting excitement, to research, read, learn. I stood before Sagrada