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This month we have a number of interesting events and dinners. Many are one offs - never to be repeated!
If you're planning your Christmas get togethers some of these may be a great excuse to catch up early with family or friends or to indulge in some pre-emptive Christmas gift shopping.
Not too many new books this time, our late November newsletter will have a round-up of the best for Christmas.
We're also excited to be able to offer you two great specials - if you're interested get in quick as they probably won't last long
Hopefully we'll see you soon!
Enjoy!
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Author Event: New Feast: modern Middle Eastern vegetarian - book launch & dinner with Greg Malouf - 17 November
 | New Feast: modern middle eastern vegetarian
by Greg & Lucy Malouf$59.95 |
When: Monday 17 November
Where: Malouf Zum Zum, 645 Rathdowne St Carlton North
Price: $120(includes banquet, drinks a signed copy of New Feast, and more)
Tickets available from Eventbrite
New Feast: modern Middle Eastern vegetarian is the latest beautiful cookbook from Greg & Lucy Malouf.
To celebrate its release we're excited to be hosting Greg Malouf for the book's Melbourne launch with a special intimate family vegetarian banquet dinner at Malouf Zum Zum, the North Carlton restaurant of Geoff and Amal Malouf - Greg's brother and sister-in-law.
Greg will be joining us for dinner to talk about his new book, his travels to London and beyond and his new restaurant in Dubai.
Continuing the tradition of the earlier best-selling Malouf cookbooks & culinary travel books, New Feast is innovative Middle Eastern cuisine firmly rooted in tradition that is contemporary, moreish and delicious - and yet easy for the modern Australian kitchen.
With more than 130 designed to share vegetarian recipes, New Feast is perfect for Australian cooks. Whilst vegetables are the obvious stars, there are also many enticing recipes for Middle Eastern breads, butters, dips, preserves, pastries, icecreams and cakes.
We've been enjoying all the dishes we have cooked from New Feast!
Please join us for a very special intimate evening with Greg Malouf in a Malouf family restaurant on Monday 17th November - be quick tickets are limited!
If you can't join us but would like a signed copy of New Feast: modern middle eastern vegetarian...
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Author Event: Australia's first cook book - republished on it's 150th anniversry - book launch & dinner with the publishers - 24 November
When: Monday 24 November
Where: The Builder's Arms 211 Gertrude St Fitzroy
Price: $125 (includes banquet & drinks). Copies of the limited facsimile edition The English & Australian Cookery Book will be available for sale.
To book: call the Builders Arms on (03) 9417 7700
Several newsletters ago we mentioned this very special limited edition facsimile reprint of Australia's first cookbook The English & Australian Cookery Book: cooking for the many as well as the upper ten thousand republished for its 150th Anniversary.
Available again for the first time in over 100 years, this is a very special glimpse into Colonial Australian gastronomic history.
To celebrate its Melbourne launch the team at Moon Under Water & The Builders Arms (the pub was built a few years before the book was published) are creating a special menu drawn from the book for the occasion.
Over dinner we'll be chatting to the publishers Paul County and Bernard Lloyd (& perhaps a few others) about their rediscovery of Edward Abbott and his unique contribution to Australian food history. We will also be exhibiting an original copy (nfs)
"Any Australian cook's bookshelf without it is the lesser"
Gourmet Farmer Matthew Evans.
In some 1500 recipes across 300 pages the book offers dozens of unique Australian dishes to the world's cuisine and rivals Larousse Gastronomique for depth. Abbott not only published recipes for kangaroo, emu, duck, swan, mutton birds, possum and wombat, he also described, from the culinary perspective, a hundred local fish, wrote of the contemporary restaurant and café scene (could do with improvement) and promoted a very wide range of gourmet foods. Out of print for over 100 years, now adventurous foodlovers, cookery book devotees, cooks and culinary students can immerse themselves in Abbott's landmark work just as he published it. The facsimile is accompanied by a Companion Volume of explanatory essays. Please join us for what will be a very special dinner!
To book: call the Builders Arms on (03) 9417 7700
If you can't join us but would like a copy of The English & Australian Cookery Book...
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Book Launch & Dinner - Mexico: the Cookbook @Mamasita - 24 November
 | | Mexico the Cookbook $59.95 |
When: 7pm Monday 24 November
Where: Mamasita 11 Collins St Melbourne
Price: $160 (6 course degustation dinner with matched drinks - tequila, wine & beer - & copy of Mexico: the Cookbook (59.95)) or $110 (no book)
To Book: online at Trybooking or call Mamasita 03 9650 3821
Our good friends at Mamasita are throwing a huge party to celebrate their inclusion in Mexico: the cookbook - the latest in the series from Phaidon Press that started with the famous best selling Italian culinary bible The Silver SpoonThis will be an amazing Mexican degustation dinner highlighting everything that is great about Mexican food designed by Andrew Logan (Mamasita Melbourne) and featuring guest chef Sean Prenter (Mexicano Sydney - also featured in the book). This is one festa not to miss!
About the Book:Mexico: The Cookbook is the definitive bible of home-cooking from Mexico. With a culinary history dating back 9,000 years, Mexican food draws influences from Aztec and Mayan Indians and is renowned for its use of fresh aromatic ingredients, colorful presentations and bold food combinations. The book features more than 700 delicious and authentic recipes that can be easily recreated at home. From tamales, fajitas, and moles to cactus salad, blue crab soup, and melon seed juice, the recipes are a celebration of the fresh regional flavors and unique ingredients of Latin America Organized by food type/style (Street Food, Starters, Drinks, Fish and Seafood, Meat and Poultry, Vegetables, Pulses and Rice, and Dessert), Mexico: The Cookbook also includes an extensive introduction to Mexican culinary history, ingredients, and techniques, while a Chef Menu section proffers inspirational recipes and menus by some of the world's most prominent Mexican chefs - including our good friends at Mamasita. To Book: online at Trybooking or call Mamasita 03 9650 3821
If you can't join us but would like a copy of Mexico: the cookbook...
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Cleaver Quarterly
 | | Cleaver Quarterly $19.95 per issue |
A print only magazine about Chinese food in all its forms...
Need we say more!
Published quarterly in Beijing, this new magazine is an intriguing look at one of the world's great cuisines
We have Issues 1 and 2 in stock...
Here's the editorial 'Manifesto'
At any given moment, more people on Earth are eating Chinese food than anything else. They're enjoying flavor combinations that have been field-tested by hundreds of generations of peasants and palace chefs, innkeepers and nomads, fisherfolk and soldiers and daughters-in-law and ingenious beggars. Chinese cuisine is an evolving kaleidoscope of cooking techniques and regional styles. It's also an eager ambassador, a globalizing and globalized cuisine. As people realize how much more there is to Chinese food beyond the menu at their local takeaway, there's a hunger to know more - and it's that hunger that we aim to feed. In each issue of The Cleaver, we'll bring together enough voices to fill a banquet table. We can't wait to get started. There's so much to talk about, and all of it is fair game: from earthy staples to impossibly refined delicacies, from recipes that are older than the Great Wall to the sweet-and-sour concoctions that have served as so many people's first exposure to Chinese culture. And we'll serve it up in the form of long-simmered essays, pungent features, organically sourced reporting, crisp vignettes, and saucy interviews with people who produce, prepare and pine for Chinese food. We like style but never over substance. We love long-form writing - we believe there's an audience for in-depth stories that slice against the grain, that are thoughtful and thought-provoking but also playful and droll. We're serious about bringing the fun back to food writing. We intend to be as tirelessly curious, resourceful and versatile as the cuisine itself. In short, our aim at The Cleaver is to tell you everything you wanted to know but never knew to ask about Chinese food. We'll leave no wok unturned in order to bring you an irreverent takeaway on the real China.
Format: A4 softcover 80pp
Price: $19.95 (it's bespoke, ad-free & hand published)
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'Pig Parts' T-Shirts
 | | 'Pig Parts' T-Shirts $25 |
When we saw this bespoke T-shirt created by our good friends at Backstreet Eating - we liked it so much we just had to buy some!
Of course Tim couldn't help himself so now we have: - White T-Shirts (Women's Cut) in Large & XL
- Black T-Shirts (Men's Cut) in Large, XL and XXL
If you know a sausage lover or pork afficiniado - these T-shirts need a good home! (Locally printed on pure cotton, pre-shrunk t-shirts)
(for reference Amanda is a loose XL and Tim a loose XXL) ...to order 'Pig Parts' T-shirts... |
Special No 1: A Food Lover's Pilgrimage Set
by Dee Nolan
 We had a ball last week at our Union Dining dinner to launch Dee Nolan's new book - A Food Lover's Pilgrimage to France. The book is a beautifully designed and photographed companion to her best-selling A Food Lover's Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Whether you are planning a food or walking pilgrimage or you're just in need of some good armchair travel with a gorgeous personal story - this is a good good read! The books are $79.95 each, but they make such a beautiful set that we decided to offer them as a pair for $130 whilst stocks last (almost 20% off!). Our website is not smart enough to handle this promotion so if you are interested give us a call 03 8415 1415, send us an email or drop by in store |
Special No 2: Larousse Gastronomique
 | Larousse Gastronomique: 5th Ed
was $145 now $95 |
Larousse Gastronomique needs no introduction - after all it is the pre-eminent culinary encyclopedia of the 20th century! Every good culinary library needs one.
We were able to get our hands on a small stack of the current edition for a very good price we thought we'd share our good fortune Normally $145 it is now $95 whilst stocks last... |
Signed books
 If you are looking for a special present for someone this holiday season - we currently have quite a few signed books by authors recently in town including:
- Yotam Ottolenghi
- Karen Martini
- Frank Camorra & Richard Cornish
- Annabel Langbein
- Jody Vassallo
- Matt Moran
- Sophie Zalokar
- Guy Grossi
and later in the month, we'll be organising signing events with Sat Bains and Massimo Bottura. If you are looking for something special - give us a call 03 8415 1415 or send us an email |
Gift Vouchers
Stuck for time or can't choose? Why not consider a gift voucher or two this Christmas season. You can order a voucher for any value and they never expire Order your vouchers online and we can email a printable voucher to you or the lucky recipient usually within an hour or two. If you're looking for corporate or staff gifts or school prizes, give us a call - we can tailor a package of vouchers for you at the right price. |
Recipe: Hummus
Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi has been one of our stand out books for the year and the stand-out recipe for us has been his simple instructions to make Hummus.
Sure, lots of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean books over the years have contained recipes for Hummus, but for some reason, this one caught our eye and it is now a permanent 'go to' dish almost every week.
Although there is much merit in making Hummus from scratch using dried chickpeas that have been soaked overnight and cooked (as set out in the original recipe) ...we usually cheat and use good organic tinned chickpeas - so with apologies to Yotam, here is our 'abridged' recipe
"Basic Hummus
800gm tinned chickpeas (2 tins) (best you can buy)
270g light tahini paste (we use 'Hulled' tahini)
4 tbsp lemon juice
4 garlic cloves crushed
100ml ice cold water
salt
Drain the chickpeas.... Place the chickpeas in a food processor bowl. Process until you get a stiff paste; then with the machine still running, add the tahini paste, lemon juice, garlic and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Finally slowly drizzle in the iced water and allow it to mix until you get a very smooth and creamy paste, about 5 minutes.
Transfer the hummus into a bowl, cover the surface with cling film and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. If not using straight away, refrigerate until needed. Make sure to take it out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before serving
Hummus can be kept in the fridge for up to three days and used simply spread over a plate, drizzled with olive oil and eaten with a pita or bread.... You can vary it by folding in cooked and crushed chickpeas thus adding texture, adding some ground cumin and adjusting the amount of lemon juice and tahini to suit you"
[* we adjust the tahini, garlic & lemon juice to taste. Often we use about 200g of tahini - depending on the brand. Also garlic can be stronger depending on the season]
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Which brings us to a close for this Newsletter.
Happy Cooking, Reading & Eating!
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Tim & Amanda
Books for Cooks
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