Food

Leave a comment Posted on October 23, 2015 Food, Guest posts

Introducing MenuChef: guest post

Cross-posted from my food blog.

Our whole family has always had a great interest in food and cooking, and my entrepreneurial nephew, Edouard de Martrin Donos(brother of talented Paris-based chef Alexis Braconnier) has parleyed that interest into a brand-new start up in Sydney with two of his friends: a company calledMenuChef, which offers an unusual new service, turning your home into a fabulous venue for a fine dining experience. To explain the concept, the story behind it, and what’s on offer, I invited Edouard onto the blog. Enjoy!

Introducing MenuChef,
by Edouard de Martrin Donos

My story

My name is Edouard de Martrin Donos, I’m the CEO of menuchef.com.au.

I am a French & Australian entrepreneur, growing up in a large French Australian family that combined the best elements of a successful family reunion: extraordinary dishes & passionate entertaining dinner.

Food & cooking always took a big part of my life as well as that of my whole family (my brother is a celebrity chef in France). I grew up in a family where everyone knows how to cook and shares the same passion of multi-cultural dishes and flavour explosions to bring the true essence to our plates. We always have organised big feasts for family and friends when great food and animated debates were crucial part of these reunions.

I have built my company with two of my friends, Olivier and Chris, who share the same vision and passion of entertaining at home.

Our concept

We want to share our vision and change the way that people think of dining: why dine-out when you can dine-in?

At MenuChef we believe that professional chefs can get out of their kitchen and give you an exclusive access to their world. We want our customers to experience an extraordinary culinary and entertaining adventure in the comfort of their own venue.

What do we offer?

We offer a private & premium personal chef service where the chef will cook for you and your guests.

Also, we are offering some great culinary experiences to choose from:

Romantic dinner to impress your special someone
Cooking class where the chef comes to you and teach you how to cook your dream dish.
Special events for a unique and tailor-made gourmet catering for any corporate or private function (High Tea, Wedding, Celebration, Seminar, Christmas party, etc..)

How does it work?

We know how tricky it can to host a dinner with the stress of cooking, organising and cleaning. This frees you up so you get all of the the pleasure and none of the pain!

STEP 1: Simply jump on the website, select your menu online based on your taste, inspiration and budget. Book your selected menu based on your selected criteria (cuisine type, chef, menu range).

STEP 2: Your chef will contact you and will do the grocery shopping for you.

STEP 3: The chef will come to your door at the date and time indicated on your booking and will cook for you and your guests.

STEP 4: Your chef will serve you and your guests and clean up before leaving.

How do we select our chefs?

Our chefs are selected based on their cooking skills and professional cooking CVs. We have a strict recruitment process that the chef must follow in order to integrate the menuchef team. The chef’s final selection is done with our critic’s team (Bloggers, critics and menuchef representative will validate the chef during a booking trail).

Once the chef is validated, the chef will establish his/her menus and will set up a profile visible on the website. After a final review, the chef is ready to get his/her first booking for menuchef.

For more details, visit us on www.menuchef.com.au or call us on 1300MENUCHEF (636 824)

Email: valetservice@menuchef.com.au (customers)

Leave a comment Posted on February 16, 2015February 13, 2015 Art, Book talk, Celebrations, Food, Illustrators, Inspirations

Picture That: Illustrators on food 3: Lisa Stewart

Today I’m featuring the touching, lively and beautiful work of Lisa Stewart, illustrator and musician. Lisa’s illustrated seven books, including five picture books and two illustrated books. And I’m thrilled to reveal that we are collaborating on an illustrated story together, to be published later this year by Christmas Press.

In this post Lisa tells us a bit about her journey to becoming an illustrator, offers a delicious family favourite recipe devised by her daughter Claire, and shares with us some of her gorgeous illustrations. Lisa’s website is at www.lisastewart.com.au

Lisa’s story

As a young mother, some 17 years ago, pushing my daughter in her pram to any paper, art supply, card or book store I could find I was instantly attracted to wrapping paper with illustrations by Jane Ray wonderful British illustrator and author). I adored her attention to detail and her animals, trees, water, sun, moon and stars. A new love was born, of children’s picture books and paper.

Later in Germany I sent a CD of mine (I play the violin ) and a letter of thanks to Jane for her artwork. To my delight she responded with five picture books and a glorious phoenix card of hers and a friendship was formed.

My family and I flew to England to meet her. Seeing her studio and her artwork (admired by her husband and her three children) framed and hung throughout their home filled me with joy. My secret dream was to become an illustrator and be like Jane.

The illustrative style I use came about during the creation of a 20 page wordless love story. I began to cut out hundreds of tiny pieces of paper and create images. Friends and family were represented as trees, birds, fish, dragons and whales. A broken heart became thousands of little flowers and the night sky a full moon on black rice paper.

With support form my dear friend Lynndy Bennett at Gleebooks, I sent some publishers a few of the pictures from the love story and had a call from Ana Vivas from Scholastic Press. We met and I got to send in ideas for a book by Kerry Brown called ‘Can I Cuddle the Moon?’ I enjoyed doing some little drawings and to my amazement was chosen to illustrate it.

My dream of becoming an illustrator has come true.

Here is the recipe for a favourite family dish, ‘Claire’s Nachos’, that my daughter has been making from around the age of ten. She is nineteen now.

Claire’s Nachos

Ingredients:
> 1 medium to large brown onion
> 3 tins kidney beans
> 1 tin tomatoes
> 1 small tin corn (optional)
> smoked chipotle in adobo sauce or other chilli e.g. chilli paste
> 2 tsp cumin or premixed Mexican seasoning
> Corn chips
>
> for the guacamole:
> 2 ripe avocadoes
> cumin
> salt and pepper to taste
> the juice of one whole lime
>
> for the pico de gallo:
> 3 to 4 medium tomatoes
> juice of one whole lime
> salt to taste
> chopped cilantro(coriander)
>
>
> Instructions:
> Dice onion and fry in vegetable oil of your preference until translucent.
> Finely chop/mince half a chipotle chilli and add it to the onion.
> Drain the beans and fry them in with the onion and chilli until the beans soften.
> Roughly mash the beans, then add the tin of tomato and the cumin.
> Add the corn.
> Stir well and season to taste.
>
> Guacamole:
> halve the avocadoes and scoop out the flesh into a medium mixing bowl.
> Mash with a fork and add the lime juice, salt, pepper, and cumin.
> Mix well.
>
> Pico de Gallo:
> finely dice the tomatoes, and place in a bowl with the lime juice, cilantro and salt. mix well.
>
> To serve, place bean mix on top of corn chips, with pico de gallo and guacamole on top.

Leave a comment Posted on February 11, 2015February 10, 2015 Art, Authors, Food, Illustrators

Picture That: Illustrators on food, 2: Beattie Alvarez

Cross-posted from my food blog.

Today I’m featuring gorgeous illustrations and a yummy easy recipe by Beattie Alvarez, young multi-talented illustrator, author, editor, toymaker, mother of two lively children, and passionate reader! She is also one of the team at Christmas Press Picture Books and at the beautiful toyshop, Granny Fi’s Toy Cupboard.

Mi Goreng for the busy reader

by Beattie Alvarez

Too busy reading a book to do the shopping? Just got to the exciting part and don’t want to stop for long, but your tummy is grumbling? Want something hot, simple, and delicious to eat while you’re reading your book?
I have the perfect recipe for you!
Mi Goreng!
Most people have had this delicious noodle concoction, a favourite with students and people on a budget. They’re cheap, quick, and yummy. Most people have also gone to the cupboard in their hour of hunger only to discover that they have RUN OUT! Oh, the horror!
This happened to me yesterday.
It was a quiet afternoon and I was happily reading Harry Potter in the sun when I realised that I was drooling on it as I read about the fantastic feasts. NOT GOOD. Being the day before payday, my pantry was looking sad. What could I make that was warm and cosy and QUICK? I didn’t want to put down Harry for too long.
I found two sad looking spring onions, half a Spanish onion, tomato sauce, and manis (sweet soy sauce). And a ten pack of dry two-minute noodles.
Five minutes later (I kid you not!) Harry was safely tucked under the edge of my bowl as I wolfed down my meal. To be fair, mi goreng is not ideal for eating with Harry Potter. What you need with Harry are pies and puddings, cakes and sweets, hot chocolate, baked potatoes, and all those other fabulously English things. However, my meal was perfectly adequate and (with the right book) would have been perfect!

Ingredients:
1 tbsp sweet soy sauce (manis – available from most supermarkets in the Asian food aisle).
1 tbsp tomato sauce
pepper – I used a lot, but some people would prefer less. Start with half a teaspoon and go from there.
Onions of some description
3 packets of dry noodles
soy sauce to taste
oil
egg (optional)

Method:
1. Pick your favourite book. Get it ready for later.
2. Mix tomato sauce, pepper, and sweet soy sauce in a bowl.
3. Boil and drain your noodles
4. Finely chop, and then fry your onions in the oil until they are nice and crispy, but not burnt.
5. (optional) poach or fry your egg
6. Turn the heat off, throw everything into the frying pan and mix, adding soy sauce to taste.
7. (optional, but advised) transfer to plate or bowl.
8. Open your book and read while eating.
9. Go back for seconds if necessary.
NB. All quantities are approximate and to my taste. I don’t like things very saucy (read want you will into that statement!), so I used three packets of noodles. Some people would only use two. I also like quite sweet savoury dishes. If you prefer salty, then add more soy sauce or lessen the amounts of Manis and tomato sauce. And if you aren’t kissing someone later, fried garlic works well too.

Leave a comment Posted on February 2, 2015January 31, 2015 Art, Food, Guest posts, Illustrators

Picture That, illustrators on food: 1: Trish Donald

Cross-posted from my food blog.

A couple of years ago, I ran a series featuring the favourite recipes of authors. This time, I’m inaugurating a new series, Picture That, which features illustrators talking about food and giving us a favourite recipe, but also showcasing favourite new illustrations. Picture That will be running from time to time over the next couple of months, but today is the first of the series, and it features the fabulous illustrator Trish Donald.

Trish usually paints landscapes using acrylics but in recent years she has been shifting focus toward character design where she likes to blend natural with digital medium. Her latest exhibition, in November 2014, contained works created through a combination of pen drawings, collages, and digital drawings. Trish spent many years working as a graphic designer after which she spent 14 years teaching graphic design at TAFE. She currently works in Industry at the University of New England. Trish runs creative workshops at NERAM, in Armidale and the New England Writers’ Centre teaching others how to develop characters, use colour, or use mixed media. Most recently, she had a short story and illustration published in Once Upon A Christmas (edited by Beattie Alvarez, published by Christmas Press, 2014) and she looks forward to future creative endeavours.

Trish presents here a favourite recipe: Portuguese Marinated Carrots.

When I make these for friends they are always impressed and absolutely love them so I am going to share it with you too.

Cenouras De Conserva – Marinated Carrots

(a Portuguese aperitif)

Ingredients:

4-5 carrots

1 Cup water (from cooking the carrots)

Pinch of salt

1-2 cloves garlic

Parsley – Continental

2 Tbsp Olive Oil (virgin)

2-3 tsp white vinegar

1tsp red paprika (not hot)

Toothpicks – for serving

Instructions:

Peeled and slice carrots into thick circles.

Put carrots in pot, cover with water and add some salt.

Boil for 3-5 minutes depending on tenderness – you want them to be soft but firm so they don’t fall apart.

Strain and put aside some of the carrot water (if you do not have enough carrot water you can just add water from the tap)

Put carrots in the fridge

Chop the garlic finely

Chop the parsley finely

In a cup combine the olive oil, vinegar, paprika and carrot water.

Pour this mixture over the carrots and stir through, put back in fridge.

Taste mixture and add vinegar or oil according to taste.

Traditionally the carrots are a little bit on the vinegar side.

If you have added too much vinegar add more water and stir through.

Put on a shallow dish and supply toothpicks when serving.

Your guests will not be disappointed!

Feathers of the Firebird

Feathers of the Firebird

Sophie Masson's writing blog

Food

Introducing MenuChef: guest post

Picture That: Illustrators on food 3: Lisa Stewart

Picture That: Illustrators on food, 2: Beattie Alvarez

Picture That, illustrators on food: 1: Trish Donald