Simon Food Favourites: Product Promotion

23 November 2010

GREEN FOOD generation: Book Launch, Art Gallery of NSW (23 Nov 2010)

http://www.woodysliquidkitchen.com

You are what you eat

Author Hayden Wood is an award winning, globetrotting bartender. While his legendary love of all things liquid will never lose its lustre, his travels have led to the discovery of a passion for good food: Sustainable, free-range, organic, biodynamic, local, ethical – and delicious!

Thanks to Melissa from fooderati for inviting me along to this book launch held in the Members Lounge of the Art Gallery of NSW. Before the launch guests were treated to a private tour of the latest exhibition 'David to Cézanne' which had some remarkable illustrations being displayed from the privately owned collection of Louis-Antoine Prat. Wines were sponsored by the family owned Taylors and they promoted their Eighty Acres range of wines to be 100% Carbon Neutral which also use a new LEAN+GREEN Light Weight Glass for the bottles. Plenty of canapes were served and my favourites were the nicely presented Smoked salmon with orange canape and the simple yet tasty toothpick canape of Olive, basil, bocconcini and sun dried tomato.

Hayden Wood aka Woody is certainly a passionate foodie and speaker and his love for the greater community shines through when he introduced Ronni Kahn from OzHarvest and explained how 10% of the sale of every book (RRP $39.95 AUD) will be contributed to OzHarvest and their expanding food rescue program across Australia — a very honorable thing to do indeed. It was heartwarming to find out that OzHarvest provides food to over 200 charities who provide support to many individuals in need. As Not Quite Nigella found out it's around 5000 meals a day with a single meal costing less than $1. I look forward to reading through the recipes and culinary adventures of the book which is full of yummy food photos and there's some lovely illustrations by Esmeralda Wood as well. Personally I hate wasting food and I'm slowly learning more about the better choices we have as consumers about where and who we can buy our food from so I think this book will be an inspirational read at the very least.

Hayden Wood aka Woody talking about his new book

Ronni Kahn from OzHarvest being introduced by Hayden Wood

Hayden Wood book spread

Ronni Kahn book spread

Curtis Stone foreword. Being the Coles ambassador I'm thinking this might not be the best choice because I'm not too sure how local and ethical Coles actually is and on any given day I much prefer the quality of produce I find at my local fruit and vegetable shop.

Book production credits. I know it's pretty cheap to print books in China but I hope the carbon points weren't too high.

Other books by Hayden Wood

Taylors Eighty Acres Clare Valley Chardonnay 2009

Taylors Promised Land Cabernet Sauvignon SA 2009

Taylors Eighty Acres Clare Valley Shiraz Viognier 2008

Taylors Promised Land Pinot Grigio SA 2010

Smoked salmon with orange canape

Olive, basil, bocconcini, sun dried tomato canape

Smoked salmon and brioche roll

Prawn and seafood extender sandwich

Vietnamese fresh roll

Pumpkin mini quiche

Private tour of David to Cézanne

Goodie Bag including a copy of the GREEN FOOD generation, a Victors Food oven mat, a nectarine and mini pecan pie tart from Wanaka Orchard & Oakdale Nuttery, a small slice of Margan Tripple [Triple] Choc Brownie, and a banana which I'm assuming is from Organic Food.

An important message about the nectarine in the goodie bag

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03 September 2010

Fish Face: Tefal ActiFryday Pop Up Café, Darlinghurst (3 Sept 2010)

132 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghurst NSW 2010

http://www.tefal.com.au

Homemade low fat hot chips

Thanks to Elizabeth Coad from TMTE Group for inviting me along to this lunchtime event which pretty much took over Fish Face. Stephen Hodges did the main dish cooking in the kitchen using the Tefal ActiFry while Deb and Ben from My Kitchen Rules helped out with the tasty appetisers of Saltbush Lamb Rump pieces and Salmon pieces marinated in garlic, ginger, lemon and cooked with a tiny bit of oil. I first came across the Tefal ActiFry at this years Good Food & Wine Show but todays result of the chips were much better for some reason. Perhaps it was due to the way they were cut and type of potato used which still had the skin on and crisped up better than I was expecting. Tefal is promoting this as the revolutionary LOW Fat way of cooking Australia's favourite Friday meal of Fish and Chips. It's good to know it uses very little oil but with a retail price of $349.95 you'd definitely be wanting to cook more than chips with it — which apparently you can as promoted in their recipe book.

The main dish was a choice of either marinated flathead or steamed salmon although I didn't seem to get a choice and was given the marinated flathead — perhaps because I was dining alone? I would have loved to taste the steamed salmon to compare. The flathead was fairly moist and tasty although originally the invite said it was fried flathead but perhaps this wasn't possible. The side of garden salad had rocket, tomato and cucumber which I think would have been even better with a few shavings of parmesan on top to counteract the bitterness of the rocket and perhaps some balsamic vinegar. I tried to work out where all the cooking was happening and only later realised it must have been done within the kitchen. I missed out on seeing how the Tefal VitaCuisine Compact worked but saw the chips being cooked up as well as the appetisers.

Tefal promotes that you only use one spoonful of oil to cook 1 kg of chips but it doesn't really say how much oil that spoonful equates too and if you were eating for one at home I'm not sure if you can cook less than 1 kg of chips at one time — I'm assuming you possibly could? Also I'd be interested to know how it would work with cooking sweet potato instead of normal potato as a healthier option. Coincidently the Fried Fish & Chips (Flathead) Lemon & Tartare Sauce on the Fish Face menu will cost you $35 or $10 for just Fresh Cut Potato Chips — that's pretty expensive for fish and chips in my books so I'd be hoping they were pretty damn good for that price. The homemade tartare sauce by the way was very yummy today.

SNAPSHOT REVIEW:

PROS: Low fat oil cooking, Chips had a bit of crispy crunch factor, Fish Face make a very nice Tartare Sauce, Saltbush Lamb appetiser was very tasty and tender

CONS: Takes a while to cook, Expensive so you'd want to use for other types of cooking

MUST TRY: Seeing if you can cook sweet potato in a Tefal ActiFry

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