The opening film in the Date Palm Film Festival in Christchurch on Thursday night was an engrossing study of Moroccan life entitled In Casablanca, the Angels Don’t Fly. The three main characters are economic migrants, dreaming of their home villages, as they work at a minimum wage job in a bustling Casablanca café. It is a tragic tale, although occasionally shot through with moments of humour, of the struggles faced by village men who have to leave their families to work in a big city.
Just taking a look at the World Food Media awards website and some of my favourite food writers appear on their list of nominees.No Nigel Slater, alas, but Stephanie Alexander, Dean Brettschneider and Lauraine Jacobs, Nigella Lawson, Anthony Bourdain and Cuisine magazine are among those nominated for the biennial awards which, apparently, are known as the food and drink industry’s equivalent to the Oscars.
Ooh! I’ve just been on the Observer Magazine website – a great treat to browse though when you’re sitting by the computer with a cup of coffee when you don’t have the real OM to hand on a Sunday – and I discovered that they’re running a series of extracts from Nigel Slater’s new cookery book, The Kitchen Diaries.
After enjoying a visit to the Nelson branch of Mediterranean Foods, I had intended to visit their shop in Christchurch, which also includes a café, for quite a while now but, somehow, it just never seemed to happen. But when I did finally make it I had a very pleasant afternoon, browsing through the shelves of this Aladdin’s Cave, piled high with ingredients from the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
I’ve been getting plenty of use out of the Ral Al Hanout that I made fairly recently and it is particularly good with lamb. Of course, being in New Zealand, there’s no shortage of the baa-ing beast although, as the Boyfriend told a former vegetarian friend after one such dinner, we only eat the ugly ones!
My local Oxfam Fair Trade shop here in Christchurch has started stocking Fair Trade spices, including ground ginger, cinnamon – ground and sticks, whole cloves, whole and ground black peppercorns and chilli powder, all...
Taste: Baking With Flavour is the third book from the partnership of professional baker Dean Brettschneider and contributing food editor at Cuisine magazine, Lauraine Jacobs. Their first two books – The New Zealand Baker...
When I recently received an email from Mia at Eat Feed telling me about their weekly foodie podcasts I was delighted. Having spent years involved with Cork Campus Radio, I love listening to radio, especially when I’m working from home, and RTÉ Radio 1 is the station I most miss while here in New Zealand. Although familiar with the whole idea of internet radio, being a regular listener to Seattle music station KEXP, this was my first introduction to the Eat Feed show which is presented from Chicago by Anne Bramley.
