Archive for November, 2010

CHEFS ‘WITHOUT BORDERS’

Every now & then I like introducing you to some chef buddies of mine & this week I’m so excited to share with you all ‘Chefs Without Borders ‘.  If you haven’t heard of these guys yet, then get ready because they’ve already got one Tasty Award under their belt & their videos of the street food tours they’ve done through Asia are brilliant.  Being typical chefs it wasn’t good enough for them to just stand back & watch, they had to get in there & get their hands dirty.  So, be warned OK, these video’s are not for the faint hearted (don’t say I didn’t warn you)!!

Q: To Clayton & Chad: Did you guys do your training & work with your brother like I did? (I worked with my bro through my training & have some awesome memories of double teaming & sticking together when times got tough)

I guess when we were younger we worked together quite a bit. Our first job in a professional kitchen was when we were 15 working with our Dad who was the Head Chef of a high end catering company and deli in Canada. I think we learned a lot about food and presentation as well as the fact that we couldn’t pull sickies.

Since then we haven’t really worked together until just recently when we moved to Australia. We were Head Chef and Sous Chef of a beautiful restaurant called Mist here on the Gold Coast. Now we are at a restaurant called Le Monde in Kirra, Gold Coast both running the kitchen. We just started there a week ago and hope to change the menu soon and get some more customers in for the summer. Continue Reading

COOKIE’S DIARY – Pt. I

Each week I post another fascinating true-life excerpt from my friend & mentor’s journals while she was Housekeeper & Cook at The Flamingo, during the period 1968-1999, titled Cookie’s Diaries. Together we’ve changed a few things around & set Cookies story in a fictional Australian country town so as to protect the innocent & the not so innocent!  We hope you enjoy Cookies journey from such humble & all but penniless beginnings to owning & running the highly successful country guesthouse, ‘The Flamingo’. To read the last chapter, click HERE.

Cookie in 1968.

About forty years ago, I answered an advertisement for a Housekeeper & Cook & went to work at a Country Guest House in an Australian winemaking country town.  The advertisement read:  “Wanted.  Woman required to care for all Housekeeping & Cookery functions for a fashionable Country Guest House. Children acceptable but strictly no men should apply!

Things were different back then, employers openly declared their preferences when they advertised & employed you, without any fear of being labelled discriminatory, but it was much more common for women to draw the shorter straw in preferences, not men.  Looking back I suppose even this advertisement was a little strange, but I was desperate for work & to put a roof over our heads, I had few other options but to apply for everything I could. Continue Reading