Kitchen Alchemy

In 1998 my friend Sophie came to visit from France. It was the second time we met face to face, having been penpals since we were high school kids. Sophie came armed with a swathe of genuine French recipes, which we attempted to cook for a dinner at my mother's house. While Potatoes Au Gratin had been served in our home before, the recipe we'd used was not like Sophie's. Hers was based on beef stock and creme fraiche, which unfortunately was unknown in Australia at that time (or at least in Penrith). It also had bacon interspersed through the layers of potato, and if I remember correctly, needed topping up with more creamy stock as the potatoes cooked. My mother and I messed with Sophie's recipe so much, I don't think it resembled the French version much at all. And don't even get me started on the disaster of a cherry clafoutis, which we had no idea how to handle! It turned out rubbery and we could tell by the look on Sophie's face that it wasn

Some months ago my husband and I decided we would head overseas for Christmas this year. It's been a long, arduous year, and even back in September, we felt a good break was well deserved. Of course, as December 25 has gotten closer, I have been suffering from Christmas cooking withdrawals. And because I cooked my Christmas cakes in October instead of in the last few days before Christmas, it felt even worse! So last weekend I decided we must have a turkey dinner on the last Sunday before we go away. We've invited good friends to dinner tonight, and since I've gotten started early, I have decided to churn out a bunch of Christmas treats to go along with the dinner. I've taken a few old favourites and I've revamped them in a Christmas theme. Take these chocolate cupcakes - I had them left over from a cake job the other week. I've topped them with my usual chocolate butter cream, but I've decorated them to make them look like little chocolate puddin

When I was a kid we lived in a part of Newcastle that backed onto a massive expanse of paddocks and swamp. Our neighbours kept horses and cows in those paddocks, so we were lucky enough to grow up and a bona fide built up area with more than a little bit of country sensibility included. Despite this, and contrary to the desires of so many little girls, I did not spend my childhood pestering my parents for a pony. More over, I never even asked any of my neighbours if I might ride one of their horses. They were for looking at and feeding. Nothing else. One horse in particular, Boomerang, seemed to me to distinctly be the kind of horse one should never ride. My mother, my sister and I squeezed through the gate in the back fence one afternoon with the intention of feeding Boomerang and a couple of the other horses some apples that had gone soft. Unfortunately for us, Boomerang spotted the apples in our hands and came galloping towards us at a rate of knots. When we realised he wo