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Articles
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Monday, 04 January 2010 |
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Lisa Dempster reports on the fate of your spare change.
A few weeks ago I took my cup to my local and ordered a soy latté, something I have done more or less daily for the past thirteen months. It had become my favoured haunt for a variety of reasons: proximity to my workplace, the skill of the barista, ambience, the availability of quality soy milk (Bonsoy), and its everyday affordability ($3, including a 50c soy surcharge).
On this particular day I was charged $4.50 for my coffee. The café had done a costing and realised they were losing money on their soy drinks. I thought such a large price jump was unreasonable, and I refused to pay the 50% price increase. Instead, I asked that my cup be filled with $3 worth of coffee.
The next day, the price of soy coffee had returned to $3, but Bonsoy had been replaced by a cheaper brand. So now I pay a 50c surcharge on an inferior soy drink. In the space of two days, I went from being a very happy customer to a less satisfied, even disgruntled, customer.
Putting a surcharge on soy milk is a contentious topic in some circles — namely, among those who work in the café industry, and those who like to purchase non-dairy hot drinks at said cafés. Perhaps not surprisingly, people in those two groups can have very different ideas about whether it's acceptable to charge extra for soy milk.
Vanessa, a management consultant who works in Melbourne's CBD, doesn't like milk surcharges. 'I resent it. I think they should build it into the general costs. Some teas cost more than others but they just average it out.'
She realises that some soys are more costly, like organic or Bonsoy, and she also appreciates that some cafes offer multiple non-dairy options. Her usual café charges her an extra 20c for low-fat soy milk, and she goes there regularly. However, there is a limit to how much she is willing to pay. 'Up to fifty cents - I'll do it, but I'm not happy about it. Any more than that and I just wouldn't get it.'
Vanessa has been dairy-intolerant for over a decade, and notes that baristas have grown much better at working with soy milk, while becoming more knowledgeable about the differences between various products. She attributes this to the general rise in soy drinkers — about a 25% increase in the past five years, according to her barista - but wonders why an increase in uptake hasn't brought costs down.
Glen Morris of Glen's Espresso, a coffee cart in central Brisbane, has considered the issue of surcharges extensively. Charging for extras is a funny business,' he admits. 'I always thought it was a rip off until I got into the game myself, and worked out that soy milk does cost a lot more — and that a double shot of coffee does cost 50c.'
Rather than charging a set price for extras, Glen likes to let his customers decide whether it's worth paying a surcharge, and his unique honesty box payment method allows for that style of tariff.
'I kind of let customers decide the issue. If they ask, I tell them to add 30c or 'whatever your conscience tells you to,'' he explains. 'But most people just pay the regular prices without adding on for the extras. I rarely force the issue. If I'm making coffee then I'm making money. Losing a bit on soy or an extra shot doesn't bother me too much.'
Seemingly quite happy to absorb the cost of extras in order to provide better value, Glen also doesn't put a premium on the organic, fairtrade coffee he uses — beans that might attract a surcharge at other establishments. His coffees are priced at $3 and $3.50 (for small and large respectively).
'This is actually less than I wanted to charge. Initially the prices were $3.30 and $3.80, but I'm in a very competitive spot with the disadvantage of no recognised brand name to trade on, so I dropped the prices down. Although my prices are lower than I wanted, using nice round numbers is easier for me and my customers, and I like that my coffee is not just very good — but very good value.'
Despite his relaxed but savvy approach to pricing, there are limits. For example, Glen uses Vitasoy milk, one of the cheaper brands of soy. 'Bonsoy is really nice, but it's another premium again, and I'm not prepared to subsidise to that extent.'
One surcharge that doesn't seem to attract much attention is an additional cost for mocha, a practice that is widespread. A straw poll of mocha drinkers revealed that they weren't bothered about paying extra for their drinks; on a whole they noted that mocha has an extra ingredient, or that it was something of an extravagance, a special treat.
Steve Barnett of Human Powered Café in Thornbury says that no one comments on his 50c mocha surcharge. However, many soy milk drinkers have been vocal about surcharges — just not in the way you might expect.
Human Powered Café charges 30c a cup extra for local, organic soy milk — yet many of its customers prefer Bonsoy, and have said that they are willing to pay the extra cost it would attract.
Eventually, Barnett sat down and recosted all his hot drinks, discovering that using Bonsoy would mean adding a $1 premium to soy coffees — something he is reluctant to do despite having the support of many customers. 'To put it on at a dollar extra suddenly changes the dynamic,' he reflects, and has not yet decided whether to add Bonsoy to his menu in addition to the soy milk he currently stocks.
A far less common surcharge is decaf, which costs more than regular coffee beans — often up to $4 a kilo. Unlike soy milk, it's a cost that Barnett absorbs. He is unsure about how big a difference it makes to his margins. 'I'd have to do the calculations,' he explains, although it's an item he wouldn't consider putting a surcharge on. 'I haven't seen anyone put a premium on decaf.'
So there is more than simple economics at play when deciding to add surcharges to menu items — retail trends are factored in, too. That is, what a customer might be prepared to pay extra for (such as mocha or soy milk), and what they would consider unreasonable (decaf). This might seem unfair to soy or mocha drinkers, but Barnett gently reminds me that running a café is a business, 'It's all good to say that the long black drinkers will subsidise the soy drinkers, but isn't it important to get good margins on drinks, which are a profitable part of the business?' In the café business, hot drinks play a vital role in generating income, and there are more costs involved than simply the price of ingredients.
'There's an incredible amount of labour involved in getting just one coffee out to a customer,' Steve says. At the end of the day it's about offering value, good service, good coffee and an enjoyable drinking environment. '[As customers] you've got to put a price on how much you enjoy it when the cup of coffee is put in front of you.'
Lisa Dempster
Author profile: About the author
Author website: Unwakeable
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Saturday, 19 December 2009 |
Dion Kagan goes in search of the trends propelling the explosion of Australian choctiques and along the way gets a crash course in choco-politics.
'I never met a chocolate I didn't like', said Deanna Troi, the half-human, half-Betazoid resident counsellor on Star Trek: The Next Generation's ship, the Enterprise. Counsellor Troi, or "counsellor cleavage" as my friend prefers to call her, was known for her empathic ability to sense people's emotions. And chocolate? Well, we all know that chocolate is intimately tied to the emotional life. But if enjoying a delicious choccie or two can sometimes give rise to feelings of guilt or shame, it's probably for all the wrong reasons.
In Australia, eating chocolate has more of these connotations than it does in Europe, where its consumption - usually in dark form, and usually in moderation - is much more of an everyday practice. I'm certain this is partly because of the way chocolate is sold to us, on the telly and elsewhere - aggressively marketed to women, often presented as a substitute for love (or sex). Or, like sex, construed as indulgent, risky, or irresistibly sinful. Much like beer, which we also know can be bad for us is large quantities but which people binge on anyway, chocolate fits all too comfortably with moments of misery (or even just mild self-loathing).
 A dazzling array of deliciousness at Monsieur Truffe
(photo: Rohan Young)
As Arnold Ismach, author of The Darker Side of Chocolate writes, 'all of the evil that people have thrust upon chocolate is really more deserved by milk chocolate, which is essentially contaminated. The closer you get to a pure chocolate liquor (the chocolate essence ground from roasted cacao beans) the purer it is, the more satisfying it is, the safer it is, and the healthier it is.'
In spite of the guilt factor, Australia's taste for chocolate is on the rise.
According to an article in the Age's Epicure last year, we spent $1.8 billion on chocolate in 2007, up $168 million from 2002. This amounted to an increase of around four kilos of chocolate per person, per year. Another manifestation of the cocoa craving has been the appearance of and apparently irrepressible proliferation of upscale chocolatiers - initially just in urban centres, but also increasingly, in suburban shopping malls and now even airports.
I'm speaking of boutiques like haute chocolate salon Kokoblack which opened its first store in 2003, the charmingly named Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man, which originated in Israel, and Belgian-influenced Cacao, the self-styled "Louis Vuitton of chocolate boutiques".
Most of these have a coffee and food menu too, but the emphasis is on a selection of delicate, high-quality, "authentic" chocolate products, presented opulently, selected by you, and packaged by gloved hands in fussy boxes with crepe paper and bows. These delicacies are typically melted on-premises by locally trained chocolatiers using Dutch, Belgian, Swiss or Spanish styles. They're unashamedly top-end, and folks are lapping them up like Wonka bars. At the time of writing, the now-ubiquitous Chocolateria San Churro, famous for its Churros (Spanish doughnuts) served with a pot of melted couverture, is currently ranked 22 in Australia's 100 fastest growing companies, with stores popping up faster than you can say "save some room for later Augustus".
 A dazzling array of deliciousness at Monsieur Truffe
(photo: Rohan Young)
Indeed, in spite of the ongoing precariousness of the US economy, Max Brenner's American stores are expanding — business saw an increase of almost 15 percent last year. The bald man explains it thus:
'At this time, people find comfort food, especially chocolate, as something that gives them some happiness. It is some indulgence in this not-so-comfortable situation, and therefore, they come here to find their legal drug' (FoxBusiness, October 29, 2009).
A rather more modest example of this café/chocolatier phenomenon is Monsieur Truffe, located in Smith Street, Fitzroy, the very heart of Melbourne's gentrified bohemia. Described in Gourmet Traveller's list of The Best Food of 2009 as 'most chilled-out chocolatier', Truffe is indeed laid back (recycled timber shelving, industrial light-fittings and a big, beautiful forest scene wall mural), but reveals a carefully considered collection of single-origin chocolates, organic roasted coffee beans, truffles of course, and other (literally) melt-in-your-mouth treats.
The chilled-out chocolatier behind the concept is Thibault Fregoni, a French man with a passion for the c-bean, both quality and ethics. He also has a delightfully unceremonious generosity with his accumulated wisdom, is happy to chatter away, and runs chocolate tasting and appreciation classes. In addition to the chocs, Truffe serves a delicious range of croissants, pane chocolate, escargot and flourless chocolate cake all baked on-premises, and a range of incredible chocolate and coffee drinks.
I followed Fregoni from his origins in Prahran market, (where he started selling chocolate in 2005), to the café in Fitzroy, where since 2008 I've been cultivating a newfound obsession with the soy mocha. I dropped in recently hoping to learn more about the trends propelling and characterizing the choc-tique craze. What I got was a crash course in the complex politics and economics of chocolate.
 Scrumptious selections at Monsieur Truffe
(photo: Rohan Young)
'It means "beggar"', he explains. 'It's a common name for little things like this. What happen[ed] is, in the past, when it used to be more of a village setting, [a] patisserie or bakery would just do little things with leftovers, to give to the beggars, as a charity thing for the Sundays.'
To me, this starts to encapsulate something about the philosophy of Monsieur Truffe. Fregoni's specialty is single origin chocolate and his range includes mini and sharing-sized bars from Bolivia, Madagascar, Venezuela and Paupa New Guinea, many of these with high percentages of cocoa. The delicacies are simple but delicious; less decorating and packaging, more quality ingredients. He is conscious not to use any plastic packaging in the store, so even his straws are biodegradable - made from corn.
Talking about the different European styles and influence on chocolate making, he explains: 'I'm not a fanatic of the Belgium style. It's a lot of well-decorated chocolate with a lot of fillings. For me, this detracts. I'm more interested in using the chocolate as the raw ingredient.'
He hastens to add that this is his style and his perspective, and that the great thing about the proliferation of chocolate providers in Australia is that 'it offers a different point of view and you can decide for yourself.'
Fregoni is clear in distinguishing his chocolate from the Belgian style - which traditionally has lots of butter cream, pralines and fillings. 'To me, there are some beautiful ones', Fregoni says. 'To me, if it's well decorated and it's a beautiful chocolate, [then] fine. But if it's only well decorated and you can't taste the chocolate, to me, what's the point? So I'm trying to step away from this kind of appeal to the eye… I'm very happy with a small bar. Just the chocolate, and this is it.'
 Hot deliciousness Monsieur Truffe
(photo: Rohan Young)
So, does the Monsieur make his own chocolate? 'Not yet… There is only one in Australia. It's Haighs. The rest is [sic] melters.'
This is the first thing I've learnt about the providence of chocolate. People may advertise themselves as chocolate "makers", but it's not quite the truth. Fregoni explains the process: 'What they get is the cocoa liquor, and they melt the cocoa liquor, and they make the chocolate from that…but they're not selecting the cocoa beans, they're not roasting the cocoa beans…Haighs are the only Australian chocolate maker, in the traditional way.'
Back in the day, chocolate companies like MacRobertson and Cadbury made their chocolate from scratch, roasting and grading the dried and fermented cocoa beans, grinding them into the liquid known as chocolate liquor or cocoa liquor. The final stages of this process are conching (to give the chocolate a smooth texture) and tempering, which ensure the chocolate will snap when it's broken, rather than crumbling. Because this all involves a lot of machinery, chocolate makers became specialised overtime, and began to on-sell to chocolatiers, who, like Fregoni, then make and sell their delicacies.
However, Fregoni is aiming to start making his own. From scratch. 'I'm looking for a premises at the moment, and we're importing machinery from all over the world. The idea is for us to be in control, from the selection of the beans to the manufacturing, and not have to melt someone else's chocolate. So, that's the aim.'
Doing things from scratch means better quality control, but it also means that the business can be more socially aware. Chocolate, like coffee, is a political and economic minefield, and even with the advent of fair-trade certification and plantation co-operatives, there is still so much potential for exploitation. But it's a very complex commodity.
The largest cocoa bean producing countries in the world are Côte d'Ivoire (commonly known in English as the Ivory Coast) and Ghana, comprising over fifty percent of world production. Indonesia, Cameroon, Nigeria, Brazil, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Malaysia are also all significant producers. The classic West African plantation involves hundreds of thousands of families, living very close together, each with a tiny plot, with probably three or four cocoa trees. Generally, these growers sell their cocoa pods in a local village, where they get peanuts for it.
However, between the grower and the chocolate manufacturer there are a heap of middle men, the price of the beans gets totally inflated, but still, the people at the root don't get much out of it. 'They grow cocoa beans, they grow bananas, they grown anything on their plot to survive,' Fregoni laments.
The poverty of these farmers also means they're unable to take the best care of the growing environments. Fregoni says that you can't deny that the Fairtrade movement, like the organic movement, has helped to improve this situation, but its tricky and very hard to generalise. Like with organics, many producers are not going to bother to get the fairtrade certification stamp.
'Why would they?…Most of them are too poor to pay for chemicals anyway. And they're too poor to get accreditation. So, sometimes it's a tricky one…a lot of plantations aren't accredited because of the costs involved.'
Another way of improving the situation for both growers at one end, and retailers at the other, is through direct trade and plantation cooperatives.
 A dazzling array of deliciousness at Monsieur Truffe
(photo: Rohan Young)
This can also be a tricky one, as smaller farmers may not be able to afford to be part of these co-operatives. Nonetheless, these more ethical and labour-conscious process of securing the cocoa product are a significant factor in Fregoni's vision to produce his own chocolate.
'I've got contacts in Tanzania, and a few countries where we actually will buy the cocoa bean directly from them. So there is a transparency of where it's from, and what we pay, and everything. We want to deal with established cooperatives [so] its transparent, and, in the future, to try to get involved with creating co-operatives.'
Whilst he explains this, Fregoni is rushing into an out of the café kitchen, melting, creating, and interacting with staff and customers. As I begin to feel it might be time to leave him to his pre-Christmas buzz, I begin to feel also that I might be starting to have different feelings about eating chocolate.
The point of all of this chocolate politics is not to start feeling excessive amounts of guilt on top of the shame you already feel for eating a whole block of Dairy Milk Caramello and a half a packet of Clinkers in front of an episode of Star Trek. Rather, why not take a leaf out of the European book, and enjoy chocolate regularly, if a bit more moderately. And why not eat it thoughtfully. Perhaps try to understand a little more about the humble cocoa tree where the beans you're chomping on originated, rather than pretending it was plopped out onto a purple conveyor belt by an oompa lumpa in the Fudge room at the end of a giant extraction pipe that leads into a river of chocolate.
Musing again on the difference of style in Monsieur Truffe in comparison to some of the other new choctiques on the block, Fregoni says: 'When you buy chocolate, it's a luxury good. It's almost like a jewel, you know. You have a little box and you open it, and it's beautiful. [But] for me, I'm more like, I'm more…'
He pauses to think of the best way to describe what he's envisioning. 'I'd rather see a field with the cocoa tree than the posh white glove. You see the difference?'
Dion Kagan
Author profile: About the author
Links and further information:
- Monsieur Truffe:
http://monsieurtruffe.wordpress.com/
- "Max Brenner's Sweet Secret to Success" Max Brenner:
http://www.maxbrenner.com/press.aspx
- La Vida Cocoa (A community for chocophiles - and aspiring chocophiles - to explore, learn, and share):
http://www.thechocolatelife.com/
- Chocolateria San Churro:
http://www.sanchurro.com/
- Chocolate in Context (Insight into chocolate as it relates to cooking, travel, society, pleasure, pain and other things):
http://chocolateincontext.blogspot.com/
- "Best Food 2009", Australian Gourmet Traveller, April 2009 edition:
http://gourmettraveller.com.au/best-food-2009.htm
- Rita Erlich, "Choc Chic" The Age, Epicure, April 24, 2007:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/epicure/take-your-pick/2007/04/23/1177180519500.html
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Monday, 14 December 2009 |
From the standard multi-course meal to the newer 'tea-gustation' and 'coffee-matching', the idea of dinners matched to a beverage of choice is taking off around Australia. Jane de Graaff talks to the people championing the transformation of the degustation...from cocktail to coffee matching.
Nathan Wakeford is on a mission. He's worried that Australian's aren't getting enough out of their tea. Wakeford is convinced that our lack of education is robbing us of the best that tea has to offer, and so he's using gourmet food to try and change the situation. Welcome to the shifting world of the degustation. Once the realm of multicourse dinners matched to wine, the new degustation is finding its inspiration in a variety of beverages — the one common factor that each tasting menu is designed to bring out the best in both the food and the drink.
By incorporating tea into the idea of a degustation and taking the beverage to new heights with accompanying dishes, Wakeford joins a movement that has recently seen the degustation include dinners paired with coffee, beer, spirits and now tea. The aim is to educate and stimulate diners, encouraging us to think in new ways about food and drink pairings, and it seems to be catching on.
'Tests showed me that tea pairs with food just as well, or better than, wine,' says Wakeford, managing director of Somage Fine Foods.
 'Tea can enhance significantly the food you're eating and vice versa,' he explains, referencing a recent round of "tea-gustations" hosted in Sydney and Melbourne, where chefs including Manu Fieldel (L'Etoile) and Adriano Zumbo (Zumbo Patisserie) developed dishes to complement select teas sourced by Wakeford. The degustation, or tasting menus, presented dishes that were heightened by their tea pairings and used tea as an ingredient to further enhance the dish.
Wakeford isn't the only one using degustation to educate consumers in his product. Salvatore Malatesta, the man behind Melbourne's St. Ali coffee and the new David Jones Sensory Lab, is championing coffee in much the same way. It was his coffee degustation dinners that inspired Wakeford.
'What we tend to do is like a wine degustation, there might be four, eight or even twelve courses — but they are matched with coffees.' Says Malatesta.
'The dinner might be [accompanied by] Colombian coffee only, (of all different grades), or it might be in-season Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. We determine which brewing methods suit the different coffees best, and then we go to the chef to work on food matches.'
What's most important with the matching is highlighting that coffee is not just the standard espresso-with-milk-and-sugar, but rather that it has levels of subtlety and complexity that can be enjoyed in different ways — this is where the selection of caramel flavours to citrus or floral notes brings cohesion to the experience.
'It's about being able to showcase the coffee…and in particular showing that coffee is actually a fruit. We show the coffee and then show that it goes well with the food,' explains Wakefield.
Again it's about using food and drink combinations to open diners up to new ideas, rather than to cement or reinforce accepted food and drink matches.
The marketing team at Bombay Sapphire has employed the same method, where earlier this year they hosted several cocktail degustaions aimed at showcasing the different botanical notes present in their trademark gin. The dinners were a series of dishes with matched cocktails, created to highlight botanicals in the drink that might otherwise go unnoticed, from liquorice to orris root (iris).
'[The degustation] gives us the chance to work closely with chefs to create the perfect flavour match.' Says Damian Kaehler, Victorian brand ambassador for Bombay Sapphire.
'When a chef is given the job of creating a food match with wine or beer he or she has to use an already existing flavour from that product,' Kaehler explains 'with cocktails we are able to create a drink exactly the same way a chef creates food.'
The aim was to show off the versatility of Bombay Sapphire, as much as to show that cocktails can be built to match food in ways that wines cannot.
 For Adriano Zumbo, working on the degustation of dessert dishes to go with Wakeford's teas was a welcome challenge, pushing him to find a balance between the tea and the dish.
'Like any food and drink matching, it's about getting a great flavour combination, the food and drink creating something entirely different in the mouth.' He points out that no matter how innovative the food and drink match, the final result still needs to be pleasurable to really draw diners in, particularly when challenging them with new paring ideas.
For Zumbo the idea of tea and dessert matching was an exciting idea to be embraced, but does he see the new direction of the degustation taking off?
'Absolutely. This year people like Matt Kemp have done whisky dinners at Balzac and The Burlington and I think lots of other food and drink matching events will spring out of that kind of inspiration.'
So the humble degustation has come a long way from simply offering diners the chance to sample the chef's signature dishes, avoid plate envy or take decision making out of the equation. The current trend is for the degustation to be transformed into a platform for gastronomical education, not only taking the accompanying beverage into account, but using it as a springboard for new ways of approaching the tasting menu. So drink up!
Jane de Graaff
Author profile: About the author
Author website: Play With Your Food
Links and further information:
• Somage Fine Foods:
http://www.somage.com.au
• Adriano Zumbo Patisserie:
http://adrianozumbo.com
• St. Ali:
http://www.stali.com.au/
• L’Etoile:
http://www.letoilerestaurant.com.au/
• Bombay Sapphire:
http://www.bombaysapphire.com.au/
• Forbes world’s most expensive tasting menus:
http://www.forbes.com/
• Bitchen in the kitchen (home degustation):
http://bitcheninthekitchen.com/index.html
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Sunday, 06 December 2009 |
Caroline Clements talks to chef and business owner Sophie Cookes about how many turkeys she'll be stuffing in the lead-up to Christmas, along with other mouth-watering culinary matters.
Sophie Cookes began her culinary career scooping ice cream for her best friend's Dad. She has since worked in kitchens with the likes of Wendy Fogarty, Maggie Beer and Greg Malouf. Wooed into starting her business by a like-minded lady with a plate full of cupcakes, Cookes is a chef in her own right. She runs Cookes Food, a small food shop, café and catering company out of her well endowed open plan kitchen in the Toorak Village in Melbourne.
How did you get into food and cooking?
I always loved food and for a long time I thought maybe I just liked eating…it turned out it was more than that.
Where did it all begin?
I have always loved cooking. Always. I worked for my best friend's dad scooping ice cream for years and spent the whole time trying to work back of house instead of front of house. It took ages, but I finally got in there. I worked under a pretty funny chef, he had a soft nature and really warmed me to the idea. Finally, I broke the news to my parents that I wanted to pursue cooking as a profession. They thought I was crazy.
Did you cook much as before you could see over the bench?
I did cook a bit as a kid but I was terrible, nothing worked. Cooking has certainly been a skill I have had to learn and study. Perhaps I wasn't born with a natural ability, but with I was born with the love for it.
Where did you learn how to cook?
I went to France and studied cooking for a year in Paris — I got pretty plump! Then I went to London and got the best experience of my like working at Petersham Nurseries under Skye Gyngell. I didn't have an apprenticeship and she told me not to do it as I would probably get too many bad habits. She took me under her wing and I stayed there for two years.
We became close and she is definitely my biggest influence. She taught me about produce and ingredients and why it's so important to work seasonally. Whilst with her I got to work with the legend Wendy Fogarty (head of UK slow food), Maggie Beer, Alice Waters and Greg Malouf.
That's a pretty good resumé to begin with. Where did you take it from there?
When I got home I could not for the life of me get a job. I applied everywhere and no one wanted a bar of me. It was very disheartening. So I worked in a café, which I did feel was a step backwards, but that's how I met Nicole who came in to sell me cupcakes. We got to talking, realised a shared love for food and a desire to do something different, and started Cookes Food.
 There are plenty of catering companies out there, what is Cookes Food 'bringing to the table' that is so different?
Everything in catering seems too big, too many people, too many of the same menus and too many of the same foods — [all] touched and tiny! Ever noticed how bad food is at a catered event, and the bigger the party the worse the food is? We wanted to create something smaller and more boutique. Catering for people who REALLY like food, restaurant quality food at a catered event.
We change our catering menus each season and try to work with seasonality and locality in our minds. We run small cooking classes to meet new potential clients and give them a window into what we do. Opening our doors as a café is simply a further extension of us. Its casual, simple and constructed with the best produce we can get our hands on.
So are your suppliers all local?
Yes, we use some great local suppliers, but we are happy to take food from anywhere really. This winter we had a lady who was bringing us massive pine mushrooms from her garden at home. She would bring in box loads, and they were so huge. We'd serve one mushroom as a dish and it would take up the whole plate. People were struggling to get through them.
What cuisine most influences your cooking style?
I love people more than places; Alice Waters, Maggie Beer, Skye (Gyngell), Damien Pignolet, Judy Rodgers, Ruth Rodgers and Rose Grey…to name but a few. They have a rustic, unpretentious, natural style of cooking which is similar to my own.
What is your favourite restaurant?
My favorite restaurant in Melbourne is Da Noi %mdash; it feels natural and warm, and Sean's Panaroma in Sydney.
What do you look for when hiring kitchen staff?
I look for someone who cares about what they are making, who likes food — you would be surprised how many people don't. But actually, even when we are flat out, it seems to run pretty smoothly just with Nic on the floor and me in the kitchen anyway.
How many turkeys will you be stuffing this year?
We are just about to start taking orders. Just about every second person that comes in says they will order one, so we may have a whole kitchen full of the birds. There is no room for error here, as you can imagine. If I miss one order, that would be someone's Christmas Day ruined. The other thing is, turkey doesn't have a long shelf life, so I can't get started early. I am going to start the puddings next week though.
What's your favourite cooking utensil?
Pestle and mortar.
What would be your last meal?
Spanner crab with a glass of pinot grigio.
If you could have dinner with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?
Frida Kahlo, in Mexico.
Interview by Caroline Clements
Author profile: About the author
Links and related information:
- Cookes Food was begun by Sophie Cookes and Nicole Debono in 2007. They have just released their winter menu for 2010.
- Cookes Food:
www.cookesfood.com.au
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Saturday, 28 November 2009 |
Caroline Clements looks at the reasons why food lovers are going back to school, and graduating with gourmet success.
These days you are more likely to encounter the words "meat and three veg" in a conversation about childhood family dinners or as an amusing metaphor than you are to overhear someone ordering it as their main in a contemporary restaurant or dining establishment.
We are surrounded by a feverish desire to know more about what we are putting in our mouths, to understand what exactly is in the foods we consume and concoct, and to learn to create these cuisines ourselves.
Due to a growing exposure to haute cuisine, greater product and produce diversity and general dietary awareness, gourmet home cooking is seen as an achievable and rewarding alternative to fine dining. Both online and offline, thousands of blogs, websites, businesses and courses are dedicated exclusively to the art of eating and cooking.
 Chef Allen Woo teaches 'Asian noodles' classes
(Photo: William Angliss Institute)
With fifteen years of cooking under her apron belt, Donald now teaches in a photography studio-cum-kitchen in Prahran and notes a considerable change in the style of cooking people are now interested in. 'Back then…while cooking and eating well was certainly important, not everyone knew as much about food then as they do now,' she says. Donald is keenly aware that, as food trends change, the popularity of cooking styles change. 'Food is so fashionable, so [are] health and lifestyle choices, and it all comes together in a cooking class.'
This is certainly apparent at the Essential Ingredient Cooking School — located at the Prahran Market in Melbourne. With a purpose-built kitchen on the second floor of the store, they have an extensive school with over fifty different classes throughout the year, scheduled from March to November. 'Food is something people are thinking about a lot more', says Hilary Duns, the Cooking School Coordinator. 'We launch our schedule in March, and the classes run right through to November, and often classes are booked out months in advance, some you'd be lucky to get into.'
With class styles that range from interactive cooking lessons, demonstration sessions, and workshops with well-known local and international chefs, 'emphasis is on demonstrating techniques and conveying an understanding of ingredients, their origin and applications rather than just a straight presentation of recipes.'
The schedule for the Essential Ingredient Cooking School comprises some of the most sought-after chefs and presenters. Past presenters have included internationally renowned chefs Peter Gordon, Theodore Kyriakou, and Rick Stein, as well as Australian chefs Maggie Beer, Shannon Bennett, Frank Camorra, Guy Grossi, Greg Malouf, and Karen Martini, to name but a few.
 Chef Walter Trupp teaches 'classic French cooking'
(Photo: William Angliss Institute)
So, is it simply the lure of a celebrity chef that brings an audience to a class? 'Certainly there has been a shift in TV chef and celebrity status, and the chance to work along side a celebrity chef is a unique experience,' states Duns. Who wouldn't want to be taught how to make a tagine by the likes of Greg Malouf (Momo), Spanish sweets with Frank Camorra (Movida), or perfectly baked bread by experts from Dench Bakery.
'But with that said, some of our most popular classes are the pizza making class and the roasting class.' An important ethos of the cooking school here, Duns mentions, is that 'we are not just providing recipes, but the foundational skills required in the kitchen.'
Even though The Essential Ingredient may be catering for the high-end of the cooking school market, the variety of people who take classes ranges from the discerning, well informed and cutting edge foodie, to those just interested in learning a little more about how to cook at home or for friends.
Pauline Dine, head of the short course program at the William Angliss Institute, agrees. In her experience, the kind of people that come to classes are a range of boutique company owners looking to do something fun with employers, chefs wanting to refamiliarise themselves with certainly cooking techniques, people that love to entertain and people who just simply want to learn to cook better. 'We have actually had to put on extra courses in the last twelve months due to increased interest.'
 Chef Lucinda Macdougall instructing a 'simply delicious
healthy cooking' class (Photo: William Angliss Institute)
Running anywhere between six to thirty-six people, the classes sizes vary depending on the style of class, but cooking schools, in general, are careful not to overcrowd classes. It just doesn't work out for anyone if people are elbowing others as they kneed dough, be it student or teacher. 'We are very particular about overcrowding classes here,' states Duns.
Now these all may seem like simple techniques, but preparing and designing food the right way can literally "slice" hours off preparation time in the kitchen — as well as showcasing culinary creativity and knowledge. And if you are the entertaining type, you don't want to be left chopping through raw meat and julienning carrots in the kitchen while your guests sip on spritzers out on the patio.
Caroline Clements
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