Here’s a riddle for you (readers not familiar with Australian politics are forgiven for not having a clue). What do Amanda Vanstone and Claudia Roden’s Orange Cake have in common? Answer: In her opening remarks at the recent Adelaide Writers’ Week session called “Food for Thought or Thought for Food“, (at which Claudia Roden was to be the guest) the moderator, Amanda Vanstone, said she’d wanted to ask Claudia how it felt to endure 55 years of being asked how to make the orange cake. “The damned orange cake,” Vanstone said. “Here is a woman who has made a fabulous contribution during her life ..read more

“I Love You Alice B. Toklas” may be a familiar phrase to those of you old enough to remember the sixties and the Turn on, Tune In, Dropout culture, of which this 1968 movie was a standard bearer. Featuring Peter Sellers, cinematic comedian par excellence, it became something of a cult.  Alice B. Toklas, the woman however did not feature in this film, her name having been appropriated on the basis of the cannabis brownies recipe she included in “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook” published in 1954 when its author was 77. Alice didn’t live to see the movie, as she died the year before it was ..read more

Australia’s favourite recipes isn’t the best title for this post, which was sparked by an article I came across recently. “Australia’s Best Recipes” contains recipes for sausage rolls, coronation chicken and queen pudding, among others. Nominating these dishes as “best” is arguably ambitious, although they are wonderful dishes. But, as with anything, what’s “best” for some, isn’t for others. Personal taste inevitably sways judgement. Unless of course you’re a judge at The Adelaide Royal Show Cookery Competition  tasked with choosing the supreme cream puff out of several dozen identical l ..read more

Cornwall has captivated me ever since I read my first Daphne Du Maurier book.  Daphne du Maurier circa 1930. Hairstyle to die for. This was around the time (or maybe a bit later) when I had a magical friend called Penny who sat on the window ledge outside my bedroom and talked to me at night. She looked not unlike this early photo of du Maurier, with the addition of filmy wings. Magical friends don’t visit any more, or not of the winged kind. But magical places do still exist, and Cornwall is one.  For me, and many booklovers, Cornwall is synonymous with Daphne du Maurier. She lived ..read more

The “food for the body” element of this blog has been a bit overlooked of late, so now that I’ve covered books to read in 2023, let’s have a look at cookbooks to cook by in 2023. This list is the equivalent of a Jamie Oliver meals in five minutes cookbook. Not because there’s a dearth of material but because brevity has been forced upon me by an over-abundance of obligations. (Whoever said “if you want something done give it to a busy person” wasn’t giving a shout out to busy people, they were trying to get out of doing it themselves.) Moving on, and with the goal of finding if there was as ..read more

What you should be reading or for that matter eating, thinking, drinking or anything else in 2023 is for you to decide of course, so I offer the following in a spirit of guidance rather than direction (and also in accordance with my New Year’s resolution to be a beacon of generosity and goodwill in a dark universe). Yeah right.  As the calendar flips over from one year to the next, we’re bludgeoned with lists, recommendations, advice, words to the wise, predictions and a plethora of spurious intelligence from equally spurious experts. Why on earth would I want to add to the deluge? Wel ..read more

Don’t take this the wrong way. What you should be reading or eating or thinking or drinking or anything else is a matter for you alone to decide. So the following is offered in the spirit of benevolent generosity rather than direction and also in accordance with my New Year’s resolution (which is to be a beacon of shining light, hope and goodwill in a dark universe). Good luck with that says the inner sceptic.  As the calendar flips over from one year to the next, we’re bludgeoned with lists, recommendations, advice, words to the wise, predictions and a plethora of spurious intelligence ..read more

Be Kind to Your Bookseller at Christmas Looked at from the perspective of the bookseller, Christmas can often be the opposite of a joyous experience. Elias Greig, a former bookseller, writes in an article in The Guardian that Christmas “is the time of year when the sanctuary of the bookstore transforms into a battlefield.” We’ve all been there, at least on the customer side of the counter – other customers frenziedly jostling for books as though the store was going to run out any minute, whining kids, phones ringing, “Silent Night” blaring to deaf ears on the taped music, and so o ..read more

Bookstores are magical any time of year, but at Christmas, especially so. Not only because books make the perfect gift, but because books open us up to other worlds. No matter the genre, books are escapist therapy. And escape is nowhere more necessary than at the end of another year. A year that, in terms of world disasters, well qualifies as an annus horribilus, to coin a phrase of our late Queen.  Perhaps we say that at the end of every year, in the fanciful hope that the next one might be better. Thank goodness though for Christmas, when despite the frenzy to be festive, festive, fest ..read more

“Do Not Resuscitate: The Life and Afterlife of Maurice Saatchi” opens with an arresting chapter heading – “Welcome to the Gates of Heaven”. This, if you hadn’t already deduced it from the book’s title, clues you in that Maurice Saatchi’s little book (a mere 128 pages) is decidedly surreal, even dreamlike. At the outset though, it’s more of a nightmare, with the gates of heaven depicted as the clamorous arrival hall of an airport from hell. And hell being one of the only two destinations on offer, the immigration authorities are having a very hard time controlling the mayhem as the million o ..read more