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For Customer Service &
Phone Orders :
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Tel/Fax : 07 54498581
Int : 61 7 54498581
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Write to us :
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OzeVillage
P O Box 1494
Noosaville DC
Qld 4566
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The Happy Gourmet
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Issue 21 - Food Fit to Eat |
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It wasn’t that long ago that any Australian food lover had to forget their passion when visiting the UK. Unless you had mountains of money to eat at one of London’s top restaurants, you tended to let your gourmandizing go to the back burner whilst you enjoyed all the other marvellous things that England had to offer. Beautiful countryside, wonderful history, major art galleries, theatre, music. You sublimated your food expectations and enjoyed a pub meal just for the experience and, if you were lucky, it was a homecooked roast or pie. The sort of food that we call comfort food and many of us remember from childhood. |
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Issue 20 - Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere |
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Living in Sydney as we do we are so fortunate to have one of the world’s best fish markets to buy, what has almost become traditional Australian Christmas fare, seafood. Platters of prawns and oysters are de rigueur on our Christmas table and we also always buy a large ocean trout which we poach and serve cold with home made mayonnaise. In honour of our guests we should eat hot goose but as this is not easy to find, we may be forced to change over to a young free range turkey. Depending on how stressed we are at the time we will either make a bread stuffing using fresh herbs and pistachio nuts instead of chestnuts or, if time is really a worry, fill the cavity with fresh tarragon, orange halves and a piece of butter. We will then spread good orange marmalade over the bird and then keep it moist with freshly squeezed orange juice. We will have a cold ham which, in keeping with our theme, we might even cook in pineapple juice - how Australian is that!
Our Australian Christmas table will be also groaning with a variety of salads, in itself a point of difference for our friends. Have they eaten avocadoes before? Will they know some of the Chinese style vegetables that we now use all the time such as bok choy? We must have big platters of fruit paying particular attention to those that are either unavailable in Europe or hard to buy. The platters will include mangoes and any other tropical fruit we can get - papaya, lychees, rambutans, pineapples - as well as the fruit that is in season such as berries of all kinds, melons, grapes and stone fruit such as peaches, nectarines, apricots. |
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Issue 19 - Food is Passion, Passion is Food |
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“Where is Food Heading” What makes us all think, eat, sleep and breath food. How can we ensure that the passion, vibrancy, fun, aura and the buzz of food are passed on to our next generation and generations to come?
We have a responsibility to ourselves, and our future generations to pass on this passion. This romance we have for the freshest of raw produce and to see it beautifully prepared and served.
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Issue 18 - Food is Passion, Passion is Food |
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While it is understandable, it is amazing to think that all our traditions of Christmas are based on the Northern Hemisphere with the cold and snow of winter. Many persist in this dream with plum puddings, rich cakes and hot meals.
For Australians, this is more appropriate fare for July or August, whilst in December we should all be dreaming of a light Christmas, with cold hams and turkey, lots of seafood, salads, and the wonderful fruits that are around at this special time of year. Peaches and mangoes, apricots and plums, melons, |
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Issue 17 - Swing into Spring |
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The colour of Spring is green - new light green leaves and shoots on trees and shrubs, lawns looking refreshed after the winters’ rains, and the fresh new edible greens of the season. Peas, leeks, broad beans, globe artichokes, asparagus are young and fresh and are at their best. They have been picked to get to the market as quickly as possible and this is the time to take advantage of their sweet taste. Also new into the markets at this time of year are the wonderful blood oranges which thankfully are becoming more plentiful, huge, and, as a bonus, flavoursome strawberries, melons and loquats. |
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Issue 16 - Outback Australia |
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The reason is that I am really following on from my column in May when I wrote about being able to travel around Australia these days and be able to get good food no matter where you are. The food may not be gourmet, but it will be honest and well cooked even if sometimes it is not easy to get the fresh ingredients. And nothing could be harder than in the Kimberley where the very climate conspires against growing all but the hardiest of plants, and where rain either comes all together through the wet months or not at all. Yet no matter where we went we ate wonderfully. On homesteads where all the food has to be flown or trucked in, in tiny towns or camp sites there was an earnest desire to prepare and serve good food. |
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Issue 15 - Restaurant Reviews |
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How many of us eat out on a regular basis? I suspect that because we are all food lovers we are constantly on the look out for good food, presented with style and panache. We hate waiters with attitude and want to find restaurants in which we can feel comfortable and that know how to use fresh ingredients in a simple way. We know about food costs and don’t want to be charged a small fortune unless the whole dining experience is absolutely peerless.
We would love to hear from you and we thank you in advance for sharing the names of your favourite restaurants and/or cafés. Once we get enough recommendations we will post the list on the site, so you too can benefit from yet another food service from your friends at Gourmet Shopper. |
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Issue 14 - Remembering old Favourites |
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Old favourites in any case very often become new favourites. Just recently I ate a wonderful meal at one of Melbourne’s top restaurants - Pearl. Under desserts were old favourites such as coconut ice, lamingtons and hedgehogs, which I had never heard about before but which turns out to be a little cake with slivered almonds standing up on the outside like so many quills.
It would be great to hear from our customers if they have fond memories of a favourite dish and what that would be. It would be fun to list some of these and possibly exchange the recipes in the hope that we will be able to keep old favourites alive in our food repertoires. |
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Issue 13 - Tapping into Tapas |
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Interest in new cuisines by those of the gourmet persuasion is a constant marker to changes in culinary habits by the rest of the public. Which may or may not explain the current interest in Spanish food, and in particular, tapas. Possibly this is also because of the rise in popularity of bars particularly in the major cities. Melbourne has always had a bar culture (and I don’t mean hotel bars) particularly in the city, where the mainly young clientele hangs out. This culture was easier in Melbourne because of its more relaxed licensing laws, but now Sydney has caught up and new bars are opening up everywhere. |
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Issue 12 - Valentine's Day |
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All of us at the Gourmet Shopper hope that you had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones and that your New Year will prove to be a healthy, happy, and very importantly, a peaceful one.
Whatever the origins of Valentine’s Day it has come through the ages to have a special meaning for lovers. In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who would be their valentine and wore the name pinned to their sleeve. This took on the meaning of ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’ and it is easy to understand why. |
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Issue 11 - Christmas Bells |
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This year, when the bells of Christmas ring it should act as a reminder that this is a special season and a time for us to hold our families close. If nothing else, what has been happening around the world, should makes us even more aware of how precious it is to be together with our loved ones.
Each year more and more of us have changed our Christmas Day menus to reflect the light foods of summer. We have learnt, many of us from bitter experience of cooking in 40 degree heat, that these are the best foods for this time of year. Now we are smarter and have seafood and salads, cold turkeys and hams and wonderful summer fruits but we might find it hard not to go back to the tradition of a hot Christmas pudding or cake. However even that is changing. Christmas Cakes are now being made from marinated dried fruits blended into softened vanilla icecream |
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Issue 10 - The Great Pinot Quest |
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For anyone who is a food and wine lover, a trip to Tasmania is an absolute must. The island produces some of the most flavoursome and freshest foods you have ever tasted and the wines are stupendous. From the berry farms and the cheese factories, to honey outlets, oyster and fish farms and the myriad of wineries large and small, there is something to delight everyone.
The pinots for which the island is famous |
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Issue 9 - Fashion Plates |
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Is ‘fashion’ a part of the food business? You had better believe it.
Just as something stirs in the air that makes certain styles and colours ‘in’ for the fashionistas, so there are similar trends for food. The main ‘designers’ are the star chefs, food writers and TV presenters. These key opinion leaders set the pace for what’s in and out and open our eyes to new concepts. However it doesn’t take long before the cutting edge becomes ‘done to death’. |
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Issue 8 - The Sighs of September |
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September is a month for taking stock. Not long slow cooking of bones and vegetables but long slow ruminating on the months past and the summer to come. You have persevered through the winter and September is the month of mellowness. It sits on the cusp of Winter and Spring and if you are lucky the rain has softened and the winds have dropped.
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Issue 7 - For the Taste of it ! |
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It was buying fresh fruits and vegetables in the markets during a recent visit to Italy that did it. Or more specifically the taste of what I had bought. It awoke flavour memories that I had long forgotten and that I was determined to find when I got back to Australia.
It was a revelation that there were still places in the world where taste is far more important than holding attributes and where fruits and vegetables are grown to be eaten quickly and not to be stored in cool rooms for future release. |
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Issue 6 - Learning Italian |
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Living in Italy is one way to add to your love of a cuisine that is fresh and lively, which utilises each season to its fullest and where even shopping in a supermarket is a joy. But it is in the markets where a food lover goes crazy. Being there in Spring when the artichokes are tiny and the broad beans can be eaten raw, when the strawberries are huge and the tomatoes divine is awe-inspiring stuff. |
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Issue 5 - The Coming of Winter |
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The foods you cook and the foods you want to eat are the ones that give you a feeling of warmth and comfort. They often need long slow cooking and perhaps this is the best introduction you can have to the Slow Food movement, a world wide movement of food lovers who used the name to show the contempt they felt for the fast food culture. |
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Issue 4 - Good Morning Vietnam |
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Happy Gourmet has recently been able to say Good Morning Vietnam during a wonderful few weeks spent in this vibrant and lush country. From the north to the south and then into the central highlands, we saw a country which has picked itself up to become the second biggest producer of rice in the world as well as being one of its major growers of coffee. |
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Issue 3 - January : Food & Relaxation |
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This January, we at Gourmet Shopper are celebrating the addition of new merchants to the site including Gwydir Grove Olive Oil, Anna's Cuisine and The Cookery Book. We will also be featuring over 500 tested and loved recipes that can help you expand your repertoire of dishes so even if it is too hot to cook this month and next you will have enough ideas to set you up for the rest of the year. |
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Issue 2 - Christmas with Gourmet Shopper |
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The Happy Gourmet is more than happy this month - in fact the Gourmet Shopper is positively delirious because it is the beginning of Summer. The season that has such of wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables and which comes with the promise of Christmas and the foods that make this festive occasion so special. All the merchants at Gourmet Shopper have Christmas in mind so look for their Christmas specials and go to the recipe site which has lots of ideas for the season. |
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Issue 1 - The launch of Gourmet Shopper |
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Welcome to the Gourmet Shopper - a site where being a gourmet is the only prerequisite you need to go shopping. And why wouldn't you when you have the opportunity to purchase the best products Australia can offer. |
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Membership Bonus Points Gourmet Shopper offers all members 1 bonus point for every $1 spent on all merchandise. The more points you earn, the less your next order with Gourmet Shopper will cost you. Click here to read more. |
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