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Listen Up, U.S. Department of Defense - My Casserole Dish Exploded.

This month's issue of Gourmet Traveller featured a special on all things Greek, with an emphasis, of course, on the food. Now, I'm completely aware that I risk offending an entire nation of loquacious, hot-blooded, gold-jewellery bedecked, palm-thrusting, monobrow and back waxing (not just the men) natives and its generously scattered diaspora when I proclaim - I didn't get Greek food.

I appreciated that the Greeks gave us metaphysics, maps, the thermometer, irony and pizza (2 centuries of colletive Italian pride just turned in its grave), but when I thought of Greek food, what came to mind was stodgy eggplant, Neanderthal hunks of roasted animals (mostly goat and preferably whole), buckets of oil-whelmed, roasted potatoes dressed in thyme, and a tired salad desperately begging to be jazzed up so olives and feta's tossed in to silence it.

What's wrong with that, you ask. Haven't you had moussakas that didn't taste like a try hard cross between a shepherd's pie and vegetable lasagna? And let us not forget, the ancient Greeks were salting eggplants and grating nutmeg long before the English thought to camouflage minced meat with mashed potato or the Italians devised lavishing pasta sheets with vegetables and cheese. Incidentally, some years back, certain British researchers had the gall to proclaim that lasagna was invented by the English in the 14th century, which precipitated a frenzied hunt by Italian historians for a pre-1390 reference of lasagna in Italian cookbooks. Here's a hint - never, EVER, stand in the way of a crazed Italian scrambling to defend his nationalistic pride.

Back to the point. What's less honest and satisfying than good roast meat, potatoes and veg? Nothing, except, that was all I thought of when it came to Greek cuisine. I realized I was seriously in danger of losing any cred as an intrepid prospector of all things palatable, so imagine my excitement when amongst the glossy pages of GT, I found the recipe for "Prawn Saganaki?

I'm a real believer of improvisation. Any cook worth his/her salt should have enough of an assortment of ingredients in the larder to make most basic dishes. No marsala? Use brandy and white wine. Need celery for soup? Use frozen peas. Out of thyme? Marjoram works too. You get the picture.

On this day, however, I was in possession of every ingredient required to produce a respectable prawn saganaki, including a blue and white casserole dish with daisy motifs (which I later found out was circa early 1960s, and belonged to Nath's great grandmother). The colours of Greece! It was destiny.

15 minutes, 1 chopped red onion, 2 cloves of sliced garlic, 1 tin of tomatoes, sprinkles of oregano, a bay leaf and 12 large king prawns later, I stood, poised with a half-poured glass of white wine, at the stove, surrounded by debris of blue and white ceramic, and what was meant to be lunch. Yes, there was screaming involved.

How did that happen? Nathan insisted that casserole dishes were not made for stovetops. I begged to differ.

Disgruntled, I googled Corningware. It was first introduced in 1958 and evolved from material developed for the U.S ballistic missiles programme. This particular heat-resistant material was/is used in missile nose cones and heat tiles in space shuttles. I'm sorry, but the dish was meant to last a thousand years, from freezer to stove to oven, from Antarctica to the Sahara to Outer Space. And it couldn't withstand 100ml of Lindemann's semillon sauvignon straight from the fridge, after 15 minutes over the cooktop?

My feelings of vindication were short-lived, as I was besieged by a pressing desire to write a letter to the U.S. Department of Defense or even Nasa, warning them that their country was in danger, and that their astronauts were at risk of blowing up in mid air, just as my casserole dish had. Nathan suggested I take my meds.

The prawn saganakis never eventuated, but I've developed a newfound respect for Greek food and will try again.. something less traumatizing, perhaps.

Here's non life-threatening recipe, assuming you've got a dependable dutch oven. I tried in vain to position the headless nude quail in a pose that wasn't unflattering. This was the best of the lot, with its legs crossed and looking quite demure.

Quail Braised in Red Wine (Neil Perry)

8 quail

sea salt

olive oil

1 red onion, quartered

8 garlic cloves

1 tblspn ginger, grated

2 rosemary sprigs

4thyme sprigs

2 dried long chillies, seeds removed and crushed

2 carrots sliced into rounds

250ml red wine

400gm tinned tomatoes with juices

150ml chicken stock

freshly ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS

Season quail inside and out with salt. Preheat oven to 160C.

Heat oil in heavy, ovenproof pan or dutch oven. brown quail, remove from pan and set aside.

Fry onion, garlic, ginger, rosemary, thyme, chilli and carrot for 2 min or until softened. Add wine and simmer until reduced. Add tomato and its juices, stock and quail. COver with lid and cook in oven for 40 minutes.

Remove pan form oven, gently turn the quail over, return to the oven and cook, uncovered for further 10 min. Check seasoning. Serve atop spinach and mashed potato.

A Journey of a Thousand Li

About midway through my holiday in Singapore, I was pleasantly reminded of the adage -"Necessity is the mother of all invention". Or was it "Inside every spoilt husband is a man who can cook"? When I agreed to marry Nathan, I had no illusions of him performing any culinary feats beyond barbecuing, reheating frozen pies and assembling a toasted tomato and cheese sandwich. So imagine my surprise when I received the above photo of a gourmet dinner he had single-handedly conjured up! Ok, so "single-handed" may be stretching it a fraction. The pesto on the aubergines was store-bought. But the steak was lavished with a home-made marinade, the salad doused with a perfect balance of balsamic and olive oil, and the basil you see accentuating the aubergines were freshly-picked from our plant. And this, my dear readers, was what Nathan made me as a welcome-home dinner, bless his apron-wearing soul. That may be the only dish he cooked the entire time I was away, but as Lao Tzu said, "The journey of a thousand li begins with one step".

Some days back, I recalled my very first rejection from a publisher. The editor of said (very large and reputable) publishing house indicated in her feedback that the chapters submitted were "well-written. And with constructive editing, I am sure that the book as a whole would be a good read". Unfortunately, as the publisher of one of the best selling YA Urban Fantasy books of all time, they have been inundated with books of this genre, and hence I've come to the party too late. Fair enough.

"Well-written"! "Good read"! Did you hear that? And by that, I'm sure she did not mean they've discovered the next Margaret Atwood.Yes, so I sound like I've been in a literary review desert, starved for accolades. My agent was pleased with this rejection, and I was... determined.

Thanks to man's best friend, a certain Mr. OCD, I've finished and am working on the 3rd draft of a new Fantasy book that boasts a theme far removed from the first novel and hopefully the manuscript will see the light of day before this proverbial boat sails too.

In the meantime, to all publishers, if there are any of you out there reading my blog (because you've woken up one morning and every other bit of reading material's dried up and this is all you've got between you and insanity)- listen up! Got imagination, can write. Will dance for my supper, just don't ask me to sing.

Here's a hazelnut and chocolate mousse cake masquerading as a hazelnut tart. I used double cream, thinking it was heavy cream (see what happens when the Brits colonize the US but don't bother enforcing the rules of the english language??). The cream sort of didn't double in size and curdled instead, plus I used a cake tin that was an inch larger than indicated, so the cake turned out quite flat, but tastes pretty good, nonetheless.

Hazelnut and Chocolate Mousse Cake (adapted from Epicurious)

For shortbread base

• 2 tablespoons hazelnuts, toasted and skins rubbed off
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

For mousse

• 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (from a 1/4-oz envelope)
• 3 tablespoons cold water
• 1/2 cup chocolate hazelnut spread such as Nutella (5 oz)
• 1/2 cup mascarpone (1/4 lb)
• 1 1/2 cups chilled heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons sugar

For ganache

• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream
• 3 1/2 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped

• Special equipment: an 8-inch (20-cm) springform pan; parchment paper

preparation

Make shortbread base:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Invert bottom of springform pan (to make it easier to slide shortbread base off bottom), then lock on side of pan and line bottom with a round of parchment paper.

Pulse hazelnuts with sugar in a food processor until nuts are finely chopped. Add flour, butter, cocoa, and salt and pulse just until a dough forms.

Press dough evenly onto bottom of springform pan with your fingers. Prick all over with a fork, then bake until just dry to the touch, about 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer base in pan to a rack to cool completely, about 30 minutes. Remove side of pan and carefully slide out parchment from under shortbread, then reattach side of pan around shortbread base.

Make mousse while shortbread cools:
Sprinkle gelatin over water in a 1- to 1 1/2-quart heavy saucepan and let stand until softened, about 5 minutes. Heat gelatin mixture over low heat, stirring, just until gelatin is melted, about 2 minutes. Whisk in chocolate hazelnut spread until combined and remove from heat.

Whisk together mascarpone and chocolate hazelnut mixture in a large bowl. Beat together cream, cocoa powder, and sugar in another large bowl with an electric mixer at low speed until just combined, then increase speed to high and beat until cream just holds soft peaks. Whisk one third of whipped cream into mascarpone mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whipped cream until well combined. Spoon filling onto shortbread base in pan, gently smoothing top, then chill, covered, at least 3 hours.

The 3 Fs

I'm off to Singapore today for the 3 most important "F"s in life - Family, Friends and Food. My bags are packed, including 10 bottles of pesto for mum, which she thoroughly deserves for the 8 packets of curry powder she brought me in July. I wonder if she's mowed through the 15 bags of "fun-size" mars, twix, bounty and cherry-ripe chocolates Diane totted home 2 months ago. What is it with Asians and our atavistic need to cart food around with us? For the Chinese, there is no greater gift than one which satisfies the palate. Gold bullion and designer bags run a close second and third.

Anywho, I'm thoroughly looking forward to fattening myself up with local food and mum's cooking, the cheap shopping and catching up with friends and relos. CNY's round the corner, and I'll be dolling out red packets in person for the first time. Last year, I did so via direct bank deposit from Hakuba. Let it not be said that technology has no part to play in the preservation of traditions.

The other big thing - I'll be officially changing my name. Well, to be precise, I'll be tweaking it . I'll be retaining my original name, but my surname shall henceforth be "Hedley", and my original surname will be incorporated into my chinese name and turned into a middle name. So far so confused? Good. You may refer to me as "Your Majesty", if it all gets too hard.

Before I leave for my 2 week quest, I got busy in the kitchen and made my husband 12 thai chicken curry pies and a chocolate fudge mud cake. Wouldn't want the poor man to waste away or subsist on a diet of pizza and coke, would I?

Thai Red Curry Chicken Pies

Makes 12

600 gm organic chicken breast, diced

1 large carrot, diced

1 zucchini, cied

1 medium onion, diced

1 inch ginger grated

10 basil leaves

150gm thai red curry paste

150ml coconut cream

0.5 cup water

flour

frozen puff pastry sheets

1 egg, beaten

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. In a large frypan, heat some oil and brown chicken in batches. Set aside. Heat more oil, fry the ginger, onion and curry paste on a medium heat until fragrant and onion is translucent, then add chicken, vegetables coconut cream and water. Simmer until vegetables are half cooked, then thicken mixture with flour if necessary. Mixture should be thick but not gluggy. Mix in chopped basil leaves and allow to cool.

Lay out one sheet of pastry and with a bowl or cutter, make 6 imprints. Pile filling into the 6 rounds, wet the perimeter with water, place another sheet over and press down around the filling. Cut out pies with the bowl or cutter, seal edges by pressing down with a fork. Make a slit in the middle of each pie to allow steam to escape, then brush on eggwash. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

*If you wish to freeze them, as I have done, bake until pies are a light brown colour, remove and allow to cool. Wrap tightly in cling wrap and freeze for up to a month.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

(adapted from BBC Goodfood)

Serves 10

175gm self raising flour

3 tspn baking powder

2 tblspn coco powder

150gm castor sugar

150ml sunflower oil

150ml semi skimmed milk

2 eggs

2 tblspn golden syrup

For icing:

75gm unsalted butter

125gm icing sugar

3 tblspn coco powder

milk

DIRECTIONS

Line a 9inch cake tin and preheat oven to 180 degrees. Sieve flour, bicarb and coco powder, then add sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, milk, eggs and syrup. Add dry mixture to wet and combine well. Pour cake mix into the cake tin and bake for about 30min or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes away clean. Allow to cool. Meanwhile, make the icing by combining the ingredients (sift the icing sugar and coco. I forgot to do that and ended up with white specks). Add as much milk as is required to produce a fluffy but smooth icing. Ice cake and dig in!

Bugger It!

I promised myself that today would be dedicated to writing my new story. Recently (make that the last 2 months), I've been dragging my feet, blaming the festivities, heat, entertaining and what have you.

Anyway, I swore there would be no blogging either, since some of you are probably quite sick of my rants and recipes. However, we're being besieged by blowflies and mosquitoes, so I am compelled to share this misery with someone who is not my husband.

Since lunch, I have killed 6 flies via asphyxiation. One more and I'll be sewing myself a belt as a badge of honour, declaring "7 In One Arvo". There are few things as joyous to my ears than the desperate sound of a fly's wings beating against the window sill as it struggles to take its last breath. For some reason unbeknownst to the human inhabitants, flies in our home, after being dealt a deadly dose of Baygon, have a tendency to stagger and crash headlong into the kitchen window pane, then hurtle into the sill below, which is now a veritable Fly Graveyard.

What is it about flies? What do they want from us? Why do they fly straight into you when clearly, they can see you through those compound eyes? And why do they settle on your sandwich then rub their filthy legs together with glee?

In my opinion, flies exist exclusively for 2 reasons:

1) to irritate the hell out of human beings

2) to proliferate shit

(not to be mistaken with Perez Hilton or Sarah Palin)

Then again, according to my sister's commendable powers of induction, flies are food to frogs, which in turn, fall prey to snakes. And these slithery invertebrates occasionally find themselves in hot, Chinese herbal soup or turned into Louis Vuitton handbags. So I concede that perhaps, on the margin, God didn't completely screw up when he made these annoying, buzzing pests.

Which brings me to mosquitoes. My blood type is O+ and I'm not sure if this has any bearing on the lure I seem to have for mosquitoes. And they only attack stealthily in the night, when I am sound asleep, defenseless and unable to quash them with my bare hands. Since Saturday night, I've acquired 8 mosquito bites and Nathan, who shares the same room, same bed, has ZERO. I suspect it has something to do with all the hair the buggers would have to battle with just for a taste of "Nathan blood". Too hard. If I were a mosquito, I'd go for me. Who can blame them?

As it turns out, mosquitoes are at the penultimate bottom of the designer handbag food chain. And right at the very bottom of the food chain is us.

Ironic isn't it, to think that in the end, I could be part of my new Chloe handbag.

I racked my brains to find a link between flies, mozzies and a recipe, but really, would such a link wet one's appetite?

Crab, Chilli and Rocket Pasta

Serves 4

250gm spaghetti or linguini

200gm crab meat

1 long, dried red chilli, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

large handful rocket

juice if half a lemon

olive oil

salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

Bring a large pot of water to boil, add a liberal amount of salt then toss pasta into boiling water. To a hot pan, add a good glug of extra virgin olive oil, then saute garlic and chilli until fragrant. Add crab and rocket then turn off heat. Drain pasta, toss in sauce with another lashing of olive oil, lemon juice and a generous amount of salt and cracked black pepper.

10 Dinner Party Tips

I've awoken to a stinking hot day with an equally stinking hangover. We hosted a dinner party for 6 intrepid guests last night and mercifully, the dirty dishes had been done, thanks to my handy guests+ dishwasher, which, by the way, is man's true best friend. As it turns out, in an inebriated state, I had wiped the crab shrapnel off the floor, walls and furniture. Brilliant.

For months now, I'd promised my friends Singapore chilli crab, so 2 days ago, I ventured to the Fish Markets in search of said crustacean. And this was when I learnt the first of many lessons that would arise from this seemingly benign dinner party.

1) Do not speak to/coo over live mud crabs when selecting them or you'll soon find yourself persuaded by those innocent beady eyes and wavering in your mission.

2) Mud crabs are large and infuriatingly unyielding creatures. Chop them in quarters instead of

halves to avoid doing battle with them in the wok.

3) Buy a Microplane if you cook a lot. I used to think it was a "wannabe-chef's wank", but after grating my right arm to death, I'm getting myself one. Asap.

4) Whipping cream + egg whites are a breeze with a Kitchenaid mixer.

5) When making semi-freddo, ensure berries are chopped into sufficiently small pieces. Otherwise, you'll end up with lumps of frozen rock hard berries in your dessert. Not good.

6) Meringues are a great way to deal with the egg whites leftover from making semifreddo. The sugar cuts through the tanginess of the strawberries as well. Waste not, want not!

7) Sugary meringues will stick to baking paper. Yes. And you'll have to scrape each and every one with a small knife

or throw the buggers away. So use silicon baking paper or parchment paper.

8) Hay Gor (smelly shrimp paste) is not Belacan (smelly shrimp paste). Go figure. Regardless, it goes alright in Sayur Lodeh (vegetable curry), and makes for a sweeter broth.

9) David Thompson (author of Thai Street Food), you are my new God. Thank you for the Grilled Pork Skewer recipe.

10) Copious amounts of red wine gives you a headache. This is not a new lesson, but one I relearn each time we have a party.

Here is the menu and the corresponding recipes. Semi-Freddo works well after a heavy/spicy dinner and can be prepared in advance. (Please excuse the multiple fonts and formats. My head hurts, you see).

Thai Grilled Pork Satay

Singapore Chilli Mud Crabs

Sayur Lodeh (Malaysian Vegetable Curry)

Strawberry, Pistachio and Rosewater Semifreddo with Meringues

Thai Grilled Pork Satay

(Adapted from David Thompson's Thai Street Food)

Makes 12-15, enough for 4

300gm pork neck (with fat)

bamboo skewers (soaked in water for 30min)

Marinade:

1 tspn cleaned and chopped coriander roots

pinch of salt

1 tsp chopped garlic

1/2 tspn white pepper

2 tblspn shaved palm sugar

dash of dark soy sauce

2 tblspn fish sauce

2 tblspn vegetable oil

Slice pork into thin pieces. Pound coriander and garlic in a mortar and pestle, combine with rest of marinade ingredients. Marinate pork for at least 3 hours or overnight, then skewer and bbq over a hot flame.

Singapore Chilli Crab (from Straits Cafe)

Serve 4

1/2 Cup Flour

1/4 Cup Peanut oil

1 md Onion, finely chopped

5 Tbs Ginger, grated

4 Cloves, grated

5 Red chilies, finely chopped

2 Cups Ketchup

1 Cup Water

2 Tbs Soy sauce

2 Tbs Sweet chili sauce

1 Tbs Rice wine vinegar

2 Tbs Softened brown sugar

Wash the crabs well and scrub the shell.

Using a large cleaver, cut the crabs in quarters and rinse well under cold water, carefully removing the yellow gills or spongy parts. With the flat side of the cleaver, crack the legs and larger front claws.

Lightly and carefully coat the shells with a little flour.

Heat about 2 tablespoons peanut oil in a large wok and cook two crab halves at a time. Using a metal utensil, carefully turn and hold the crab in the hot oil until the shell just turns red. Repeat with the remaining crab halves.

Add the remaining oil to the wok and cook the onion, ginger, garlic and chili for 5 minutes over medium heat and stirring regularly.

Add the ketchup, water, soy sauce, chili sauce, vinegar and sugar. Bring to boil and cook for 15 minutes.

Return the crab to the wok and simmer, turning carefully in the sauce for 10 minutes or until the crab meat turns white. Do not overcook.

Sayur Lodeh

Serves 6-8

1/4 head of cabbage, chopped

1/4 head of cauliflower

1 large carrot, sliced

300 gm green beans

200gm tempeh (fried) and cut into pieces

400gm coconut milk

2 cups chicken stock

2 bay leaves

paste:

1 tsp tumeric

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp dried shrimp, soaked and drained

2 tsp belacan or hay gor

2 tbsp chilli paste

1 inch ginger

2 stalks lemongrass, chopped

1 medium onion

4 cloves garlic

In a mortar and pestle, pound aromatics to a paste, then mix in powders, shrimp and hay gor. Heat oil in a pot, fry paste and bay leaves over a medium heat for about 5 min, then pour in coconut milk and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, add vegetables and tempeh, then simmer until vegetables are soft.

Strawberry, Pistachio and Rosewater Semifreddo (adapted from Bill Granger's recipe)

14 egg yolks

600 ml whipping cream

7 tblsp honey

4.5 tsp rose water

375 gm strawberries (chopped into small pieces)

160gm shelled, chopped pistachios

1. Whip cream until double in volume and soft white peaks form.
2. Beat the egg yolks and honey together with electric beaters for 10 minutes, or until thick, pale, creamy and doubled in volume. Fold in the whipped cream and rosewater until just combined.
3. Line the base and two sides of a 22 inch cake tin with a piece of plastic wrap, leaving the wrap hanging over the sides of the tin. Spoon the mixture into the tin, fold the plastic over the top to cover the semifreddo and freeze for 1–2 hours, or until partially frozen. Remove from the freezer and stir through the strawberries and pistachios. Cover with plastic wrap and return to the freezer until completely frozen.
4. Before serving, leave to soften in the fridge for 20 minutes. Turn out of the tin, cut into slices and serve with a few extra strawberries.

Meringues

Makes 16

Whites of 4 large organic eggs

115gm castor sugar

115gm icing sugar

Preheat oven to 100 degrees celsius and line 2 baking trays with silicon paper or parchment paper. With an electric mixer at medium speed, beat egg whites until light and fluffy. Turn speed up, add castor sugar one tablespoon at a time to eggs (this prevents meringues from bleeding). When soft peaks form, sift icing sugar into the mixer and fold through. With 2 dessert spoons, form blobs of the mixture on parchment paper, then bake for about 1.5 hours or until coffee brown and breaks with a "snap". Allow to cool and store in an airtight container.

Happy (White) Australia Day

Happy Australia Day.... although, given the rate at which racist sentiment is escalating in this country, that could soon become an oxymoron.

In recent years, racist groups in Australia have taken to using the southern cross as a symbol to represent their cause - a "White Australia", or an "Australia for Australians", sparking discussions over whether there was a need to change the Australian flag. In my opinion, a symbol is just that. The flag represents Australia, and if it were to be changed from the Union Jack and Southern Cross to a box jellyfish and macadamia nuts, all that means is young racists will be sport tattoos of the most toxic creature in the animal kingdom and the sort of nut that goes sublimely with chocolate.

Australia is the 6th largest country in the world, ranked 233 in terms of population density (India is 32nd, UK 51st, China 78th) and only 6.5% arable land. With a population of 20.5 mio, this translates to approximately 3.3mio people per 1% of land that is cultivable to support the population. Using the same formula, 1% of arable land in China supports 88mio people, in India 2.525 mio and the UK 2.65mio.

Which seems fair enough for Australians to demand immigrants return to their own country, because Australia is, in their opinion, "full". The 6th largest country on Earth is bursting at the seams, spilling over with bodies jostling for a piece of the second best country in the world to live in. I wonder when the youths were attacking the hapless Indian student and slicing his stomach open, did they cry,"Go home, you have plenty of land in India"? Is it then justifiable for Chinese immigrants to make their home in Australia given the strain they are putting on their own land?

But what about the POMS? The motherland boasts an abundance of fertile, sodden countryside for cabbage to grow and cows to roam, and an island's worth of wretchedly grey beaches upon which to frolic. I say we send their pasty white asses home on a boat (or British Airways, an eminently more traumatic travel experience).

Yet it was the POMS who discovered this dry, desolate country on the other side of the equator, teetering on the precipice beyond which human life struggles to sustain itself (no offence to the Kiwis). It was them who wrested this land from the Aborigines and claimed it for their own, along with parts of Africa, South East Asia and the Americas. It is this lingering false sense of white entitlement, imperialism and supremacy that fosters and proliferates racist sentiments in Australia. Not the lack of space or resources.

The Australia of today is an migrant country. In 2004, 24% of the population was born outside of the country. I love that I can have vietnamese, thai, italian, maltese, chinese, egyptian or nepalese food all within a 15 minute drive. Ok, so I hate maltese food, but it's a relevant representation of the spectrum of cuisines that are available in this multi-cultural country. This IS Australia.

Despite the paucity of arable land, Australia exports 65% of its farm products, 60% of its forest products and 51% of its dairy products (admittedly, part of this is in balance with the opposing seasons of the Northern Hemisphere ie we give some and we take some). The country's biggest problem is its acute lack of water, which means that despite being the world's largest island, its territorial waters are nutrient poor, resulting in relatively low biological productivity (of marine life, not Australians). Farmland is often bleak and brown, and bushland at risk of ferocious and sometimes uncontainable forest fires, no thanks to the infamously inflammable Eucalyptus trees. It is a country of conundrums, blessed with rich indigenous flora and fauna, and geographical beauty, but at the same time, cursed by dust and drought.

Australia has a lot to offer the world, and the world has a lot to give in return. Australians have to remember that without its people, it would simply be a dry, desolate landscape and that only the Aborigines are equipped to survive on the land in its essence. Australians, white or otherwise, (yes, that's you in the caravan park) have to embrace the inevitable evolution of this planet and its societal implications.

We are all "racists" or "xenophobes" to some extent. The Japanese are notorious for their fear of or resistance to foreigners, yet because theirs is a discreet practice, without tattoos of the Rising Sun or explicit violence, we turn a blind eye to it. As a Singaporean, albeit living in a different country, there are moments when I fear for my self-preservation and the self-preservation of my countrymen. With no end in sight to the deluge of Mainland Chinese immigrants, will we one day become another outpost of China? Ironically, all chinese-singaporeans are progenies of mainland chinese immigrants, so should we not embrace them and cry out "欢迎，同志!" (welcome, comrades!)?

With 18,ooo people per square metre, Singapore is ranked 3rd in the world in population density. We have barely any land, arable or otherwise, and self-sufficient agriculture extends only as far as hydroponics and the vegetables my mother used to grow in her paltry garden. What we have are our people, most of them migrants, some white, some black, some brown, some yellow, all seeking to make a life for themselves. A peaceful life.

There are a few lessons Australia could learn from this other blessed, former-british colonial island - value your people regardless of where they are from, no, because of where they're from, get rid of the monarchy and lose the Labour government. Oh, and stop privatising infrastructure and selling out to Macquarie Bank.

Here the dish for the day, made from 100% Australian pork.

Pork with Balsamic Glaze and Cauliflower Puree

Serves 2

600gm pork loin or fillet

4 tablespoons good balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons runny honey

1 tsp dry thyme or handful of chopped fresh thyme

splash of red wine

salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

Combine all ingredients and leave pork to marinade for at least 2 hours. Remove excess marinade from pork, then roast in a 190 degree oven for about 45 min (depending on thickness of meat). Meanwhile, reduce marinade in a saucepan and thicken with a knob of butter. When pork is done, allow to rest for 10 min, slice and strain sauce over meat. Serve with cauliflower puree and green salad.

Cauliflower Puree

Serves 2

1/2 head of cauliflower, quartered

1 clove garlic, grated

4 tblspn double cream

good knob of butter

handful of grated parmesan cheese (optional)

salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

Cook cauliflower in a pot of boiling water. Strain and mash with a ricer or put through a blender. Return to heat, add garlic, cream, butter (and cheese if desired). Season with salt and pepper.