Orcas again

It seems "our" orca are still hanging around in Tasman Bay. From the Nelson Mail today:

"A pod of orca has turned on a special welcome for walkers heading into Abel Tasman National Park, and for sightseers at Mapua. "

They like eating stingray, apparently, and there are lots in the bay. NZ orca are the only ones in the world known to fancy a snack of ray. I hope they're still around when I get back to the Abel Tasman in late February. I should be able to see stingrays, but the orca will almost certainly have moved on.

Thursday, January 26, 2006 3:28 pm (permalink)

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The Truffle Book

"Absolutely rivetting" - a well-known prince. Available as softback, limited edition hardback, and PDF. Free sample PDF.

Full text searchable in Google Book Search.

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current reading

I've read two books called Heat in the last month. One was damn scary, and one was by George Monbiot, about global warming (which has a fantastic cover). Some would say I've been and gone and had my mid-life crisis, but it didn't involve doing an apprenticeship at the altar of real Italian cuisine and a tyrannical chef. Bill Buford is not me, and for that I'm grateful. I suspect he may be too. I enjoyed it - the kitchen stuff was pretty compelling (as was the Italian butcher I may just have to visit next time I'm on Italian truffle time), but somehow the whole thing didn't hang together. I know where Bill's coming from - and I can sort of sense where he went - but his own motivation (and his family's reaction) remain mysterious.

just read

A friend sent me Neil Perry's The Food I Love to make up for the accidental loss of Pierre Koffman's Memories Of Gascony. Koffman's book has contributed a couple of recipes to my standard repertoire (his gigot de quatre heures is regularly requested by family for special occasions), so its disappearance is deeply felt - but Perry is doing is best to stand in. Sometimes you pick up a cookbook, try a recipe, and it clicks. You want to try more, and you do. So far, everything I've tried - the fish in mad water, the seven hour lamb, the steamed then roast duck, has been excellent. I've even gone out and bought a digital oven thermometer on his say-so. Perry's a celeb chef in Australia - his Rockpool restaurant in Sydney is well worth a visit - and his cooking draws on the same sort of Italian inspiration that I find in Carluccio, Hazan and The River Café cookbooks.