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Lantern

The Australian sweet tooth and ongoing love of cakes and desserts is evident in two recent publications. Both cover the basics as well as offering more ambitious fare; they are good places to start if this is your thing.

Phillippa Grogan’s eponymous pâtisserie in Melbourne, established in 1994, offers the type of baked goods presented in this publication: breads, cakes and biscuits, quiches and tarts, superbly made and flavoured and stylishly presented. Novel at the time, the business rapidly became a success and has since expanded considerably. As is de rigueur nowadays for cooks, the book of the shop has followed: Phillippa’s Home Baking (Lantern, $49.95 hb, 313 pp, 9781921383311), co-written with Richard Cornish. Baking, more than any other type of cookery except confectionery, requires precision and accuracy, and this is reflected in the succinct, no-nonsense style of the clearly set out recipes and introductions.

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The Agrarian Kitchen by Rodney Dunn & New Classics by Philippa Sibley

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March 2014, no. 359

Two quite different books from two very different chefs illustrate some major trends in cookery writing and publishing in Australia. One is by a city chef who runs a restaurant, and the other by a country chef who runs a cookery school.

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Michel Roux: The Collection by Michel Roux & A Lifetime of Cooking, Teaching and Writing from the French Kitchen by Diane Holuigue

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March 2013, no. 349

Here are two welcome additions to a long list of cookery publications in Australia promoting Gallic cuisine. French or French-style cookery in this country has come a long way since Ted Moloney and Deke Coleman’s charming but slight Oh, for a French Wife! was published by Ure Smith in 1952. Both Michel Roux: The Collection and Diane Holuigue’s A Lifetime of Cooking, Teaching and Writing from the French Kitchen demand a level of culinary skill, dedication, time, equipment, and household budget unimaginable for most Australian home cooks sixty years ago. Michel Roux is a Michelin-starred French chef and long-time resident in the United Kingdom. Diane Holuigue is a well-known, Melbourne-based Australian cookery teacher and writer. Through their cooking and publications, both have been hugely influential: Roux internationally, Holuigue in Australia.

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My Umbrian Kitchen by Patrizia Simone with Caroline Pizzey

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December 2012–January 2013, no. 347

My Umbrian Kitchen – part memoir, part recipe book – reflects the Umbrian-Australian life of its author, Italian-born Patrizia Simone, who, with her husband, opened her first restaurant in Bright in north-eastern Victoria twenty-six years ago. This publication draws on her wealth of experience in the kitchen, decades of cooking, and the rich culinary heritage of her native Umbria. We follow Simone’s journey from the borgo (hamlet) at Collestrada to nearby Perugia, where her parents moved in search of work while she was in her teens. The book commences with an evocative description of the borgo, the source of her culinary vocation, which sets the framework for the dialogue between Umbria and Bright: Umbrian cuisine adapted for her restaurant, and for Australia.

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In 2010, some 272,461 pilgrims received a Compostela (a certificate of completion) upon reaching the city of Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain. The great majority of these had arrived by walking, having covered at least one hundred kilometres on foot in order to qualify. Most, however, had travelled considerably further, using the network of medieval pilgrim routes that cobweb across southern Europe to this remote city. The number receiving a Compostela substantially understates the pilgrim traffic on these paths; many walk sections of the routes without reaching Santiago and claiming their credential.

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A Big Life by Jenny Kee (with Samantha Trenoweth)

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December 2006–January 2007, no. 287

What a big book it is! And so many photographs: only a few without Jenny Kee. The dust jacket is drop-dead gorgeous: just Jenny’s face, with the Revlon red of her trademark glasses and lips lifted to the title. But heavens, this isn’t a dust jacket but a jacket. Take it off. The lining is Jenny’s Monet Opal print, and there are French folds and more photos. Open the book, and here is Jenny’s big life in twelve chapters.

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