Year: 2010

  • French Food Safari Part 6: Simon Johnson Food, Alexandria.

    French Food Safari Part 6: Simon Johnson Food, Alexandria.

    Safari followers, are you still with me?  This is the last instalment.  We ended the day with cheeses at the Simon Johnson store in Alexandria. There are 3 parts to the store.  The general retail area that stocks a range of foods that are anything but ‘general’.  I’ll show you some of my favourite finds…

  • French Food Safari Part 5: Belle Fleur Chocolates, Petersham.

    French Food Safari Part 5: Belle Fleur Chocolates, Petersham.

    Are you still with me?  My coverage of the French Food Safari is taking on epic proportions.  Blogger is dealing with this in its own way by mysteriously changing font for this post, probably in mouth watering anticipation of the chocolate contained herewith.  It doesn’t matter what I do, random lines of text jsut keep…

  • French Food Safari Part 4: La Grande Bouffe, Rozelle.

    French Food Safari Part 4: La Grande Bouffe, Rozelle.

    As if there wasn’t already enough food on safari, we had a lunch stop too.  It’s just a short walk down from The Essential Ingredient and is called La Grande Bouffe, 758 Darling Street, Rozelle, tel: (02) 9818 4333. La Grande Bouffe translates into ‘a great meal’, from what Marie told us.  I’ve tried to…

  • French Food Safari Part 3: Victor Churchill Butcher, Woollahra

    French Food Safari Part 3: Victor Churchill Butcher, Woollahra

    Next stop on the safari was a meaty one, the famed Victor Churchill Butcher, 132 Queen Street, Woollahra, tel: (02) 9328 0402. Vic has been a butcher for over 40 years.  He bought this business a few years ago and made it his own.  The shop is around 130 years old and Vic is the fourth…

  • French Food Safari Part 2: In the Kitchen, Ganache Patisserie, Castlecrag.

    French Food Safari Part 2: In the Kitchen, Ganache Patisserie, Castlecrag.

    After  breakfast, we met Didier the owner of Ganache and his head pastry chef, Pascale. I also met several beautiful cakes who were studiously ignoring me from behind their glass display cabinet. And nearly asked for the phone numbers of a stack of coffee bowls and whether they were interested in coming around to my…

  • French Food Safari Part 1: Breakfast, Ganache Patisserie, Castlecrag. In Realtime, Preparations For Japan Continue In Earnest.

    French Food Safari Part 1: Breakfast, Ganache Patisserie, Castlecrag.  In Realtime, Preparations For Japan Continue In Earnest.

    The air was crisp, the trees bare of leaves and the clouds appeared to be retreating as I took a brisk walk to Central Station, the meeting point for the French Food Safari.  I went on the tour yesterday and returned home with a lot of photos, just as well I had my super massive…

  • Happy Anniversary. Dinner at Becasse.

    Mr SSG and I, March 28, 2008.  Thank you for the last 2 years and I look forward to the rest of our lives together. There never seems enough time to get ready, no matter how much time I think I have and how much I try to organize everything in advance.  Things never look…

  • Cosmetics, Carbs and Chit-chat at SSG Manor.

    The 3 C’s of a Friday afternoon blog post.  I think there are 5 C’s for diamonds, but I was trying to keep my title short for a change. Days off usually end up being busier than I think they will be.  They end up being a marathon of things you’ve put off for ages. …

  • Friday wasn’t very exciting.

    It’s been a long day.  Not so much physically tiring as mentally draining.  I’ve been staring at excel spreadsheets and word docs all day long.  The upside, I guess is that I won’t have to do any of it this weekend.  Now I’m trying to recharge for another 6 hours at work with a cup…

  • Conferencing In Coolum. The End Of Branded Stationery. SSG Remembers Ms Watson.

    Do you ever have too much time on your hands?  Suddenly, all those bits of boring paperwork and telephone inquries seem like really attractive ways of biding time. A paper I submitted got accepted for presentation at a conference in May.  I’m really excited.  The 10 minutes on the podium and 5 minutes of post…