What a wonderful time we've had in Italy!!

All the details of our tour can be found on Avanti Italy's website.

Click here for more details and how to register your interest for 2013.

Bellissimo!!

Donata and I are on the Avanti Italy Food and Culture tour. We started off at the magnificent Castellare de Sernigi in Tuscany. Here I am preparing the welcome feast.

Perfect Spring drinking and great value!

Fiano is a delicate and crisp white wine.

To purchase this wine from Cellarmasters click on the link:

Cellarmasters Online Store

Join me at the "River to Richmond" dinner at Royal Saxon to celebrate Spring!

Spring_Graze_media_release_2012_.pdf Download this file

Here's tonight's menu at my Cafe Bakery

Bookings essential for tonight's Good Friday dinner at my Cafe Bakery. See

the menu Chef has prepared.

Starters
Antipasto for 2
Seared Scallops with asparagus and wild lime sauce
Melanzane Involtini
Olive Oil poached trout with potato, fennel and rocket salad with lemon mayonnaise
Chared grilled Quail with rocket, bocconcini and beetroot relish

Mains
Grain fed scotch fillet with garlic butter, chips & salad
Oven baked Chicken supreme with fig & prosciutto sauce, polenta and spinach
Grilled yellow fin tuna with herb & lime butter on a bed of cous cous and snowpeas
Baked Snapper with tomato, olives & thyme, roasted potatoes and asparagus
Mussels in a tomato broth with crusty bread, chips & salad
Pasta- Stracchi with prawns, fresh tomato & chilli
Ricotta Gnocchi with Gorgonzola & sage

Dessert
Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Phone 03 5021 3627

http://www.stefano.com.au/docs/cafe_bakery.asp

Another fabulous festival coming up....

Media_Release-_Esteemed_poet_to_be_judge_at_Mildura_Writers_Festival.doc Download this file

In the need of a holiday?

italy_with_stefano2012.pdf Download this file

I've just come back from a fascinating visit to Hobart

MONA or The Museum of Old and New Art built by David Walsh, professional gambler, on the site of the former Moorilla Winery in Hobart.
I just spent three days absorbing the magnitude of the undertaking.  David Walsh is my new hero and I will be singing his praises at every opportunity.  Here's a visionary ( a word I don't use lightly) with the balls to put himself on the line and to collect great art for the enjoyment of the general public. He has made Hobart a place to visit time and again.
 
Mona is an integrated structure designed by Fender-Katsalidis comprising a four-storey underground museum, if that is the word, a brewery, a winery, a series of eateries, splendid accommodation on the Derwent river and an outdoor performance area.
The museum is for free and everything else you pay in relation to quality.The art is highly personal, in that it represents the taste of its owner.  The themes are sex and death in no particular order, but not only.
 
Technology in art plays a huge role, reminding me of the original intention of Mildura Palimpsest.  In fact, I cannot help thinking that a proper Mildura Arts Centre, a redeveloped hospital site, an expanded university, combined with the existing arts festival and the Art Vault, could make Mildura an obviously smaller, but equally exciting regional centre.
 
The Hobart locals have embraced this extraordinary space with real gusto.  You see children, people in moccasins, people in the money, of every shape and colour, flocking to this site like it's the ultimate pilgrimage - even better than shopping!
 
Will the day come when our locals will turn up to see the work of, for example, Ken and Julia Yonetani, featured in the recent Artlink magazine, which was based on the salinity issues of Mildura?  Theirs is a work of subtle instruction about the price we pay for our food before it even reaches the table, but free of rhetoric and propaganda.
I wish I had my own museum, but I'm crap at Black Jack.

For more on The Museum of Old and New Art- http://mona.net.au/

For more on Ken and Julia Yonetani - http://www.kenandjuliayonetani.com/contents.html

For an article featuring MONA and David Walsh -
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/temple-of-david/story-e6frg8h6-...

I'm working on my Top 10 things to do in Mildura. What's yours?

Great news, the Cafe/Bakery is open over Easter!

Choc Hops Chocolate Stout Limited Edition Tasting notes

Choc_Hops2.docx Download this file

Free event at my Gallery tomorrow night!

The Wheeler Centre On the Road Mildura
Award-winning Scottish novelist Andrew O’Hagan returns to Australia with his new book The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe. O’Hagan discusses a life in writing: love, religion, class hatred, the clash of generations and Maltese poodles. Andrew will be in conversation with Chrissy Sharp.

This is a free event, bookings recommended. For bookings visit www.wheelercentre.com

For more information go to Andrew O'Hagan

My new truck driving friend

I am getting out of the change room at the local pool. I am so clumsy I begin to drop my keys, my glasses, my towel. This guy, this Adonis, this Apollo (I am not gay) with blond, long hair says to me: “Got too much on your mind, mate!” “Yes, not  a good day”- I said, looking up at this Herculean figure with the face of an angel. “Yes, some days are like that. I know….”

“What do you do for a crust,” - I say

“I am a truck driver”

“What, with a face like that? I would be on the cat walk” – I said (same advice, by the way, I gave Curtis Stone!)
 
“No, mate I am happy driving trucks” – he replies

“Plenty of time to think about life” – I push on.

“Noh, just staying awake, I have a lovely family…two little girls…anyway, I used to be a chef, and I love what you do. Can I shake your hand? I always wanted to meet you”
 
I felt like a woman swept away by God Apollo himself.
 
See,I dislike truck drivers because they let it rip just outside my house….I dream of throwing bottles full of piss or rotten eggs  at every truck driver going past.

 But no more now – what if I hit him?