8th October 2017
Pastila is the Russian version of pĆ¢te de fruits; it was developed in Kolomna as a way to preserve apples through the hard, cold Russian winters, and there are over fifty recipes. It was made in the 15th century as a āmedieval preserveā ā after it was dried it could be stored for long periods of time without spoiling or…
8th October 2017
Pavlova is a meringue-based dessert that is usually topped with fresh fruit and lashings of whipped cream. It is a delightful dessert but its history is mired in a bit of controversy. You see, Anna Pavlova, the ballerina for whom the dessert was invented – and named – visited both Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. The two neighbouring…
8th October 2017
My favourite books when I was growing up all had one common factor: they all featured strong women who were often outspoken, and who flew against the norm. As a voracious reader who sped past age appropriate books by the age of six, I was introduced to the classics by a mother who just wanted me to stop bothering her.…
8th October 2017
Rice pudding, whilst rejected by some for being too plain and stodgy, still remains one of my favourite comfort foods. It’s actually been around for centuries, believe it or not, and was thought to have originated in China, which has an ancient rice culture. This has been disputed by some food historians; they argue that rice pudding likely originated in…
8th October 2017
Bread pudding is one of my favourite comfort foods, and is also called bread and butter pudding, or whitepot. Variations of bread pudding exist in culinary cultures around the world, from Argentina to India, from the United Kingdom to Colombia. It is also called hasty pudding (although this term encompasses both bread pudding and rice pudding) because – as the…
22nd August 2012
I have many wonderful memories of the decade I spent travelling around the world but my funniest memory of all time is possibly my camping adventure memory from the year I spent in New Zealand. All my close friends call me Tara; it’s not just a nickname, it’s also a play on my middle name. I’ve been Tara for years,…
9th August 2012
I’ve been over-indulgent lately. For those of you not quite in the loop, I’ve been busy with my cupcake business and my food blog; I’ve also applied to go to Le Cordon Bleu in Sydney so I can be a proper pastry chef some day. This is all very exciting and my life is a series of busyness. I love…
6th July 2012
My friends will all tell you that there’s one thing that’s absolutely predictable about me: I’m a sucker for romance. Anything that lets me know my boyfriend has been thinking about me fills me with wonderful happiness. I’m rather easy to please as well. It doesn’t always have to be the most expensive red roses or a box of expensive…
24th June 2012
Today I’ve begun fostering a nine-month old tuxedo cat (pictures soon) who was living in miserable conditions; his owner abandoned him at the vet’s where we go, and he was marked ‘free to a good home’; the vet usually has kennels to board pets but all his kennels were booked by paying customers who were boarding their pets while they…
21st June 2012
So, yesterday, ‘Dumb, Drunk and Racist’ was trending on Twitter at about the same time that I was chatting to one of my best friends, who happens to be Australian. He mentioned the show, and I thought it sounded intriguing, if a little incendiary. I went and looked at the top tweets at the time and read quite a few…