The Pizza Dough I Make Three Times a Month
Last weekend, our dinner guests arrived about five minutes after the wood fired pizza oven did. (The oven was in the back of our truck. The full story is in this week’s newsletter. Send us an email and we'll send you the story!) Within minutes of walking in the door, they were carrying it into the backyard. I was nervous about most things that night. The oven, the fire, the timing, my own ability to cook a pizza anywhere near a furnace. The one thing I wasn’t nervous about was the dough. In our house, pizza dough gets made at least three times a month. It’s quick to mix, it forgives almost everything, and it makes a lot more than...
The One-Pan Dinner That Got Us Through This Week
Some weeks you plan the funny story in advance. You save the ridiculous moments as they happen, the way you'd put milk bottle lids in a recycling jar, and by the time you sit down to write the newsletter there's a jar full of them to tip out. This was not that kind of week. It's been a big fortnight here, busy in the good way and hard in a few other ways, and by Wednesday night I had exactly one working idea left in my head, which was: dinner needs to happen, and it needs to happen without me expending any energy I did not have. There wasn't much left and it was only Wednesday. So I made this....
Sort of Different Curry, Third Time This Week
It happened again on Tuesday. I stood in front of the fridge, opened it, closed it, and asked the question that comes out of my mouth most nights around 5:30-6pm. Closer to 6.30 on a bad night. "What do you feel like for dinner?" I should be honest about what I'm actually asking here. It isn't what it sounds like. I'm not soliciting opinions. Nobody in this house has ever answered that question with anything resembling a plan, and if they did, I'm not sure I'd take it. What I'm actually hoping for is that someone, anyone, will hand me a single idea I haven't had to generate myself. Or better still, that someone will simply take the decision off...
Why the Conference Lunch Matters More Than You Think
If you've organised more than one conference, you'll already know this moment. Lunch was meant to wrap by one thirty. It's twenty to two. The sandwich queue is still very much a queue, and your two o'clock speaker is hovering near the AV desk doing that polite-but-pointed watch check. We've catered enough corporate conferences to know exactly what happens next. It's never dramatic. A few more phones are snuck out. The first joke of the afternoon session gets a flatter laugh than it deserves. Nobody puts "lunch ran late" on the feedback form. They just switch off, and by 2pm slot you're wondering where the room's energy went. It went to lunch. It always does. What a bad lunch actually...
How to Build a Grazing Board for a Crowd (What a 14th Birthday Party Taught Me)
There are things you learn about feeding groups of people after twelve years of catering. And then there are things you learn from hosting a 14th birthday party for 21 teenagers who have just spent three hours playing every sport simultaneously. These are not always the same lessons. The most junior of the recipe testers recently had a birthday party. He also had strong views about the afternoon. Sport was the priority. Specifically: trampoline, soccer, rugby, cricket, basketball, and ping pong, all running concurrently, all requiring participants, all generating the kind of appetite that cannot be satisfied by a thoughtful cheese plate. Or crudités. He also had strong views about the food. I presented some options. He considered them. We...
Slow-Cooked Beef Brisket with Homemade BBQ Sauce
A slow-cooked beef brisket with homemade BBQ sauce — the recipe that solved Friday night dinner for a house full of teenagers. Ten minutes to prepare, eight hours to cook, zero stress at the table.
Why Food Is Your Secret Weapon at Every Team Event
The food at your team event is doing more work than you think. Research shows that shared meals don't just feed people - they change how people relate to each other. Here's what the science says, and what it means for your next corporate event in Sydney.
The Job You Were Always Supposed to Lose
There's a point in the teenage years where you notice you're no longer automatically in the loop. The research said this would happen. The research didn't mention how it would feel.
Anzac Biscuits: What My Grandmother Knew That I Had to Learn the Hard Way
There are two camps on Anzac biscuits and the chewy camp is correct. Here's the recipe we use in our kitchen, with a few hard-won tips on getting the texture right, plus a freezer trick that means fresh Anzacs are never more than 20 minutes away.
Event Catering 101: What Corporate Organisers Need to Think About (That Nobody Tells You)
Organising catering for a corporate event is more complicated than it looks. Dietary requirements, tight break times, person flow for large groups, programs that run overtime, the details that catch people out are almost always the ones nobody mentioned in the brief. Here's what experienced event coordinators know to plan for early.