Food Down Under Gourmet And Rare

Australia is known for many things. beautiful cities, A dazzling outback filled with all sorts of natural wonder. Sunny, bright people who are always quick to smile. Their food - not so much. Yet the Aussies are breaking away from the Vegemite and expanding their horizons

The New York Times Food section devoted their entire section today to the tastes and flavors of the world's smallest continent.Of course the most obvious influence is Asian with Chinese and Vietnamese holding sway in many big cities and even smaller suburbs such as Cabramatta. They influenced such famed chefs as Kylie Kwong,Luke Mangan, Neil Perry and David Thompson. There's also an interesting article about the Market Melbourne and the fight to keep it going instead of razing it.One of the more interesting articles is about Aussie foods used to make traditional dishes or traditional immigrant foods respun by Aussie chefs.. Imagine using a huge emu egg to make sabayon (!) Or imagine a sausage brought by Slovenian immigrants and renamed kranskys. There is the Bunning's sausage sizzle named for the company that started this hot dog cook out. Aussie cuisine also celebrates the aboriginal foods, the ingredients that have been used for five thousand years.

This is for my little fish lover, Wellington or Wells, Sadly we lost him to a stroke today at 8 this morning. He was only five years old, still young in feline years. He was a special little boy who loved his one kind of food, flavored with salmon and tuna. Wells was not a foodie cat, begging for scraps and licks from an  ice cream or cream filled spoon. He was very traditional and catholic in his choices. I will miss him.