I’ve been thinking about what Brisbane’s missing in terms of food supplies and have come up with this list. Would love you to add to it.

What we lack in Brisbane…

1. A CHEESE SHOP

A shop dedicated solely to cheese from all over the world. Not a deli. A cheese shop. Why is it so hard?

2. An ethnic bakery/cake shop. Jewish? Middle Eastern? East European would be good.(and while we’re on the subject, has always fascinated me why Vietnamese bakeries in Brisbane serve awful ‘Aussie’ stuff like bad custard slices. The bakeries in Vietnam, make some of the best baguette I’ve had!)

3. A takeaway rotisserie shop. Free range chicken, ducks, pork. mmm.

4. More independent wine shops

5. Patisseries.- we need more Chouquette type bakeries all over Brisbane. It should NOT be this hard        to get a decent croissant in this day and age.

6. A serious dumpling bar. 

7. Wine bars. Loads of wines by the glass, nice simple wine-friendly food. No wank.

8. A barbecue restaurant. Like the have in the southern states of the US. 12hr cooked meat, outside tables.

9. A bookshop dedicated to food/cooking

10. More cooking schools

Monday is stock day for me. Into the pot go all the limp veggies from the previous week (and despite careful planning, there are always some). Often too, if I’ve roasted a chook over the weekend the frame will go in to make a chicken stock. I’m a very lazy stockmaker. I don’t skim ‘impurities’ off the surface (can someone explain to me how a slotted spoon is supposed to work??) or clarify my stocks. I just bung it all in some salted water and leave on a long, slow simmer. And if I’ve done a chicken stock, I’ll put in the fridge so any fat solidifies and can be skimmed off. I made this soup on Monday on a chicken stock but you could use vegetable stock too. It’s so simple and tastes smooth and velvety, like it’s got a bucket of cream in it.

Easy Cauliflower Soup

• 1 litre chicken stock (if you don’t have homemade, use a good one like Stockmerchant) or don’t bother).
• A head of cauliflower, hard stems removed, cut into pieces
• The rind from a block of parmesan cheese

Put the parmesan rinds into to stock and simmer for 1/2 and hour or more to infuse. Add cauliflower and simmer for another 1/2 hour. Season as needed. Take out rinds and let cool a bit (so you don’t blow the lid off your blender!) and blend for around 30 seconds until silky smooth. Voila. If you’re not on a diet, try serving with a blue cheese toastie.

I’m excited. I’ve just had a chai and a chat with a lady of vision and calm confidence. IF she says it’s going to happen, I believe her. It’s going to take from between 8 months (what is aimed for) and 2 years (worse case scenario) but Brisbane will have a fleet of around 20 street food vendors selling, food from all over the world, with Helen Bird hopes, a particular regional focus. ie. Yucatan Mexican or Goan.

Bird is founder and director of Streetfood Australia; an organisation that plans to change the city face and offer diners more opportunities than just eating in restaurants or cafes.

”The idea of street food came form me travelling a lot more in the city, really getting intimate with it. It seemed there were limited choices when it came to food; you could sit in cafe or restaurant or go down into the bowels of a shopping centre to a food court. Or there is fast food. Yes, there are food trucks but they are taking more vehicles into the city and the bikes can mobilise to wherever people are.”

Bird, who is a graduate architect, has commissioned the first bike from Denmark. Don’t imagine it’s going to be something ad hoc though-each bike is worth $4000, and will be a done in gleaming stainless steel with the front section capable of supporting 150kg.

”I like the idea of the high end design with a grass roots business. If  a cart is visually appealing, it will attract people and break down barriers, giving the opportunity for vendors to interact with the buyers.”  The bikes will be retro-fitted with solar power to charge a battery which will power a motor to assist with lighting and refrigeration.

An app is also being developed so you can pinpoint where ‘your’ bike with whichever cuisine you fancy is at any given time. ”They’ll work on a roster system. When they leave a site another vendor can come and set up,” Bird says. All will be supplying different cuisines. “We are looking for migrants who are willing to represent their own food in a way that we don’t end up with this very generic style- a bit like Mexican food a the moment, with everything being the same.”

Food will be cooked at what Bird says is a ”common incubator kitchen” for which she hopes some funding may be forthcoming. Each operator will share the cost of the commercial kitchen, but according to Bird the idea is to remove the cost barriers as far as possible in order to create opportunity for people who couldn’t normally afford to open a food business. There’ll be a cafe attached so if it rains for weeks or a vendor is injured and can’t ride, they could run their business out of it and not lose their livelihoods. The cafe is also intended to give them training should they want to take it further and set up something more permanent.

To start off with the bikes will service the inner city, West End, Valley and New Farm, but Bird hopes to take the concept to to other Queensland cities, then into the regions, with street food bikes taking residence in places like Toowoomba and Ipswich.

Personally, I can’t wait-this idea seems like the perfect way to show-off our so called ‘multiculturalism’- something that can manifests as a pleasant idea than being real in any visible way. And of course, the opportunity to explore regional food from all over the world is a big bonus for food lovers.

If you’d like to help with a donation, funding or have some particular expertise you think could be useful (For example. Bird says they’ll need a mentor/business adviser hopefully an ex restaurateur to help the vendors at the commercial kitchen, let me know and I’m happy to pass details on.

AT its American launch in New York, 31,000 people were on the wait list. Now Brisbane is set to be the first Australian city to host the world’s biggest and most secretive dinner.

In 1988 Frenchman, Francois Pasquier decided to organise a catch-up dinner with friends. There were so many takers he suggested they meet in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, specifying that invitees dress in white so they could identify each other. There the idea for `Le Diner en Blanc’ (Dinners in White) was born- an event that would eventually host as many as 15,000 people in a single evening, with the concept travelling worldwide.

The dinners are held in public spaces, the idea, the organisation says to “enhance the function and value of their city’s public space by participating in the unexpected.’’

Unexpected is a key concept with diners (who have been invited by the organisation, friends or friends of friends or by joining a waitlist) having no idea where the ‘posh picnic’ will take place, only learning via social media and word of mouth at the last minute.

The crowd are asked to dress in white and converge on the site bringing with them food, wine, tables chairs, even their own tablecloths. With military precision, an open air public space is transformed by the foodie flash mob.

Previous events have been held at iconic locations such as the Eiffel Tower, Pont des Arts, The Louvre Pyramid and the Champs Elysee.

This year, Brisbane is one of the fifteen cities worldwide chosen to host the dinner (an event in Sydney will follow sometime this year). Where and when is a still a closely guarded secret. The organisation concede that their presence is not always ‘authorised’ but we can only hope that our City Council chooses to embrace the concept with the same laissez faire attitude as their French counterparts.

So where do you reckon is a good place to hold it?

If you’re not lucky enough to be in the know, you can register to be on the wait list here :  http://brisbane.dinerenblanc.info/waiting.php

It’s true, I am my own harshest critic but tonight even my biggest culinary fan (my partner) agreed after a bit of prodding with a sharp stick that this was one of my worst meals ever.

I read other people’s food blogs sometimes and they seem to turn out these perfect beautifully photographed dishes all the time. How, I want to know???

For me cooking is a huge experiment and while these days I am better at it and have more hits than misses, occasionally there are days like these.

It started well enough- a dozen beef ribs from Superbutcher. I’d never been there before-it’s out of my lazy metro-centric 2km radius. They looked good, but after overnight marinading then a slow 12 hr cooking, they should have been fab but weren’t. They were tough.

Mistake two was forgoing my usual knife for a mandoline- a piece of equipment the salesperson told me had been ‘selling like hotcakes since they used it on Masterchef.” I bought it today and it will probably sit in the ‘shit kitchen stuff I’ve bought’ drawer until my next mass clean up. Without veering too much from the subject- the mandolin was ugly, bulky and hard to use. Unless you used exactly the same pressure each time the thinness of the sweet potato crisps varied. Some were thicker, some were thin little bits. (There’s a market- I reckon they were designed by men who a) tend to be physically stronger and b) spend far less time in the kitchen and thus aren’t as pissed off by crappy ‘tools’ as women who still despite everything use them much more often)

In the end, I thought I might as well chuck the broccoli on top of the ribs which were under foil in the slowest part of the oven to cook thinking they might steam and absorb some of the flavours.

So basically tonight’s dinner was sweet potato crisps that looked like those bits of skin from the bottom of your feet when you or your podiatrist use that razor blade thingy, ribs which had shrunken and fallen off the bone (not in a good way-even the dog spent a while thinking about whether she’d give them a go, tried them and gave up) and the broccoli was sort of khaki and oil infused.

A fail whale of a dinner as the almost 13 year old agreed.

Anyway, would love to hear about your worst home cooking experience if you’d deign to share. It’ d make me feel better to know that I’m not alone