Food Wine Sleep

Antipasto or Antipasti literally translates to before the meal and is served as an appetiser/first course. It is such a social way to eat; a group of family or friends standing or sitting near this communal platter and everybody sampling everything together as they chat and catch up. Italian's have eaten like this for centuries and although there are no real rules as to what you put on your antipasto platter, I prefer to stick to the things that have most likely been served on antipasto platters just as long. Think of this not so much as a recipe but rather a list of ideas that you can stick to or stray from.

The crisp asparagus is sure to please the lovers of all things green. The salty prosciutto will definitely make the meat lovers smile. The reduced balsamic will satisfy the sweet teeth amongst your guests and the ease of preparation is most definitely going to please you; the host, (that's really all that matters isn't it?) Enjoy your party.

Fresh sweet mussels dressed with a spicy rich butter dressing. This recipe is a great little dish for the summer patio gathering or barbecue that will ensure you can spend more time with your friends and less time in the kitchen.

These little cakes are so versatile; they can be used as a canape, first course or even main course. Once you start making them regularly you'll find that they lend themselves very well to your creativity. Simply drop the ingredients listed below the egg and add your own creations. Whether it be Cajun, lemon & pepper, ginger & lemongrass, onion & dill, or cashew & coriander they will definitely become a favourite.

I've categorized this dish in winter but truth be told it reminds me more of summer. It was a dish that my mother would make a huge pot of a few times each summer. Each pot would last about a week and meant that my mother could spend more time enjoying the short Canadian summer rather than missing it spending her whole summer in the kitchen. I still use that approach when I make Chilli, I make enough to feed an army, portion it up and freeze it. It makes a great winter warming meal when you really don't feel like cooking but still want a warm home cooked meal.

Summer is the season for eating fresh oysters near the water. For casual occasions you can't beat the natural oyster with a squeeze of lemon. However if you're entertaining you might want to spice things up a little. The fresh chilli and ice cold gin in this marinade should be more than enough to do the trick.

This is a great little recipe to pull out as a simple yet impressive canape next time you want to make an impression. All the ingredients are pretty easy to find although the trip to your local fish market for the fresh cooked crab meat is the key. Do not use crab that has ever been frozen, or canned. At a stretch, the pasteurised stuff in the refrigerated section of your local supermarket or deli can be used, but really the only choice for me is fresh cooked.

Snails/escargots are the sort of delicacy people either love, crave for and adore or simply do not like and are quite appalled by it. In any case, the snails one usually buys come in a tin or jar and are already washed, purged and ready for the final cooking. I like to sautee the snails and flavor them with a little Pastis or Riccard before baking them with the butter. The recipe for the 'Escargots butter', just as the 'Cafe de Paris' butter is the sort of recipe that makes the 'house specialty' the very sort of thing. I guess the whole secrecy stems from the fact, that especially with escargots, the butter is the most important ingredient, as the snails itself are rather...

This recipe is one of those occasions where the ability to use dried herbs in place of fresh is not an option. The fresh thyme and parmesan cheese work together to compliment the flavour of the mushroom in a way that the dried herb cannot. Making this dish using the larger field mushrooms also makes a great option for a vegetarian first course.

Another one of those dishes that once you make it a few times you will wonder why you didn't do it sooner. The delicacy of the flowers and the rich stuffing make them very appropriate on the most formal of occasions. Or leave them un-stuffed au'naturale and serve their golden fried goodness with a simple squeeze of lemon on the most casual of occasions.

The recipe for this dip has been with me for a few years now. It combines the best of both worlds, the 'Asiatic' spices of ginger, chili and lemongrass with Mediterranean ingredients like the virgin olive oil and the lime juice. If you prepare the dip ahead of time, you must ensure that the cilantro is chopped and added last minute to the dressing in order to achieve the freshness desired for this dish.

This recipe comes from a friend of mine; Maria. She is from the beautiful coastal region of Galicia in the North West of Spain. The area is bountiful in many types of delicious seafood and the local's diet and Maria's repertoire clearly represents this. Her seafood recipes are amazing and the stories she tells of her upbringing eating all the wonderful local specialties always makes my mouth water. One such dish that had me salivating when she first told me about it was this one; Pulpo a'la Gallega. Unfortunately when I make it, I break a cardinal rule and serve it on a normal plate as opposed to the traditional wooden plate. I don't think she has yet forgiven me and I am...

This recipe for marinated mushrooms is an absolute breeze, it keeps for weeks and can be done in large batches. So go on, make some now and the next time you have friends over you’ll have one more homemade item you can serve with your antipasto platter. Did we mention they are delicious.

When I was a teenager I worked briefly in a pizza joint as a delivery driver. When there were no deliveries I was assigned various jobs by our recently out of jail 'Chef', not that he was too busy to do so but he had to go hassle the waitresses and beg for bourbon from the bartender. One of the jobs that the 'Chef'; used to get me to do in this classy place was to prep the garlic bread. This job involved taking some anaemic highly processed and cottony soft bread rolls and cutting them in half, dipping them face down about 1 centimetre into some dirty old vegetable oil that had 2 cloves of garlic sadly sunken on the bottom, then I would take chopped parsley and sprinkle i...

A lot of recipes you find that incorporate Sea Scallops tend to drown them in rich sauces. I think that this is a bit of a shame as rich sauces are best reserved for flavourless and texture lacking seafood's, something that a nice fresh scallop is definitely not. This recipe is very simple to prepare and although it incorporates some strong flavours it still leaves the Scallop as the star of the show. I tend to use the Queensland variety, as I find them to be the perfect size and have beautiful ocean sweetness. Obviously if you're not in Australia it will be a bit difficult to find this variety, but find a fish monger you can trust and ask him or her what they recommend.

As it goes sometimes in the kitchen, a cocktail party had a bit of an over flow on guests and we needed to prepare some extra items. In the hurry, and with the guests waiting, I used anything I could get my hands on. Mostly items that were ingredients for the one or the other a la carte dish currently on our menu. The guests were so happy with these little dishes, that they actually are now featured on our cocktail menu offering.

There are numerous variations of this dish throughout Vietnam, southern China and Thailand. This particular recipe calls for a cuttlefish and shrimp mousse that is breaded and deep-fried while other variations are made with shrimps or prawns only, with the addition of crabmeat to the mousse or even spiced with chili, basil and coconut milk, crusted in desiccated coconut flakes. They are also not always breaded and fried, but also available steamed and steamed and then grilled. Whatever your preferences might be, shrimp on sugar cane will always be a well liked dish whenever you serve it.

I remember a couple of years back, a time in Sydney when virtually every single restaurant and caf� had fish cakes on their menu. Unfortunately it was also the time when this beautiful Southeast Asian dish gained a very bad reputation. Fish cakes were served crumbed in bread crumbs, undercooked, overcooked and served with everything from ketchup tomato sauce to heated peanut butter as "Satay Sauce". The reason for this I believe is people think it is an all too easy recipe, "mince some fish add a bit of this and that, a bit of commercial curry paste, deep fry them and dip in anything." This obviously looks nothing like the symphony of flavours u...

Occasionally, when my friend's restaurant is very busy and I am not so busy, I will help out in his restaurant for old time's sake, (every Chef needs to feel the rush of a busy service once in a while, or we'll wither and die). These occasions are usually in the busier summer periods, which consequently are obviously the hotter days in the kitchen. Some days they are so unbearably hot that when the hunger hits you could not imagine eating a hot meal, even though the guests seem to be quite content to do so. The difference of course is that those patrons are in a different world than ours, they are dining in the ocean breeze at this seaside haunt, while we Chefs are workin...