Don't try this recipe at home

We’ve seen them before. Recipes which are so hard to even contemplate, that you require a BEX and a lie down just by thinking about them.

Here's a few tips to spot the recipe that you shouldn’t attempt

‘Now take your Bison haunch hung for 7 months…..’

‘Turn the deep fryer up to 182.3 degrees…..’

‘Adding the twelfth layer of the cake is quite simple….’

‘Maggie, Stephanie and I just giggled like Schoolgirls when we…..’

‘Have your housekeeper retrieve the jar of Ghost Orchids in nectar from your cellar….’

‘For the custard, Kopi Lewak beans are essential; do not attempt this without them…’

‘The circulator should only have a flutter of excitement rippling on the surface water……’

‘After one week marinating in Llama milk, the pig Labia’s will be sufficiently dilated….’

‘If Xactopotl 99% coca beans aren’t available, use Cadburys Old Gold….’

‘If you are able to get close enough to the decomposing cadaver with retching, it’s not ready yet….’

‘The children will enjoy guessing which of the eggs has the fossilised duck embryo in it…’

‘For authenticity, freshly milled Dogwood logs from the lower Tarkine must be used in your smokehouse….’

‘First obtain your gun licence….’

‘Making sure your Yacht is securely moored before getting the captain to haul in the Tuna…’

‘Feel free to add any more…..’

CWA to allow packaged biscuits in competitions.

The Queensland Right faction of the CWA have defied calls for sanity from their southern counterparts with their decision to allow packaged biscuits into CWA cooking competitions.

Charters Towers CWA President Doreen McClamrock defended the move.

"This is just reflective of how Australians cook today." McClamrock says, " It takes a great degree of skill to unpack the full Family Assorted without chipping a Teddy Bear. A well presented Monte Carlo is not to be sneezed at."

Leaders of the Independent faction within the CWA are retaliating by seeking to have McClamrock expelled from the Association for gross breaches the organisation's fund-raising rules and failing to bring a plate to several meetings.

Speaking under the promise of anonymity, our sources say that McClamrock's rise to power coincides with supermarket sponsorship of the CWA and influence from the Australian Arrowroot Growers Society. CWA members are the only known Australian consumers of arrowroot biscuits.

An Independent-sponsored motion for a special state conference on the issue was defeated by the Right.

Gourmet Traveller Vs Tripadvisor

Australia’s most accurate and unbiased restaurant review authority, Tripadvisor, is taking the fight for the last word in who’s the best to Gourmet Traveller magazine.

GT who annually publishes its 100 best restaurants in Australia list puts its winners in each state up against the might of Tripadvisor-You be the judge!

	Tripadvisor	Gourmet Traveller
Sydney	Oxford Social	Quay
Melbourne	Cerebus Beach House	Cutler & Co
Brisbane	Sono	Esquire
Adelaide	Enzos	Vincenzo’s Cucina Vera
Perth	Opus	Restaurant Amuse
Canberra	Morks	n/a
Hobart	Solo pasta & pizza	Garagistes
Darwin	Hingston Chinese T/a	n/a

Match the restaurant with the Urbanspoon review

While the wisdom of crowds is best displayed when you hand them a pitchfork and a lit torch, crowdsourcing restaurant reviews has become a popular way for websites to avoid paying writers for anything and keep diners entertained while they eat and stare longingly into their phones. So here’s a game: match the actual Urbanspoon restaurant review with the restaurant.

The Review

1. "Everything was drowned in salt I felt sick after eating here! Needs to have more flavour not salt"
2. "Don't go...group of 4 went last weekend - So disappointing!!! 13 courses - only 1 would any of us had wanted to eat again, service was average, timings of the meal were off. No idea how they have gotten 3 hats"
3. "Incredibly underwhelming, really expected more. And what's with the music???"
4. "Thoroughly overrated. Not a fan"
5. "I was blown away by the rudeness! After experiencing typical, hipster Sydney rudeness a few months ago I thought I'd give this place one more chance. Boy, did they fill the cliche yet again. My friend and I have just walked out after basically being told to hurry up and order."
6. "Getting a bit shabby, the cups and cutlery looking worn out from the dishwasher.When we went last time Sunday around noon, many things unavailable on menu. Would love to love this place but in reality it looks good from a distance but fails to deliver. If you don't know any better you will love it."
7. "staff dress kinda like hippies - adds a certain flair"

The Restaurant

A. Grill'd Narre Warren,
B. Momofuku Seibo, Sydney
C. Jamie's Italian, Perth
D. Vue De Monde, Melbourne
E. Bourke St Bakery, Sydney
F. Laduree, Sydney
G. Chin Chin, Melbourne




Answers: 1G, 2B, 3C, 4D, 5E, 6F, 7A

5 extreme new macaron flavours to attract food bloggers!

Flavours designed to entice food bloggers are a chink in the armour of even the most panoplied patisserie. Bandwagon Magazine, as always, is here to help.

Horse manure

We recommend only using the manure of a horse with traceable pedigree. A horse that has been finished on grass will yield superior results to those that are finished on grain.

For the filling
6g sheet gelatin
350ml milk
150gm organic horse manure.

Soak gelatin in cold water for 15 minutes. Soak horse manure in milk and strain through muslin. Remove gelatin from cold water, heat in saucepan and add the strained milk. Pipe filling into macarons.

Lube

You should never cook with a personal lubricant that you wouldn't drink yourself.

For the filling
Squeeze lube into the centre of the macarons, directly from tube.

Cuban cigar ash

Nothing says luxury like the burnt remnants of leafy crop grown in a Communist dictatorship. At step 11, add 50gms of cigar ash.

Pocari Sweat

Nobody knows what Pocari Sweat is, but what we do know is that it tastes the same as the tears of Pierre Hermé, weeping as a child upon discovering that his parents were forcing him into the pastry industry.

For the filling
6g sheet gelatin
350ml Pocari Sweat

Soak gelatin in cold water for 15 minutes. Remove gelatin from cold water, heat in saucepan and add Pocari Sweat. Pipe filling into macarons.

Food Coloring

The deep irony behind macarons is that nobody can ever pick any of the separate flavours. At step 10, add a few drops of food coloring.

Macaron Pro Tips

• The most common reason for failed macarons is that your life is a failure. Why else would you be obsessing over baked goods?
• Egg whites used in macarons should be aged in lead-lined box inside your home’s cheese cave (Bandwagon’s preferred cheese cave diggers are listed in the advertising section and kindly sponsored this post)
• After piping the macarons onto a silicon baking mat, allow them to sit for 22 minutes before placing them in the oven, while you weep inconsolably about the inconsistently piped macarons. Hide in your cheese cave so that nobody will notice.

Ingredient formula

By now, you have probably memorised this formula. To refresh your memory.

Ingredient		Amount
Almond meal		1.44 x eggwhite
Icing sugar		1.25 x almond meal
Sugar		1.28 x icing sugar
Water		0.325 x almond meal
Egg white

Method

1. Divide the egg white into two equal amounts, placing one half in a small bowl and the other into a lead-lined box to age (see pro tips).
2. Stack two heavy baking trays. Line the top tray with silicon mat. Line the bottom tray with another heavy baking tray. Line the top tray with the bottom tray. Draw some lines on the silicon mat in the shape of macarons.
3. Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan and leave to stand for two days. Scrape off any mold that grows.
4. Blend the icing sugar and almond meal in your home colloid mill to achieve a fine powder. Any leftover powder can be pressed into pills and sold to indiscriminate drug users.
5. Place the sugar and water in the saucepan over low heat, until it reaches 117.4oC
6. Beat the egg white in your small bowl until it makes firm peaks and a gentle cooing sound. 
7. Set the beater to the “ambulatory” setting and slowly pour the syrup into the beaten egg 
8. Once the syrup is added, increase the beater’s speed to “fast gallop” and beat for 14 minutes until the meringue warms to your human touch. 
9. Pour the egg white retrieved from the cave (see pro tips) onto the almond/icing sugar powder. Pour on the beaten, cooing egg white. 
10. Mix the ingredients with a spatula using a Brownian motion around, across or through the bowl.
11. Add the extra flavouring ingredients, and pipe onto the silicon mat.
12. Bake at 161oC for 19 mins.
13. Remove from oven and attempt to peel from tray; contemplate the crumbled mess that your life has become.

Mongrel Lap-Dog Bites back!

“Where are the mongrels of the blogging community? The dissenting voices? The anarchists?”

Was this a cry for Yelp? A lamenting geyser for Trip Advisor? A lampoon of Urban Spoon? A wishful epilogue for Menu Log? No, these forums are apparently OK.  

No this was Food Blogger Baiting on a slow news day. 

Disconcertingly, for someone apparently ahead of the curve, his was a late arrival in the snaking conga line of professional journalists who get stuck into bloggers. We’ve heard it all before,

They take freebies blah blah. They are sell-outs, blah blah. Yawn.

I will give credit where credit is due though; Food bloggers as PR Lap-dogs is Gold!

Firstly let us tell you how he arrived at this point.

Many moons ago lived a reviewer who wielded a mighty power. He cut a divisive swathe through the restaurant scene and all dutifully fell into line behind his judgment lest they be cast to the ‘outer’.

After some time at the top of his game a rival paper lured him away and like Mick Malthouse he found himself suiting up in the wrong teams’ colours.

It was then as if overnight, he vanished from view, his powers dissipated and his opinions unheeded...

Meanwhile his new employers began to rattle their sabres. ‘We thought you had everyone’s ear? You’re supposed to be the big Cheese’ they said, their words stinging.

Something had to be done to regain his grip on influence.

Flicking through the Critics Playbook he arrived at page 45 and the chapter entitled,

‘How to take down a legend’.

He gobbled up the instruction and before we knew it, a venerable restaurant in every state had been roasted without mercy.

The readership spiked and the bosses re-sheathed their cutlasses. He could breathe easy again.

For a while that is.

Once again he needed to appease his masters.

Whilst dancing to the papers pipers tune he desperately threw ideas at the board until one of them stuck.

‘A fifty hottest list you say?’ they said glancing approvingly at each other.

‘Why yyyyes, it’ll be huge, all of those jokers will fall over themselves to be included’ he stammered, relieved.

The circulation spiked again and the chiefs were appeased.

He wasn’t going to let this uncertainty happen again and so he devised a plan to fan the flames of his audience by baiting those amateur critics out there.

But for ho long will this desperate scheme last? Isn’t it better to make yourself relevant in an ever changing world? As the bloggers Stat-Counters demonstrate, content is King.

If we could draw a comparison between the reviewer in question and Kim Jong Un, it would go like this: 

Both suffer from an attention seeking disorder, both feel the need to exercise power by baiting their detractors and it seems everyone thinks they’d do a better job than themselves.

Thankyou, for bringing out the mongrel in us.

the secret world of Cook it Raw-we open the door!

'Who are, who are, who are we..C'mon dudes, chant it in time for crissakes!'

We had a good old belly laugh here at Bandwagon with the re-publication of Tony Bourdains article on Cook it Raw in this weeks Melbourne Epicure.

If ever an article jumped the shark it was this one.

Restaurants are about consistency and the chance to be creative for creativities sake is almost impossible-said Bourdain.

We nearly fell over backwards laughing so hard!

Those poor chefs! I hope none of them hack off their ears like Van Gogh or top themselves due to creative angst?!

Luckily there is a sanctuary of sorts in the form of Cook it raw.

Quite a brilliant marketing idea really. Get a whole bunch of invite-only uber-chefs together, form a club or push of sorts, set them out in the wild to forage and hunt and then come back to the kitchens and come up with something so highbrow that most people looking for a hot dinner won’t understand.

That makes sense. Not.

Are these chefs cooking for themselves or their customers or worse, the recognition of their peers? Oh and we should say ‘dudes’. That’s right; so far not one female chef in the whole world has been invited!

When we began to sniff around and make some enquiries about Cook it raw we ran into several shut doors. It seems the machinations of this clandestine sect are not for the publics’ eye. In fact the process of invitation is a well kept secret.

However a chance meeting in Lappeenranta, Finland, last year with a high ranking McDonalds executive and one of bandwagons more comely staff reporters in a local bar divulged some incredible intel.

From what we can gather and this is yet to be confirmed, McDonalds has not only instigated the Cook it raw initiative but has bankrolled the whole shebang! The theory was if they could get all these self-obsessed chefs away from their stoves to navel-gaze out in some field in Jutland or whatever then come back to their kitchen and cook this way out stuff-then their customers would leave and come back in droves to McDonalds.

A chillingly clever ploy and one that we’re keen to see play out. Have these uber-chefs been duped into believing their own publicity? Only time will tell.

Foodie feud-Conran Vs Lander

I have watched enough Scorsese to 'Gangsta-it-up'

Vs.

Please don't call me a Moby Look-a-like

Sir Terence Conran has come out swinging at his omission from Nicolas Landers latest book, 'The Art of the Restaurateur’. After months of dignified silence, ‘Big Ted’ as he is affectionately known by employees, exploded in a fury when local reporter, Shaz Mayberry, from the Kidderminster Shire Gazette enquired: ‘How does it feel to be left out of the most important book on restaurants ever written?’

After trashing the Tudor dining room in the ‘Buggered Badger’ pub on Kidderminster Common  ‘Big Ted’ went on a two day rampage throughout the shire ending with a police standoff at the gazettes printing press.

Nicolas Lander explained that years ago he was told by door staff at Conan’s Mezzo that they were fully booked and he’s held a grudge ever since, 'I mean, does that man not know whom I was to become?!'

‘Leaving Ted out of the book’ was a no-brainer really', he said before excusing himself to attend to his latest book, ‘Important chefs in the world I’m going to ignore’.

Bandwagon thinks this feud is far from over.

What Gollum says:

“We hates’es these cooking shows precious. We’ll wait till they’s asleeps and we’ll slit their throatsies!”

‘We cant do that! too many hobbitsies love those showsies, they’ll cry Hobbitsy tears!’

“Shut up, we hates em so much, we want to scratch out the tellie screen and stomps on it!”

We rate the current fads in restos for making life difficult for punters

We’ll declare our hand here and state that we like our dinner to look like dinner, our lunch to be recognizable and our breakfast familiar.

So what is with restaurants these days going out of their way to make it harder and harder for us to eat? Bandwagon marks these current trends out of ten for hardness.

• First try and find the place. It’s usually down an alley, up some stairs, across some roof and don’t bother looking for any signage, there won’t be any 8/10

Harry Potter can suck on this!

• As they don’t take bookings there’ll be a queue. 7/10

Is this the Pink Floyd Reunion queue?

• Then there’ll b the inevitable communal tables. 7/10

It stays cleaner without customers

• These places are usually staffed by people who rotate from one hotspot to another and in the process become dulled to any kind of enthusiasm for the job or the people they serve. 8/10

Those bitches are giving us a bad name on MKR?

• Then there’ll be the drinks list of obscure stuff no ones ever heard of and all the wines are orange-even the reds. 6/10

• They offer bread. Great I hear you say. However it will probably arrive in a box with a lid as it did at an establishment we recently visited AND they are stingy with it! What’s next, a padlock on the box as well? 5/10

How the fuck do I open this?

• The menu will be a fixed price set menu. It’s too bad if you’d hoped to choose your own dinner. 8/10

• Predictably the menu will have a Nordic/Spanish/Japanese undercurrent or whatever the San Pellegrino 50 best restaurant list decrees to be the next new culinary country hotspot. Except, no Antler powder? Det er OK, we’ll just substitute Crocodile fingernails. A lack of native Andalusian sea lettuce, no hay problema, we’ll just bung in some seaweed from Bronte beach. 7/10

We are NOT Reindeer fuckers!

Goooooooooooooooooal!                                                                        

Please dont put me on the Kimodo

• In fact nearly everything on the menu will have been scavenged from night-cart laneways to festering city creeks. 8/10

Excellent! the shit-cart hasn't collected yet!

We search high tide and low tide

• Sadly you’ll probably be served by some grubby, black finger-nailed, lank-haired, unshaven or ridiculously bearded, heavily pierced and/or inked, saggy-pants wearing chef. 7/10

Hi I'm Hansel & I'll be serving youse tonight

• The so-called Restaurant Garden, more accurately described as a nature strip with a tired and woody rosemary shrub will provide the solitary purple petal which adorns the meagre amount of the only protein you’ll be offered this evening, a postage stamp sized shave of -semen score 9, wagyu testicle. 9/10

We're proud of our our kitchen garden, "Wozza, keep the Camira off the strip will ya!"

'You've really got to get in close, you, know, to check freshness'

• The same place is probably already busy trying to locate sizeable quantities of farmed spiders like this one in the hip town of Santa Antonio da Platina in Brazil, rumoured to be the current foodie hotspot but they’ll probably have to make do with Daddy Long Legs. 7/10
• You won’t be able to hear your partners voice as the hens night next one side of you and the Deaf couple on your other side will be competing for aural superiority. 7/10

• Oh and forget about getting any spuds, rice or pasta-these places don’t believe in it. 8/10

• You’ll leave hungry. 8/10

• The whole debacle will cost you an arm and a leg. 9/10

That wasn't so bad?

Another restaurant launches on Flinders Lane

Melbourne news bite

Another chef who worked for both Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay and once attended a masterclass given by Melbourne's Sharon Bennett is opening a contemporary restaurant on Flinders Lane.

"Flinders Lane is the new Lygon Street, " he said and we plan to do nothing different. Called Variations he plans to openly copy and plaguarise some of the most cherished dishes in Australia including sliders, burgers, Asian street food and a mod Oz variation on tacos.

"You'll be able to start with a Golden Fields lobster roll or a mini wagyu burger, nobu Kingfish and Jalapeno or even a variation on Rosa Mitchell's anti-pasta.

Desserts will steal from the likes of the Phillipa Sibley Snickers Bar and Adriano Zumbo desserts he learnt to cook watching Masterchef episodes on the internet.

"Also we've learnt from Andrew McConnell and Chin Chin and will be launching with a  website simultaneoulsy with a social media and press campaign, which will involve posting large parcels of branded merchandize to anyone who is foolish enough to make their mailing address public.

"We'll also bring some lessons I've learnt from dining on Lygon Street,  he said. "We'll have hawkers on the door and use cheap bait to get diners in before surprising them with a menu that has two price tiers, one specially designed for tourists.

Try this at home

Hi Bandwagon, whilst in Rio de Janeiro a few months ago I had some of the most incredible rat-embryo donuts from a street vendor, could you persuade the vendor to give up his recipe please? Lyndon Bradley, Gawler.

Hi Lyndon,

We tracked him down but it was a challenge! Do you know how many men’s hostels there are in the Favela?! Here it is. regards the Bandwagon team

3 cups flour

1 palm sugar

500ml Coke

20g sock yeast

1 cup palm oil

8 to 10 embryos cut up

Mix everything together but save the embryos for the topping. Let it prove in the Favela under barbed wire(so no one steals it) Portion into balls before pushing the portioned embryos into them and fry until golden, dust with sugar or cornflour, whatever’s cheaper.

Restaurant Reviews

Restaurant review:

All you can eat Scavenge Hunt

 

chefs carefully forage whilst you enjoy a drink at the bar

• Where- Double Bay, NSW
• How much- pricey
• Chef- Cedric Ling
• Menu-Eclectic
• Booze-Lots of half bottles
• Vibe-Relaxed if quiet but scary when busy
• Highs-being able to choose
• Lows-Seagulls

The Team from Merseyvale have pulled one straight outta the box for their latest venture in the Emerald city. High hurricane mesh separates the diner from the main rd but not the aroma which entices from the street.

So much thought has gone into this place and the attention to detail is, well it’s astonishing. From the crumpled menu options to the distressed look on the staffs faces, the faint whiff of urine to the halitosis on the waiters breath-everything is pitch perfect. And the food?

How does ‘Rummaged bacon rinds in chip paper’ sound for starters? Followed by ‘Pecks n Nosh’ a tribute of sorts to David and Posh Beckham who the chef once cooked for arrives in the form of a half opened jar of fish paste, some dumpster dived melba toasts served on a discarded Prada high heel. Genius!

We finished with some de-constructed toffee apples. Its early days but the signs are good so dive into this dump before the hungry crowds descend!

What would Amy drink? beverage reviews

What Amy would drink…

Beverage review for the discerning

This week…Dirt Cheap Beer

Cost- $1.00 a can, $7 a six pack or $20 a slab

Where-Roving Beer Sales, check social media like Twitter or Facebook for updates and locations.

Taste-thin, with a kick

Get the job done? Three can buzz. Eight can nightclub fight.

Score-7/11

Ask Auntie

Ask Auntie.

Alvina de Whit has been a long serving member of the Scone NSW branch of the CWA since she was married off to the then Mayor’s son Kelvin de Whit in 1948 in what locals still remember as the best arranged marriage they’ve ever seen. In this column she shares her no nonsense approach to good cooking.

Dear AA,

I find that when I drink milk in milkshakes I feel ‘bloated’ afterwards, am I Lactose Intolerant?

Cheyenne Le Cornu, Coolangatta

AA, No, you’ve just got wind. Harden up.

Dear AA,

My pies sag in the middle, what am I doing wrong?

Bruce Aberfeldy, Acton Park

AA: Don’t be so stingy with the filling.

Dear AA,

Is Nutella a healthy sandwich spread for kids?

Carolyn Quigley, Subiaco

AA: Are you a moron or what?

Overheard at table....Food goss

So Hugh Farty what’s his face has recruited an Australian disciple to feature in a spin-off of his UK show a River Cottage. Well Hughsie-do your homework mate, we’ve already got a River Cottage Show, it’s called the Gourmet Farmer so stop pinching our ideas you speccy twat!

Adelaide’s Penfolds Magill Estate restaurant has yet again lost another head chef-I’ve lost count there’s been so many. Seems management and the chef were growing in different directions-Management grew up.

New feature length movie about the Sydney food scene is being cast and Actors Equity are already up in arms over the rumoured signing of Steven Segal to play, wait for it, Neil Perry!

Ever eager to keep ahead of the food trends, the Melbourne Tub Group has just arrived back from touring the worlds’ slums. ‘Its just so exciting what they’re doing in these primitive and depressing conditions and we can’t wait to translate it for a Melbourne audience’ said newly appointed CEO Brian Wilson. Fit-out to be done by seven degrees.

In what Bandwagon believes to be an emerging trend, many chef owners are quitting their businesses for the comfort and stability of drawing a wage within large restaurant groups. In what appears to be a win/win situation, the group gets an injection of cred whilst the chef get to do what they do best-get more media exposure.

A new Easter chocolate treat with from left-field has hit the shelves. Stephen Shanabrook who made worldwide headlines with his ‘Suicide Bomber remains cast in chocolate’ which was acquired by David Walsh of Hobart’s much lauded MONA museum, has released a range of chocolate body parts and judging by the sales we’d say it’s a hit!

‘I can’t keep up with making the male genitalia though’, Stephen joked, ‘everyone likes that little bit extra chocolate’.

Tour dates have yet to be announced for the comeback of sorts for some of the notable foodies from the 70’s and 80’s to the present day. Graham Kerr, Keith Floyd, Peter Russell Clark, Aristos, Ian Parmenter, James Reeson, Ken Hom, Ainsley Harriot, Paul Mecurio, Huey and the entire cast of Lifestyle Café. Organisers haven’t yet settled on a venue small enough.

Want to be a kitchen star? Are you the next Jamie, Nigella or Bill? BottomFeederMedia are searching for the next cooking TV Reality star with a twist.

‘The Wheelchair Rambling Cook’, is searching for a wheelchair bound foodie for its new series based on changing perceptions of people cooking with disabilities. Please note, you must be able to speak clearly-no deafs, mutes or other deformities will be accepted.