Eat It

Today we spoke about some excellent eating we'd experienced during the week, at places such as Mahjong in St Kilda and Po Boy Quarter on Smith St.

Our good buddy Sebastian Reaburn had some great news during the week; his Anther gin just won AUSTRALIA'S BEST GIN at the recent Australian Distilled Spirits Awards, and we had a chat about what's happening in his post-win world.

We caught up with John at the Vic Market.

We finished today's show speaking with winemaker Duncan Buchanan. Almost all of the 2018 grapes are now off the vines and in the sheds, but it's been a really busy few weeks!

Today we had a quick market report from John, we spoke to Linda Catalano about her upcoming Melbourne Food and Wine Festival show One Suitcase, Four Stories, and we chatted to Janet Deneefe about her food festival event at Tolarno.

Today we spoke to Deakin University's Sze Yen Tan about his research into the different varieties of sugar, food writer Dani Valent about what not to eat during the Jewish observance of Passover, and checked in with winemaker Duncan Buchanan to see how vintage 2018 is travelling.

On today's show we mentioned the amazing Japanese food created at Kisume restaurant in Melbourne's CBD... how lucky are we to have so many cuisines in this town?

Italian is another cuisine Melbourne has covered, and none better than Tipo 00 on Little Bourke St. Chef Alberto Fava joined us to talk about the mysteries of pasta; what shapes go with what sauce?

We caught up with John at the Queen Vic Market.

Wine guru Max Allen popped in to tell us about his upcoming event at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. We tried to stump him with a blind tasting of a funky marsanne, but he picked it in one!

Have you ever heard of a condition called Orthorexia? We hadn't until recently, so we chatted to Dr Rosemary Stanton about what it is (a compulsion to only eat "clean" food) and how it's developed since the 1990s.

Victor Persinette is man who spends a lot of time underground at the Spring Street Grocer's cheese room. He popped in to speak about how to best mature cheese, how blue cheese is formed, and some of the history of various cheese varieties.

To finish today's show we spoke to the man behind Duckboard Place's Lee Ho Fook, Victor Liong. Originally from Sydney we chatted about how Melbourne is perhaps more open to progressive intepretations of Chinese cuisine, and also how he cooks his simple (but delicious) egglant dish.

Oh hey there errybody... we started today's show with a hint from Cam's FIRST EVER home-made creme brulee: use a spritzy water bottle alongside your brulee flame!

Nick Bennett is the chef at Melbourne's The Arbory, and he joined us to talk about tomorrow's fundraising event called Food for Thought. Some seriously big-name chefs are donating their time to raise funds for Beyond Blue and RUOK. There are still some tickets available, check it out over here.

Next up we spoke to John at the Victoria Market.

We finished today's show with a chat to pHd candidate Erin Cummin about seaweed. Victoria has over 1000 native varieties of seaweed, and it is amazingly useful not just as a food, but even as a fuel or clothing material. We spoke about the three main types of seaweed and what you can do with them.

Back for 2018! And we spent some time chatting about two of Victoria's amazing regional restaurants, Provenance in Beechworth and the Yarra Valley's Oakridge. We also marked the passing of the original Grand Chef de Cuisine, Paul Bocuse.

John's back at the market as well... so we spoke to him about summer produce.

We were joined in the studio by a couple of Eat It faves, co-editor of the Good Food Guide Roslyn Grundy and owner of Rumi and The Moor's Head Joseph Abboud. As well as modern food trends, we spoke about some of the reliable long-term options in Melbourne town. And look out towards the end of February for the opening of Joseph's new restaurant Saracen in Punch Lane.

Our last show for 2017! And we spoke about Christmas past, present, and future with Matt Wilkinson, Roslyn Grundy, Michael Harden, and Philippa Sibley.

We started today's show speaking about Matt's recently discovered Lentil Shepherd's Pie recipe, with its magic secret ingredient: soy sauce.

We love having Joost Bakker on the show and today he discussed his next project called FutureCave. He's working to transform an old Service Station site into a house that can grow enough food to sustain its residents. Once the place is approved, it will be the subject of an upcoming MadMan documentary series.

Good friend of Triple R Caterina Borsato popped into the studio to talk about her long running lunch-only restaurant Caterina's Cucina in the CBD. We spoke about the difficulties of running a restaurant as a business, the wave of Italian immigration in the 50s and 60s, and what the future holds for Italian cuisine.

It's a stormy weekend in Melbourne, and we started the show by acknowledging the awesome postal survey result this week... hooray for the "yes" vote, and bravo to progressive Melbourne!

Anyway back to food, and we spoke to Andrew Kavasalis about the recent law change allowing the production and sale of low-THC hemp for consumption in Australia. We're lagging the world in this, however hemp seed is a very nutritious food that is easy to grow, and vegan-friendly. It tastes a little like nuts, and much like almonds you can even make milk from it. Hopefully you'll see some on restaurant menus and store shelves very soon.

The man behind the CBD's Pastuso, Alejandro Saravia made the trip into Brunswick to talk about Peruvian food, and specifically Empanada. His Fitzroy eatery Che serves up many varieties, and we spoke about how to make them at home, as well as the many differing varieties of chillies available around the world.

We finished by chatting to Professor James Dale about the growing worldwide crisis for banana growers. There is a soil-borne fungus that is slowly infecting the worldwide crops of our favourite banana, the Cavendish. Affected plantations can take up to 40 years to recover from the disease, and Professor Dale is part of a team working on a GM solution to increase the natural resistance to this threat.