Otago writer, poet and conservationist Brian Turner's latest volume of poems, Elemental, celebrates his beloved Central Otago. He will be reading from it at the Otago Festival of the Arts in October. Charmian Smith reports.
New Zealand pinot gris is diverging into two styles - a lush, fruit-driven version with someresidual sweetness and sometimes overbearing alcohol, and a drier, more complex, style, often with somelees ageing or barrel fermentation.
British food writer Fuchsia Dunlop has explored many Chinese cuisines, as her earlier books, Sichuan Cookery and Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook (Hunan cuisine) show. Her latest, Every Grain of Rice, Simple Chinese Home Cooking (Bloomsbury), explores dishes from across China that people cook at home. Not surprisingly, many of the recipes are from Sichuan or Hunan, but she spreads her net wide.
Johanna Zellmer, from Germany, shows how to make herring salad.
They may be disabled old codgers but they are still as sharp as tacks and full of dreams and desires. Charmian Smith talks to the cast of Heroes, a special tribute to forgotten veterans, full of wit and humour, but with an underlying sadness and wistfulness.
The idea that through food you could describe or reconstruct a world is central to Claudia Roden's work searching out traditional recipes and their stories and histories.
William Sitwell's A History of Food in 100 Recipes (Collins) is a bit like a table of tapas or antipasto. The bite-sized essays inspired by recipes offer a taste of food through 4000 years although, as might be expected, there are more from recent times.
This tasting includes four single vineyard wines from Grant Taylor's Valli label. With more than 20 vintages in Central Otago, he knows each sub-region well and his wines reveal their origins if you taste carefully.
This week's tasting came from Chile and Argentina and ranged from simple drinkable reds to stylish concentrated, showy wines, velvety smooth, with lush fruit and a firm grip.
A journey from dark to light, rags to riches, the timeless story of Cinderella is brought to life, complete with wicked stepsisters and a wrathful stepmother, a charming fairy godmother, a handsome prince and, of course, a good and beautiful Cinderella. Charmian Smith talks to Christopher Hampson and Tracy Grant Lloyd, who created the Royal New Zealand Ballet's current touring production.
Molly Paul, whose family is from Kerala in India, shows how to make chicken curry.
Like the person who didn't know he was speaking prose until someone explained it to him, I've found out that I've been a vegivore for years.
Television cooking shows spawn numerous cookbooks. Another is Reza's Indian Spice: Eastern recipes for western cooks (Quadrille) by British/Indian celebrity chef Reza Mahammad of the television show Spice Prince of India.
Riesling relies on a steely backbone of acidity for its structure but this needs to be balanced by fruitweight and sometimes residual sugar. Gewurztraminer, on the other hand, is more about richness andoily texture, which needs a fresh acidity for balance. As always it's the balance of flavours andstructure that are important in a good wine.
Pairing food and wine has become a popular pastime among food lovers. Charmian Smith looks at some of the principles behind the pursuit of enhancing the dining experience with matches made in sybaritic heaven.
The 2012 Otago Festival of the Arts plays out over 10 days in October bringing a smorgasbord of acts from around the world, drawn from the worlds of theatre, dance, music, the written word and the visual arts. Here is just a taster of what's in store.
The Otago Festival of the Arts launched its programme last night - a line-up of spectacular and intimate, quirky and classic, avant garde, and family events. Charmian Smith talks with Alec Wheeler, the festival director.
The project to stage all Gilbert and Sullivan's operas over 11 years in the order in which they were written in the most authentic version, is believed to be unique in the world. As the final season approaches, Charmian Smith talks with Michael Andrewes, the driving force behind the project.
It's often said New Zealand wines don't cellar well compared with those from top European, and especially French and German, producers.
Richard Bullock, of Pure New Zealand Ice Cream in Wanaka, sent me some samples of his ice creams recently as his unusual flavours are now available in Dunedin at Deep Creek Deli (Eskrick Butchers) at the Gardens.
