Stomachs on legs are proud to present

A couple of years back I had a week in Ethiopia.

After the anglophone part of deep East Africa, Ethiopia felt a bit like Europe.

One of the reasons is that their lovely Italian style macchiato... not to mention Ethiopia's superb coffee.

I know there are plenty of bad things about colonization, but like French style café's and baguettes in Laos, the Europeans have left some yummy trails.

But the huge greasy spaghetti that came with a pile of fries was less European... was more African, for their love of carbo and fries.


After a couple of tries of European style dishes and having learned that they are huge carbo-grease bombs, I started to stick with Ethiopian food.

I was trying to de-meat my diet while in Ethiopia, having felt I had so much meat in East Africa.

Fish goulash was one of the few choices on regular days.

But on vegetarian days - the Ethiopian orthodox church sets two days a week as vegetarian days - the restaurants have nice vegetarian specials.


I had this in Lalibela. Several bean stews and salad.

I was in Lalibela for the Ethiopian Christmas. I sat down with a French photographer staying at the same lodge, who ordered himself some meat stew dish, but kept stealing my bean stew... I thought French men were nicer.


I had this deluxe one in Addis Ababa. I wish the vegetarian special was available seven days a week!

He may by all appearances to be obsessed with Thai food, however Austin Bush, of Real Thai fame (now Austin Bush Photography Food Blog) and a close pal of David Thompson secretly whips up Italian comfort food at home just like the rest of us.

I know he just sent me photos of his dinner.

Swiss Chard Frittata


Grilled Eggplant Pasta


Austin says "The chard fritatta was actually really nice. The pasta simple, but good too. I think I'm going to make just about everything in that Bittman piece soon."

This from a man that stares at me blankly when I say I can't eat Thai food for every meal. It does look yummy though

This is a guest post by apple muffin expert/Melbourne promoter & DJ/gypsy-type Clare Bousfield aka Bellaphonic, who has just finished a 6-month sabbatical in a secret outpost near Roma.

Says Clare: "Give this a try – can’t beat a three ingredient dinner!"

Red Raddicchio
(for rough pastas, i.e. Those with lines, penne rigate etc..)

1lb Radicchio (cleaned and dried. Slice thin into julienne strips)
3oz Bacon (must be smoked. Slice super thin, almost see through, then stack the strips and slice all the way down the stack, so you have thin strips)
1cup cream

Put bacon in the pan on high heat so fat melts and bacon roasts. Continue until bacon is nicely browned
Add radicchio, continue to incorporate flipping from bottom up. You will see the radicchio turn brown. Keep the heat high or the radicchio will lose its water and boil instead of fry
When radicchio is all brown, add cream. Then pepper and salt to taste. Lower fire and cook for 4-5 minutes until cream thickens a bit. If preparing ahead, stop cooking almost immediately and wait until pasta is boiling to cook for 2 more minutes.
Mix in al dente pasta and serve with fresh parmigiano.

mmm... deliciously bitter goodness!

X clare

It was a lovely warm easter weekend in New Zealand, and out in West Auckland an informal home made pasta lesson took place. "It's easy" said Hock in the kind of way that Jaimie Oliver says things are easy and really they are time consuming and difficult.



With Hock over seeing, G&G rolled it and folded it and rolled it again, and when at first they failed...they tried again



First homemade pasta dish of the weekend involved our dead easter bunny....Hock and Ginny took charge of this. First they pan fried the loin and the kidneys, then they made a stew of rabbit, bacon and tuber veges with a light white wine and sage sauce. They served it with fresh "beginners home made pasta" parpadelle





And we drunk it with some damn good NZ wine.




Later that weekend the lesson continued and G&G graduated onto the ever tricky ravioli, stuffed with chicken. Hock pronounced, as resident chef, that the "ravioli must be sealed properly with no air bubbles otherwise it would split and we'll end up with a gruesome bowl of boiling water with bits of broken up pasta and poached mince meat."...He said and everyone looked horrified and set about double checking the ravioli for air bubbles and broken seals.

"Ravioli is difficult, that's why in the 1990s there was that time when everyone made one big ravioli, because making small ones is annoying and often disasterous".



But of course, it's not exactly rocket science either


We put basil, roasted tomato, mozzerlla and parmasan on top, well they did...I watched and drunk wine and complained about being hungry. Then they heated it in the oven, just enough for the cheese to go gooey.


Someone set the table


And we treated ourselves to another damn good bottle of NZ wine, a well earned bottle of Mt Difficulty. I love my sister and her wine cellar.



Papadelle hanging out to dry

Heston's got it all wrong. There is no one perfect anything.....From modernism to post-modernism in a pasta sauce....

The other day Chef and I went to lunch at Le Normandie where Thomas Keller (of French Laundry and Per Se fame) was guest chefing and decided to give it a go in the name of research for Chef's work. So we caught the skytrain down to the river hopped on the ye olde colonial Oriental barge and popped off in the beautifully manicured gardens reminicent of yet more ye oldie colonialism where we caught glimpses of Thai military generals having lunch (sufficiency economy indeed!) and foreign dignitaries pacing the lobby with self importance. We met some friends from San Francisco there who could never get a booking at his restaurant in the Nappa Valley and proceeded upstairs to the restaurant.

The food was....well more than sufficient. The signature dish of Keller "oysters and pearls" was probably the highlight, although I know that if I was to put an oyster with a big dolllop of caviar and cover it all in a butter sauce people would probably applaud me too, although I probably wouldn't be so sophomoric as to place inverted comments around it. It's long been a sign of insufferable pompousness for people to do the whole inverted comma thing when talking, I don't see why menus should be exempted from this judgement. But it was yummy and it did however almost inspire me to break into a modified version of Prince's song "diamonds and pearls".

Other dishes were more demure and tempered skill and technique with subtlely novel flavour pairings (jesus did I just say that?), like the artichoke agnolottti which was so delicate that it seemed as though the pasta had been made only seconds before. Also delicious was the Canadian lobster, great big chunks of claw meat scattered simply with celery leaves and a strange but tastey bread pudding. Although as Chef continued to point out during most of the courses that much of the food owed its succulence to the wonders of souvide cooking - a style of boil in the bag cookery that is basically fool proof when it comes to attaining moist juiciness, this didn't mean much to me as I stuffed tender morsel after tender morsel into my overpriviledge face. The only slightly disspointing course in the meal was the main course (it always is these days) which was basically a super luxe steak with glorified gravy, potatoes and vege. It was rather bland and boring for my liking but chef was rather awestruck by the potato prepared "mille-feuille", if one is allowed to be awestruck by a potato. He said it was an extremely difficult way to prepare a potato. But for me being the hack ametuer that I am, it was still just a potato. Potato poschmato.The bill was, a take-a-big-gulp-of-over-priced-wine-and-sign-away-your-life-for-the-next-few-months, type of bill....was it worth it? For chef yes definitely, a good chance to see what all the fuss is about, and gain some perspective on his own food. For me, well I'm just the lucky bitch who gets to tag along for kicks.

As for the restaurant and the overall atmosphere: well people say that the location of the French Laundry is magical nestled in the Nappa Valley amongst a french country garden, as for Le Normandie I had never been there before and probably never will again. Where Thomas Keller or any so called celebrity chef is a special night out on the town in a developed country, in Southeast Asia its strictly hi so. Le Normandie is all about old world airs and graces. It's dinner jackets and chandiliers, chintz and crystal, boufants and fats cats. Think Barbara Cartland, think Imelda and as I walked in I suddenly began to wish, for only once in my life, that chef was a rap star and that I was at least a pimped out rap star's girlfriend, so that we could at least dine as irreverently as possible in this most pretenious of surroundings. I had a few day dreams while dining of Chef and I as maybe the Wu Tang Clan and entourage making a grand entrance and ruffling the bouffants of a few conservative mega rich dragon ladies. Day dreams indeed, instead chef and I are of firmly middle class antipodean background (read equally uncomfortable in environments of both extreme wealth and extreme poverty) so there was no crystal champagne or swinging off the chandileirs in diamond encrusted thongs for us and instead we just oooohed and aahhhed where appropriate and tried to remember our table manners a la julia roberts pretty woman.

So, to be frank while we enjoyed the meal, the general unease I felt about dining amongst the over priviledged and elite of Bangkok, and the over the top oppulence of Le Normandie left me feeling rather nauseated at both myself, but more so at the regular dinners around me who seemed to be on first name familiarity with the staff there.

amuse my bouche!


oysters and pearls (no it's not the name of a bad prince song)


"agnolotti" of "sunchokes"


Lobster with bread thingy


Beef with technically difficult potato and other trying vegetables


pre-dessert palate cleansing goodness


Dessert dessert not nearly as rich as most of the patrons


Thomas Keller Le Normandie Bangkok -

food *****
price $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
atmosphere (whoops I just threw up a little bit in my mouth)