Australia on my mind...

I’ve just eaten my way through an entire continent.

My trip to Australia began on a culinary high-note. Barely over the jet lag – I threw on a black dress for dinner with my Australian editor at Vue de Monde. (The chef, Shannon Bennett, and I had a session together at the Writers at the Convent festival later that week. What a girl won’t do in the name of research!)

Our tasting menu began with kangaroo tartare on a slice of crisp green apple, presented on a slice of polished wood. The experience was more theatre than dinner. Shannon’s cuisine is not about comfort food or grandma’s cooking – the thrill is precisely that you could never do this at home.

My favorite course was a rather unlikely salad of cauliflower mousse, a few leaves of kale and some neatly curled daikon, topped with scattered pearls of ruby tapioca, which had been pickled in cassis. The sauce – brought to the table in a chemistry lab beaker – was a mixture of cucumber water and dill oil. It was a marvelous ensemble of flavors and textures; together they were as refreshing as a mid-meal sorbet.

We ended with a deconstructed cheese-cake with raspberry bubbles. I repeat, raspberry bubbles. The most exciting part of dinner, however, was when Shannon stopped the table, said he was going to the farmer’s market on Saturday and did I want to tag along? Mais, oui!

Being the enfant terrible of Australian cuisine (and a former model) – Shannon has groupies. (I was told I could sell the velvet backed card with his cell phone number on ebay for a foodie fortune.) We met several fellow chefs wandering around the market, but the real purpose of our trip was to locate an elusive organic carrot man who is harder to get hold of than your average celebrity. The carrot guy took us round back to examine a crate of Easter-egg colored turnips and baby carrots. Shannon was looking for white carrots – with the snap and mild flavor of baby parsnips. The carrot connoisseur told us that carrots started out purple (he thought in Afghanistan) – and the orange ones we eat everyday were bred by the Dutch – perhaps to honor the royal family of William of Orange. That’s a bit of vegetable folklore I hadn’t heard before. If I can ever figure out how to use my Bluetooth – I’ll post some photos…

It is high summer in Australia at the moment, so the farmer’s market was full of rhubarb and heirloom tomatoes. How weird and wonderful – to experience the seasons twice in one year

The Writers at the Convent festival was great fun – Shannon and I talked about our love of Paris, and I had a session on my own on Sunday (which, rather appropriately for Lunch in Paris, was Valentine’s Day). The Australians are so passionate about travel. They love to discuss journeys – real and imagined. During the week, I did a ton of radio and print interviews – and met with many independent booksellers (who, gloriously, still hold huge sway in Australia). Frankly, I was feeling euphoric – being out there talking to readers. Back in front of my computer in Paris, I sometime forget how much I enjoy talking to actual people.

I did have a bit of downtime in Sydney – which I spent eating a great lunch (and getting a wicked sunburn) at the local fish market.

It was the week of Chinese New Year –so we had to fight our way past large families eating 10 lb lobsters and crabs as big as your family cat. The Australians are blessed with an incredible variety of seafood – oysters by the bucket, gorgeous iridescent blue crabs and tough-guy mud crabs. We choose our rock lobster, then took it over to the grill and ten minutes later – voila! We made a valiant effort with plastic knives and forks for about ten minutes – then gave up and dug in with our hands. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

An existential question nagged at me all week: Is it wrong that while I’m missing my husband and my son to pieces – I’m really loving the hotel bathtub?

Only one regret - I found neither a lamington (traditional Aussie dessert of sponge cake, chocolate syrup and coconut), nor a pumpkin scone. Does anyone have grandma's recipe that they would care to share?

Off to the farmer’s market in San Francisco tomorrow morning – one of my favorite spots on earth.