Segment on Helwi Beirut, LBC (Lebanese Television)

During my recent trip to Lebanon, I recorded a short segment with my friend Barbara Abdeni Massaad, author of Mouneh and presenter of Helwi w Morra.  It was great fun and I made Barbara a dessert influenced by the flavours of the region: olive oil, labneh, lemons and pine nuts. Have a look.

SBS Featured Foodie

I’m this month’s Featured Foodie on SBS. There’s a nice interview for those interested in finding out a bit more about me. Click here to read it.

The Food Blog in Good Living

Today’s Good Living has an article on the chickpea degustation I hosted with Somer Sivrioglu from Efendy. This is a screen shot from the Good Living iPad app, since I don’t have access to the newspaper itself. As you’ll find out by reading this article, Somer and I are preparing for an eggplant themed dinner in October – I’ll give you more details when I have them. I’m pretty happy with this article and I think the photo of my chickpea and walnut trifle looks great. It’s a wonderful dessert, if I may say so myself, so go and try it at Efendy – Somer’s added it to his menu.

Everyday Eats

Here’s one for the book collection. Today, the Sydney Morning Herald’s new publication everyday eats has been released. I’m one of the contributors who reviewed for this fantastic book, which is similar to the SMH Good Food Guide, but focuses on restaurants offering great meals for under $30. This book will tell you where to go and what to order in places you probably never knew existed, or restaurants you never thought to try. And the great thing is they won’t break the bank. It was very fun contributing to this book, and my congratulations go to my friend and editor Angie Schiavone, who did an amazing job of getting everyday eats on the shelves.

everyday eats is selling at bookstores and newsagents for $24.95 or for $20 for SMH subscribers (through smhshop.com.au)
An iphone app is in the works and will cost $8.99

The Food Blog and SBS

Hello.

I’ve been recording many segments on Middle-Eastern food for SBS, and they’ve started putting them on the SBS website, which is very exciting.

Unlike most of my previous interviews, these ones are in English, and if I may say so myself, they are very interesting.

It would be great if you could go and have a listen, and possibly leave a comment. It will encourage SBS to extend my contract, and that will support me in my coming days of unemployment

NOTE: These are audio interviews. The SBS website is somewhat counter-intuitive, so look for the play button under the heading “Listen”.

Click here to listen to my episode on burghul and here to listen to my episode on yoghurt. Don’t let me down. Go and comment, I’m counting on you!

The Food Blog in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Living

Exciting news everyone! Yesterday’s Good Living, part of the Tuesday Sydney Morning Herald, had a full page article written by me!

You can click here to see the article as it appeared, or you can click here to read it directly off the SMH website. Needless to say, I’m over the moon. I never imagined a story telling Lebanese boy would end up published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

My Mate Rick Stein and I

We just like hanging out together, that’s all…

702 ABC – The Food Blog on Evenings with Robbie Buck

Talk about serendipity. Do you remember the pumpkin kibbe post? The one a couple of posts down? My friend Eddie was invited to join the feast and her husband Ludwig ate most of the pumpkin kibbe. Two days later, Robbie Buck is talking pumpkins and pumpkin recipes on 702 ABC. So Eddie calls up and talks about my pumpkin kibbe. Being the amazing person that she is, Eddie manages to get Robbie and his lovely producer Susan to have a look at my blog, which all would agree is a wonderful thing. And yesterday, I ended up in the ABC studios at 9 pm for my 15 minutes of fame. It happened to be Robbie’s birthday and I showed up with some Lebanese sweets to share around. We talked about how I got started in food, my background in Lebanon, Lebanese sweets, food and tradition and about my recent chestnut foraging. I also gave Robbie a recipe that gives away the secret to a perfect baba gannoush. I have to admit I was nervous at first, but Robbie is such a great guy, and an experienced interviewer that I was at ease after 5 seconds of talking to him. He lead the conversation, asking loads of questions, each of which I could have spent hours talking about. Have a listen to the interview and tell me if you heard it live, and what you thought of my radio personna. Do I sound anything like Frasier?

Click here to listen: The Food Blog Interview on Evenings with Robbie Buck