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Posts from the Gastronomy Category

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We went to Kinfolk as part of our weekly office lunch, and given its just around the corner from our office, it might be a regular feature.

Now that its open, the fitout and design is remarkable, considering its almost all constructed of donated materials and labour. The food, also, is exceptional.

I went to The Hive’s gathering of entrepreneurs, where Jarrod from Kinfolk spoke. A project 2 years in the making, its quite remarkable to see where its at, but also the level of commitment required to get this off the ground. While some on the night argued that a means-end analysis of $ given to each charity would be better optimised if the staff got a regular job and contributed their wage accordingly, giving in this way doesn’t raise a profile or make each individual giver (ie, each diner) aware of the bigger picture.

It raises the question – how sustainable is a social enterprise?

I had the privilege of doing a Monday morning volunteering stint at the Belgium Avenue Neighbourhood House in Richmond, part of the City of Yarra. The wonderful Nga is a social worker who runs the cooking program there, where we cooked for about 30 people who attended the free English classes at the Neighbourhood House.

Alas, all good things have to come to an end, but if you’d like to volunteer there, you can contact me and I’ll pass your details onto Nga. She also has an availability at the Collingwood Neighbourhood House on Tuesday mornings. And you’ll get a fantastic Vietnamese cooking lesson every week for free!

Check out Sensory Lab at David Jones – I bought some coffee from there recently.

I just listened to a podcast from the brains behind Sensory Lab, Sal Malatesta, on The Hive’s podcast channel. Loved the passion that comes out, and the leaps he takes to get this and other initiatives off the ground. Moreso, I love the mutual benefits he’s managed to achieve.

He invests $20k into a coffee farm in Ethiopia so that they can best filtrate and purify the water, and provide good irrigation techniques to ensure the best quality ‘green’ (that’s coffee speak of bean off the plant). Then, he purchases the single origin green direct from the farm, and can be ensured of the highest quality product and one of only a few suppliers of it. If that doesn’t demonstrate exclusivity, excellence and social enterprise, I don’t know what will!

Cup of excellence – go get it there!

The other gastronomically left-field idea I had was to create a dinner club called Secret Supper. Here’s how it works:

  • A list of interested people who like fine dining is drawn up
  • One date per quarter is selected by the organiser, and this is communicated to the mailing list, who express their interest if they are available
  • The restaurant choice itself is based on these rules:
    • a different restaurant each time
    • a new cuisine
    • a new suburb
    • money is no object
  • Diners are only informed of the restaurant via cryptic clues on the morning of the date via SMS – they must solve these clues in order to find the restaurant
  • Diners aren’t aware who’s coming to dinner
  • The diners convene at the restaurant and enjoy a fine dining meal amongst new friends

The assumptions here is that people want to dine with other strangers. This, I’ve found, isn’t necessarily the case. Some people thrive on familiarity and comfort. Me – I thrive on meeting new people, listening to their stories and finding out what makes them passionate – I love that!

Interesting to see if this will work, but only time will tell. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll get that mailing list happening – all you need to start it is a table for 6.

This is a hybridisation of the Masterchef phenomenon with increased singledom. I’m calling it just+1.

At the risk of sounding like a bad lonely hearts idea, this involves the hijacking of a local restaurant on the one night a week that they are closed, or perhaps a cafe that is only open during the day. There is one designated cook on a rotating roster who has the privilege of cooking for a whole bunch of strangers, serving up the food to whomever comes in through the door. At the cost of a normal takeaway alternative, diners have a home cooked meal in their local neighbourhood where they can drop in and leave as they please, or hang out with new friends.

Purpose? So that when you’re working late and get home to an empty apartment, you don’t have to think about cooking. And you have somewhere non-committal but interesting to go on a rainy Monday night when you really don’t want to be alone watching reruns of American sitcoms. Whether it serves a niche on a continual basis is yet to be determined, but the novelty factor exists.

I think this has the opportunity of building community, and hopefully won’t stop in its initial gestation period and not hit the ground running.

What we need to make it work:

  • a mailing list of interested people willing to participate both as cooks and diners
  • a willing restaurant/cafe space (is this where Kinfolk comes in?) that will allow non-chefs to use their space and equipment
  • regular droppers by
  • financial backing for ongoing operations as well as funding for food

What do you think? Are you on board?