The start of a gastronomical journey

I’m not a huge movie watcher, so it comes as no surprise (being that the movie was released approximately 12 months ago) that I recently had the opportunity to see the movie Julie and Julia, starring Meryl Streep documenting Julie Powell’s real life project to cook every recipe in renowned American TV chef, Julia Child’s, first book.   

To complete the challenge she had to cook approximately one recipe a day for a whole year! and in doing so, documented her progress, thoughts and findings in a blog which became world famous and led to her being offered all sorts of journalist and writer jobs.

My motivation here is not to seek fame and fortune, but to share Rick Stein’s journey as documented in his 2009 book Far Eastern Odyssey, and also in his TV series of the same name. I am an avid watcher of cooking programs on television anyway, but I absolutely loved the Far Eastern Odyssey series. Rick Stein’s honest and passionate delivery of the subject matter – history of the countries, descriptions of the people, ingredients, cooking methods – is fantastic and you can just imagine yourself sitting at the street markets in Thailand or any of the other countries featured, savouring the food on offer.

I am also looking forward to trying the different flavour combinations, and using ingredients that I have never even heard of before! I will be doing this all from my kitchen in Canberra, Australia, and sourcing all of my ingredients from local supermarkets, food markets and asian specialty stores. My partner Elizabeth has bravely volunteered to be my “guinea pig” and taste tester, and to publicly rate my dishes on this blog. My goal is to cook one recipe a week ( far removed from Julie Powell’s optimistic effort to cook one recipe a day). This is achievable for me, and enable me to live a normal life ,whilst pursuing my far eastern odyssey!

You can find my posts by clicking on My Blog up in the top menu on this page.  Share my journey with me, and please feel free to comment along the way. Hopefully it will inspire you as well!