Confessions of a fussy, flying foodie

The first thing I packed for my recent trip to Berlin was not the typical essentials like my passport or plane tickets. It was a 500g bag of quinoa and some rice cakes.

For the past eight weeks, I’ve been on a dietician-imposed elimination diet that has meant no gluten, lactose or fructose and saying goodbye to a whole range of vegetables and legumes for two months. It was overwhelming at first. But after feeling bloated and nauseas every afternoon for many months I was up for the challenge in the hope of determining the culprit.

After an initial shock factor, it has been surprisingly easy (although admittedly time-consuming and a little tedious) to maintain. Except when it has come to eating out. With such complex dietary requirements, I’ve been housebound at mealtimes. So you can imagine the anxiety I felt when my long-anticipated Berlin holiday fell just before the end of the elimination phase.

Luckily for me, and anyone else with allergies, intolerances or simply certain food preferences, Berlin has come up with the (gluten-free) goods that will allow even the fussiest of eaters to enjoy their city break.

Self-Catering

Firstly, for those planning to cook, there’s no need to waste precious luggage space on food supplies. Quinoa, rice cakes and all kinds of gluten and lactose-free foods, as well as fruit, vegetables, baking goods, cheese and more, can be found at Bio Company, an organic whole food supermarket chain with 26 locations across Berlin. If one isn’t near you, there are locally run whole food stores in most neighbourhoods. For fresh produce, the brilliant Turkish Market along the canal in Kreuzberg is on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Further north a recently revived market hall, Markthalle IX, plays host to a lively food market Thursday nights and all day Friday and Saturday. Local farmers and food producers attend, so you can pick up artisan cheese or bread to take away, or linger and enjoy melt-in-your-mouth pulled pork from Big Stuff Smoked BBQ, vegan burgers from Kantine Neun or smoked fish from Glut & Spaene.

Images: Flowers at theTurkish Market from Stil in Berlin,  Big Stuff Smoked BBQ from Berlin Food Stories, stalls setting up at Markthalle IX from Colour Me Blind, fresh produce and delicious cuisine at Markthalle IX from Stil in Berlin.

Breakfast 

For Aussie-style breakky, try Melbourne Canteen in Kreuzberg. Eggs are cooked how you like them and served alongside a mix-and-match selection of delicious sides including perfectly crispy bacon, cherry tomatoes and garlic mushrooms. The menu is in both German and English, handy for those of us not so familiar with Deutsch and trying to avoid certain foods. As you would expect from a café inspired by Melbourne, the coffee is also exceptional.

Image: Exterior of Melbourne Canteen from the blog Berlin Day Life.

Lunch/Dinner

Further down the same road is Lupus, a café/restaurant open all day serving locally sourced, organic dishes. The menu offers lots of gluten-free and vegan options alongside meat dishes, catering for everyone. With a beautiful, rustic interior, and ample outdoor seating, it’s the kind of place where a breakfast of quinoa-cranberry museli could very quickly turn into an evening of black bean burgers and cucumber pomegranate salad.

For dinner, my favourite spot was Vietnamese restaurant Chi Chu located on the lovely green square of Laustizer Platz. Choose from inexpensive, fresh Pho soups or one of the many rice and veggie variations. Sit outside and enjoy the buzz of the neighbourhood as the day fades away.

Images: Lupus via Unlike, food at Chi Chu via Tip Berlin. 

After a week exploring Berlin’s food scene I hadn’t even scratched the surface. But I did discover there is something for every taste and budget, unlike London no hour-long queues at the hotspots, and plenty of healthy, wholesome meal opportunities to satisfy even the fussiest of foodies.

Details:

Turkish Market, Maybachufer, 12047

Markthalle IX, Eisenbahnstasse, 10997

Melbourne Canteen, Pannierstrasse 57, 12047

Lupus, Pannierstrasse 40, 12047

Chi Chu, Laustizer Platz 14, 10997

What's in a name? The mysteries of organic food

Image via the wonderful instagram feed 16House

The word organic has been thrown around a lot in recent years, promoted by everyone from wholesome gardeners and cooks to high-end health centres and celebrities. But what does it really mean for food to be organic? Is it worth the extra price and what are the benefits?

I explored these questions in my latest article for The Australian Times, you can read it in full here.

Sparrow Kitchen

All images by @sparrowkitchen on Instagram.

One of my favourite sources for food inspiration recently has been the instagram feed @sparrowkitchen. By Tommy who blogs at Fatale here, (and used to blog at This is Naive, which is sadly no longer active), there is a wealth of beautiful images that combine excellent food styling, exceptional produce and exciting cuisine. The text that accompanies the images is just as interesting and definitely worth a look/read.

a healthy status

Image from my old food blog Food We Made.

Healthy living is without a doubt expensive, especially if you go down the path of raw, organic, superfoods, vitamin supplements, detox retreats and yoga. But this doesn't mean you need to be a rich or famous to lead a healthy life. A lot of what we are told is essential for wellbeing is really just luxury and frills, looking beyond these it is possible to eat simple, nutritious food. It just requires a bit of planning and some know-how in the kitchen.

Recently I wrote some tips on how to eat healthy when on a budget over at The Australian Times, you can read the full article here. 

high in rotation

A few recipes that are in high rotation in my kitchen at the moment.



Buckwheat crepes from Canal House Every Day

I adapted the recipe to be gluten free by using all buckwheat flour instead of the mix suggested. They are still a great consistency and just as delicious as the wheat versions. These are really quick and easy to prepare, and if you are in a real push you can skip the resting time and they will still turn out. It's as simple as combining 1.5 cups of buckwheat flour, 1.5 cups of water and 3 eggs, mixing until smooth and then pouring onto a warm frying pan. Cook for a few minutes until they look about right.

My favourite topping is some grated cheddar cheese (added to the crepe while still warm on the pan so it melts), mustard and fresh rocket. Also can be made into a dessert by putting a small amount of home-made chocolate (see this post for tips), letting it melt and spreading all over. Tastes very delicious and decadent.

Image source: Canal House




Super Crispy Roast Chicken from It's All Good

This has been a Sunday night favourite. I buy my chicken from Ginger Pig via Hubbub or from Meat N16. This is another super simple recipe that tastes amazing. All you need to do is clean the chicken, rub butter/coconut oil, salt and pepper on both sides, stuff with half a lemon and garlic, and pop in the oven for 1.5 hours, basting every 30 min. The best tip is at the end, add half a cup of boiling water to the pan and scrape up all the delicious roasted bits to make a kind of gravy. Pour this over the chicken meat to serve.

Image source: Goop





Coconut Butter from I Quit Sugar 

This recipe makes you feel like a magician. You take a bag of shredded coconut, put it in your food processor or high-powered blender, and let it mix on high for about 10 - 15 minutes, scraping down as needed. After this time it will turn into a really creamy liquid that you can then pop in the fridge. It tastes amazing, a truly creamy coconut treat!

Image source: The I Quit Sugar Pinterest Page

The original and the best

When I was eleven, all I wanted was a pair of Adidas snap pants. All the cool kids wore them. As much as I campaigned though, Mum and Dad held their ground; they were too expensive, I wouldn’t wear them. Then one Saturday we were shopping and I spotted a stall selling rows of them. They were black and white, had the snap-sides, and were only a fiver. I convinced my parents. But when I got them home, something was off. The iconic logo was missing and the label read ‘Sportz Xtreme’. They had all the elements of the real deal, but something didn’t feel quite right.

I learnt a valuable lesson that day; the original is the best. Whether we value a designer’s trendy branding or an artist’s unique brushstrokes, there’s an aura around the authentic beyond just what we can see, it is something we feel. The same is true with food.

Unfortunately, for the most part we are being sold replicas. Foods that have been taken apart and put back together, had the popular nutrients of the moment added and demonized ones removed.

From a quick look in the supermarket, you would think we are more enlightened about nutrition than ever. It seems we have food figured out – we’ve engineered it to cut out bad, add in good. So why are there record levels of obesity and chronic disease? It just doesn’t add up.

Nutrition as a science is still relatively young and many things about food aren’t entirely understood. One thing that is generally agreed, but isn’t as profitable, is that eating food in its unrefined, original state is best. Nature has devised some pretty clever systems that mean wholefoods nourish us on a level we can’t replicate through processing.

So how can we get more of the real deal onto our plates?

Ask more of your fruit and veggies; consider the skins, cores and seeds. This won’t work with everything, watermelons I’m looking at you. But there are heaps of options; adding citrus peel to salads, baking potatoes whole, chomping on kiwifruit, hairy skin included.

Eat and drink full-fat dairy.  It tastes better, and our bodies can’t properly digest it without the fat. Milk and yoghurt also contain fat-soluble vitamins, meaning we won’t absorb those nutrients if it’s been skimmed. Choose real butter and ditch margarines, which are chemically altered and all round bad for you.

Use real oils. Cook with stable fats such as coconut oil or ghee. Use olive, sesame and nut oils at very low temperatures only, or better yet just as dressing, as they release dangerous free-radicals when heated.  Avoid easily damaged, processed oils such as canola, vegetable and sunflower.

Think outside the breast – chicken, that is. Go beyond muscle meats and try using more of the animal such as liver, offal and marrow. Keep the bones from your roast to make nutrient-rich, homemade stock.

Choose disease fighting, immune-boosting and, best of all, delicious wholefoods. Whether they’re snap pants or snap peas, don’t settle for pale imitations, they just won’t feel right.

This article was written for my weekly column in The Australian Times, The Whole Meal. 

sweet little things

From top left: Petite Kitchen Sunken Chocolate Souffle Cake / Zucchini Chocolate Brownies from Sarah Wilson's I Quit Sugar Chocolate Cookbook / My New Roots' Superfood Nut Butter Cups / My New Roots Superfood Haute Chocolate / Petite Kitchen's Nourishing Chocolate Fudge / My New Roots' Raw Brownie

The last few days I've come down with a cold and like most people, when I'm sick I crave comfort foods. For me, it's chicken and vegetable soup, vegemite toast, ginger tea and chocolate.

Problem is, I stopped eating sugar a few months ago and while I'm usually not tempted by the sweet stuff, when I'm feeling run down or ill it is pretty tough to walk away. Luckily, I've experimented with lots of recipes for healthier alternatives and now have a few staples up my sleeve that are quick, simple and will satisfy any sweet craving.

My go-to is a basic chocolate recipe that can be turned into lots of different treats. It contains just a few ingredients; raw cacao, a mix of coconut oil and cacao butter (or just one or the other depending on how I feel), and a touch of maple syrup or stevia (this could also be switched for rice malt syrup). All you do is melt the ingredients over low heat (ideally on a double boiler, or in a bowl on top of a steamer works well too!) and whisk together, then pour into a baking paper-lined vessel and pop in the freezer for around an hour. It's that easy!

Great thing is this recipe can be adapted with different flavours; you can add sea salt, or turn it into peanut butter cups, or add mint, or chilli, or coconut. You can make them more nutritious by adding maca or lucuma powder, or even popped quinoa. The options are endless!

This recipe is based on a few different ones I've read on some of my favourite food blogs. They all have a heap of great, healthy, wholefood recipes available so check them out!

Petite Kitchen

My New Roots

Sarah Wilson

basic kitchen magic

Not so long ago, I hated cooking. It was because I wasn’t good at it. My parents cooked for me, my boyfriend cooked for me, a whole host of chefs at cafes and restaurants cooked for me. I enjoyed food but to me the making of it was a mystery, magical even.

I was familiar with the world of food shown on TV - the Masterchefs, Iron Chefs and Michelin stars. The glitz and glam of food as entertainment. For all my enjoyment of these shows though, they did something really damaging too; they made cooking intimidating. It seemed complicated and time-consuming; something to be left to the professionals.

A good few years into my food journey though, I’ve discovered a lot about food that the entertainment shows rarely touch. They tout the glamour and drama around food, but rarely investigate the food itself. The more I’ve submerged myself in the world of wholefoods, the more I’ve discovered that the key to mastering cooking is really very straightforward – let food be food.

It sounds obvious, but it’s a completely liberating theory. Imagine if your food got better the less you did to it. Imagine if it was better for you. Well, it is. There’s only one catch – you need to start with good food.

That’s not necessarily as simple as it sounds. With all kinds of industrially processed concoctions sitting in our supermarkets disguised as food, it can be tricky spotting the real deal. The easiest way around this is to cook for yourself with the raw, real thing - foods that don’t have ingredients lists.  Here are a few staples that got me going:

Veggies. Buy organic and local. Farmer’s markets are a great place to start. They’ll be fresher, more flavorsome, and maybe even a bit cheaper.

Bread. Switch sliced-supermarket blocks for traditionally baked Sourdough. Made with just flour, sourdough starter, water and salt, it is created through a lengthy fermentation process that means it is easier to digest and contains more nutrients.

Meat. Choose pasture-raised, grass-fed. Sure, it costs more, but not only will the animal have been treated right, it’s better for you and tastes amazing.

Dairy. Try alternatives to cows milk such as goat or sheep. The taste may be a bit different, but after a while they just taste like, well, milk – and they are kinder on the stomach. Other options are nut milks, which you can make yourself at home with some nuts, water and a strainer.

Salt. Avoid table salt, which has very little nutritional value. Instead opt for sea salt, which makes your food sing (and makes you a little bit posh).

All the top chefs agree that the best way to cook is to source the very best ingredients and then let them speak for themselves. This rule applies to amateurs playing at home too, and it makes it a lot harder to mess up.  So avoid the drama, less truly is more. Abracadabra.


This article was written for my weekly column in The Australian Times, The Whole Meal. 

make a meal of it

Recently, I’ve had a culinary breakthrough that has changed what and how I eat. It’s come after years of curiosity about food; where it comes from, how it is made, what effect it has on our bodies. I’ve done my research and discovered lots of ideas that, funnily enough, seem to contradict all the messages I see in the supermarket.

Food and diet issues get loads of press at the moment. And after trawling through countless blogs, watching just about all the documentaries on Netflix and reading piles of books on the subject, I’ve realised there is bottomless ocean of information out there.

Despite this though, there is no clear, simple answer. One reason is the complexity of the subject and diversity of the world; different climates, cultures and bodies. But also it is because there are so many different voices.

These days, the food and nutrition industries are all too happy to break food down for us into components and categories; low-sugar, low-GI, percentages of daily intake, calories per serving, grams per bite. It’s overwhelming and frankly, confusing.

There are thousands of guides out there, from market research led adverts to individual bloggers. Voices that all have an agenda. Raw, paleo, no-carb, high-carb, organic only, sugar free, fat free, you name it.

Despite all the noise though, one idea stuck out to me and after testing it for a few months I can say I feel healthier and happier than ever before. Fortunately, this is not another quick fix but a way of approaching food that just about everyone can achieve and ironically, has little to do with food itself.

It’s simple: eat meals.

I’ve been eating healthy stuff for a while but it always had to fit around whatever else I was doing. Breakfast was on the go, lunch was ‘al desko’ in between emails. Dinner was at my desk again on a bad day, at home in front of the TV on a good day. I was eating healthy food, but I wasn’t eating meals.

Is there a difference? I think there is. A meal, a proper, homemade, wholefood, prepare-and-sit-down meal invites you to do a few things.

It invites you to prepare. To wash the leaves, chop the vegetables, roast the meat. If you do that, you can’t help but develop a more intimate knowledge, and concern, for what you’re eating and where it came from.

It invites you to sit at a table. Better posture, more space and quite likely more time spent enjoying the fruits (and veggies) of your labour.

It invites you to talk. This assumes you are eating with others, which if you can you always should. Research shows eating with company not only slows you down, but you eat less.

While these changes sound largely abstract, they have an enormous effect on digestion, on our mood and on our choices at the shop. Buy some food, cook it, share it and enjoy it. Eat a meal.


This article was written for my weekly column in The Australian Times, The Whole Meal.