Good news for the kitchen

Kitchen Talk Newsletter
Published six times per year by Michael and Janet Boddy
Subscriptions ($42 per year) from The Bugle Press, Binalong NSW 2584
Reviewed by Dave Riley

Food now produced by so few is scrutinised by so many so intently. Its production, processing, preserving and marketing are becoming more political. Instead of quantity, the mass concern is quality.

For some years Michael Boddy's food column in the Australian was an exception. It discussed food on its merits, stood well clear of a restaurant review format and never indulged in food snobbery. The inevitable parting of ways came over what constituted a food column.

The irrepressible Boddy has bounced back with a startling achievement in do-it-yourself desk-top publishing: The Kitchen Talk Newsletter.

Produced jointly with his wife, Janet Dawson Boddy, KTN is an eccentric and passionate exploration of the nature of food. Each issue features a food — usually a vegetable, fruit or grain — and discusses its history, its variety and how it is grown and marketed.

The format is flexible but always includes representative recipes culled from around the globe, inevitably followed in the next number by subscribers' tips, hints and cooking clues.

Because love and respect of food are the motive forces, its processing and preserving are carefully scrutinised.

If you like to cook — and shop to eat — then this newsletter is for you. For once food preparation is out of the hands of the yuppies (and those who "entertain") and back in the kitchen — yours and mine — three meals a day, every day.n

From GLW issue 6