Abell's Kopi Tiam

Restaurant	Abell's Kopi Tiam
Street address	7 Furneaux Street,
Suburb	Manuka
State	ACT
Postcode	2603
Phone	02 6239 4199
Website	http://abellskopitiam.blogspot.pt/
Style	Malaysian
Awards 2014 Fairfax Good Food Guides
Awards Gourmet Guide
The Australian Top 50
Restaurant & Catering Awards	Finalist - ACT Asian
Other Awards	No. 21 Trip Adviser Canberra
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Other notes

A.Baker

Restaurant	A.Baker
Street address	NewActon Pavilion, 15 Edinburgh Avenue
Suburb	Acton
State	ACT
Postcode	2601
Phone	02 6287 6150
Website	http://www.abaker.com.au/
Style	European
Awards 2014 Fairfax Good Food Guides	Listed 14/20
Awards Gourmet Guide
The Australian Top 50
Restaurant & Catering Awards
Other Awards	No. 19 in Canberra Times 2013 Top 20
Reviews & Notes	"lovely produce, simply handled
Reviewer	GFG 2014
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Owner's note

Developing objective wine tasting tongues

Get ready to move aside Jancis Robinson, James Halliday, Michael Broadbent et al. Artificial tongues are being developed apace that promise to bring some objectivity into that arcane art of wine tasting.
The latest contribution to the science of taste comes from researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark. Their study published in ACS Nano describes an artificial tongue that detects the effects of tannins, the molecules that give wines their astringency, in the mouth. To do that, the machine uses proteins found in human saliva.

The abstract of the article is almost as incomprehensible to me as most wine tasting notes but here it is for more scientifically literate readers:

We report an optical sensor based on localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) to study small-molecule protein interaction combining high sensitivity refractive index sensing for quantitative binding information and subsequent conformation-sensitive plasmon-activated circular dichroism spectroscopy. The interaction of α-amylase and a small-size molecule (PGG, pentagalloyl glucose) was log concentration-dependent from 0.5 to 154 μM. In situtests were additionally successfully applied to the analysis of real wine samples. These studies demonstrate that LSPR sensors to monitor small molecule–protein interactions in real time andin situ, which is a great advance within technological platforms for drug discovery.

The IEEE Spectrum website helps with an explanation

The Danish researchers report having developed an optical sensor based on surface plasmon resonance, which is based on the collective oscillation of electrons that occurs on the surface between a metal and a dielectric when stimulated by light.
Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is attractive to sensor designers because the resonance wavelength is very sensitive to conditions at the interface. Because of this sensitivity, SPR has been exploited, for example, to detect biomolecules (blood glucose, for example) clinging to the conductor surface.
The design of the SPR-based nanosensor in this case involves a small plate coated with gold nanoparticles. The researchers then put some of the proteins found in human saliva on the plate. When the wine comes in contact with the plate, the gold nanoparticles act like a lens that can focus a beam of light below the diffraction limit so that it becomes possible to measure down to 20 nanometers. This makes it possible to follow the salivary proteins and see how the interaction with the wine impacts them.
In effect, the SPR-based nanosensor is using salivary proteins to measure the sensation of astringency we have when we drink wine.
Joana Guerreiro, first author of the paper, explained in a news release:
“The sensor expands our understanding of the concept of astringency. The sensation arises because of the interaction between small organic molecules in the wine and proteins in your mouth. This interaction gets the proteins to change their structure and clump together. Until now, the focus has been on the clumping together that takes place fairly late in the process. With the sensor, we’ve developed a method that mimics the binding and change in the structure of the proteins, i.e. the early part of the process. It’s a more sensitive method, and it reproduces the effect of the astringency better.”
First applications for such a nanosensor would clearly be in the production of wine, allowing winemakers to control the development of astringency from the beginning of the process. However, the researchers point out that it could be used in the development of targeted medicine as well as diagnostics.

That bitter taste and a recipe for turnip ice cream

The case for why bitter is the most interesting flavor is the theme for a new book by food writer Jennifer McLagan. "We're all programmed genetically to react negatively to bitter," McLagan tells NPR Morning Edition host Audie Cornish. 

"Bitterness can indicate a poison or something that's toxic." (This is the prevailing sentiment, although one recent study raises questions about that assumption.)
As we grow older, we start to acquire a taste for it, she notes. "Your first sip of coffee — it's so bitter,'" she says. But most people get used to that taste. And it helps that coffee perks us up. "It stimulates the nervous system," McLagan says. "So you're prepared to, like, deal with the bitterness for the benefits."
Bitterness has its own benefits, of course. "It balances things that are rich," McLagan explains. That's why her book features dishes like Pork Chops in Coffee Black Currant Sauce. "The bitterness of the coffee balances out the fat," McLagan says.
In addition to coffee, the book features common ingredients like walnuts, beer and orange rind.

Here's one of the unusual recipes from the book.

Turnip Ice Cream

8 3⁄4 ounces / 250 g turnips, about 3 medium

1 cup / 250 ml whole milk

1 cup / 250 ml whipping (35 percent fat) cream

A blade of mace, or a good pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

3 egg yolks 1⁄3 cup plus 2 teaspoons /2 1⁄2 ounces / 75 g sugar

A pinch of fine sea salt

1 tablespoon vodka

Peel and coarsely grate the turnips, then place them in a medium saucepan and add the milk, cream, and mace. Bring to a boil over medium heat, remove from the heat, cover, and let stand for 15 minutes. Taste the mixture: it should taste of turnip; if not, let stand another 10 minutes. Strain the mixture into a large measuring cup, pressing down on the turnip to extract all the liquid.

Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and salt in a large bowl until the mixture is light and thick and the sugar is dissolved. Whisk the strained milk and cream mixture into the egg yolks, then pour into a clean saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Strain into a bowl and cool quickly by placing it in a larger bowl or sink filled with cold water and ice. Stir the mixture often. When it is cool, cover and refrigerate overnight. Also, place a container for the ice cream in the freezer to get cold.

The next day, remove the ice cream mixture from the refrigerator, stir in the vodka, and then churn in an ice cream machine following the manufacturer's instructions. Transfer to the cold container and freeze until ready to serve.

Move over coffee - here come the tea drinkers

America is slowly—but surely—becoming a nation of tea drinkers - The Washington Post:

The U.S. market for tea has more than quadrupled during the past twenty-plus years—from just under $2 billion in 1990 to just over $10 billion last year—according to the U.S. Tea Association. Demand for the herbal beverage has now been growing at a healthy clip for decades. By weight, Americans now drink almost 20 percent more of the herbal beverage than they did back in 2000, according to market research firm Euromonitor.
As a result, tea imports, to the benefit of major tea producing nations like China and India, are soaring—they have grown by roughly 40 percent over the past 10 years, nearly 70 percent over the past 20 years, and more than 700 percent over the last 50 years, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

'via Blog this'

Why mozzarella is the king of pizza cheese and other eating and drinking news of the day

• Science Crowns Mozzarella The King Of Pizza Cheese - 'It's been known for a while that mozzarella melts and blisters better than most other cheeses. But [Bryony James, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Auckland in New Zealand] and some colleagues wanted to investigate further: Why do different cheeses look and taste different when they're baked? Their paper, titled "Quantification of Pizza Baking Properties of Different Cheeses, and Their Correlation with Cheese Functionality," appears in the August issue of the Journal of Food Science.
• Secret menu: Tasty treats await 'in-the-know' customers - "Competition is driving many fast-food restaurants to fill special orders. As a result, hundreds of "secret menu" items circulate on social media to be snapped up by savvy eaters."
• Austria's only snail farmer - "The 40-year-old is Austria's only full-time professional snail farmer, producing 300,000 per year for human consumption. With 1kg of snail meat selling for up to 80 euros ($105; £63) it is a lucrative business." 
• Brain 'can be trained to prefer healthy food'

• China's museum craze: Beijing's history of roast duck
• These 5 Crops Are Still Hand-Harvested, And It's Hard Work
• Study Finds Nothing Special About Breakfast - A new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds eating breakfast or skipping it might not make much difference. Popular theory holds that people who don't eat breakfast may binge later on lunch and dinner, leading to weight gain or other health problems. Other people argue that skipping breakfast will help you lose weight by eating less. Turns out - both could be wrong.

• Real Vanilla Isn't Plain. It Depends On (Dare We Say It) Terroir - "You've likely heard of Madagascar Bourbon vanilla. It's the classic, deep, rich 'real' vanilla the world has come to know and love. It helps that Madagascar is the world's biggest producer of vanilla bean, harvesting 1,000 to 1,500 tons per year.But what about Tahitian vanilla, with its strong notes of cherry, or spicy, nutmeg-y Mexican vanilla? They're pretty amazing, too, thanks to their own rich soils, curing techniques and vanilla-friendly climates."
• When Zero Doesn't Mean Zero: Trans Fats Linger In Food - "... the FDA has yet to issue a final rule requiring food companies to eliminate trans fats entirely. In the meantime, researchers decided to find out just how many products still contain them. Turns out it's more than you might think. While many food companies have found affordable alternatives to partially hydrogenated oil, 1 in 10 packaged foods still contain it, according to researchers at the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene."
• How Foster Farms Is Solving The Case Of The Mystery Salmonella - "Foster Farms, California's biggest chicken producer, has been accused of poisoning people with salmonella bacteria. After an outbreak last fall, the U.S. Department of Agriculturethreatened to shut down three of the company's plants.

Since then, though, the company has reduced its rates of salmonella contamination dramatically. Some food safety experts are now saying the whole poultry industry should follow this company's example.

The company is also taking the lead in figuring out a food safety mystery: How in the world do tests detect salmonella frequently on cut-up chicken parts but not on whole chicken carcasses?

Which is Better - Young Wine or Aged?

From my brother David's Glug website where you should all be looking for wine value.

Which is Better - Young Wine or Aged? 
Wednesday, 27th August, 2014  - David Farmer 

When you watch wine judges at work you will note time and time again that younger, fresher wines receive higher scores than older wines. It is also usual in vertical tastings of famous wines to observe younger wines receiving scores as high as or higher than the venerable, classical vintages.

In long, vertical tastings covering many decades the famous classical vintages with high scores will have on either side wines with mid-level scores yet as the wines get younger the scores slowly rise with a pronounced uplift for the best of the recent vintages.

Why is this? Two possibilities I think; younger wines are agreeable as the fresh aromas and vibrant, lively, sappy, primary tastes are very appealing. For a judge what they see in the glass on that day is what they must judge and score. They may well mark down a wine that has a long future because it lacks current appeal or charm even though it may have the structure to evolve. It is worth noting here that many judges believe a wine which will age well will also be appealing when youthful and there is much truth in this view.

The second reason is that young wines have similar colours, aromas and pleasant fruity tastes and it is not so easy to split out those that are distinctively better and even harder to predict which wines have a long future. Experts may well tell me I am wrong but I have been studying the results of judging for many decades.

Which wines age well and move to a level of interest beyond the delights of the primary flavours takes two to four years to be revealed. Naturally there is more certainty in wines from notable regions which have been well studied and the wines have a long provenance. I refer here of course to wines like the classified growths of Bordeaux.

In general I think pretty well all whites are best drunk young while better reds can improve - change is a better expression - but be cautious about the long term potential.

Recently I reviewed a Winestate tasting of Shiraz here and a table of the results shows in a striking manner the influence of youth in scoring.

Circled are the top scores for the cheaper Shiraz brackets which illustrate how young wines are frequently favoured by wine judges.

I have circled the following points.

1) The top score, averaging 3.87 stars in wines selling for $10-$15 was shiraz and shiraz blends from 2012 with 12 wines tasted and 12 wines rated;
2) The top score, averaging 4 stars in wine selling for $15-$20 was shiraz from 2012 with 12 wines tasted and 12 wines rated.
3) The top score, averaging 4.08 stars in wines selling for $20-$25 was shiraz from 2012 with 10 wines tasted and 6 wines rated.

Please note the lower scores for each price division are usually for older vintages.

This tasting well illustrates the points made in this shopping guide.

The Cardinal visits Buckfast - Benedictines and booze

My thanks to Lyndsay Farlow ‏@LyndsayFarlow for bringing me the news that Cardinal George Pell is on his way to visit Buckfast Abbey for official foundation of School of the Annunciation next week. It reminded me of one of my favourite alcohol abuse stories. This one first appeared on my brother Dvid's Glug website back in 2005.

Benedictines, Buckfast and the Scottish Minister 
Sunday, 6th February, 2005  - Richard Farmer 

The Abbott of Buckfast Abbey, David Charlesworth of the Order of Saint Benedict, chose as his sermon to celebrate the Feast of St David in 1999, the story of Saint David putting his trust in God and helping others to do the same.

"The newly baptized Christians of Wales under David's care," the Abbott told his congregation, "were being threatened by pagan invaders from what we now call England. They were no match against the fierce raiders and were in despair, ready even to turn back to their own pagan gods because the Christian God had seemed to desert them. Bishop David feared that his work would be lost. He prayed for wisdom and the Lord answered him.

"Just before a battle, a battle that had to be won, he became angry with his people for their lack of faith. He scolded them and derided them - he turned to their soldiers and said that if they had faith they would put down their swords and fight off the enemy with nothing but the plants that grew around them - the plants were leeks. He so roused their spirit that they did what he said. They charged the enemy like mad men - waving the leeks in their hands. The pagan invaders amazed at such foolhardy courage fled before the power of the Christian God."

This week the good Abbott Charlesworth is surely urging the monks of Buckfast in Devon to wave a leek or two as they do battle with their own enemy - Cathy Jamieson, the Justice Minister in the Scottish Government. Ms Jamieson, the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley in the Scottish Parliament, is threatening the economic viability of the Abbey by urging that its major product be banned from sale. Buckfast Tonic Wine, she alleges, is behind the antisocial behaviour of underage drinkers.

Now this is not the first time that the Benedictines of Buckfast have tangled with governments. First founded in Devon in 1018 the Abbey was suppressed by Henry VIII in 1539. It was not until 1882 that the Abbey was refounded - the only dissolved English medieval monastery to have been restored and used again for its original purpose. The Abbey Church was painstakingly rebuilt over 30 years and completed in 1938.

Funds for that monumental task came partly from the sale of a tonic wine the recipe for which the French monks who resettled the Abbey in the 1880s brought with them. Base wines from Spain, known as mistellas, were imported and to these were added the tonic ingredients according to the old recipe.

The Abbey's website describes the product in this way:

   By the 1920's 1400 bottles were sold annually, 500 from Buckfast and the remainder by post. In 1927 a London wine merchant was visiting the Abbey, and in conversation with the Abbot, Anscar Vonnier, it was decided that the monks would continue to make the Tonic wine with the distribution and sale to be carried out by a separate marketing company. In order to broaden its appeal the Tonic was changed slightly from a rather severe patent medicine to a smoother, more mature medicated wine. Having taken on the marketing of "Buckfast" the distributing Company adopted a reserved promotional approach resulting in the widespread appreciation of the product nationally and internationally.

   In modern times it continues to be made by the monks of Buckfast Abbey along the same lines and according to the same basic recipe as used in the very early days. The main difficulty lies in the successful addition of inert substances to a base wine - a living and natural entity. The selection of the base wine is thus of prime importance. To-day the base mistellas come from France providing the ideal medium for the skill and expertise of the monks to produce a finished product round and mature to the most discerning of tastes.

According to Ms Jamieson those "most discerning of tastes" include the young people of her Ayrshire constituency who find that at 15% alcohol and £5 a bottle it is a pleasing variation to the array of RTDs offered by the major liquor companies. She welcomed the decision of one Co-op store in her constituency to limit sales to two bottles and only to customers who were personally known. “I welcome the Co-op’s recognition that there has been a problem and their decision to restrict the sale of Buckfast,” the London Times reported her as saying. “I would call on other off-licences to act as responsibly or ban Buckfast. It is an unfortunate fact that off- licences can become the focus of antisocial behaviour and underage drinking.”

These comments were very similar to those made by Helen Liddell, a current member of the House of Commons, in 1994 when she too called for a Buckfast ban. The result on that occasion was no ban and a huge increase in sales.

So far Ms Jamieson's Ministerial colleagues seem to favour the same do nothing approach on this occasion. After all, the First Minister in the Government of which she is a member, recently told a group of teenage school students that it was acceptable to "get drunk once in a while". Some business leaders have criticised her "tokenism" while the Monks have condemned her remarks as "a cheap shot."

Note: The comments of the Scolttish First Minister, Jack McConnell, came during an hour-long event billed as Ask Jack, when one pupil raised the issue of under-age drinking. Mr McConnell joked that he was sure there was no such thing in the Highlands, then went on to talk about binge drinking in Scotland. Criticising pub chains for selling too much cut-price drink and encouraging rapid consumption, he said there would be a clampdown, and those promotions made illegal. "By all means get drunk once in a while – but do not get into a situation where people are being encouraged to get completely incapable just to save money and drink more quickly," he said.

Note 2: The Scottish Herald newspaper reported that the Scottish Tories, whose health spokesman last night stood down after reports he broke his leg after a drinking session, declined to comment on Mr McConnell's comments.

I revisited the subject, again on Glug, the next year.

Troubles in the Buckfast Triangle 
Wednesday, 1st November, 2006  - Richard Farmer 

Buckfast Abbey - home of Buckfast Tonic Wine

They call it the Buckfast Triangle - an area east of Glasgow between Airdrie, Coatbridge and Cumbernauld where the drink of choice for young people is known as a Buckie. At 15% alcohol, the red wine based tonic wine with an infusion of caffeine among its secret ingredients has earned the ire of ministers in the Scottish Government. Last year it was Cathy Jamieson, the Justice Minister in the Scottish Government, threatening the economic future of the monks of Buckfast in Devon by calling for a ban on Buckfast Tonic Wine. Now the Scottish health minister Andy Kerr has joined the fray and summonsed the drink's distributor in for a lecture about the evils of drink.

Mr Kerr describes Buckie as "seriously bad" and told the distributor, in the words of his spokesman, "that there were many challenges around alcohol in Scotland and Buckfast was one of them. The minister said his concern was about low cost, high alcohol-by-volume products, not just Buckfast. They agreed that the dialogue should continue."

The BBC reported Jim Wilson, spokesman for Chandlers, saying the meeting was "fairly fruitful". He added: "Mr Kerr explained it was his mission to reduce alcohol abuse in Scotland and that he was going to be having discussions with the whole drinks industry to solve the problem, not just one product."

Buckfast has not been advertised in Scotland for more than 20 years and Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell says "every time a Labour minister singles it out, the drink is given free publicity which may well bestow cult status upon it."

Ms Mitchell said the "root cause" of the problem was failure of the executive to tackle under-age drinking. "The fact of the matter is that if Buckfast was banned tomorrow, some other drink would take its place," she said.

Chinese enter the cork versus screw cap wine war

From the drinkster blog: a must read from Philip White.

We already fought this war!

Hey, hey TCA: how many

wines did you spoil today?
by PHILIP WHITE

There's a lot of excited popping around the cork business lately. The bark merchants can smell money.
Because China still thinks wine is a quaint and old fashioned luxury, its merchants and sommeliers insist on wine being corked. Many Australian winemakers who have been entirely happy with screwcaps but are keen to sell wine in China are suddenly having to remember how to phone the blokes who sell the old Portuguese bark plugs.
Small premium producers who don't have the volumes to justify bottling under both closures, to offer customers a choice, are finding themselves hoping that Australian wine lovers who have become accustomed to the convenience and reliability of screwcap will suddenly overlook their return to cork. The new Chinese agent wants cork; everybody's gotta have cork.
This is on the nose.

And then some interesting detail on corks and screw tops from Philip. A great piece that deserves being read in full.