Food review by James Tinslay

This being the final Society lunch for 2020 (and what a year it was), the Foodmaster, Bill Alexiou-Hucker, was in the kitchen as is customary. This was the first lunch of the year since early 2020 where numbers exceeded twenty-five. We ended up with having forty-eight on the day and it was good to get back to somewhere approaching normal.

Of the six wines served today, each table had four in common, and the others were odd single bottles from the wine fridge that were randomly dropped on each table.

Appetisers:

The lunch being a lunch run by Bill, of course, we had two plates of starters! The first plate had three morsels on it. The first two being served on toast one with olive tapenade and the other with fish roe. The third was a cucumber slice with yoghurt and pistachios.

Next up was an amazing serving arrangement for octopus, octopus carpaccio. Normally the word carpaccio is related to raw food but in this Greek variation, the octopus is braised and then pushed into a plastic soft drink bottle (after the top part has been cut off) and frozen. Freezing helps to further breakdown the texture of the octopus. The plastic bottle is then cut off and then the octopus is then thinly sliced. The flavouring is dependent on the spices or herbs added during the braising process and it is an amazing looking dish. It also tasted wonderful.

In this case, there was 6 kg of octopus cooked in red wine, olive oil, gelatine and rocket.

Main:

Bill stuck to Greek cuisine today by serving Greek pastitsio (or pastichio) which is the Greek version of the lasagna. He described it as Greek peasant food. It is made with bucatini pasta, a thick pasta like spaghetti with a hole running through the centre. To get a better idea of the look of this unusual lasagne refer to the photograph. With the pasta was an egg béchamel mix and the meat sauce was made up of pork and beef. The dish was served with a simple Greek salad.

An interesting variation on Italian lasagne with a lot of flavour.

Bill thanked the new REX chef, Rob Doll, for his assistance today and the wonderful start he has had assisting members when they are in his kitchen.

Cheese:

The cheese selected by James Healey today was new to just about everybody, it was Fiore Sardo. This Italian cheese hails from Sardinia and is a hard cheese made from raw sheep’s milk and lamb rennet. The cheese was very granular and whilst part of the pecorino family had a far more punch and flavour and aroma. Most notable was the smoky flavour as the cheese is briefly smoked. A most unusual cheese but some found the texture too dry.

The cheese was served with figs that Bill had poached in ouzo which made them a stunning accompaniment.

Coffee:

The coffee today was an old Society favourite, Yirgacheffe from Ethiopia, an Arabica bean. These beans were sourced from Forsyth in Naremburn and produced a medium-bodied coffee that attracted no comment.

Awards:

There being no opportunity for a Chef of the Year awards dinner, today was used as an opportunity to present those awards.

Firstly, there was a special award presented to Paul Thorne by our Society member, Steve Liebeskind as President of the Federation of Wine and Food Societies of Australia. The award of the Federation of Wine and Food Societies of Australia Award and Medal was presented to Paul for his significant contribution to the lunch booking platform and arrangements during the pandemic restriction on numbers. Much manual work was involved in ensuring numbers remained at twenty-five, especially with the temporary provision of two wine lunches per month.

For the Chef of the Year 2019, there was two seafood entrants and four non-seafood entrants. The results were as follows:

Chef of the Year – Nick Reynolds with Paul Irwin as runner-up and others with outstanding meals being Denis Redfern and Steve Liebeskind.

Seafood Chef of the Year – Matthew Holmes with Grant Montgomery runner-up.

Congratulations to all winners.

President Nick Reynolds closed the lunch noting the annus horribilis that was 2020 but pointing out that we are unique with our member cooking protocol. He thanked all members for their understanding of lunch number restrictions and other implications of COVID.

Wine: