Eat It - 27 November 2011

"When a man is tired of desserts, he is tired of life" is perhaps something Samuel Johnson would have said if he weren't banging on about London all the time. And if the final course is your particular favourite, you'd best have a look at Philippa Sibley's new book PS Desserts. She joined us to talk about how quickly the book came together, her intent to try and de-mystify some common dessert techniques, and her "goldilocks approach" to making pastry. Not busy enough authoring cookbooks, she's also about to open a new place called Albert St Food & Wine in Brunswick - check it out if you're nearby.

It's almost Summer, and so we spoke again to John at the Vic Market about what's good and what's not.

Finally we spoke to Dan Sims from The Wine Guide about this year's vintage. To summarise the 2012 vintage in one word, we'd go with "wet". In fact the knowledgeable Tom Carson from Yabby Lake suggests that the Yarra Valley has already had more than double its average annual yearly rainfall, and vintage is still a few months off. This does create a risk of disease, however Dan is confident that good winemakers will be able to make some cracking wines despite these challenging growing conditions. We also spoke about decanting, which Dan mentioned can be like skipping the first few chapters of a good book. And hyper-decanting? Intriguing!